Yay, we all got healthy before Kari and Jared's visit. They arrived on Saturday, Feb 2nd, late in the evening. It was so great to see them and hear more about their adventures. I think they will have visited 13 countries by the time they get back to Illinois on Feb 15th! They are pretty tired out, so we've had a nice mixture of activities and hanging out in the flat playing pinochle, reading and playing D&D.
On Saturday morning, Erik went to Lille, France. It was an optional trip as part of the Food and Society class that the students are taking.
Erik and 8 LC students went. He came back Sunday night, loved the trip and all the food. I'll have him write a bit:
Lille was wonderful! My first trip formally devoted to food, but certainly not my last. We started off on Saturday morning with a speedy trip on the Eurostar from London to Lille in less than 2 hours! Upon arrival, the sun was shining and it was beautiful. 5 minutes later the wind whipped hail in our faces as we began a 2 hour walking tour! We walked A LOT! 10 miles the first day and 15 the 2nd day were recorded on my fitbit activity tracker. The first walk ended at a wonderful little creperie. I had a ham and cheese crepe for my savory, complete with buckwheat flour crepe and accompanied by cider (with a bit of kick). Cider is the traditional French accompaniment for crepes and there is a tradition that the last person to pour from the jug will either be married or hung by the neck in 1 year's time! Our guide told us this just after one of the students was emptying the jug! Here is to hoping for a wedding in Hannah's near future! On the tour we learned that Lille has been occupied by many different countries over and over in the past 1500 years, but always kept it's own identity. Dinner that night was a 5 course 3+ hour meal with Rabbit pate early , 4 types of stinky cheese in the middle and delicious chicory ice cream in cream-puffs for dessert, magnifique! Another highlight were the amazing patisseries. I lost count of how many we saw, but the highlight was one named Aux Merveilleux! There were people lined up outside it halfway down the block. We had to see what the draw was and in the window we saw 3 mademoiselles creating these cream filled, chocolate covered meringue cannonballs that are the eponymous specialty of this shop worthy of a holy pilgrimage! I bought 2 large ones (reputed to serve 8) and we ate one of them on the train ride home on Sunday and the Nilsen horde polished off the other one on Sunday night (with a smidgen left for b-fast on monday). One last food highlight was a meal on Sunday afternoon. The town is renowned for their "mussels and fries" meals. In fact, every August they have a festival and competition between the restaurants where they pile up huge mounds of shells outside to see who can make the biggest mountain of mussel shells. The 5 ladies who accompanied me and I made quite an impressive stack on our table as well! Last, but not least, I will leave you with a teaser in french for you to translate if you have an inquisitive mind: saucisson de cheval! Erik
The "cake" Erik brought us home was wonderful and there was even better news. One of their shops is opening up here, their first in the UK, today!! So we are off for their grand opening. Will write more later.
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