Bonjour, Kelly!

The House of Fog and More Fog

Hey, what happened to Christmas and the...other... holidays? Over already? Hmm.

Well, I don't know about you (since you've just never quite satisfied, are you), I had a rather delightful little holiday break. As I mentioned before, my family came to France for the week. Before they came, I was in a bit of a tizzy, faced with unplanned days and an inexcusably messy apartment*. Of course, my plans fell together, I finally got extra matresses to use, my living space cleaned up right nice, etc. In fact, I was downright relaxed when my family came into town.

Oh wait, I wasn't. I was nervous all day that there would be some problem or they'd get lost. In fact, I was so jumpy that I took a fast walk up a steep hill just to burn off some extra energy. That's when I took this picture.

They found their way into town without problems (aside from the first one in the morning, when my brother was waiting at the wrong terminal for two hours...ahem...). Since there's no intercom or doorbell from the outside, I found out they were here when I heard my brother yelling my name outside my window. That's strange to hear when you're used to being the person in town that nobody will be addressing, by name, pronounced correctly.

Anyway, they were here. I don't remember what we did at first, probably walking into town and forcing them to stay awake past 6PM. On...the next day...uh, Monday? Was it really that long ago? We just stayed around town. I took them on my typical walk to Buvilly, which is normally pleasant when the temperature isn't 30 degrees below zero. In this case, I both felt guilty for making my family trudge to some crummy little village just for the sake of walking there, AND worried that I was going to lose a few of the smaller toes.


(the cinema in poligny -- a converted church)

The next day, I directed the family to Lons-le-Saunier, simply for the sake that this is a place I often go. It is, in fact, a sweet little town, but there's really not much going on there. So, we drove up the plateau to overlook Baume-les-Messieurs. And, oh look! Rocks and fog! This pretty much sums up the "seasonal experience" of this region.

In fact, if I write a book about living in the Jura, I think that I'll title it "Rocks and Fog!"
(I thought I had taken a picture from the top of reculee, but I didn't. You can recreate it for yourself by thinking about fog.)

My own sparkling humor aside, we did have a rather nice time driving around on the small roads and even though we couldn't see much, it still looked damn cool. I had planned on driving into town, but the one road down the cliff side was closed, so instead we drove over to Chateau-Chalon.

You know the phrase "6 in one, half-dozen the other?" When speaking about Baume-les-Messieurs and Chateau-Chalon, one could say, "Cute and old in one, old and cute the other." Granted, the drive through the incredibly narrow streets and the finding-of-parking that followed was a bit stressful (for whomever was driving), it was all worth it for views like this:


And this:


Look, old stuff!:


And something cute!:


Fog!:


And Rocks!:


The next day, we went to a few more towns. Unfortunately, looking through the photos I took, I documented exclusively the places we visited and not the staggering amount of really good food that we ate (including fresh pastries every other morning) or how awesome I am at playing Catch Phrase. Plus, if you check back here this week, you'll get a SHOCKING confession with regards to me being a total fucking hypocrite and meat. There. I said it.

*I feel that it's necessary to be honest here: I can be a bit hystrionic when it comes to messiness. It never really bothered me before, but once I graduated college (an moved home for a year, where, I think, my mother has installed dust-sensors and dust-sensing-alarms), I decided that I was finished with my life of mess. Messy life, I cast you off! (I would have said, were I into that sort of grandiose declaration towards inanimate objects and ideas.) Even if you know me well, you might not know that I get a tad bit persnickety when it comes to dirty floors. Meaning, I've been reduced to tears. More than once. That's why it's so freaking awesome to live with me. I cry over dirty floors.
But, on the other hand, I bake fucking delicious cakes. The choice is yours.

posted by kelly @ 11:53 PM