Discovering Dijon 2: Centre-ville and Beaune

Sana hindi kayo nahilo.

In a word, Dijon is charming. Every street corner is picturesque. I set out last Friday without a plan, going around in circles. It drizzled, but it was still a lovely market day. The free Diviaciti mini-bus goes to the tourist spots, a convenient way to get around. Twice on the mini-bus, I was surrounded by a noisy troop of French high school boys. (Some of you would have enjoyed that, but I found them KSP. The first time, they picked on the one beside me and kicked the back of my seat repeatedly.)

I forgot my schedule of activities for the induction in London and couldn't open the e-mail attachment at CRI, so I missed the first few talks and dinner at the Universite de Bourgogne. Delinkwente! But I made up for it by staying through all the talks the following day.

In Dijon, the Arab and black communities seem larger than the Asian one. It must have been interesting to see five of us Asians walking around together. On Saturday evening, I was with Priya (India), Monchanok (Thailand), Adele (Malaysia) and Li (China). Shops closed early and it wasn't very pleasant to walk around a half-dead commercial area. As we were all on a tight budget, we shared pizzas for dinner. The following day, we had lunch at Mister Kebap. Anything to avoid McDonalds, you see.

We capped the weekend with a trip down to the vineyards and winetasting in Beaune, famous for its Hotel-Dieu of the colorful roof tiles. (Erratum: Clos de Vougeot, not Clos de Vosgny. I don't know where I got that name. Will upload photos tomorrow.)