Stash Separation

In the past few years, I've begun to sense a theme for October, and that theme is crazy. This year, though, it turned out to be extra crazy.  I know I still owe the blog one last Scotland post, and there are a couple more finished objects to share with you before we launch into holiday knitting.  The reason this year has been extra crazy is partially election season, but mostly it's been crazy because Mr. Starryknit and I are moving into a new (larger! with a deck!) apartment.  Plus, the way the timing worked out I'll be going to Mitten School one week before our move.  For those of you playing along at home, that means that we move in about eight days and I'll be spending four of them out of town.  All of our stuff is in boxes, and I'm separated from my stash.  The yarn and fiber are all in large plastic bins with lavender sachets or bags of cedar chips, the pattern books are all in boxes.  The fabric stash is still a  weak underdeveloped thing compared to its yarn and fiber siblings, so it all fit into one small box.  The sewing machine is sitting in its dust cover in the closet.  I managed to have enough foresight to pull out yarn for three new projects in the meantime, in case it takes a long time to get everything settled.  The criteria for these projects were:

1. Variety: Different yarn weights (one sock, one lace, and one aran), different colors, different objects, different difficulty levels. When I'm finished with the current work-in-progress, I wanted to have some choices so hopefully something would be appealing enough to appease the need to stash-dive. 

2. A mix of direction and spontaneity: two of the projects have yarn already matched to patterns, while the third one has only a a vague constraint (it must be fingerless mitts). If I just need something to knit, I can pick up and start the sock right away.  If I want to use a little creativity or I just want an excuse to surf Ravelry, I can take time to search for the perfect mitt pattern.  

3. Portable: These projects need to be easy to carry, and hard to lose in the move.  They definitely need to fit in small project bags.  The mitered square blanket that takes up an entire jumbo-sized tote bag is right out. 

I spent an hour or two picking out these projects, then declared everything else fair game for packing up.  Then, while packing for my flight to Kansas this evening, I realized the my current project probably won't last me through the entire plane trip and grabbed the skein of yarn and realized:


We already packed the ball winder. 

Canada Trip, Long Version

As mentioned in the previous post, I took my first trip to Canada last weekend for a wedding. It was a trip I'll never forget. First of all, I get a little irrationally nervous in security checkpoint situations. We drove across the border, and this had the major benefit of allowing me to knit while going through customs. The border guard noticed and asked me what I was knitting, and I showed her my new scarf-in-progress:



This is one skein of Berocco Ultra Alpaca in a lovely dark brown with reddish tints, and my skein of handspun Hello Yarn falklands wool in the Buckland colorway. I used the same pattern for my Apollo scarf, knitting one strip from the Olive's Afghan pattern in Knitalong. The scarf got finished yesterday evening, and I'm not sure if I love it too much for it to go in the gift box...

Back the the trip: I was traveling with the significant other and his sister to see their cousin get married. It was a very sweet, small gathering full of love, fun, dancing, playing camera, and a gorgeous view.



We had four days after the wedding to tool around Vancouver, and I was extremely lucky that my traveling companions both understand the yarn obsession and were willing to make side-trips to see yarn and fibery places. We spent an afternoon at the Granville Island area in Vancouver, where I found two fiber shops. I say fiber shops because neither really matches with what I'd call a local yarn store... these were more like artist's studios with a shop attached. One was closed (we were there on a Sunday), and appeared to sell hand-dyed yarn, spinning fiber, and weaving supplies. The other, called Silk Weaving Studio, sold exclusively silk products: everything from spinning fiber to jaw-droppingly gorgeous woven scarves and jackets. I bought two skeins of silk singles, about 170 meters each. The yarn feels very similar to Alchemy Silk Purse. Delicious.



The newlyweds also organized a two-day excursion to Victoria on Vancouver Island on Monday and Tuesday. I took my first ride on a ferry that can carry cars. Loading the cars is a surprisingly simple setup: you get assigned a lane when you go through the gates, then 15 minutes before departure everyone drives on, one lane at a time. The ferries were huge boats, holding about 150 cars each, and we were able to park the car and roam around the other decks during the 90-minute trip.



The scarf and I enjoyed the views and the fresh air. We saw some beautiful flowers and fabulous topiary in the Butchart Gardens:



and then had dinner and a stroll in Victoria. I find it endlessly pleasing to find little bits of brittania peppered throughout Canada:



I visited another great yarn shop near downtown Victoria, Beehive Wool Shop. I got some awesomely plump and squishy Canadian yarn from Tanis Fiber Arts (blog and Etsy shop).



We drove around the island that afternoon, and stopped at a shop selling First Nations art. I found a hidden treasure, a spinner and knitter:



The craftsperson was kind enough to allow me to take pictures of her work. You can see a hand-carved drop spindle in the corner of the shelf, behind a pair of handcards. It's huge; the whorl is about 8 inches across. Here's her workspace, where she was probably knitting away before we all walked in to the shop:



This photo shows about one quarter of the sweaters on display. It was probably about 100ºF outside, and just looking at them made me start panting, but I was infinitely impressed with her output. Despite the heat, I came very close to buying some of her handspun yarn. We got back on the ferry, and were treated to more cool breezes and an amazing sunset.



It was a really great trip, one I would heartily recommend to anyone looking for a four- or five-day vacation. It has all the fun parts of traveling to another country without the hassle of a 12-hour flight or a foreign language. On the other hand, I was exhausted when the trip began. It's going to be nice to stay in one place for a week or so. After I've unpacked and had a few days to wind down from the whirlwind of the past 6 weeks, I am definitely looking forward to finding patterns for my new yarn, washing some fleece, and sewing up a sweater.

Postcard

Dear Canada,

We had a fabulous trip this week. Thanks for being so welcoming, and allowing two wonderful people to join their lives together. My home country is still coming around to the idea, and I am so very grateful that you are wise enough to recognize their marriage. Thank you also for providing the world with such amazing natural beauty, I found it truly breathtaking. Your contributions to the fiber arts world are many and impressive: it was easier to find yarn and spinning fiber here than anywhere else I've traveled to. Also, I really appreciate that you have such an amazing spokespersonfor your country and fiber arts in general. Reading her blog made me feel like I had insider information, and I think I appeared really smart about things Canadian in front of my other American friends (if a little obsessed with her blog in particular). You showed us a good time, and I'm sure I'll be visiting again. I'm proud that my country is next door to you, and I'll try my best to be a good neighbor, in whatever limited capacity I can manage on my own.

Sincerely,

Starryknit

Last Gasp of Summer

Ok, not really, because it's often warmer during September here in San Francisco than it is in August, but I wasn't talking about temperatures or humidity levels. This afternoon I'm off to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park for some camping with my family. Camping will be awesome, it was what we did for about a week every summer while I was growing up. Sometimes in a cabin, sometimes in a tent, as long as we got a source of cold water (lake or river) and some pine trees, my parents were happy as clams and us kids couldn't help having fun too. Hopefully there won't be too much fire damage in the area. I'm trying to not set myself up for disappointment, but my sister's and my favorite hiking trail up the Big Sur river gorge is closed according to the park website. Poo. At least it will be a good chance to get unplugged a bit. I get back on Friday, and next weekend is the Golden Gate Renaissance Faire. Yipee! This is quickly turning into my favorite faire of the season. Since its inception, it's always been held (magically) during the last weekend before the fall semester begins.

All this means no blogging until I get back, and possibly not for quite some time, as the new semester starts next Monday and I'll be busy busy busy. I'll try to bring back a few pictures of redwoods to share with y'all on Friday or Saturday, though. In the meantime, here's some laceweight singles to hold you over:



As you can see, I've made my peace with double drive. Turns out the drive band just needed a serious tightening. I did a 2-ply last night while watching the Olympics (wasn't the opening ceremony incredible? And hooray for the American men's gymnastics team!) but I'll have to wait to see what kind of yardage I get. It's a laceweight to light fingering weight, and this is a 50/50 Merino/Silk blend from Tactile Fiber Arts. I purchased this at the first Color fiber festival, and they've just announced the day for fall! Hooray, more fibery goodness to look forward to! Guess I better get through some of my spinning stash so I can at least pretend to justify some purchases...

Food in Europe

So I guess I'm not hip enough, because I don't really understand what exactly makes "foodies" different from other people. Doesn't everyone like eating good food? Anyway, I guess the significant other and I would qualify as foodies to some, but not to others. We're still kind of learning how to really cook, but we're lucky to be exposed to some awesome cuisine around the Bay Area. We've certainly moved up from our college days of ramen noodles and pizza!

Now, once you accept that the food is not necessarily going to be what you expect, I think that the food culture in Europe is definitely one that every U.S. resident should try if they can, because it highlights some of the main differences about their attitudes towards food and life in general. First of all, meals are a chance to socialize, relax, and connect with other people. We saw very few solitary diners, and I believe the figure I cut at lunch, sitting alone with my book, was a slightly odd one. I also saw people sitting at a Starbucks, drinking coffee and espressos out of actual ceramic mugs for the first time ever. Think about it: when was the last time you saw people with a Starbucks cup that wasn't paper? Additionally, the waiters do not come to check up on you. They will come take your order, bring you your order, and leave you be until you flag them down for the check. Seriously. Only once, when my book got really good all of a sudden, did I outwait the waiter and get my check before I had to ask for it. I'm sure this is where the image of rude or slow service in Europe comes from.

Here's what I mean about the food being a little unexpected. We ate a lot of sausages while in Germany, and it took me about two weeks to learn the word for mustard (senf). I love mustard with my sausages, and I learned the word because we had a very kind waitress in Munich who spoke excellent English. She pointed out the condiments: mayonnaise, ketchup, and two kinds of mustard. The significant other and I occasionally like a nice spicy mustard, so I went for the one described as "hot" mustard. We were a little underwhelmed to discover that the "hot" mustard tasted like your standard yellow over here. However, the regular mustard we got in Dijon nearly knocked me down!

In some cases, you kind of have to sit back and just eat what's put in front of you. While we were in Lyon, we had one of the most amazing meals I've ever experienced. I already mentioned this, but it's the sort of place where you don't really order off a menu. The waitress asked us for drink orders, and after we'd had a chance to start feeling our aperitifs (that's Euro-speak for pre-dinner cocktail), she just started bringing out food. The dinner consisted of five courses, and we started with the soup. Now, of the four of us at the table, I spoke the most French, so everyone else was kind of relying on me to know what was going on. So when the waitress brought out the soup, and we had a rich brown broth with a white-ish lump in the middle, I didn't recognize anything overtly French, so I decided it was a potato or dumpling of some sort. When I took a scoop out of the dumpling with my spoon, you can imagine my surprise at seeing a yolk in my "dumpling"! Turned out it was a poached egg. The waitress informed us that the soup is called Oeufs en Meurette.



It was delicious soup! If you'd told me that one of my favorite memories of this trip would be poached egg in beef broth soup, I would have been a bit skeptical. The second course was a salad and plate of pickles, marinated onions, and cold cuts. By this time, we were halfway through our bottle of wine and starting to get a bit full. The chef came out to tell us our options for the main course, and we all placed our order. The guys were brave and ordered the pork cheek, not knowing if they were going to get an odd-looking cut. I got poulet au vinagre (chicken in a vinegar sauce), which was delicious. Now we were all starting to feel REALLY full, and starting to think about having a nice walk along one of the rivers to help out the digestive process.

Then they brought the cheese.



This was all really good cheese. That sounds lame, but I'm not that good at describing food, I guess. It was just really, really good. We had a small selection of hard, medium, and soft cheeses, some plain, some with spices or herbs. That bowl in the back has that iconic cream cheese with chives and other spices, which was easily my favorite. I don't know if I'll ever be able to eat any of those packaged herb cheese spreads again. We had nice crusty French bread to go with it all. Now we are all so full that we can barely eat any cheese; we were really just tasting it so we wouldn't kill ourselves. But we still had dessert. Each of us got something different, so we could try a little of everything.



Clockwise from the top we have ice cream, chocolate mousse, fruit salad, and some kind of tart (I can't remember what the filling was). We had our walk after everything was over. It was incredible.

One thing I realized about food in Europe is that there are regional differences in cuisine as significant as those we have here. You do see some of the national trends in food, but it's easier to talk about a region as opposed to a country. I got to eat Swabish spätzle in Stuttgart (deliciously close to macaroni and cheese), Bavarian weisswurst in Munich, and lost of delicious Provençal cooking while we were in France. I don't normally enjoy pesto the way it's made in Italian restaurants in California, but that's because (I am convinced) THEY ARE DOING IN WRONG. Genoa, where we spent our only night in Italy, is where pesto comes from, so naturally we all had to try it. Amazing, creamy without being too cheesy, and really tasty fresh pasta. Another winner. While I was starting to miss food from home by the end of the trip, I think it was mostly missing the ease of ordering food in my native language. Overall, I just wish I'd taken more pictures!

Finally, here's a general principle about food in Europe that we learned, sort of a variation of the "When in Rome" adage: Don't expect to get a really good croissant in Germany, and don't expect to get a really good pretzel in France.

Well, I'm back.

It's good to be home! Yesterday I got to see friends and eat good Mexican food, and unpacked a bit. Today I was very good and did work and chores all morning so I could blog, knit, spin, watch movies, drink coffee, and generally putter about this afternoon without feeling guilty. So, the plane trip was a little trying. My flight was delayed five ways 'till Tuesday, because just about everything that could go wrong, did. Airline worker strikes, earthquakes, broken air conditioning units, and inclement weather all conspired to put me on the ground in San Francisco about 3 hours late. I didn't sleep much on the flight, as we were following the sun westward the whole time. Instead, I did this:



I got about halfway through the leg of the sock while on the train to Frankfurt and waiting to board the plane, and finished the gusset decreases shortly before we landed. I didn't knit for the entire flight, because my hands started to cramp up! Between the lack of sleep and the flight delays, I was awake for about 24 hours straight, and it made me a bit loopy that evening. The jet lag isn't as bad today as it was yesterday, but I still plan on applying caffeine at carefully planned times this afternoon so I don't fall asleep before dinner.

Anyway, details on the sock! This is Wollmeise, the original 100% superwash yarn base, in the Vergißmeinnicht colorway (that word means Forget-me-not in German). I got this yarn last year as part of Mrs. B's Taste of Germany yarn pack, which included five skeins of yarn from German indie dyers, all in blue colors. I actually (gasp!) swatched for this project, and discovered that 2.5 mm needles (US size 1 1/2) were necessary, and I only had those in metal circulars. So I popped over to the Wolle Rödel and bought sock-size bamboo DPNs for the project. The pattern is Cookie A.'s Pomatomus, which I think works wonderfully with this semi-solid color.

Now that I'm home, I have been gratefully reunited with my spinning wheel. I cannot wait to get this on some bobbins:



I stalked the Hello Yarn shop during the last update, and was lucky enough to score this gorgeous Wensleydale fiber and some of her scrumptious Fat Sock yarn. I'll be spending Saturday afternoon learning a little more about spinning plant fibers at the botanical gardens in Golden Gate Park. They're having their annual Summer Gardening Fair tomorrow, and some local spinners will be around doing demonstrations. In preparation for that event, I had to nab myself some cotton from my favorite local fiber source:



I can't wait to see all the ladies of Purl Jam on Tuesday, and eat at all my favorite restaurants again. I have about a bajillion other things to take care of before the new semester starts, not least of which is reacquainting myself with the view from our living room window.

Are you sick of cute medieval towns yet?

Because I've got one more for you before I go back to the States. As I mentioned in the previous post (writted somewhat in advance- go me!), we went to visit Rothenburg ob der Tauber this weekend. It's a completely adorable town that thrives on its tourist trade. The old town is enclosed in a wall that you can walk along.

The city wall from the outside:



A wall-walk entrance:



And the wall from the inside:



This was certainly the most tourist-geared location we've visited this summer, even more so than Carcassonne. However, I think we picked the right time of week to minimize the crowds. We left by train Sunday morning and stayed until Monday afternoon. We were able to see most of the town, and weren't surrounded by a mob at any time. It seemed that most of the tourists were only daytrippers, so we were able to relax a little more at night and experiment with the digital camera.



I can't take credit for the night photos; the significant other figured out how to extend the shutter time on the camera. (Actually, his camera batteries died about half an hour after we got off the train, and he got a little grabby with my camera. I forgave him his experiments eventually.)



He's good, huh? Well, I might be biased. We also saw a couple of great old churches, St. Jakobskirche and St. Wolfgangskirche. The latter had a small exhibit called The Shepderd's Dance, which had a bit of information about the traditional dress and way of life in the Franconian region surrounding Rothenburg. I liked it, and found some great color inspiration.





They also had a spinning wheel in their display. I've never seen a treadle quite like this on a spinning wheel. I was itching to test it out and see how stable it feels!



The only thing I would have changed about the visit was the weather. I am totally ready to get away from the thick muggy heat! We were really sweaty all weekend and I felt a bit gross, except in the huge, cool stone sanctuary (ha ha) of the larger of the two churches: St. Jakob's.



This church has been Lutheran for a really long time, and it was interesting to see a place that looks distinctly Catholic (to my protestant-childhood eyes) where the worshipers probably know the same hymns that I know. Now, get ready for the understatement of the year. They have a pretty big pipe organ here.



See what I mean? I have other shots of this that are close-ups, but I wanted to show you this one because you get a sense of the utter HUGENESS of this thing. It's amazing. It must be quite a production when it's played.

I didn't get a lot of knitting time in, as it was too hot on the train to do anything except sip listlessly at our vending machine sodas, which were rapidly approaching room temperature. I'm roughly 3/4 finished with the Honeybee stole, and as it can't come with me on the plane and I'm at the beginning of a pattern repeat, I decided to put the stole aside and wind yarn today for my airplane knitting. No photos, as the camera is already packed, but it's going to be Cookie A.'s Pomatomus socks, using my oldest skein of Wollmeise, the Vergißmeinnicht (forget-me-not) colorway. I like to have at least a little bit of knitting hanging off the needles when I go to check in, so it's clear that I intent to knit with my knitting needles when I go through security. I've also decided to take along the needles, yarn, and pattern for my Bronte Mitts in case I get really bored with the socks. I'll be packing up the laptop and camera soon, and I probably won't be posting until next week. I already have plans to meet up with friends, family, and fiber as soon as I can, and I bet there will be some catching-up to do before I post again. Now, I need to refill my iced tea and go get my laundry out of the dryer, so I'll leave you with some local Rothenburg o.d.T. flora and fauna.


A Gnome Garden


The elusive Traditional Bavarian Jackalope (my own name).

See you all Stateside!

Friday in Ulm

So on Friday I went on my first (and most likely last) true solo day trip. I got to the train around 10, and it took about an hour to get to Ulm. I had intended to work on the Honeybee Stole, but I'm reading The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber and I got absorbed in it. It's really good. So good, I didn't actually knit AT ALL on the train! I'd recommend it for anyone who likes literature, New York, adventures happening to ordinary (or not-so-ordinary) people, making fun of the ivory tower, and/or cheesy suspense writing. I got into Ulm, which is pretty easy to navigate even without a map, because the town is dominated by the enormously tall Münster. I arrived around 12, missing a lunchtime organ music concert by minutes, and decided to explore the rest of the town before doing the Münster.

I bought some yarn from a fabulous local yarn shop called Heike Redlinghaus. The proprietress was exceedingly kind, and I found a very interesting yarn and some woven-ribbon labels. Ulm was pretty busy, it being a rather fine Friday afternoon.



So, one of the lessons the significant other and I have learned (or are still learning...) about travel is remembering to eat on time. We have a hard time choosing where to eat when we're out together (do all couples do this? or just us?), and by the time we've settled on a place, both of us have typically been famished for about an hour already and we're ready to cut someone. It was pretty funny, because I started getting hungry-cranky while in Ulm, but there was nobody to get cranky at except myself... it was a little weird. But I did finally eat lunch.

After lunch was the Alter Freidhof, or old cemetery. This was really more like a park with a few old gravestones than a cemetery. But it was fabulous, quiet, and very restful compared with the busy-feeling center of town.



I saw maybe ten other people in the park (which was pretty big), and all were either walking or riding their bike swiftly on their way somewhere else. I stopped there for a few minutes after wandering around and just rested my feet.



Another of the locations on my itinerary was the Rathaus, which was very colorful compared to the green-on-green of the cemetery park and the stone-on-stone of the Münster.



From the Rathaus, I found the Danube. I did not know that the Danube starts in Germany! There are little bits of split-off river that run through the town, creating some truly charming views with bridges as you get into a more shops-and-restaurants area.





By now it was about 3, and my train back was at 5, so I had nothing left but the church. It's pretty impressive. In fact, it's so impressive, I was apparently unable to capture the entire thing in one photo.



The steeple is supposed to be the tallest one in Europe, and I indeed shelled out 4.50 euros to climb to the top. But that's a story for a second post!

Halfway Home (really long post)

I'm still plugging away on my Tour de Fleece spinning, but I have so much to catch up on that fibery things will have to wait for another post. We arrived back from France last night around 6PM, and I was really really happy at the prospect of spending more than two days in one place. It feels like I just crammed an entire European tour into nine days! Here's what our itinerary looked like:

Day 1 (Saturday): Leave Stuttgart around 6AM, drive to Genoa, Italy.
Day 2: Leave Genoa, eat lunch in Camogli, and drive to Nîmes, France.
Days 3, 4, and 5: Explore Nîmes and the surrounding area: Collioure, Carcassonne, Aigues-Mortes, and spend one day at the beach.
Day 6: Drive from Nîmes to Lyon, stopping at Pont du Gard along the way.
Day 7: Drive from Lyon to Dijon, stopping at Pérouges along the way.
Day 8: Explore Dijon.
Day 9: Drive from Dijon to Stuttgart, stopping in Strasbourg for lunch.

The driving was exciting on the first day, and I watched the countryside go by while knitting away on my honeybee stole. We had some interesting adventures involving the toll roads in Italy and France. The 30-euro highway pass we had to buy in Switzerland seemed a steep price at first, but I think it was much less stressful than trying to remember where one left the last ticket, trying to navigate to the correct booth where one can pay with cash or cards, or attempting to explain in the worst Italian ever that you have lost the ticket. Sheesh.

On out first night, in Genoa, we had THE BEST PESTO EVER. I swear. It was amazing. One of our traveling companions picked out a really fabulous restaurant. We had helpful waiters and waitresses who spoke very good English, explained the different pasta shapes, and recommended a very interesting and good bottle of local wine. Very delicious. We wandered around Genoa the following morning.







We stopped in an amazingly charming town called Camogli for lunch. I use lunch in the loosest sense of the word, because although this was our second meal of the day, it included beer and dessert (Il Pinguino!) and ended around 5PM.







We stayed with a pair of wonderful people in Nîmes, who kindly opened up their home and internets to us for four days and three nights. We wandered around Nîmes one day, swam in the Mediterranean (and got sunburned as described) the next day, and were treated to delicious French sausages with very spicy mustard and the herbes de provence (ubiquitous in grocery stores and gift shops of the region) for dinner that evening. On our last day we saw one of the highlights of the trip so far for me: Carcassonne. The old part of the town, called La Cité, is a huge (and I really mean HUGE) old French castle. People live inside the walls (!!!!) and you can walk around inside the castle walls, buying some slightly tacky touristy souvenirs, taking in the view of the surrounding countryside, or wandering the perimeter of the castle. I read that they filmed Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves here, and although we saw more tour groups here than just about anywhere else, I loved it all the same.





We actually saw Carcassonne in the late afternoon to avoid the crowds, and saw a little town called Collioure in the morning which was unbelievably amazing, and right on the ocean. The sea was the most incredible color, and at certain scenic viewpoints the town has a little frame-on-a-stand to help you get that postcard-perfect view.



On our last day in Nîmes, we slept in a bit before hitting the road for Lyon, and stopped at the Pont du Gard, one of the largest and best-preserved Roman aqueducts.



It was a ridiculously hot day, so we didn't linger too long there, but instead went back to the air-conditioned refuge of the car. We arrived in Lyon in the early evening, and ventured out in search of dinner, armed with a few recommendations from out hosts in Nîmes. We ended up at Café des Fédérations, which is the sort of restaurant where they have a set menu, and allow you to pick your main course and beverages. Our waitress (again, so helpful) brought out our soup, and I knew I had to make a detailed record of our meal. I whipped out the camera and my notebook, asked the waitress to write down the name of our soup, and took notes for the rest of the evening. It was a fabulous meal, partly because I didn't have to make a decision any more complicated than whether I wanted poulet or beouf, and red wine or white. After dinner, we strolled along the river (La Saône).



We did another morning in Lyon, taking in the city by way of art museums, coffee, and croissants. I made a special visit to the Maison des Canuts, a weaver's museum, where we had a very interesting tour and demonstration on an old Jaquard loom.





We spent another afternoon in the car driving to Dijon, the place where the mustard comes from. My allergies went CRAZY while we were here, and I didn't figure out it was probably from the mustard until Sunday afternoon. Dijon itself was adorable. There were owls all over the city, which I just loved. Dijon uses an owl (la chouette) as a symbol of the town because the cathedral in the center of town has a little owl carved into the side. You're supposed to touch it with your left hand for good luck.



I splurged on food while in Dijon. I got some regional-specialty spice bread (pain d'épices), some crème de cassis so we can try to recreate the delicious aperitifs we had with dinner, some herbes de provence, and some little cookies. We pretty much spent all day Sunday driving, because there was some pretty nasty traffic between Strasbourg (right on the French-German border) and Stuttgart. I don't know if traveling by car was my favorite method, and I could have used another day or two in Lyon to explore more of the old city, but it was just about the best use of our week we could have managed, considering how little we planned in advance (as evidence of our lack of planning: our trip around France ended yesterday, and today is Bastille Day). The apartment in Stuttgart feels more like home than it ever did before, but we're both starting to miss San Francisco quite a bit. I never really considered it to be home, and I find myself missing the city, our neighborhood, and our little apartment more specifically than I expected.