le TGV, bien sur!

The only way to travel around France is by train...or the TGV (tay-jay-vay) - train à grande vitesse (train at high speed). I figure if you're reading this blog, you'll wanna know the translations and stuff. :)

So I'm looking at this pass through RailEurope...sounds interesting:
http://www.raileurope.com/rail-tickets-passes/eurail-benelux-france-pass/pass-faq.html

See, the thing is, I'm not sure how many days I should get for travel during a 2 month period. There's 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 days for a 2 month travel period and the prices range from US$212 to US$371 for the 10 days of train travel.
http://www.raileurope.com/rail-tickets-passes/eurail-benelux-france-pass/discounts-and-pricing.html

I need advice on all this stuff. OMG. There's soooo much planning. I think maybe I'll start a list of places I want to go, at least within France.

Paris: all that touristy stuff mentioned before plus Versailles, Place de la Concorde, Pantheon, Cathedrale Notre Dame, Champs-Elysees (if I didn't mention that before. haha), La Voie Triomphale (???), Montmartre (La Vie Boheme!), Quartier Latin, Place Vendome (even if only to see all the pretty and REALLY expensive jewelry), and of course! Place de la Madeleine and rue Tronchet. :)

Oh and shopping, duh. Besides all the Place de la whatever, there's the Bazar de l'Hotel de Ville, Galeries Lafayette, Magasins du Printemps, Samaritaine, and Au Bon Marche.

There's a book fair in April at the Paris-Expo. :) But I just missed a Computer Science expo in October! :( Man, that would have been freaking sweeeeeeeeeet.

And Chateau de Chantilly...That's Paris. Not do-able in 3 days, but it's only 2 hrs par TGV to Paris from Angers!

Eck. Looking through a food guide in this guide Bam Bam gave me, I'm not too happy about some of the food. Lots of fishy stuff. Fish is GROSS. And they eat duck. lots of duck. Ca me fait triste. :( And lots of cooked cabbage. Blech. Who knew there were so many different kinds of cheeses???? But on to desserts. :)

tarte Tatin (caramelized tart cooked with the filling underneath. yum!), Grenoble walnut cake, creme caramels, baked cream desserts, soft meringues with custard sauce. OMG. I am going to come back fat. Totally and completely fat because I will have to survive on desserts! We'll skip the wines. My lovely Meredith Mother does not appear to like the subject of alcohol.


And I want to go skiing (or rather, snowboarding). Gotta figure that out too! :)

bisous!
♥