leaving france forever

I leave France tomorrow. Since the public transit system doesn't work tomorrow (uhhhhhhhh, because of May Day, of course), Joe and I are really looking forward to dragging our bags across the river to the SatoBus stop tomorrow morning (hope that is running tomorrow...).  After that, Ireland!

stockholm and berlin and amsterdam (and a bit of paris)

Highlights of two weeks trip to Stockberdam:

1. Street food: tunnbrödrulle, fried herring, curryworst, beer, falafel, FEBO, vlaamse frites. (winner: Stockholm. fried herring AND a hot dog + mashed potatoes rolled up in flatbread? No contest.)
   
2. NSA Field Station Berlin Teufelsberg: abandoned, graffitied, tons of fun.
   
3. Scientology wedding in Amsterdam:
   
4. Skansen: open-air museum/zoo in Sweden. Saw a moose with one antler, saw a bear eating an avocado, saw a sleeping seal scratch its armpit. Got to ride a boat there!
5. St. Nicolaas Boat Club of Amsterdam: got a canal tour on an old school boat, got to drink beer on the tour, got to sit next to a guy smoking weed who opened my beer with his lighter.
   
6. Brouwerij 't IJ: microbrewery in a windmill. Wow. (link)
   
7. Narrow streets: (Stockholm)
   
8. Drinking beer while reading books in a used bookstore in Berlin run by an aging transvestite. 
9. Touring the parliament building in Stockholm, and having Swedish politics explained to us by our CouchSurfing hosts, one of whom was a politician in the Christian Democrat party.
10. Graffiti: Berlin has a lot of it. Some of it is dangerous. 
11. Liquor stores in Stockholm: Controlled by the state, close at 3pm on Saturday, have a sterile vibe.
12. Haircuts: Not actually a highlight. Joe and I got free haircuts in Amsterdam from a beauty school. We were unhappy with them. Mine was still long enough to try to fix. Now it isn't. (And, unsurprisingly, the second cut was from a lady who had graduated from the first haircut beauty school. Found out mid-haircut. Aaaaaawesome.)
    
13. Food, food, food, food, food in Berlin: Joe and I ate breakfast three days in a row at three different places all with the same menu, owned by Russians. Joe and I ate a lot of hummus and falafel. Joe and I ate at an Eritrean restaurant. Joe and I ate a soup with avocado in it. All ethnic food that is non-existent in France. And, of course, a lot of beer.
    
14. Eating regional specialities at McDonalds in all three cities (see flickr for documentation). 
15. Viktoriapark in Berlin: We drank organic wine from plastic cups by a manmade waterfall, watched teenage hipsters and people walking dogs, and walked to the top of the hill for a nice view.
16. The Andy Warhol exhibit in the Grand Palais in Paris: Not only fun, but you could buy souvenir cans of Campbell's in the gift shop!
    
17. Funny crosswalk lights (the East Berlin one is the best!), no dogs allowed signs, and metro warning signs. 

poisson d'avril

Yesterday, April 1, is known in France as "the fish of April."

In the morning I helped Joe with his taxes, and discovered that (despite the fact that he'd be getting a bit of money back from the government) he still had to pay the Fish Tax of 2008! Oh, no! Quel dommage! Luckily, a fish in Lyon is not hard to find.



At present, all of the chocolate shops here are filled with chocolate fish, chocolate hens, chocolate bears, chocolate ducks with some costing as much as 100 euros! Luckily, Joe's fish tax was not that high and he scored an okay fish for the bargain price of 5 euros.



After procuring said fish, Joe and I had a serious conversation, decided that our fish was lonely, and decided to go take it to a more fishy place. We first walked it through Les Halles (the giant food market where Paul Bocuse supposedly shops) looking for a poissonerie but, sadly, since it was after 12 (noon) on a Wednesday, all of them were closed.



We didn't want the fish to cry, though, so we hopped across the street to Bo Sushi. And, despite the weird sexy menu art, it was pretty amazing. We got a combo plate for 16.50 euros, which came with two delicious cabbage salads and then 18 pieces of sushi (three pieces of each variety).



Front to back: spring roll with avocado and salmon, salmon with "cream cheese," tuna with mayonaise, OMELET wrapped around avocado and "cream cheese," salmo, and finally sesame seed encrusted tuna and avocado.

The waiter was amazingly nice, refilled our water without us asking, and joked with us in English and French!



We got the fish home, let it swim around a bit with some macarons from Seve (in my opinion, the best in Lyon!). And then started eating it when, to my surprise, I discovered that the fish had produced some caviar!!



For real, though, on the 1 April, French school children are supposed to be all sneaky and tape paper fish to their classmates' backs. That sounds like much more fun than American April Fools' Day traditions.