Local Color

Last week I was "interviewed" for an article in the local paper, an ordeal which made me basically the laughing stock of my school.

It was the brainchild of the principal, who called me on Tuesday night and left a message saying, "Hey there is a journalist coming tomorrow to interview you and ask about Thanksgiving." No "Please" or "Would you mind if...?" because she is The Principal and there is No Discussion Necessary.

Maybe a different person would be excited? But for me, it was the exact opposite. I was seriously overwhelmed with dread.

But then I told myself maybe I was exaggerating. Maybe I should be excited! Appearing in a French journal! That's kind of a sweet and rare thing.

Mais... non. Au contraire.

First of all, the principal hadn't actually scheduled an interview. So after calling me into her office at 9 am on Wednesday, she then called the journalist and demanded that he come to school a few hours later. I quickly realized that this was not the result of a curious and inspired journalist, but a hard-headed, manipulative woman who not only strong-armed me into doing an interview, but also persuaded a totally uninterested journalist to actually write it.

The "interview" consisted of the principal asking me questions she already knew the answers to, while the journalist interrupted me, made sweeping statements about America (the principal encouraged these kinds of ideas, saying, "Oui, oui, c'est ça!") and made it clear that he was totally uninterested in me and the idea of writing an article about me and my take on my country's holiday. The longer he kept talking, the more and more more stupid, frustrated and defensive I became. Very nice qualities to highlight in a foreigner who is TRYING to integrate seamlessly into the society, fighting the countless stereotypes that already exist for Americans.

Everyday last week, I went into the teacher's lounge to be greeted by "It's the local celebrity!" or "Can I have your autograph?" Every day that a journal appeared without the article, I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking maybe it had gotten forgotten. Or maybe some freak technological error had erased the text and eliminated the photograph, so it could never actually make it to print!

But alas. This morning I get a text message from a friend saying, "I sent you a present! Check your e-mail" and there it was in its blue, bold, underlined glory -- a link to the ridiculous article, appearing with a raspberry-red reproduction of my face, smiling dopily like a moron.

Haha oh well. I just wish he had at least made the whole thing a mockery, with a caption like "The immortal lobster, imported from America... just one example of some of the local color."

Thankful, feasting, pumpkin craze

Three weeks ago, I was a vegetarian. Yesterday, I carved my first turkey.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Last week I debated the hand turkey & abbreviated versions of America's history, greatly varying along the continuum of dark to Disney-ified. In the end, I decided to re-use an error-cluttered rédaction that I had written last year for my elementary students to briefly explain one version of the history of Thanksgiving, and also to explain some of the cultural festivities that occur today. Since my French has improved substantially since I wrote that one year ago, I did a lot of editing (sorry AM... you got the raw pre-revision stage version) and also added a few more complexities, thinking that the worldly & wise middle schoolers could handle a bit more abstraction & difficulty.

I also showed them one example of a hand turkey & told them all to watch carefully in the first Twilight film for the real living proof that this is not my own invention, but a true, American icon. And then I printed out pictures of the parade floats from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. (I had never realized before how much advertising is tied into that American tradition, until I started searching and kept stumbling upon mascot after mascot. It's impressive, and depressing, how advertising infiltrates everywhere.) The kids totally loved learning about Black Friday, and I almost immediately regretted it -- I usually try not to reinforce the notion that Americans are straight-up crazy... and upon reflection, I realized that Black Friday is the epitome of craziness.

In a moment of supreme genius (or total, and complete serendipity) I decided to incorporate some key English words into the French text so that I could have my students complete a word search afterword, reinforcing the main ideas via the vocabulary, and also filling up the 55 minute class period.

It was fun! I felt like a history teacher... and realized why, for one semester, I was a history minor. It was a great semester. I learned about the cradle of civilization. And Buddhism.

Wednesday afternoon, I went to see Twilight: Chapitre 2 Tentation. Odile and I went for the second time -- this time totally prepared, totally in advance -- and it was totally for nothing. Haha Murphy was hard at work. We ate disgusting sandwiches and waited outside in the cold for the theatre to open, and then it was only half-way full. But tant pis. I was really excited to finally see it.

On Thursday, it was a normal day in France. I went to the grocery store with a huge list of things I needed for Thanksgiving, completely unsure if I would find the most essential of all -- pumpkin. But, I was lucky, and it was all there. I wasn't completely for sure that I had pumpkin and not squash, because the woman promised me it was pumpkin, but the label stuck onto the orange gourd said "courge." Maria & I debated a minute about if it would be horrible to make a squash pie, and ultimately I took my chances.

30 euros and two bags of groceries later, we clambered back onto the bus to head home. I went to my gym class, and then to my fantastic dance class where I finally learned to like -- LOVE -- the paso doble!!! The problem was I never had a confidant partner. But this week, I danced with the nice man whose wife invited me for Christmas, and he is amazing! He totally LED and knew what he was doing! I was seriously SO excited about it, I just kept laughing and I screwed up a few times. But it was so fun! :) We also did some new salsa moves, and a cool swing move that involves a sideways cuddle sort of, and some country line dancing. I resisted that one pretty hard at first, but then I remembered how fun it is! Haha and plus, for the French people, it's totally weird & unfamiliar, but seeing that I have some experience (thank you GVSU and trips to La Bresa) it's really easy & fun. So dance class was fantastic, as usual.

Then I ran home & changed, then went back out for the weekly soirée at the bar in town. Totally fun, as usual.

Friday afternoon, after getting home from school, I was exhausted and took a tortured nap that involved weird nightmares with pumpkin clouds, and burning potato fields. Then I attacked the looming challenges -- how to make a pie from a whole pumpkin.

I decided to try two different methods to see which worked better: I took one half of the pumpkin and put it face-down on a cookie sheet in the toaster oven to bake. The other half went into a pot with only a small bit of water, and a make-shift lid (a pan turned upside-down) to steam until the flesh was soft.

The experiment was kind of nulle --I didn't notice much of a difference between the two, and I ended up cubing the flesh and putting it all back in the pot to cook, anyway. In a moment of utter stupidity, I stirred the pot too violently, sending a glob of scalding pumpkin gook sailing onto my left hand. A quick reaction was not quick enough, and shortly after, I had an excruciating, blistering pear-shaped red splotch complicating the cooking process.

The show had to go on! So I took an aspirin and just complained alot while rolling out my home-made pie crust (100% butter because I couldn't find shortening) on the kitchen table, with a make-shift rolling pin (glass bottle wrapped in a plastic bag). I realized I needed a food processor, so then I packed everything up and headed over to Sarah's for use of her well-stocked, grown-up kitchen.

I recruited a helper, relatively easily and started working on the potatoes so they could start cooking in the oven. Meanwhile, I used a blender to smooth out the pumpkin flesh (only ONE nightmarish orange explosion happened during the process, which I considered a huge success) and began mixing together cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, sweetened condensed milk (or for the second pie... non-sweetened condensed milk + sugar + flour to try and make it sweetened with the same consistency of sweetened condensed milk), eggs, and vanilla. There was a notable difference between the two pies, and I was afraid one would be an imminent failure while the other only marginally successful.

I slept out my doubts and awoke on Saturday to a rainy, gray-ish day -- the perfect occasion to spend inside with friends, wine, and a feast.

It unfolded like a typical Thanksgiving -- people were everywhere, in the way, stressed out, lazy, irritated and hungry! With so many of us contributing dishes, there was confusion over who was cooking where, and when, using what, and with the wine glasses full and the Christmas music playing, it really felt like utter perfection.

Sarah had taken responsibility for the turkey, but the one thing none of us had thought about was how to carve a turkey, or who would be lucky enough to take on the challenge.

Naturally, I stepped up. Deconstructing a turkey? No problem. It was a total adventure since I have never paid careful attention to the art of turkey carving, and no one else had any clue. But we got by. And "Henry" was served. (Little brother of "Charlie" -- disgusting).

After a DELICIOUS feast of turkey, cranberry sauce, cranberry sorbet (Maria's contribution -- "to cleanse the palate" quelle classe!), stuffing, green beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, salad, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, stuffed peppers Chilean style and glasses and glasses of red wine, we played some classic American cards -- "Bullshit" -- which I totally rocked at, and won.

It was perfect, too, because then I could concentrate solely on my contribution to the meal -- les tartes aux potiron. After 15 minutes of baking at 220*C, then reducing the temperature to about 180*C and letting them bake for approximately 50 minutes, I pulled two ginger-colored pies out of the oven. They looked like Autumn perfection!

It was painful to indulge in dessert, but everyone did regardless. The two pumpkin pies, plus the pecan pie that Paulette made were a fantastic finish to a festive French feast!

I waddled home at about 6:30 and found my way into the mandatory sweat pants, then settled in for a long evening of digestion, Grey's Anatomy episodes and knitting.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. :)

My heart is full of gratitude.

"The Beaujolais is always bad"

After a rough afternoon and literally the WORST class ever, I joined the teachers from one of my schools for a little dégustation of the beaujolais nouveau and a "concours de recettes" which was totally fun. The teachers each made something (cakes, pies, breads, etc), and brought them in pseudo-anonymously; Noémie tagged all of them with little numbered flags, and at the end everyone voted for the best two.

I am happy to say that both of my choices won (1st and 3rd place!!) and the favorite was a... PECAN PIE!!! It was so delicious. It tasted like autumn.

But it made me laugh that the guise of the night was to taste the beaujolais nouveau... but everyone insisted that it's always bad. They told me that it's bad every year, but every year it's a little better than the last.

One of the French teachers told me that he thinks the beaujolais is just a means of selling more wine, that it doesn't really mean anything, and since it's never good, people only buy it because of the marketing scheme.

My night ended with an episode of some German travel/cooking show, during which a woman who spoke pretty good French went and earned/hand-selected all of the ingredients necessary for making boeuf bourgignon. She went to a huge cow auction, basically, and selected her cow, then went to the butcher and cut it (BERK) and then went to the winery to work for a few bottles of pinot noir. It looked totally delicious. And in the way of all cooking shows, I now feel entirely confidant that I could go do this myself (aside from the butcher thing...)

Bonne nuit à tous!

Thanksgiving time in France

The Week(ish) in Review:

Last Monday I went to my first "renforcement musculaire" class at the gym. It was fantastic -- and so incredibly challenging that I seriously struggled just to make it up the stairs to my room afterward. For four days I was aware of every single muscle movement in my body haha.

Tuesday of last week, John Mayer released a new CD which I spent an entire hour downloading from iTunes. It's golden. I have "Edge of Desire" and "Friends Lovers or Nothing" on permanent repeat in my head and on my iPod. And seeing that it's 3/4 time, I find myself waltzing down the sidewalk like a loon, and being totally, blissfully, happy.

Wednesday, my attempt at seeing Twilight Numéro Deux was eschewed. Seeing that the tickets were sold out two hours in advance, Odile et moi settled instead on seeing this horrible film called Mademoiselle Chambon. A waste of 6 euros and 2 hours, for sure. So we have a new plan. Wednesday right after school, we're going directly to the theatre to buy our tickets. Then we will buy sandwiches and eat them as we wait in line with the millions of pre-pubescent others dying to see the film. (I've been told numerous times that the theatre erupted in screams several times and I think it's a little crazy... it's like Beatlemania all over again. But in French... which is so NOT French.)

Thursday I spent a glorious day being lazy up until my "abdo-fessiers" gym class, and two hours of ballroom dance class! After a quick freshening up, Emélie, Angélique, Pauline et moi went out to a bar in town that has open mic night (I love that in French it's called soirée de boeuf, which means evening of meat). We met up with some of the boys, including Simon, one of Sylvain's best friends from university, and it was a total blast. We danced la salsa, and laughed at the fact that Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" was sung in pseudo-English and then translated into incredible French. The musicians were pretty amazing by the end of the night -- it seemed like the better musicians came in and pushed the less skilled out. Harsh for them, but awesome for the crowd. :) The end was all African music, with some ridiculous guitar. I was completely inspired.

Friday, I found Budweiser. I shared a little bit of American greatness with Sylvain, who isn't yet totally able to fully appreciate it. Maybe one day he will learn... haha I can't teach him the English language, at least maybe he will develop an appropriate respect for the sunny taste of a deliciously cold Bud.

Saturday I went on a visit of the town given by a local homeless person who calls himself le Lapin Vert (the green rabbit). He has a gigantic white beard seriously thick like an elementary art project with cotton balls glued on one after another, gruesome feet and sparkly blue-grey eyes, and he knows SO MUCH about the history here! Even though I had a hard time understanding what he said sometimes, I really enjoyed the chance to see everything from a new perspective. Did you know that Coco Chanel worked in a store here? AND... Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) stayed at one of the buildings for two weeks. There are all of these crazy hidden things high up that I never noticed because I don't walk with my eyes toward the heavens. Gargoyles, and deformed humans, and centaurs. It's so crazy.

After the tour, I went over to Emélie's house for dinner with a few other teachers. She lives in a real apartment, with nice decorations and photographs everywhere from her trip to Africa this past summer. We had raclette which is a DELICIOUS cheese that you melt in a crazy contraption, then pour over boiled potatoes, various meats (yeah, I'm no longer vegetarian -- haha it lasted a good two or three weeks though!) and tomatoes. There was an apératif with avocado, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers in delightful square ramekins, and for dessert, we had chocolat fondu with apples, pears, bananas, oranges, and brioche. Soooo good.

Sunday, Angélique and I went to visit this crazy previously-deserted mine town-turned-Buddhist-village-for-expatriots from Indochina called Noyant. It was SO cool! We felt like we were in Thailand or something, walking around the garden with all of the statues. It was so tranquil with the soft clinking of the wind chimes, and the contented smiles of the Buddhas everywhere. It kind of made me want to be Buddhist. And to live there, with a view of the giant golden, meditating Buddha from my window. What I know FOR SURE is that the next time I am craving Asian food, I'm going back there.

Tonight I survived my gym class and I think I fared much better than last week. Tomorrow is my long day at school, but I have prepared a bunch of stuff about Thanksgiving so I think it will be fun! :) I'm debating whether or not hand-turkeys are going to happen. I love that you can see one on the wall of Bella's room in the first Twilight movie... I want to use that as justification for having my students make them. The film is cultural PROOF; the hand turkey is an American Icon.

Vas-y, vas-y, vas-y, vas-y, vas-y, vas-y, cours, cours!

Something has happened to me that I didn't think would ever really happen.

I have a real life in France. I come home to my home. Even though it's a school, with a gate & potentially rules concerning visitors (no one knows really...) and the walls are green and flimsy, the blankets ugly burnt sienna color, the paint peels, and the sounds of lectures & shrill bells echo throughout, it's my home.

I have a routine. I have co-workers who invite me to dinner and to see movies and look at crazy who outdoor art exhibitions, remark that the escargot is my favorite and later invent ways that I could get it back to the USA. I have FRIENDS who speak French and have no claims to the land of liberty aside from moi. I take a dance class and learn salsa, and swing, and laugh at jokes in beautiful language of people draped in black and scarves and heels who smell like cologne and invite me to Christmas dinner at their house even though we've just met ("Don't you want to experience a French Christmas??) I go to open mic concerts and hear "Revolution" translated and LAUGH when people try to sing it without having a clue what they're saying. I laugh at striped sweaters and green eyes. I am the puzzle piece in place.

Contente comme un poisson dans l'eau

Salut, chers amis!

In the past two weeks, I have been busy. I'm sure that sounds crazy seeing that in America we believe it is normal (and healthy) to work 40 + hours a week, somehow miraculously fitting in other things around our work schedules... but here, I am happy to tell you, I am able to fit work around my life.

I spent a good four days in bed after visiting the French doctor. During this time, I did a lot of sleeping and watching season 5 of Grey's Anatomy. My first venture out of doors was a trip to the second-hand shop in a neighboring town, where I obtained the necessary goods to complete my costume for a German Carnivale party: a blue Satin bedspread, and a trophy that was awarded to Gérard Deriot, the président du conseil général de l'Allier, evidently a long time ago.

That night I went to a French bowling alley for the first time ever! And I did pretty good the first game... but a little less so the second time around. I was far too distracted by the kids in the lane next to me, and the fact that French people pronounce English words in such a hilarious manner. It really is hard to be serious every time someone yells, "Str-ayyyee-kuh!" and "Sp-ahhhh-rrrrre!"

Sunday, I went with a few other assistants to the Costume Museum in town to see an exhibit of an apparently famous Russian dancer that I had never heard of, Rudolf Noureev. The costumes were totally fantastic, and I met a doscent who was born in Le Puy and became instant friends! She said, "Le Puy is so much prettier isn't it?!" and was totally excited that I agreed.

Monday was my great chili adventure. After spending a few hours of researching recipes, I went through the aisles at the grocery store grabbing basically anything that looked good and went to Caroline's to use her giant chili pot. I didn't realize that her roommate had also planned on making chili "pour les hommes" that same night, so we had a kind of chili cook-off of sorts... except that his was meant to kill people, and mine was meant to nourish them. He added a bunch of spices to my mix of tomatoes, corn, red and white beans, tofu, tomatoes, eggplant, onions, garlic, chili powder, rice, and BEER; I admit I was nervous at first, but it ended up being totally delicious and exactly what I wanted. His, however, had handful after handful of pimento and I don't know what else, "to put hair on your chest" or end your life -- whatever came first.

Tuesday was the Carnivale party to end all Carnivale parties! Everyone came dressed up in totally creative, inexpensive get-ups and I, inspired by a headband or burst of random nationalism, showed up as Lady Liberty (more fantastically, La liberté éclairant le monde or Liberty Enlightening the World) one of Gustav Eiffel's greatest creations, a symbol of friendship between France & America (kind of like me... right?) There was a pirate, a flapper girl, Cruella deVille, a jack-o-lantern, a cowboy, a checkerboard (ish) person, a baby, a Mom, a Scottsman, a doctor, a soccer player, a Goth girl, a skeleton (??), an 80's girl, a man, and an Eiffel Tower! That was by far the BEST costume -- a creation of brilliance -- made of four plywood rods, a bunch of cardboard, a funnel, and an immense quantity of aluminum foil. Apparently, it was like a Dutch oven... so after an hour or two, the Eiffel Tower decided to dress up like a French man haha!

Thursday night I went to what I thought was a salsa class, but was actually a ballroom dance class! It was FANTASTIC!! I went with two other teachers from my school, and a friend of theirs who teaches at an elementary school here. The number of women (7) completely outnumbered the men (2) but we had a total blast! We did salsa, "rock" (swing), and a ridiculously pathetic attempt at paso doble, which I did not understand AT ALL but looked fantastic when this one couple did it. We laughed a lot... and the next day at school, Angelique and Emelie did a little demonstration in the teacher's lounge which was basically... amazing! :)

Yesterday night we had a huge meal at one of our friends' apartments. One guy made boeuf bourgignon (the first meat I've had in two weeks -- it was totally delicious) and I made my host family's famous potatoes! It was SO GOOD and so nice to all be together!

Tonight we're having a dinner as a going-away party for one of the girls who was here working for just a few months. I made one of the chocolate cakes earlier today but I need to go finish it right now so I don't make everyone wait for me later. Haha making a cake in a toaster oven thing is interesting.

But chocolate is chocolate! :)

And je suis contente comme un poisson dans l'eau!

"Malade comme un chien."

I am finding that there are certain patterns that repeat in my life, despite my attempts at preventing this from happening.

One of these is the cycle of illness.

Here I am, JUST like last year, sick right after my first vacation.

And this time, I didn't drink and I was in bed by 10 pm every night! So is it allergies? Or the moment of repos, after the stress and excitement wears off and winds down, the minute I sleep in a little, and spend a few hours in bed, devouring the English linguistic art that traversed the Atlantic Ocean with a happy candy corn greeting card, that tells my body, "Ok go ahead! Immune system retreat."

If I want to be logical, I could also consider this as an inevitable occurrence, and more as an obvious effect of numerous conspicuous causes: I slept in hostels, sharing air with numerous strangers, rode on trains and other public transport, touched hand rails, and lived with a family of coughing, sneezing farmers for a week.

But sometimes I like tossing around the idea of the inevitable, the inexplicable, and maybe the cyclical because I feel a little less responsible. I don't know if that is so unusual.

The good news is I'm going to the doctor today, who has an office that I can theoretically see from my bedroom window. From there, I'm going to the pharmacy, and then directly back to bed.

And the BEST PART IS... I will pay absolutely nothing because I decided to take the "mutuelle," which covers me 100 lovely percent, and which I do not start paying until January. Haha so I still haven't figured that part out yet... you take out insurance to bet against yourself, and then when you win (in a way) you are happy to be able to profit from an otherwise unhappy circumstance.

In other news, there is a costume party in less than one week which I WILL be attending, fully decked-out in a fantastic déguisement, which I will not reveal until I have assembled (and constructed) the necessary elements and success is imminent. This totally makes up for two years of missed American Halloweens, because it will be my first German Carnivale.

Vacation in Var

Me and a little goat


Donkeys

Horses.

Boots.

Generally when asked about vacation, people talk about sunny beaches or glistening ski slopes, visiting monuments or big dinners with friends.

My vacation included sun and slopes, and dinner, but also involved hard work, rubber boots, rotting food, lots of dishes, vegetarians, LOTS of blisters and a few miracles.

Highway to Hell
I went to work on a farm in the south of France, about two tortured hours by bus from Nice. Remember my Highway 1 car sickness? Increase the speed by 20 mph (how ever many kilometres) and change the van into a bus, and there you have my horrible experience. It was a miralce I survived it without throwing up.

Soup's On & The Circus Task

My first task upon arriving to the farm in Sophia's freezing car with the vandalized broken window was feeding the animals. Hay for the horses, ponies, cow, mule, goats and donkeys; lettuce and hard bread for the rabbits; soaked stale bread and salad for the chickens, pigeons, geese, ducks, turkeys, and hens; and rotten, stale, edible anything for the disgusting pigs. They have a storehouse in a crumbling chappelle which is stacked with rotting vegetables and fruits that we load up into wheelbarrows for the pigs. The stale bread is loaded into a giant circus-like sac, and then (theoretically) dumped into the food trough for the pigs.

However, like a dramatic episode of "Legends of the Hidden Temple," the task gets much more complicated by the fact that the pigs live on the bottom of a dramatically-sloping hill (and the food is at the top) AND the two smallest pigs run at you like maniacs as you try to deliver the food to the trough, while the dogs chase after the pigs, making them crazy and totally unpredictable. The noise, the movement, and the necessary coordination create a whirlwhind of stress! Thus, I learned quickly that either you a) repeatedly WHACK the pig to get him out of the barrow, which made me laugh too hard to be possible, or... b) you run. FAST.

So I donned my rubber boots with the pretty colored polka dots, gripped onto the handles of my teetering wheelbarrow and sprinted down the hill, wheel barrow bouncing & pigs squealing, until I reached the bottom of the hill. I skidded to a stop and started grabbing for spoiled peppers, and rotting tomatoes, mold and liquid rot coating my hands and forearms, frantically throwing food into the trough. I threw the rotten feast in all directions, attempting to distract the pigs from my stock pile, leaving me alone with the task of manhandling the bread.

Oh yes, the bread. Baguettes and rotting ciabatta, rolls, and fancy knotted bread, football-sized loaves, and sliced bread -- it was a stale bakery delight. And if you consider the weight of a respectable dinner roll, then multiply it by 200, you might have a sense of the weight of this circusy grainy problem. I had the task of lifting the bag (taller than me, and made of canvas) and manoeuvering it so that the bread would pour out into the trough... like a very flimsy, unreliable chute.

However, my strength was not matched for the bag; when I tried to lift it, bread started flopping out uncontrollably -- everywhere except where I wanted it to go. I started to think it would just be better to flip it over, and kind of fling it about, hoping the most of it would end up at least near the trough. But in the process of trying this new process, a massive, disgusting, mud-covered, jabba-the-hut-like pig grabbed the other end of the circus bag!

So there I was, panicking, YANKING on the bag like a tug-of-war with a grunting, massive, walking porkchop. I think I might have screamed, I don't really know. Speaking French or English, I tried to use words that would discourage a selfish slob like him from fighting the fight, convincing him that I WOULD WIN and he would not have canvas for breakfast. And what do you know? Eventually I got the bag back. Oh, the power of language! :)

The Accidental Vegetarian
There are probably millions of things I have never thought about in my life. One of them, until last Monday, was how much food goes unsold at grocery stores and what happens to it after the expiration date.

I can tell you, now I know. At 6 am, Sophia and I dragged ourselves out of bed and loaded up in the farm van for an hour and a half drive to the nearest supermarket in Draguignan. Her fear of driving the van, plus her resentment over being forced to do the task and resulting extreme lack of sense of urgency made the trip MUCH more delightful than the hurried bus ride into town.

We watched the fog float out of the valleys and the sun slink up over the distant mountains, pulling a pink and purple cape with it that draped across the shoulders of the cliffs. In the brisk chill of the morning, I felt the excitement of adventure boiling inside my body, the beautiful feeling of something unexpected awaiting in the near future.

We pulled up to the back entrance of the sleeping supermarket, next to a Red Cross van that was already loading up its stock. We went to work first with a dumpster full of bread and pastries. We loaded up four giant sacs of baguettes and "pig bread", and set aside several shopping bags of pains-au-chocolat, croissants, and other delicious buttery things. The van smelled of a bakery, of indulgence, and breakfast and comfort.

When that was finished, we started loading up the produce. Vegetables and fruits with varying degrees of decomposition were stacked in a precarious tower, and our task was to divide and conquer: separate the still-fresh from the "pig food," group things at least generally together by genre, and stack as much as humanly possibly into the back of the empty van. I was surprised to see bags and bags of packaged salad tossed out, some not even having reached the printed date on the plastic, and fresh bananas, plump grapes and even happy clementines, bursting against their faible peels. There were also the others, the secreting, the decomposing, the squishy, the smelly, the moldy and the moving. But even that was okay... you just throw it really fast from one bin to the other. No problem.

All was well until the red bin of doom was delivered. We opened the top and should not have. There is a story I love about one of my dad's friends who encountered a skunk on the side of the road, intending to find a cheap way of obtaining skunk smell for hunting and instead, instantaneously, instinctively, vomiting. I had a very similar experience with the small mountain of spoiled meat we unveiled with the lifting of the plastic lid.

Various parts of animals, horses, tongues, I don't even know what else; at some point I tried to lose consciousness of what I was smelling, seeing, and -- ugh -- touching. And at some point I quit helping.

When we slammed the back doors shut, the van filled to the brim, there smell of breakfast was gone, and the smell of decay was profound.

In protest of the task, Sophia suggested we delay our return by going for a "petite" tea; I would have done ANYTHING to stay out of that van for even just a minute longer.

Needless to say, even the sight of meat -- cooked, or not-- afterward, immediately took me back to that horrible parking lot and unmistakable smell, and I have not touched a morsel of it since. In that moment, I think I became a vegetarian.

Blisters of all shapes & sizes
This farm is called a "pedagological farm," which basically means that it is not a "producing" farm but rather a place where people can come and learn (I think you could call it a "petting zoo" maybe). Kids can come for camps and ride ponies and horses, go on hikes, learn about gardening, and sleep in tee-pees under the stars. Families come visit the farm, help out with the feeding, and put their miniscule children on the backs of stubby ponies to walk the trail that leads to the nearby chateau. It's a pretty cool idea.

It's also A LOT of work. The animals need to be fed daily (and the horses, twice daily) and then their pastures need to be cleaned. I had the joy of cleaning up the impossible mounds of "crottins" in the donkey/pony/cow pasture and the horse pasture. It is heavy, and my hands are covered in blisters. But I actually didn't mind it so much because a) my feet were well-protected in cheerful rubber boots, and b) the animals (or other workers) never failed to make me LAUGH!

One day I was in the donkey pasture, and the oldest boy in the family came in search of two donkeys, Manolo and his girlfriend whose name I can't remember. I was watching this 13-year-old boy struggle with the reins, yelling, "ça suffit! ALLEZ!" and all of a sudden, this giant, furry, snuggly thing was nuzzling my waist. I turned around and it was Cachou, the other donkey. He proceeded to stick by me the whole time I was in there, raking and shoveling enormous quantities of excrement into the "remourke" to be pulled by the 4x4 into the mountain of composting crap.

It was one thing to load up the stuff, but it was a bit annoying that we then had to go over to the compost pile and UNLOAD the remourke, just so we could RE-LOAD it, and unload it again. Even this turned out to be not so bad, because watching Sophia battle the quad and try to line it up just right made it pretty funny anyway. She is ridiculously patient, but I think this is her Achille's Heel. I played cheer leader for a bit, because suddenly it was not about more work to do, but about seeing someone else overcome a challenge.

And then she succeeded. And I did more work.

Attaquer la blette!
One morning, Rosie & I went in search of la blette, from the garden. Supposedly this exists in America, but I had never heard of it before... it's an enormous, green leafy plant that is pretty delicious when cooked. We had instructions to pick five plants and then make a "gratin" and I jumped on the chance to help out.

My first surprise came at the size of the blette. It was probably two feet tall! My second surprise was the weight and resistance of it. Our task was to dig up the plants from the roots, and carry the entire things back to the back porch for cleaning. Using a shovel, we freed the tiny trees from the Blette Forest and eventually yanked out all five, like stubborn teeth in a giant, dirty mouth. My third and worst surprise came in the form of spindly spider legs crawling out from the Blette leaves and onto my blistered hand. Being the well-adjusted, nature lover that I am, I, of course, screamed and dropped the plants.

Rosie & I spent a few hours separating leaves from stalks, and then slicing and dicing them into enormous mounds that would eventually become dinner.

I later assisted in the cooking of a béchamel sauce (simultaneously learning how to make a good roux!!) and reducing the blette, then creating a delicious gratin with melted emmental and parmesean cheese on top. Dé-lic-ieux! Julia Child would, and should, be proud. (And Julie Powell.)

Me VS. Cachou
In a moment of kindness, the Farm Mother offered for me to take one of the donkeys with me on a hike. I thought that was totally amazing, and took her up on it right away, completely excited about the thought of hanging out with Eeyore all afternoon.

However, there was a complication in the plan, in the form of a remourke full of hay just outside the pasture. When I opened the gate to get Cachou, he came right up to me! Haha how foolish of me to think he wanted to see me. But he won my heart, that little ass, and I happily led him out of the electric fence. He stopped for a minute to eat some hay while I reconnected the wire, which I thought he deserved. It was way easier to get him than it was for the boy to get Manolo and his girlfriend, so why not let him have a little treat?

The problem was that one little treat wasn't good enough for this little monster. Rosie pulled with all her might to get him to start walking up the trail, and he resisted with every kilo of his stubborn donkey self. We talked to him and I asked him nicely to come on a little walk with me, and gave some very convincing arguments for why he should accompany me on an afternoon stroll, which eventually seemed to work; after a few minutes, we finally got him to leave the remourke.

Just as he was starting to walk back towards the sellerie to get ready, Rosie noticed that the bridle wasn't tight enough and stopped to try and make it fit better. Taking advantage of the split instant that she let go and handed me the lead, Cachou sprinted off back towards the hay, effortlessly DRAGGING me behind him! It was as if I wasn't even pulling at all, despite the fact that I felt like a cartoon character, my heels digging inches deep into the soft dirt.

Seeing as how my strength pathetically didn't even come close to his, I decided that it wasn't worth it to continue. Surely, my afternoon would end in (more) rope burn and useless frustration. So, instead, I left him and went on a hike by myself. Ass: 1. Me: 0.

Afternoon ascent
It was my second day there when Rosie told me about an awesome and very steep trail that we could take up the side of the mountain to a plateau with an incredible view of the Alps. This became a daily routine, and probably one of my favorite parts of the day.

The trail took about 50 minutes the first time we went up, including numerous breaks which were necessary as a result of a combination of mountaing climbing and not being used to the high altitude... or not being used to hiking after eating enormous lunches. Every few minutes we would stop and look at the landscape, see the farm get smaller and smaller, and marvel at the incredible contrast of the autumn colors. Then we would return to the trail and swear to never do it again, huffing and puffing and -- worst of all -- sweating.

At the top, after traipsing through a bit of forest, there is a place where the land levels out. As I walked out into the open field the first time, just beyond where the trees overlap and form a sort of veil of leaves, I literally COULD NOT keep myself from gasping at the sight. It was absolutely breath-taking!

And it was silent. I liked to go up there and lay down in the grass, letting the sweat evaporate and make me cold again, just listening to the birds and breathing, feeling so happy and so lucky and SO alive.

Les gens
One of the best things about my week on the farm was meeting my fellow WWoofers, Rosie from Colorado (originally from North Carolina!) and Pascale and Stefan, the couple from Belgium. They were all so fascinating and full of life, and FUNNY! Ruthie has one of those laughs that just echoes throughout the house, and makes you feel a real sense of happiness. And she taught me how to cook a bit, which I loved loved loved!

Pascale and Stefan are searching for a new home in France. They are interested in living in close contact with the Earth, and are using Wwoofing as a means of discovering new regions of France and learning what they do, and do not, want in their lives. Pascale gave me a Mom hug right before we left, and it made me seriously almost cry it was so nice. Stefan always made me laugh at his impatience with our French and his sassy, sarcastic mouth. He would often repeat things totally unnecessarily (and hilariously), and he is so obviously IN LOVE with Pascale (who doesn't love her, though, really?) that it was fun to see him around her. You could almost see little hearts floating around. :) Adorable!

Sophia has been working on the farm for 3 years, having spent the last 20 years working with horses & ponies. She was interesting to talk to, and it was kind of reassuring seemingly no one knows what they want – at age 24, at age 28, or at age 40. Haha “bienvenue au club” she said. :)

Bienvenue, indeed.