Alright, I consider myself a pretty chilled-out vegetarian(some would call me pescatarian anyway, because I eat fish), but I have only now realized why Paris is the city of love. They mean love of meat. The Frenchies just adore their meat and according to ma chère Mathilde who I visited for New Years there is no such thing as Vegetarianism (is that actually a word, I begin to wonder...).
Foie Gras (that's a sort of liver puree, usually from ducks or goose, created by force-feeding the animals to unnaturally enlarge their livers), frog legs and snails are only some of the delicacies people consider part of their(daily) diet. Yuck!
I much rather sticked to the fantastic French cheese on offer in addition with a nice glass of Bordeaux. Ok, I admit rather a bottle or two 
. But we had all reasons to celebrate, since not only Mathilde and I had a wee reunion (in memory of good old times in Australia – where were you Lauren?!) and I also got to spend time with some other lovely friends of mine, Pau and Angie.
The latter one and I had once again more or less spontaneously decided to go on a little road trip to Paris/France taking advantage of the fact that a few friends are living there now. I didn’t even manage to see them all!
Although I have already been to Paris and done all the sightseeing we nevertheless got some tacky tourist shots for the record and all the people who still have not been there. I additionally have about 15 souvenir Eiffel towers because the police was giving them to random tourists (do I really look like such a random tourist?!?) after they had just busted the poor illegal African immigrant trying to sell them.
But really, if you have never been to Paris you should at least visit once. It’s a very pretty city (including a large amount of the male citizens…), although the pace of life is a lot higher from what I’m used to in Berlin. Therefore, I think the myth of sitting down in a sidewalk café, drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette and watching the world go by only seems to be an appropriate step back from thebusy life. Unfortunately this hobby of mine is quite pricey in Paris, so are most all other things. In this sense I prefer Berlin, where you get a Falafel for 1 € and a decent German beer for another. Maybe the scenery is not that appealing since we do not have the Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel tower (that even blinks at night!), the Champs-Elyssés and the Seine. Just to name a few.
But France not only consists of Paris and after a rather wild New Years party in a shared flat of 5 and their guests we decided to move on and experience some smaller French towns. So, we drove down to Angers which Pau and Juan call home at the moment. Let’s say it’s cute, and sleepy, and not very busy. That probably sums it up…
From there we continued to an even smaller village where we had the honor to meet Mathilde’s grandmother on her farm where we stayed for one night. It almost felt like a holiday itself in the countryside and Nana Marcelle is an amazing, fit old lady. She even coped with the disgraceful fact that Angie and I would only eat veggies and cheese for dinner. Our last stop on the journey was castle Chambord, the largest and possibly most beautiful of the Loire castles. End of the French fairy tale.
