left brain

reason # 1 milllion 100

Why LOVE sometimes isn't worth it:

A 15-year-old Canadian girl with a peanut allergy died after kissing her boyfriend who had eaten a peanut butter sandwich hours earlier, reports say.
Christina Desforges, of Saguenay, Quebec, died last week after she failed to respond to days of treatment.

She had been given an adrenaline shot, a standard treatment for anaphylactic shock, almost immediately after she suffered a reaction.

A peanut allergist in Montreal said the case is "very rare and worrisome".

Ms Desforges' 16-year-old boyfriend had kissed her some nine hours after he had eaten peanut butter on toast, the AFP news agency reported.

"She was extremely allergic to peanuts and her boyfriend didn't know," a reporter for Canadian broadcaster TVA sai

Decorating a Tree

My weekend was pretty laid back, thankfully. Small amount of drama dancing at DBar Thanksgiving night, thanks to some floppy haired NYC attitude boy (even though he unfortunately for himself wasn't from NYC ... oh those self conscious insecure gay boys) who tried successfully in humping my boyfriend. Whew, thanks to the tequila shots I downed with Brian at the bar (which didn't do enough) I ignored the entire moment. After dropping a crap load of money in Target on Friday (which wasn't that busy oddly enough), and doing nothing but vegging on the couch Friday night, Tom and I headed out Saturday morning after an early (and I mean 8am early) breakfast to find a Christmas tree in one of the insta-shacks that got put up sometime between Thanksgiving morning and about midnight. So we found out HOT tree and then lugged it home over our shoulders (very butch) where we then surprisingly didn't scream at each other as we put it up. We had planned a bunch of close friends to come over that night to decorate the tree and drink some festive cocktails so we didn't do much else, other then see Harry Potter and walk the dog.

The decorating party that night turned out to be a lot of fun and a huge success. My chocolate martini gave everyone an extra five pounds to work off this holiday season but I thought it was worth it. We took tons of pics but I for some reason haven't gotten them online yet, in due time I guess. The tree looks great as we were laughingly the first to buy one from this insta-tree farm. I for some reason ended up playing bartender so at about 10pm I roughly speaking passed out from making more drinks then I can count. My dreams of after hours dancing were put aside as I slept instead.

Sunday, nothing happened. Well, mostly nothing, other than a brunch in Southie with Brian and Eric.

Whew

My readers, I am sorry for the small amount of posting this week. I am exhausted from planning my art opening, a big birthday bash, unpacking and blogging about France, and now upcoming travel plans to Miami. Combine it with work, eating, masturbating and well, I am exhausted and out of words or time to blog. Future excitement is planned ;)

Potter movie, review

Let me talk about the new Harry Potter movie while the pain is still in my memory.  Sitting through this film allowed me to think about how much I need to do before Christmas or slightly more importantly my opening.  The gifts I need.  The work I need to do.  The holiday travel nightmare coming.  My next weekend in Miami.  Laundry.  Porn.  I dunno, my mind wandered thankfully most of the time.  Thankfully I had more than 2.5 hours to think about it all and then rethink it.  The movie certainly doesn't create any Harry Potter fans.  In fact, I think it might do the exact opposite since the movie was nearly unbearable.  I, for the first time having read one of the books, was excited to see the movie that was spawned after the book.  Christ, was I a fool.  The book as I reviewed it was good but still slightly leaves the new reader wondering what the hell is the big deal.  The movie was a near waste of time, and plenty of it for that matter.  The special effects were fine, nothing spectacular, but maybe we (or I at least) just expect spectacular from a Hollywood movie.  The acting from the boys (and girls) has gotten better but still falls short of emotional.  The plot was barely followable and I have READ the book!  MadEye Moody was great and almost the best part of the movie.  So much of the book was left out (one could say thankfully but I sit here wondering if it was needed).  But I can't help go back to how it just felt like it would never end and that I kept looking at my cell time more than I should have been.  I didn't really have high hopes but I certainly had much more of some low Hollywood idea than this film came anywhere near.  Thankfully I wasn't the one responsible for dragging anyone to the movie with me.  I went with a bunch of people, none of which I believe are Potter fans but not really sure either.  I definitely want to read the next book (which I am sure I will slightly recommend) but don't see this movie.  Wait for Brokeback Mountain or see Chicken Little or whatever it is or something. 

Hot Boy Friday, week 6

Upcoming Show, Press

With what has to be the most press I have ever received, I am putting up the webbanner (which they made to the left and is featured on their website) to now take you to InNewsWeekly (the most read gay newspaper in the North East which I am going to be featured in next week) to you can peruse the article once it appears.  I am on next Thursday's issue and a special Holiday book.  Yes, let the "Madonna-like campaign" for my art begin ;)  Woo !

Paris Photo

My Saturday as I have previously talked about was somewhat spent attending Paris Photo, a huge photography exhibition held in the Louvre, that I got some great photo's and ideas for my own work from but overall wasn't as exciting as it was last time when I nearly planned a trip around it.

Landscapes are becoming a huge thing again as are cinema-like shots that are supposed to stir emotion in the viewer.  I fell in love with a couple of photographs.  First is a Brazilian photographer whose name (I remember imagery not numbers or names) who shoots the favellas outside of SaoPaulo and then alters them using a computer to ultimately make them look architecturally designed.  Sorta funny but truly interesting especially since they are massive in scale.  The other photo's that stood out is by an American photographer who seems to be obsessed with overly young innocent teenagers "at play."  I mainly liked these not for the actual composition but for the color tones and feeling.  I more looked at these as inspiration for paintings rather than I am running out to buy them.

Photos That Don't Capture Reality, but Change It - New York Times.

Held beside the Louvre Museum in the exhibition area known as the Carrousel, Paris Photo is now said by its organizers to be the largest fair of its kind, the photographic equivalent of, say, the Maastricht and Basel art fairs. From among 250 applicants this year, 90 galleries from 14 countries, including 20 dealers from the United States, were chosen to present work by more than 500 artists.  "Aesthetically, this fair is the best," said Tom Gitterman, owner and director of Gitterman Gallery in New York. "The United States may be the photo center financially, but this attracts most people from all over the world." With some 40,000 visitors expected, each paying the equivalent of about $18, the fair this year has photographs on display dating from the mid-19th century to the present, with the medium's history recorded haphazardly in scores of separate spaces.

But while the greats of the past, from Roger Fenton and Edward Weston to Man Ray and Robert Doisneau, are well represented - often with familiar images and at prices ranging from $20,000 to $250,000 - today's work may make a more daring argument for photography as art.  The black-and-white masters of the early- and mid-20th century set out to explore what photography could do, through experiments with technique and form, through the near-abstraction of nudes and through documenting, as Henri Cartier-Bresson put it, the "decisive moment" of everyday life. In other words, they were artistic photographers.  In contrast, while today's photographic artists have absorbed this legacy, they are also influenced by advertising, fashion, video art, painting, sculpture and Conceptual art. They seem more intent on altering than on recording reality. They are also responding to an existing - and increasingly competitive - market.

Friday and Saturday in Paris

Friday:
The day was spent traveling.  We woke something like 7am where I was so excited to open the windows and see how rural we actually were and was startled to see that there were horses outside the windows.  Yes, real horses.  I got to see the sunrise sipping a café au lait and eating one of the most delicious pain de chocolat.  Well, we headed to the little car that has gotten us this far into the mountains to find out that it was frosted over and basically so were we as we waited for it to heat.  About 3 hours of frantic and incredibly frustrating driving later, Jerry and I got sick of the countryside and their lack of ability to build a tunnel.  Like the Amalfi coast in Italy, France thinks its better to wind alongside the roads at some ridiculous speed, which works perfectly (though it gets definitely annoying) until you get behind a cheese truck going about 40 down some hill. So yes, about 3 hours later we made it to the biggest town (about 60K) and got on the train to Paris, direct and under 3 hours.  This 3 hours is more than a 6 hour drive, which should say enough but in case it doesn’t, here is an idea…  It takes 4 hours to drive to NYC from Boston.  The Acela (our so called fast train) takes equally the same time if not longer.  It is also like trying to get food from a UN convoy truck to board the train at Penn Station.  In France, well you have a seat so nobody is willing to take out a sword to kill you to beat you getting on the train.  And there was a whole little squad of the French army (which I thought was adorable...France having an army).  The only time I ever witnessed that the Republic was in some small crisis of racial relations was when I saw a sixteen wheeler carrying burned (more like charcoaled) cars on the highway once.  Anyways, so yah. Arriving in Paris was the biggest change of scenery I have ever had.  Within 2.5 hours and a Eurostar ride from Avignon, we went from rural countryside to a city that glimmers and stands proud.  Paris is absolutely my favorite city in the world that I have ever been to and this trip certainly reaffirmed that idea.  It’s absolutely magical like no other city in Europe is.  After a thrilling rollercoaster ride in a taxi by a driver so skilled on weaving in and out of lanes it was impressive to us both, we checked into our dreamy hotel on an adorably quiet street on the right bank, a block from Rue de Bac and a few more from the Louvre.  Within an hour, I was in Energie on Ettiene Marcel engaged in maxing out my credit card (you only live once) before a power nap and a hot shower.  We headed to dinner stopping first to check out the Eiffel Tower at night since we were going to be eating directly across from it.  I have some great photo’s and video.  I always thought this tower was kinda tacky but for some reason I was in the right emotional state to actually see it as beautiful and a real story about the world.  The funny story about the night was that we got to dinner WAY TOO early and ended up having to be told that we needed to come back in 15minutes.  So we headed for a walk which is when I got to see the Eiffel Tower mind you but then the walk became this game of how long we had to wait before we could reasonably go back.  Since it was freezing cold in Paris this whole walking around idea quickly lost its excitement.  So as we peeked our heads around the corner to see if anyone entered every 3 minutes or so we eventually gave up and was greeted with a glass of really fantastic champagne which set the night off in the right direction (and got me nicely buzzed to not notice how cold I was).  This meal at L’Alstrance was my absolute favorite.  It was a set course with wine pairings that was entirely a surprise.  You never knew what was coming.  The wine given at each course so by the 9th we were on our, yes, 9th glass.  It got pretty funny since my philosophical topics quickly gave way to how much porn I have on my computer.  The wines to begin reviewing were totally amazing and you could just tell they were really great and expensive wines.  One of them was this truly mysterious red that tasted woodsy, oaky, mushroomy even.  I was a little too put off by it but Jerry loved it.  The meal began with a carrot soup served in a hot as fuck little glass, avocado and crab, Indian spiced chilled scallops, a little piece of turbot with many ideas surrounding it, followed by some other amuse bouche first idea, followed by the most delicious piece of pork that I have ever eaten in the absolute perfect size for your dinner, followed by dessert amuse bouche, the really simple dessert then followed a café (espresso) which would never be served with a dessert.  We then got home by way of the Metro where this hysterical group of drunken French boys were ultimately making fun of people but they got into singing some French song that the entire car joined in on.  Ha.

It turned freezing cold in Paris and was a clear sign that winter is settling in on the northern hemisphere.  It also really stood out to me how I could never move to LA or some California idea.  I don’t know why I joke about it really.  The entire world’s great cities are in the northern hemisphere for reasons that I believe have to do with the fall and winter temperatures.  If it was 75 degrees everyday of the year, would you want to be working hard in trying to accomplish whatever your goal is?  No is simply the short answer.  There are obvious other issues with me denouncing the southern hemisphere but since I rave about Buenos Aires and Brazil my love falls in many places but in a city that I can see myself living in, in my lifetime, it will be the Northeast or some European capitol.  Not London though, just not my thing, though as I look back upon it, my Saturday night out with Yogen was one of the best nights out I have had in awhile.  It was a great time and I met some amazing people.  People who showed me that there is really an entire world out there and I really am doing fine.

Saturday:
Paris Photo was a little bit of a let down.  By this point I was exhausted even though this was my vacation so it isn’t overly surprising.  I thought there were some truly great photos but I could basically count them on one hand.  Our trip to the exhibit was brief and not as embarrassing as two years ago when we spent the entire day under the Parisian streets.  There was a great Corbusier purchase but that didn’t happen until later in the day when we wet our appetite for Parisian art galleries.   We headed to a bunch of them after having a steak frites and a house bottle of Boujelais Nouveau while we watched the car outside of us get towed but in a matter that this gigundo magnet picked the car up from the parking space to put it on the truck.  A few minutes later the driver showed up unbelievably confused.  It was hysterical.  The Parisian art scene (or the one block that I got a taste of) was like New York and fabulous yet totally different but much more “there” than London’s ever seemed to be.  We then donned our winter hats to walk the streets of Paris ultimately heading back to the hotel but stopping to experience a Saturday afternoon in Paris.  Dinner was at Le Bristol.  A restaurant that basically seemed to be where Hitler ate in when he drove around like the mad man he was looking for a place to eat that one night he spent in his controlled Paris.  (hysterically enough I ran into a sign on some bridge with some monument that is overly ironic and surprising about how the French never gave up fighting for their city).  You could understand how this became the joke for the rest of the trip.  We had a different approach to this dinner since I now feel fat and the OMG need to work out which was to take it light and simple.  That worked well until our oysters were massive and warm which was surprising, more so after you ate the scallops that accompanied them and were cold, before the amuse bouche for dinner, and the hen which came covered in some “light” cream sauce and truffle ravioli.  The hen was this classic French dish but done up in such a way that when they brought it to our table it looked like a gigantic steaming dinosaur egg.  It was bizarre yet awesome.  But I am not sure if that was because I was expecting some velociraptor to jump out for my neck.  Or before the two courses of amuse bouche’s (the glass jars stuffed with either freshly made marshmallow, so many kinds of chocolates you lost count, nuts, gummy things, etc).  But anyways, so after I stuffed everything back into my suitcase since I was getting up at some ungodly hour for gare du nord to head back to London and Heathrow, I headed out into the city by myself to do something gay for the first time in the city.  It turned out to be a great time, choice, and an entirely different experience.  First, Paris gay clubs seem to be obsessed with American (particularly hard NYC dance music) and I tried a few places before I say this.  Second the city isn’t open as round the clock as you might think which made me feel better about living in Boston where most things close at 2:30 unless its Rise.   Third, it was the first time I ever walked into a bathroom in a bar and witnessed (or had the ability which I declined to do obviously) douche.  Yes, I guess the place is the cruising bar, which wasn’t why I was there particularly but it was a good time to end the night.  I met some cool people who I think were more interested in me being American than anything else but whatever…it was fun even if there weren’t any “Austin” boys or like the OMG adorable boy couple I saw riding the Metro sharing their Ipod headphones together, dressed to the nines, boyish but with slightly “very French” longer brown hair.

More photos.

Wednesday and Thursday in France

Wednesday:
Jerry and I walked around Beaune after a café au lait and a delicious, freshly made and still warm chocolate croissant.  We then took a walk around the town to visit the Notre Dame church and the Hospice de Beaune, which was dreamy.  The Hospice has a van der Weyden painting that is basically dreamy depicting Jesus and some archangel appearing before the dead.  On the left side of the many pieced painting are the people waiting to go to heaven while on the right pretty much is about hell and what it looks like to leave a club like London’s crash at 5am.  We hopped in the car after enjoying some free wifi and headed north towards Dijon yet stopping at Semur-en-Auxois where we had a picnic lunch in the car.  Lunch was bought in Beaune and made up of fresh ham, two unpasturized and destroyed cheeses, a perfect loaf of bread, a half bottle of Santenay wine, and some water.  When we purchased the wine we (being Jerry) was tempted to buy some Clos de Vougeot red and as we are trying to decide which one we set off an alarm for actually touching the bottle.  Hysterical, but not as funny as me posing like Jesus next to the iron broken Jesus statue laying up against a wall right before dinner.  It was pretty much the scene but was needed since the town closes at 12 until like 2ish for lunch, and EVERYONE does it.  The town still looked like it was abandoned as we took a short walk around the ramparts, their church, which was impressively Gothic, and their adorable little town. More driving lead us down some near dirt road where the famous “white cows” were everywhere and up on the hill was a two star chateau (the French rate the towns along with the chateau’s to make you know which to see and which not to waste your time on).  The grass is incredibly green as the rest of the fields and trees are very much experiencing what looks like a Vermont autumn.  It is totally beautiful and Jerry keeps saying that it’s much better than coming in the summer or spring because the total lack of tourist chaos.  Tonight we ate in a restaurant and we stay in a home made famous by the French chef Bernard Loiseaux who committed suicide (the food made him famous not the suicide though I guess that helped) when he thought he was going to lose one of his three stars.  The restaurant is in Saulieu and it basically is some rinky-dink town.  Still adorable yet very much a commercial center in the middle of nowhere with not a lot of beauty.  And by beauty I mean churches, buildings, gardens, vineyards, farms, etc.  Thankfully we enjoyed some time in the hamam and sauna, which both sit in the lower levels of the guest hotel, right next to the cave (wine cellar) mind you.  Roaring fires are everywhere in the hotel as our bountiful autumnal bouquets of flowers.  The hotel is very much some rural chateau as wood beams shoot out everywhere and you basically feel the need for a blanket and to snuggle/fuck on the couches in the small libraries, smoking rooms, tucked away corners of the place.  Dinner was the best so far other than the fabulous lunch we had.  We ordered some cocktail of the maison, which turned out to be some champagne with “Burgundy Burgundy, Burgundy” and as we sipped this very fabulous cocktail I still have no idea what it is.  Some liquer we imagine but nevertheless I will never have it again so it doesn’t matter much.  We also noticed that we could have had a sip of some 1936 liquer or some other from 1981.  The wine Jerry chose for dinner was our famed Clos de Vougeot from some early 90’s year and it was the best wine I have ever had.  It was delicate yet unbelievably mysterious.  Sediment was noticeable to the eye yet not to the taste.  We, being Jerry, was thrilled about ordering this wine and somewhat hesitant in doing so.  In the US, this wine would cost hundreds of dollars while in the region it is grown it’s slightly over $100.  Our first amuse bouches came followed by a cauliflower soup (with foam) that was some dark grey color.  It was delicious and like no soup I have ever eaten before.  Jerry chose the multi course meal while I tried to take the easy and less guilty route since I now feel fat and gross.   I had scallops (though they were like none I have ever eaten before) in some very light (whisper one could say) orange sauce.  Jerry had some foie gras, bar fish and ris de veau (sweetbreads).   The whole sweet bead idea even though I had head of veal was just too scary to order.  I finally got to eat the “white cow” I have been noticing on the entire trip.  They are everywhere when you drive.  They litter the sides of the roads like trash does in America.  And they are not only beautiful yet amusing to watch.  Anyway, it was delicious, perfectly cooked pink not bloody and another 25 seconds on the grill would have been ruined it.  My steak was accompanied by some potato-cake idea made into the shape of ovals along with spinach of some sort and overly fancy and strong mushrooms.  For dessert I went with the marshmallow-chocolate concoction while Jerry got the better dessert of chocolate and nougatine.  The Madam of the house, the widow, chatted with us for a bit near the end of the meal, which is sorta typical, yet the first time it has happened on our gourmand trip.  She inquired about Thomas Kehler, which I thought was hysterical and about the New York three stars before we headed up the room to quite literally pass out.

Thursday:
Our day was spent driving to Lyon (terrible truck nightmare as all of them seem to be heading from Lyon to Marseilles) and then passing around it never to see it nor go near the second largest city in France (it is about the size in population of inner Boston) to eat in some large (20K) but adorable town called Vienne for lunch before ultimately making it to St. Bonnet le Froid (the cold) as it turns out it is.  Vienne for lunch was my first ever taste for Bougelais Nouveau and it being served in some simple house made carafe was dreamy.  Totally young, totally delicious.  Haha, oh how we joked about Tom, sorry hun ;)  The meal was also just given to us which is a definite idea in France.  The whole “special maison” is usually delicious and this was our simplest version of it.  A garden salad made in some way that it itself still tasted like nothing I have ever had before followed by a chicken roast with tiny potatoes and carrots before chocolate mousse so whipped it was like a dark chocolate cloud sitting on our table before we inhaled it.  Vienne has some Roman ruins that are in pretty good shape but I wouldn’t go to far in saying that they are incredibly interesting.  I noticed a group of high school kids traveling around and looking at the architecture of the city (mainly the overly Baroque cathedral in the center of town).  French boys, like most Europeans, try to emulate American boys some of the time and I honestly don’t know why.  I thought maybe with how America is seen in their eyes lately that that would change but it hasn’t.  They want to dress with their overly baggy Levi jeans around their thighs.  Back to St. Bonnet where it is negative 3 celsius out my window and we weren’t planning on being up in some serious mountains but here I sit writing this about to get on some little shuttle bus thing to go to the near top of this mountain to eat dinner.  We drove on some seriously windy streets (some of which were covered in frost) where all I could think about was the rural BMW or Audi commercials.  One wrong second on any of these roads could lead to your death, nearly instantly.  So you would think that the drivers would be mindful of that.  That in it self is ridiculous since they not only are not mindful they speed, use both lanes frequently and heavily tailgate even if the car in front of them is some seriously large truck.  The landscape has very much changed as we are now in the upper Loire valley not the region of Burgundy so vineyards and pastures have given way to mountains, foliage, and logging.  Yes, logging.  St. Bonnet as a town has 194 people living in it.  It is the smallest town we have been in yet in what has to be the middle of the nowhere.  There is nothing around here, literally.  Wifi (wee fee) is only a dream.  Auberge er Clos des Cimes is where we are staying for tonight and the chef here is Regis Marcon (regismarcon.fr).  The dinner tonight was my favorite so far.  You leave the hotel to board a minivan to head to the top of the mountain, which is where the restaurant sits overlooking the valley and other mountains.  This new spot has only been open for sevecn week so we have showed up pretty early.  Oddly enough the restaurant is packed to the max, nearly sold out, even though it is in the middle of nowhere as I have said.  We were sat in their lounge first because unlike America when you are forced to buy drinks at the bar because your table (even if you have a reservation) isn’t ready yet.  When you say you have an 8’clock reservation, people in America could care less.  In these restaurants in France they only sell the table once so you can arrive whenever you want after they open and take your time throughout your entire meal.  They also know who you are already and how you will be paying for it since they have a credit card on file so when you are finished with your café, you can just get up and leave to head back to your hotel room.  This restaurant (or ones like this) employ an army of people.  Seriously.  2 sommeliers, more waiters than can be counted, and the kitchen itself (since I got pictures is so massive it is another building connected to the dining room).  So we had a house drink and some simple amuse bouches, one of which was mushrooms, the true specialty of the region.  Mushrooms show up in everything it turns out.

Monday and Tuesday in rural France

Monday:
Woke up at 7am to board the Eurostar to Paris from Waterloo station in London.  It was absolutely civilized, simple, and fantastic.  In the real world (outside the United States) trains work as a real serious way of traveling, unlike a shitty third world Acela to New York from Boston which I may say takes longer than going from London to France by an hour at a much slower speed with much more comfort.  Moving on at the 260km we entered France gracefully under the chunnel without a notice other than darkness that you were underwater and entering another country.  Once in Paris and with the rental car, which basically is a death box (though ever other car is tiny as well) I learned some things pretty quickly about the city of Paris and its regions.  The 19th is heavily Muslim.  You should NEVER drive a car EVER in the city.  There don’t seem to be any driving rules other than the red light.  If you happen to get on the surrounding area highway, which we did, you quickly learned rule #2 all over again.  People drive like they are on a bullet yet they are in a Smartcar and more than willing to kill you and 16 other people by swerving in and out of lanes like no ones business.  I seriously for one of the only times in my life thought I was going to not make it, in a car.  Once we got onto the A6, a very lovely no speed limit highway, we drove about 3 hours to the most rural and one of the most beautiful town (Vezelay) I have ever been to in the middle of what has to be no where (yet it has a 9th century cathedral which I am seeing tomorrow).  We pull into the gravel filled parking lot of what looks to be a chateau, but isn’t, of the restaurant and guest housing of Marc Meneau and the restaurant L’Esperance.  The building is absolutely stunning and lit up like a postcard.  Outside, as I am writing this, are what has to be a gaggle of ducks yet I can’t actually see them because it is so pitch black in this most rural town (though I don’t think this is fact, just my story).  The gardens remind me of a French “Secret Garden.”  Even in the blackness of night here, they are truly spectacular.  Supposedly if I ate and stayed here in spring or summer you can eat outside, smoke your Cuban cigar and drink the house wine, which just so happens to come from the vineyard outside of the garden walls in a region one might know as Bourgogne, lol.  It is truly hard to believe that on a road so deserted it is rare to see a car or even a light from a house that a restaurant recognized to be one of the BEST in the WORLD is going to appear in a matter of moments when the town itself does nothing but farm and the idea of anything more than a bakery is hopeful.  The walk after dinner, which wasn’t a great start even though it cost a fortune, was dreamy.  The town was entirely asleep.  The only living thing not asleep were the rabid dog barking and the two teenage boys in the town drinking in some little café alone.  Jerry and I spent the night wondering what on earth they could be talking about in a town of about 200 people.  The buildings in () were amazing.  Truly spectacular.  From each brick you seriously got a sense that you were in some part of history that makes anything in the United States look brand new.  Not to mention in this little town in nowhere there is some spectacular Romanesque church, complete with gargoyles, standing among the mostly abandoned houses in this farmers town.

Tuesday:
I woke to shower in the tub without a shower door, wall, or anything that could remotely resemble a shower.  I sorta now understand why the French might smell.  I rushed through a shower like I have never done before because I was so frigid from sitting in the tub without the ability to have constant water on me that I basically didn’t care if I washed my legs or not.  After our three star breakfast (handmade yogurt, croissants, crème brulee, and freshly made butter and jams) we walked around Vezelay and its massive medieval cathedral which I am pretty sure I studied in art history classes before (though the rest of the town was like walking into history) before getting back into the car after exhausting the photo opportunities to head to Avallon which was a short little ride.  One thing about Vezelay, a town of about 400 people that is set on a hill, is that it is like walking into a movie set or history book or something of some unreal nature.  It is exactly what your wildest dreams of rural France look like yet it is so hard to believe that you pretty much walk around the entire time rubbing your eyes.  We drove for a little over an hour to the heart of the white Burgandy grape.  Upon arrival, and there is no question what so ever that you have arrived, for as long as the eye can see there is nothing but vineyards upon vineyards upon rolling vineyards.  It is truly breathtaking.  Wine in this region rarely shows up on menu’s of American restaurants even at the most expensive of levels.  So each town is the name of a wine basically.  And within each town live the handful of winemakers who go out each day and tend to their grapes.  Grapes that they are extremely protective of; on land that is what is called the best in the world.  They each have some plot of land and if you combine them all, the land just goes on forever.  It really doesn’t though.  Most of these towns seemed to be abandoned as they have a population of a couple hundred, no more than 500.  We drove through the Burgandy whites and then on the other side of Beaune, which is where I am spending the night, is the reds.  They call a road that we drove on the Rue de Grand Crus, or the N74 as we got to know it.  The best red Burgandy (and most unaffordable wine) comes from Chateau Clos Vougot which is where I have some pictures of the inside of their touristy storage unit.  They don’t actually sell wine here since the chateau is mostly for show but you can “buy” it down the road in the town that is of the same name.

For lunch, after our warm up course of bean soup with bean foam, we were given our appetizer of “head of veal” which basically turns out to be the lining of a baby cow’s brain with some unreal cooked oysters and a langostino.  For my main course I had the chicken dish which basically is indescribable but the sauce was pink, followed by a cheese course, three crème’s as the amuse bouche and the dessert I ordered which was some sort of mocha marshmallow thing that I would sell a small child for.  The entire meal was unbelievable and the first meal we had that has been “oh my god” to quote myself.  If you ate here and were given a choice to either be guaranteed to basically become Danny Devito in weight or not, you would choose to eat in the restaurant which turns out to be in thee best white wine region in France, Shassagne Montarche.  The wine that we got to drink, suggested by our chef who came out to greet us, is of the same name.  More to come tomorrow morning.

More photos.