Raw Oysters and Food Poisoning

Interestingly enough, the two subjects in the title of this entry are unrelated. I'll elaborate:

On Friday night, our friends Kati and Lena threw an oyster tasting party. Not steamed or smoked oysters either, raw oysters. Normally, in the States, I don't eat seafood at all (being a vegetarian) but since living here I try some from time to time since it is a specialty of the region. For some reason that doesn't make sense to most people, I would much rather eat an oyster than tuna fish so once in a while I'll make an exception in my vegetarianism for a mollusk.

Anyway, the party was really fun and it turns out raw oysters mostly just taste like a mouthful of seawater. Here are some pictures:

Our victims:


The table:


Lena and her precious landlord, René, who helped throw the party:


Lena, Kati and Ellen:


Me and Clare:


Ellen and me:


After the party, most of us headed to O'Kenny's.

Rodrigo (my Spanish teacher), Clare, me:


Clare, Jessica and Ellen


Ellen, Me, Chantal:


The next day we went to visit our pals in Rennes. We went to a party at their friends' house where there was a lot of food. Jessica and I were really hungry and so we pretty much camped out next to the snack table. The others tried a little food but not much. We especially liked a quiche/tortilla espanol thing and, since no one else was eating anything, and there were two whole quiches, Jessica and I went to town with one of them and pretty much ate all of it ourselves. If we knew then what we know now...

These are our shiny, happy faces after we ate the quiche but before it tried to kill us (Julian on the left was quiche-free):


Gwendal, Ellen and Clare, also quiche-free:


Note: Gwendal looks really tough but he has a heart of gold.

I'll leave out the details but suffice it to say, the next day Jessica and I were supremely nauseous and had to travel back to St. Brieuc in a terrible state. I will tell you one story even though its possibly slightly inappropriate:
At one point, a man came up to Jessica outside the train station and asked her for money, while she was literally in the middle of throwing up. Maybe that's too much information but it was too funny not to tell.
The moral of the story is, don't eat quiche that has been sitting out God knows how long, and that has been prepared under possibly slightly unsanitary conditions. Fin.