Normandy

This past weekend, I went to Normandy with another Stanford student and an older couple. The wife is a Stanford alum who married a Frenchman that she met while studying abroad in Germany a long time ago. Now she relives her Stanford days by inviting Stanford students studying in Paris to spend the weekend with them at their second home in Normandy.

Normandy is beautiful. Their country house is this adorable cottage complete with thatched roof in the middle of a former hunting resort. I cannot tell you how nice it was to look out a window and see trees instead of buildings, or to go outside and really smell fresh air. On Saturday, we took a tour of the nearby town of Deauville to admire the beach. Pretty cool.

Apparently it entertains this couple immensely to "corrupt" Stanford students. They wanted to be very sure that we adequately tasted every time of alcohol Normandy (and France, I suppose) had to offer, mostly wine but also shots of this fermented apple liquor stuff. The most notable wine would have to be Beaujolais Nouveau, not because it was the best, but because it was the most interesting. Apparently Beaujolais Nouveau is a big deal, but I hadn't heard of it, so I'm going to explain anyway:

Beaujolais is a region in France known for its wines. The Beaujolais Nouveau is a wine that you drink starting on November 15 (not before or after) of the year it is vinted, but it's only good for a couple of months so you have to drink it all soon. It's a red wine, but you have to chill it before you drink it. I guess it's a bit sweeter than most other red wines I've had, but to me it basically tasted like cold red wine. However, I participated in a French wine fad. I feel cultured.

It's very strange to say, but the most memorable part of the weekend was probably their dog, Watson, named after the human genome guy. (After the recent scandal, they were told they should rename their dog, but they decided it was probably not worth the effort.) This dog is huge and shaggy. It's a Deerhound, which is apparently the type of dog Sirius turns into in the Harry Potter movies. Watson was probably about 4 feet tall and 5 feet long without stretching out his 3 foot long tail. He looks downright frightening, but he's incredibly low-energy. He sort of has the air of an old deaf man. They said they wanted a dog that was friendly but would scare away any potential burglars. They chose correctly.