The French Invasion

I'm not sure how or when, but through the course of many email exchanges working out the details of our impending travels together, my dad decided the Meibergen/Buddress combination was heretofore to be known as Team Buddbergen. After much anticipation, Team Buddbergen finally reunited in Paris on June 23rd. We picked everyone (all whopping 3 of them: Mom Sheila, Pops Carl, and bro Ben) up in Floyd, who was thrilled to make their acquaintance, and watched in awe as Jer managed to effortlessly maneuverer us through the busy streets of downtown Paris toward our hotel.

The fun started with 4 days in Paris and we really packed it in. We visited The Louvre, the Orsay, and L'Orangerie, and those were just the museums! We saw Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter a few times, as the city bike tour we took led us back to the handful of sights we'd already seen. We had a hilarious tour guide and it was a fun experience, ending with an hour long river cruise on the Siene. We scored some amazing night shots of the Eiffel Tower as we cruised along, sipping on our bike tour boxed wine.






I don't think any of us were prepared for the amount of walking we did in those 4 days, covering all the main sights and neighborhoods. My mom and Ben were especially jet-lagged, as they had both come off of crazy work schedules (Ben finishing culinary school at the same time), and at one point my mom just had to crash and take a nap. My dad headed to Versailles and the three of us made our way to Montmartre and the Sacre Coure, scored a bench and had a great time (again) sipping cheap wine and people watching.

It soon became a joke/contest to see how many shots we could acquire of either of my parents snoozing, as it was the most commonplace sightseeing of all. It didn't matter if it was on the bumpy, shaky underground metro, or literally standing next to our bicycle tour guide, the rents were catching zzzz's, Parisian style!

Somewhere along the way, another competition erupted: the crustache contest. Both Ben and Jer have the good(?) fortune to be hairy dudes, so growing a mustache in the few weeks we spent together was a no brainer. I couldn't decide whose was scarier. Ben's little sparse, black strip of hair made him look just like the prepubescent Hispanic teens in 7th grade at Carson Junior High, who were an anomaly because NO ONE could grow facial hair at that age. Jer's was thicker, but didn't look that way because it was bright red and the way it caught the light made it look pretty sparse. I think the contrast of the red-stache to his dark hair made his a little crustache-ier because it just looked WRONG. The whole idea was awful and hilarious, especially since every day Ben would whine and plead that he hated it and please please could he shave it off. He had sworn to keep it until he deplaned and could shock and horrify his girlfriend Dani – I forgot to ask – did she get to see it? And now that I think about it, did we ever declare a winner?



We had a few tasty meals in Paris, but the stand-outs food wise were the crepes and the glaces (ice cream cones). I couldn't decide if I liked the savory (ham, cheese, mushrooms, onions) or the sweet (banana and nutella) crepe more. The glace at Amorino takes the cake though. Not only do they serve it up in an appetizing flower-shaped concoction of multiple flavors, the ice cream is outta this world. It TOTALLY whoops the ass of the famous Berthillon ice cream if you ask any of Team Buddbergen!

After everyone was thoroughly exhausted, we made our way south to Provence, and specifically to a charming little town called Rognes. My dad had found a great little villa there for the week with an awesome patio and pool area.  It was such a treat for Jer and I to have the house and pool, that we stayed home from a few daytrips just to enjoy that. Each morning we were greeted by a gaggle of donkeys, which the neighbor brought over to munch on the grasses that lined the villa's driveway. My dad affectionately named a few of them, Monsieur Eddie is the one I remember most, and they were very docile and let us pet them and ride them bronco style around the lawn. Kidding! They did gratefully accept our offers of carrots and apples, however.

The only downside to our lovely villa had to do with the fact that it was a country house after all, and while that meant we had fresh lavender for our bedside tables, rosemary and thyme to cook with, and mint for our mojitos, it also meant that we shared the house with our fare share of creepy crawlies. None caused any real trouble, until one night when Ben glanced up from his book to find a quarter-sized spider chillin right by his head in his bedroom. We were already asleep, but awoke to Ben's frantic whispers of “Jer, umm, JER! Can you come help me PLEASE?!” Family vacations are all about getting closer, right? Well I learned that my 6'4” thickly muscled brother is a total and complete wimpy scaredycat when it comes to spiders and had to call on his brother-in-law to kill the spider for him! This I never knew, and unfortunately for him, I don't think any of Team Buddbergen will let him forget it.

I especially loved Provence.  Everywhere you turn, there are fields and fields of sunflowers or lavender, so it's beautiful and smells great! We checked out a few of the charming neighboring towns, including Uzes, St. Remy, Aix-en-Provence, and the Pont du Gard, an amazing old two-tiered Roman acquaduct, but mostly we just relaxed. True to Buddbergen style, we played games: cards or our newly aquired mental stimulator called Hive. We cooked some pretty fabulous meals too, a few of which were good enough to rival those of the famous French cuisine we sampled along the way (Ben is nearly graduated from culinary school, after all!) Beer can chicken was definitely a yummy and funny-looking highlight, as well as some tasty pastas and a throw-everything-we-have-left-and-need-to-use-up-together quiche on our last night that turned out to be scrumptious. And of course, there was no shortage of fantastic wine to accompany these meals. Our favorite was the Bandol Rose (Ros-ay...I don't know how to do the fancy accent over the E). Ros-ays from the Rhone Valley are fabulous....dry, zesty, and very refreshing. In other words, they are completely opposite their syrupy pink cousins that have such a bad reputation in the States.



The last stop on the French tour was to again head south, to the coast. We stayed in a charming hotel called Hotel La Parisiana in La Napoule, about 10 or 15 minutes West of Cannes. I still miss the morning breakfast of dark, rich, coffee and the most exquisite, flaky crossiants ever to walk the earth. We always loved taste-testing the array of amazing jam flavors that came in itty bitty mini jam jars. Not exactly environmentally ideal, but adorable nonetheless. La Napoule was a quieter, smaller version of the madness of Cannes and it was just perfect. My favorite part was the night market that opened up each evening along the boardwalk. After dinner we'd grab a few scoops of our requisite glace dessert and make our way over there. We had so much fun strolling through the tables and booths, finding all sorts of cool crafty things and great gifts. We've seen our share of markets on this trip now, but this one never got old.

After a quick evening in Nice, where the fam was to fly out of at the crack of dawn the next morning, we were definitely sad to see the Meibergens head home!  In the beginning it was clear that all 3 of them were in desperate need of a vacation, which made for an interesting contrast to our well slept, relaxed lifestyle, but when they left they seemed relaxed and at ease. I think the vacation had done everyone good! I felt a little depressed for a few days afterward even though it was also nice to get back to “normal life” again with the two of us and our boy Floyd. We made off West along the coast to continue our adventures.....

More French pics

Mom napping as she literally stands directly next to our tour guide giving his history schpeel...though maybe this was the best position of all so as not to get busted... Not to mention the standing nap - you'd think she was Jeremy's mom instead of mine!


Not too hard to believe they're related to me, huh?


Notre Dame at night...Jer's work is postcard worthy, eh?


Sunflower fields in Provence

Mmmmmmmmmm...


The Provencal palace


Our last night in Nice


Sacre Coeur in Paris

Chubby Mickey

We were on our way out of Disneyland Paris looking for a candy apple for Courtney as our last treat of the day. To her dismay though, all of the candy apple carts were closed so the search continued. We ended up with a multi-colored, three layered bucket of cotton candy to snack on – a distant second but still tasty and fun to munch on nonetheless. What I didn't know about cotton candy is how incredibly fun it can be too!

I honestly can't believe how easy this was... Courtney, Michael and I were sitting near the exit waiting for Tanan and Maria to finish up with their souvenir shopping. The child in me couldn't resist so I dared Courtney to see how much cotton candy she could fit in her mouth at once. Kind of the Chubby Bunny of whipped, colored sugar I suppose. She pulled off a chunk.

“Is this enough?”

“No. I think you need to eat the entire white, second layer of the bucket.”

“Ok.”

Wow. Amazing.

She proceeds to pull out the entire second layer of cotton candy from the bucket, pull off wads at a time and shove them in her mouth. To give you an understanding of just how much cotton candy we're talking about here, the bucket itself was about 8 inches in diameter, and said layer of sugared fluff was about 2 inches thick. It didn't take long for the strung sugar to congeal back into a giant mass of sugar blobbiness in her mouth. It got to the point where she couldn't even produce any more spit to get it back into a more dense solution. I was laughing so hard that I didn't even have the wherewithal to take a single damn picture. Luckily Michael was in prime paparazzi form. It took a while, but she did it. I still can't believe I only had to ask once.

Courtney's Back - Part 3

After that we found out Tanan and Michael were going to be in Paris within a week or two. Tanan and I became friends through work and her and Michael are Sasha's newly adopted and probably much more loved parents. They spoil her effing ROTTEN so we're going to have a monster on our hands when we get her back! I'm not kidding here....she has since upgraded from her cat bed on the armchair beside our bed, where we thought she was quite happy, to sleeping IN their bed, BETWEEN them, UNDER the covers, with her head on the PILLOW!! Needless to say, she gets away with everything she didn't with us. It's like a year straight at Grandma's house. Boy, she's gonna be a treat once she comes home to what will seem like prison. Thanks guys!! :) Anyway, I digress. They had missed their flight for their originally planned trip to Paris by writing the wrong day on their calendar! How devastating. Anyway, Tanan's birthday wish was to go to Disneyland Paris so we bombed to France and met them there....it was pretty funny. We crashed in the bunk beds in their room at the Hotel Cheyenne.....this place was hilarious!! Every bit of it was themed out to the max: bandanna print curtains, cowboy boot beside lamps, the mirror was framed like a huge rope and lasso, etc etc. It was hilarious but very comfortable with an awesome breakfast buffet. Disney Paris was pretty much the same as LA Disney but smaller scale. The highlight was being dared to eat the entire tub of cotton candy in one chubby bunny stuffing while laughing my ass off (I almost choked because I couldn't produce any saliva to get the crap to melt and dissipate in my mouth), then Tanan and I assing out and taking pictures with every Disney character we could find. We were practically shoving kids out of the way, jumping in pictures, getting reprimanded for hopping the barriers....it was hilarious. I blamed the behavior on an insane sugar rush, but Tanan is just Disney crazy!







So we spent 5 days with them, crashing at their friends Frenchy and Maria's tiny apt in Paris, and then hit the road to make our way back to Holland. We drove through Roune, a cute little town in Normandy, and then through Brugge. Brugge was one of my ultimate favorite spots on my first European tour. It was a little medieval-feeling cobbled town full of charm at every turn. Canals, foot bridges, beautiful stone buildings with funny chocolate shops, (the chocolate boobs are pretty funny, come on!) and great plazas for stopping to have a drink and watch it all. It was relatively unheard of, aka “new on the scene” at that time (which was 8 years ago now). I couldn't wait to go back there and Jer was really stoked to see it too. Well, apparently the secret is out. This was the first time that my memory of a place was in juxtaposition with the 'new' reality of it. What a huge bummer! Brugge was still that charming city I described, but now overrun with tourists, absolutely crawling with people from charming stone wall to charming stone wall. We discovered near the very beginning of the trip that we don't enjoy the big cities near as much as the quieter, slower paced towns and I think the main reason is that there are so many less people, it's easier to actually see and enjoy the place.

We were thrilled to get back to Holland. Man, we really love that country. Is it a coincidence that our absolute favorite places look an awful lot like home in the good old Pacific Northwest? New Zealand and Holland are both verdant places, full of trees and farmland, hiking and biking trails, with a nice balance of sun and rain. Living everyday life makes you feel like you're still a close neighbor to nature. Qualities I look for in an ideal destination, I've discovered.

Our plan was to head to a weird theater festival in the very north on a tiny island called Terschelling. Apparently it started because people would just go out on the street corners and dress up in costumes, or put on impromptu skits or weird performances and stuff, so they created an entire festival around it. We met another guy in a different band (but also loved his music) who was playing several gigs there so that was a bonus as well. I was expecting this thing to be a total trip and was reaaaally looking forward to it, but in the end it didn't happen. The main issue is getting a spot on a ferry and we tried so many times but couldn't get the ferry website to work. Calling and emailing only got us automated responses in Dutch. Since the website listed several open timeslots, we decided to bomb up there anyway and take our chances. Turns out we could get TO the island, but every timeslot coming back was booked for weeks out. We had to be in Paris by June 23rd to meet my family, so it was a no go. I hope we can make it there someday in the future. The plus side was that we happened upon darling Harlingen (the town where you catch the ferry) and ended up scoring an amazing canal-side spot to crash. It was just one more delightful Dutch town.