Rugby et Gastronomie

I've been avoiding posting on here for fear that it would become a gripe fest. Or more likely, a "grippe" fest. Grippe = the flu in french. Though, I'm not even sure if that's either. Either way, I'm sick somehow and it ain't fun. Headaches, backaches and whatnot. But I'll spare you all that. Needless to say I've been fairly lazy this weekend. But I will share a couple highlights:

Le Salon de l'agriculture


Some of our program signed up and went to the "Salon de l'agriculture" in Paris on Friday. It's basically a huge state fair with tons of farm animals and people trying to sell their food products(wine, cheese, produce, etc) while giving free samples :D Yes, that was the best part, free samples. By the time we left, we were incredibly stuffed from all the cheese, apples, chocolate truffles, and ice cream. Oh, and free beer.



But the best part, as you can see in the above pictures(rotate head to see, i was too lazy to fix it), was the book I won! :D Okay, its mostly thanks to that man sitting next to me in the picture. Kate and I were tasting some wine nearby this area at the Salon andwe started talking to that guy, he told us all about bordeaux wines. Then those two women on the stage with us in the pic started asking for volunteers for a "game show." He volunteered himself, but they told him he needed a partner. And as you can see, that turned out to be me, despite my hesitations. He told them I was American, and everyone got all excited that an american was playing the french agriculture quiz game, haha. So, they asked us 9 questions total, in sections of 3, and after each 3 you got right, you won a prize. We made it through the first 3, I only knew the one about 'how many departments are there in france?' But he knew everything(he's a fisherman), and he would tell me and then let me answer, lol. So then we won little cans of gourmet duck...something....dunno. Then we got the next three right...and the next three, yay! we won! I only knew one question that he didn't which was the year in which the Salon de l'agriculture had started (1962), and I only knew it because I had asked Valérie, one of our program's staff, earlier. :-P But yay! So we each won of these huge books, 44 euro a piece (66 dollars!) on rugby and gastronomy, heh. It's an interesting collection of pictures, facts, and recipes~

And the other little tidbit is that, despite my knowledge prior to yesterday, this week was Paris Fashion Week. Snazziness. So my friend and I went down to the Tour Eiffel where one of the runway was set-up closeby. We stood outside the Lanvin fashion show for like 45 minutes before it started...oh yeah, and we saw Kanye West. haha. Good times.