Butter and Baguette: France. Where tailgating is a way of life.

The village where I'm staying is only a few hours drive from the Alps. My host family has a small apartment there, LITERALLY less than a 5 minute walk to a ski resort. Both my host mom and dad (I call them my host mom and dad, but they're both less than 10 years older than I am, haha!) love to ski, so this is a pretty sweet setup, as you can imagine. They come a couple of times a year to live on the slopes in the winter, and hike in the summer. We visited last weekend to welcome my host mom's sister's new baby!

Their parents were meeting us up there, so my host parents, their baby, and I all piled into their car for the 3 hour drive.

It should be noted at this point that 99% of the vehicles around here are teeny tiny. As in, they make American "compact" cars looks like big waddling hippos in comparison. They're mostly 2-door, and their ends are all tucked in, so they look very cute. French people go bopping around the country in these cutsie little cars. The speedomoters are all in kilometers, of course, and despite having been raised in Canada, I am no longer familiar with the exchange rate with the American system. I've been assimilated, apparently. So I can't tell you how fast we're going. I DO know the speed limit signs say 50 km/hr on the back roads (remember, I'm living out in the country here), and the Autoroute (French freeway) says 110km/hr, but I'm preeeetty sure we're surpassing that.

European drivers have somewhat of a reputation in America, and I'll tell you right now, it's well earned. The normal following distance between you and the next car seems to be approximately 3 inches. They're not being rude, that's just how everyone drives. If they think you're driving too slow, they'll just go around you. Even if there are cars coming towards you on your two lane road. It's all good.

Anyway, we took the Autoroute, which charges you to drive it, btw, for 2 hours, then wound up our way up to the apartment in the mountains for the next hour. Needless to say, driving through the Alps gives you some pretty spectacular views.

Which continued throughout the entire weekend.

Our time there was spent hanging out with family eating, hiking, eating some more, and talking.

I absolutely loved the way the clouds would play over the mountains. So spectacular!

I had one of the most amazing things I've ever eaten this weekend - a slow roasted tomato, onion, and garlic dish made by my host mom's mom. It was one of those times when you stop paying attention to anything else because your brain is going crazy with the amazing flavors you're experiencing. Who knew a bunch of roasted tomatoes could be that good?!

Kind of makes you want to throw out your arms and belt out,
"The hiiiills are aliiive...."

We also went to a lovely little restaurant. Its specialty was meat, potatoes, potatoes, and potatoes. We had them au gratin, fried like little hush puppies with honey on top, and my favorite, in little raviolis. It was very good, but I ate basically salad and yogurt for the next few days afterwards!

Am I supposed to #nofilter these? I'm not really
sure how those work, honestly.

We hiked up to the ruins of an old castle (because what's a visit to a town in France without an old chateau nearby!) There wasn't much left, as you can see.

My experience so far is that the people in France are SO considerate! It was pretty cold here, and I hadn't figured on needing anything more than a light jacket during my trip, so I found myself a little unprepared. One of the friends of the family we were visiting with LITERALLY gave me the shirt (well, sweater) off his back, so I wouldn't freeze. So nice!! It made all the difference, and I was able to enjoy our outings.

Not my sweater

The next day, we went hiking up past the most adorable little village, called Prapic. It's a mountain lover's dream, tucked into the mountainside up near the peaks. It's at the end of the road, for cars at least. They get visitors during the summer who are there for the hiking, and are pretty much snowed in during the winter. The village is so tiny, and you can imagine that things probably haven't changed much over the last several hundred years.