Up, Up and Away

We couldn’t have had a better send-off.  Really.  It was worth the limited amount of sleep before our 6:00 am next-day departure; worth the hour-long ride each way in the back seat on tiny, twisty roads; worth the mosquito bites; worth ignoring the backdrop of family drama, which I will spare you from sharing; worth using up my camera battery and space on my card for the videos; worth long conversations with the great-grandmas in their 90s whose long-departed logic I often have trouble deciphering, especially in a second language.

In French, a hot-air balloon is called une montgolfière, named after the brothers Montgolfier who designed the first one in 1782. The concept is simple, really; hot air rises, so if you heat air inside a container, called the envelope, it will rise.  No special gas is needed, just air, a fan, a basket, a burner, a balloon, and some strong cables and ropes.  The envelope—the balloon part—is made of a delicate nylon material, sewn in sections with double seams like those in your favorite pair of Levis.  The balloon is extended on the ground, attached firmly to the basket, which is lying on its side.  A gasoline-powered fan fills the envelope until it’s partially aloft, then the burner is turned on intermittently until the air inside becomes hot.  The balloon eventually rises vertically, pulling the basket upright with it.  It’s then ready for passengers.  The pilot applies the burner gradually until the balloon rises off the ground.  The balloon is then subject to the winds of chance, and the pilot is followed by a co-pilot on the ground, who chases after it like a storm-chaser.  The trick, of course, is knowing when to allow the air in the envelope to cool so the balloon descends softly in a wide-open area free of trees and sharp things on the ground.  Hot-air balloon pilots know to avoid things like recently harvested colza fields, for example; the plant which is the source of canola oil has sharp stalks which could easily pierce the delicate nylon.

My husband’s first cousin, Audrey, and her husband Sébastien built their own hot-air balloon, piecing it together in their small apartment in Toulouse.  Somehow they found the time between Audrey’s job as a civil engineer and Sébastien’s aeronautical engineering work for Airbus, and raising two small daughters, to sew the envelope by hand.  They bought the basket from Monsieur de Montgolfier, a direct descendant of the original inventors!  Last week they took a well-deserved vacation by renting a gite—a small vacation rental home—in the Perche.  They invited my in-laws and Gaël and me, Audrey’s two grandmothers, and Gaël’s cousin Aurélie to come for a cookout dinner and a demonstration of how they put the balloon in the air.  We helped to attach ropes and hooks, and even though we were well-prepared by Sébastien, we all jumped with the noise and blast of the burner.  Although it was too complicated to actually give us a ride, we got to see the whole process of how it goes up, and the kids went in the basket for a tiny lift-off at the end.  We were lucky to have no wind and fairly cool evening temperatures, allowing a flawless show.  Bravo to Audrey and Sébastien; their energy and passion for this sport was fabulous to watch.

Dinner outside

Step one:  remove basket from the trailer

While the great-grandmothers and Ginette look on

Everybody gets involved

Even the two 10-year-olds

Slowly the envelope fills

And it's up!

And then....you have to put it all back together again

I couldn’t have imagined a better way to end my seven weeks in Europe.

Random Things Part 2

It has been the worst weather I’ve ever experienced in France.  And I’ve experienced biting wind that pierces your toughest winter jacket, snow up above my boot-tops (in the Alps), suffocating fog lasting for days on end, and grey dreariness that clouds your soul.  But I have never experienced this all-encompassing heat that sucks every bit of energy from you within minutes of feeling its nasty breath.  In central Illinois we complain about the humidity, but here the laundry dries on the line in an hour, even jeans; but the air still manages to feel heavy and oppressive, and storm clouds threaten on the horizon.  I would live in the basement if I could, the only place that’s marginally cool in the house.  There’s no air-conditioning.  André and Ginette don’t even own a fan; Ginette said she didn’t want to waste money on one, since they’re only useful for a few days a year.  We open and close windows, doors, and shutters, avoiding the light, trying to find a whiff of breeze.  It’s been like this for almost two weeks.

My mother- and father-in-law are both fairly progressive, modern people.  They have email, a cell phone, a GPS.  But what is always surprising to me is their old-world beliefs and habits.  The drafts, for example; if you get a cold or bronchitis, it’s because you were sitting in a draft.  And god forbid if you should sit in a draft with a wet shirt!  It will most certainly kill you!  Even doctors advise their patients to avoid drafts!  In 2013!  So when we sit at the table in sweltering heat, we can’t open certain windows or doors, because it will create a deadly draft.  So we cook in our own sweat.  And for some reason, it’s not good to sit under a walnut tree, either.  They give off toxins that are terribly bad for you.  (I’ll readily admit, I can’t grow a garden under my black walnut tree, but the only ill effects I’ve noticed by sitting under one is the hazards of squirrels and birds with unpredictable aim.)

Then there are the moon phases.

Everything grown under the ground should be planted in a waxing phase, and above the ground in a waning phase.  Any surgery or intervention should happen in a waning phase, lest you have complications or infections.  A full moon can be responsible for anything from bad weather to insomnia to irritable pet behavior.  In turn, storms are announced by biting flies, stinky dogs, and the arrival of tiny biting insects that I don’t know the name for in English.

Indigestion of any sort is most certainly a sign of a liver affliction.  In fact, many expressions that we have in English about being “sick to your stomach” can be translated into French as being “sick to your liver.”  I guess in a place where there’s an aperitif before lunch, wine with lunch, a beer in the afternoon, an aperitif before dinner, wine with dinner (or often hard cider and wine in this region), then sometimes a digestif of eau de vie, the brandy made with apples or peaches or pears, affairs of the liver should not be taken lightly.

I’m sure there will be more random observations in my last two days in France, plus more about touring the local haunts during Amy and Stefaan's visit last weekend, but I’d better sign off for now; I’m sitting in a draft.

 

Amy's family, cousin Marie-Claire and her husband Joël, and my in-laws sitting at the table; see how we're sweating? 

Random Things, Part 1

Military jets fly over this area of France fairly often.  Also, when we were in the cemetery in Henri-Chapelle, a military jet flew directly over us, at what seemed like a low altitude.  I always find it strange when you hear something, look up, and the thing is already miles ahead of where you looked.  Also, the roses.  There were literally thousands of roses in several different colors at Henri-Chapelle.  And each color of rose smelled completely different.

I hate the flies here.  Ginette has little dishes all over the place of some weird sugar insecticide product which kills them, and is probably extremely dangerous for us, too.  There is nothing more disgusting than a little plate full of dead flies.  Tessy the dachshund catches them and eats them. 

They are relentless, since the houses don’t have screen windows or doors.  There are some particularly aggressive mosquitoes as well, but fewer of them than at home.  There probably would be even fewer of them if André would dump out the bathtub full of stagnant water in the back yard.

My in-laws have never had smoothies.  André bought Ginette a slightly defective blender at the Emmaüs (the French equivalent of Goodwill) for 9 Euros so I think I’ll try to make some for them before I leave.

My friend Nate noticed that what I had always thought to be a brass flower vase on my in-laws’ fireplace is actually a German artillery shell casing from WWI.  André’s uncle, George Jailliard, carved them for family members and gave them to them after the war.  You can see the initials “GJ” carved on the side, “Somme,” and “1916.”

Hépar is mineral water with lots of magnesium and calcium.  Indispensible for travel.  Amy’s mother calls it “poop water.”  Need I say more?

When I close my yahoo email here, the general yahoo page automatically redirects to yahoo.fr.  The articles come up in French with French gossip and politics.  Johnny Depp is often there.  The same happens in Flanders in Dutch with a redirect to yahoo.be.  Same in Spain.  I didn’t try it in Wallonia, but I wonder.  Sometimes the language in Blogger changes, sometimes it stays the same.

Grocery bags are one of my favorite souvenirs.  Not only are they usually made from recycled materials, can be re-used endlessly, have some catchy advertising and nice graphics, but they also pack very easily to come home.  My newest one comes from a grocery store in Leuven.

There are enough fruit trees and vegetables in my in-laws’ back yard to support a family of 10.  Apples, three kinds of plums, pears, quince, two kinds of peaches, currants, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, sweet cherries, tart cherries; potatoes, artichokes, lettuce, mâche, green beans, rhubarb, tomatoes, peas, carrots…..and I’m quite sure I left out a few things.  And yet, not much but berries, cherries, and lettuce is ready this time of year.  The growing season is short and intense; we are still eating canned goods from last year.  Maybe I should have come in September.

Prices go up extremely quickly during the vacation months of July and August: tomatoes were  1.80 a kilo a couple of weeks ago; today they’re at  2.80 a kilo.  Same for gas and diesel.  Same for everything, except clothes, which are on sale.  Strange country.

Standing Still

And, just like that….I feel better.

It’s the little things, really.  I did exactly what I’ve told my students to do for years:  I got more sleep, I made myself busy, I got outside, I took care of my basic needs.  It helps to be staying in one place for more than a few days; I’m not worried about driving directions or filling the tank or packing up all my stuff again.  I can relax a bit.  I can even reflect on my experiences in calm surroundings.

So I started in the afternoon with rearranging my stuff, something that always grounds me.  I threw away some junk I’d accrued along the way and reorganized my space in the bedroom where I stay when I’m here.  I counted my Euros and tried to calculate how much I would spend before leaving.  I cleaned the bathroom and threw some laundry in the machine, and later hung it to dry (there’s no dryer here). 

The next morning Gaël and I washed the car—my trusty companion all these weeks—and I vacuumed her from tip to tail.  The sun was hot, and felt good.  It’s in the 90s, but very low humidity here, so once in the shade you can cool down quickly; it’s indeed a treat compared to the humidity I know I’ll return to. 

See how clean?

I then gave myself a mini-pedicure, took a long shower, responded to some emails.  After lunch Ginette, Gaël and I went shopping in a nearby town, La Ferté-Bernard, for shoes for Gaël; we ended up instead with jeans and a jacket he adores.  (he loves it so much, he’s been wearing it around the house in the 90-degree heat).  Afterwards we visited Mémé Suzon, Patrice’s grandmother, who’s 95 and still going strong despite some health setbacks.  She didn’t answer the door at first because she was out back giving the neighbor’s sheep some water on the hot day.  We chatted with her until the aide came to prepare her dinner and give her medication. 

 On the way back we stopped at a bakery just before closing time and picked up fresh bread and a pain au chocolat  (chocolate croissant) for Gaël and me.  Dinner was back at Marolles on the terrace in the lovely evening breeze, a “simple” meal of pork pâté, fresh cucumbers and red peppers, mashed potatoes and small sausages, green salad, and cherries for dessert.  Don’t worry, the portions are small…

Gaël and his great-grandmother

Today we’ll do some preparation for Amy’s family’s visit; they arrive tomorrow afternoon.  I am so happy I get a chance to see them again before returning to the U.S.  Amy and I never know after these big trips how long it will be until we see each other again—sometimes it’s been a few years between—so we value the time together.  (Thank goodness for Skype!)  We know, however, that no matter how long it’s been, we’ll pick up where we left off last time; such is true friendship.

And then….soon enough will be the mad rush to pack, clean a bit, buy last-minute chocolate, dig out the passport and the dollars, and then bemoan the fact that even seven weeks goes by in a flash….

A Word on Homesickness

OK, so it happens.  Even when you're an experienced traveler.  Even on the trip of a lifetime, even when you’re unbelievably happy to be where you are, even when you’re not hungry, tired, uncomfortable, tired of speaking a second language.  You wake up one day, same as all the other days, with an agenda planned for fun and adventure or relaxing or a mix of the two….and it hits you.  You suddenly want your bed at home, your husband, your own crappy weather, your own language.  Your closet.  Your soap.  Your daily routine.  You feel a bit self-centered for feeling this way, yet you can’t help it.  You can temporarily tuck it away by getting busy or writing a blog post or Skyping your husband or Facebook chatting with your friends, or hugging your son, but it comes back.  You’re lying in someone else’s saggy bed with someone else’s blanket, and that super-annoying mosquito you can hear flying around the room.   You can hear someone else’s dog snoring, hear the ticking of someone else’s clock.  You realize you can’t find stuff because you don’t have a place for it.  You’ve been reaching into the same toiletry case for weeks now, and it’s become second nature, but not normal.  You love being where you are, but you long for the freedom to leave your crap out where it doesn’t belong because you can.  You wish you could control your diet more.  You are weary of being the guest on her best behavior.  You want to spend excessive amounts of time doing something you love without worrying that someone will judge you for it, even though you know they most likely do not judge you at all.

Perhaps it’s due in part to the fact that my driving adventures are over and my time here is winding down.  People are now visiting where I am, rather than the other way ‘round. And in a couple of weeks I’ll be the one hosting my niece, who will be experiencing her first trip to the U.S.

This is not being suitcase-weary (read the previous post on living out of a suitcase for more info), although that does play a role.  And I fear most that folks will read this and think I’m not appreciative or that I’m whining.  I’ve worked in International Education long enough to recognize that culture shock is inevitable and sometimes debilitating, and that it’s not necessarily related to how one feels about his or her host country or living situation.  It just is.  And by accepting it, and by getting busy with family, writing, taking walks and talking with others, I can get through it and move on to enjoy my last two weeks in Europe.

Changing the itinerary

Sometimes you have to not be afraid to totally change your plans.  When I originally planned my trip this spring, I had the crazy idea that I wanted to spend Bastille Day 2013 in Paris.  My friends Liz and Nate would be there (Liz, who’s a professor at Old Dominion University, has a grant to do research at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris for the summer, and her husband came to join her after finishing teaching his summer class), and it would be a stop on our trip back from Belgium.

Soon after I arrived in France, I received an email from Liz, apologizing profusely, and explaining that her short-term apartment in Paris had been advertised as much larger than it was, and there was no room for guests.  Drat.  I asked my in-laws if I could invite Liz and Nate to their house here in Marolles, and of course they agreed.  However, the two round-trip train tickets would be a ridiculous amount for a short weekend in the country.  We finally compromised:  I would drive through Paris on my way back from Belgium and pick Liz and Nate up, and that way they would only have to pay for a return ticket to Paris.

And, actually, if I were honest with myself, there’s a reason I wasn’t terribly unhappy missing Bastille Day in Paris:  crowds.  I love Paris to death.  But I actually prefer Paris the way I know it best:  bundled up against the thin layer of drizzle that pervades in the winter, or hopping from foot to foot to keep warm in the metro, stepping into warm bakeries or cafés for a treat or a strong coffee, enjoying relatively short lines for museums and tourist attractions.  I’m not sure I would recognize Paris under the blanket of elbow-to-elbow sweaty tourists and hot sun, its dank alleyways and metro stations stinking of piss and dog poop.  My suspicion was confirmed when I drove amidst thousands of tourists from the Netherlands into Friday-before-a-holiday Paris traffic.  Normally a five-and-a-half-hour drive, the trip from Brussels was extended by three and a half hours by picking up Liz and Nate at Porte d’Ivry metro stop.  I had been gridlocked trying to get onto the periphérique, missed my turn, and had to backtrack down some of Paris’s more colorful streets and avenues.  (This time my small navigator was working with a fully charged phone, a marked difference from the last time).  In perfect Parisien fashion, I parked right in the middle of the street, turned on my hazard lights, hopped out to greet them, threw their bags into my trunk, and off we went to more peaceful landscapes.  Once out of Paris, I was not anxious to return, and was grateful that I could drop my friends off at the train station in Le Mans on Monday.

And what do you do when you escape the city?  A lot of slow-paced cooking, sauntering around the garden, wine-drinking and even some napping.  On Friday we scrounged for food, as the in-laws were still in Alsace on their own vacation.  On Saturday, we did a proper grocery run, as we knew we would need everything for Sunday too; shops, stores, gas stations, everything would be closed for Bastille Day.  We made desserts from the garden’s bounty—raspberry charlotte and cherry clafoutis—enjoyed local rillettes (their first time tasting the local pork specialty), picked lettuce, and made a beef roast and a lasagna on Sunday night.  We weren’t making food the entire time, though.  Sunday morning we toured the countryside, stopping at some of my husband’s favorite local haunts; we took a drive past the castle of Monhoudou, saw the lavoir (ancient public laundry facilities) in Mamers, saw the artists’ village in La Perrière, saw a 15^th century tower on a manor house, touched a 347-year-old oak, drove through the magical forest of Bellême and the town named the same, gazed into the murky and mineral-laden waters of l’Etang de la Herse and its Fontaine Romaine (roman fountain),

A very patriotic Gaël, L'Etang de la Herse

The water is supposed to have therapeutic qualities

passed the farm where Patrice grew up and the church where we were married and the old mill and former bakery in Marcilly, then passed another chateau (Pouvrai) on our way back.  On Monday we stopped in Le Vieux Mans (the walled medieval part of Le Mans) and visited the cathedral before Nate and Liz hopped on the train back to Paris. 

The ramparts of Le Vieux Mans

Nate and Liz admiring a façade

Some people living in Le Vieux Mans have a strange sense of humor; click to enlarge if you can't see what I'm talking about

The stones on the sides of the street were to stop the carriage wheels

I realized Monday morning that we’d missed having the kind of hoopla celebration that Americans generally do for holidays for the French Independence Day, but that I didn’t really miss it at all.  I noted that I’d heard something that was probably fireworks on Saturday night, but was more annoyed at the noise than anything.  Perhaps a quiet weekend around the table was the best way to celebrate France after all.

The Land of Chocolate, Beer, Mussels, Fries and Waffles

It was inevitable.

After clocking so many kilometers in so many foreign countries, it was becoming statistically impossible for me to not get completely, utterly lost at some point.  And this sort of thing always happens when you let your guard down, when you feel you’re on semi-familiar turf.  Overconfidence is deadly.

I of course have a knack for picking the worst possible date to do things.  The date I chose to take off for Belgium happened to coincide with the Saturday after the last day of school in France.  The traffic was rated “red.”  Gaël and I discussed the pros and cons of taking the more direct route to Belgium through Paris, or circumventing Paris and her famous “bouchons” –plug-like traffic jams—and adding some extra time to our trip.  I left the decision up to him, and he wisely chose to go the roundabout route, through Rouen.  We seemed to be headed the right direction, no cars on our side, and facing backups of many miles on the side headed towards the beaches.  Traffic picked up a bit as we entered Belgium, headed towards Brussels; I became mildly frustrated at the Belgian tendency to let trees and branches grow profusely over roadside signs, but felt pretty comfortable that I knew which direction to take to get to Leuven/Kessel-Lo.

I had left Gertrude the GPS with my in-laws, who were taking their own camping trip in Alsace this week, and was relying on Google maps and directions, and my phone’s GPS.  Just a word of advice to you all, repeat this to yourself as often as is needed:

Your smart phone will only be as helpful as its battery life.

As we navigated from Ring to E40 to E314 to N2 to Nsomethingelse, Gaël started announcing the quickly depleting battery percentage.  I wasn’t worried.  After all, I’d visited my friend Amy in Leuven several times, had done a little 4K race in the center, had done the walk from the train station.  No sweat.  But then I found myself in construction, and sensed that I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere.  As I tried to find a place to turn around among bicycle paths with their own traffic lights and weird parking places, Gaël announced that the phone was dead.  I looked around and realized that nothing looked familiar.  Oh well, I thought, I could just drive into Leuven and things would start looking familiar, and I’d find the train station, and we’d just slide our way into Kessel-Lo and find the right street.

Not so.

To make a long, sweaty, frustrating, cussword-filled (Gaël learned some new ones, and I’m pretty sure I owe him about $85 for the infractions) story short, we wandered the streets of Leuven for what seemed like forever, often going down one-ways (I wasn’t always sure I was going the right direction), and getting honked at for most likely breaking 22 driving laws at once.  We stopped to ask directions four times; first, from an older gentleman who didn’t really speak English, second from a group of four very nicely-dressed folks on their way to a celebration of some sort, third from a very nice lady, and fourth from a very helpful, handsome young man in a gas station.  Now, Kessel-Lo is the Savoy to Leuven’s Champaign-Urbana, but when I asked all these people for directions, they mostly shook their heads in despair and said, “but this is Leuven, not Kessel-Lo.”  Well, duh, I wanted to answer, but it’s not like 20 miles away, right?  I mean, it’s just the next bit past the train tracks, right?  You would think we were trying to go to….Wallonia, for god’s sakes!?!

The young man at the gas station finally got us back to the part of the Google map instructions that didn’t have construction interruptions, and thankfully my son recognized the house—I was so flustered I drove right past.  When I finally turned in to the driveway, my friend Amy burst from the house, obviously worried that the worst had happened.  She cheered us up immediately with her warm welcome, her happy family, and some cold beverages.  We’d made really good time on our trip to Belgium, except for the hour and a half we’d spent wandering around Leuven.  At one point, after I’d approached and asked the third person for directions, the bashful Gaël proclaimed, “Mom, I could never do what you do, go up to strangers like that!”

To which I responded, “yes, but what choice did we have?  We had no phone to reach Amy, didn’t even have her telephone number on a piece of paper so that someone else could call her for us.  I don’t like approaching strangers either, but it was desperation!”

The stay so far in Kessel-Lo has by far made up for its rocky beginnings.  Saturday evening we relaxed and recovered from our adventure.  On Sunday Amy’s good friend Aisling took the train from Brussels to come for lunch.  Aisling is Irish, but has lived for many years in Brussels; we have spent more than one holiday here with Aisling and her family, so I was really looking forward to her visit.  We ate lunch on the lovely patio and then retreated to the indoors when the sun got too hot; we spent most of the afternoon watching the Wimbledon men’s final, making the teenage boys uncomfortable with our “middle-age women’s” jokes, and eating loads of delicious desserts.  I haven’t giggled so much in a long time.  Aisling stayed until 9 when she rushed off to catch her train back to Brussels.

Amy, Stefaan, and Aisling in Amy and Stefaan's garden

Monday we prepared a picnic lunch to take to Zoet Water (“Sweet Water”), a park where you can fill up your bottles at the source, a high-iron-content spring.  After filling up, we continued along the woods path past a church, then to the Speelbos (“Play Woods”), a collection of stations with games and activities for climbing, etc.  The hike in the woods was perfect for a hot, sunny day, and Amy and I got in a lot of chat time while the three boys (two of hers and one of mine) worked off some of their boy-energy.

Tuesday Amy’s husband Stefaan had the day off of work, and he drove the five of us (one of the boys had a pool party) to the American cemetery Henri-Chapelle, close to Liège.  I’ve wanted to visit the cemetery there for many years, as my uncle Delno is buried there.  My mother’s older brother died at the age of 26 in WWII while working as a radio technical specialist; he was in Aachen, Germany two days after the front had moved in, and his compound was destroyed by accident by a British plane who dumped its payload too early.  My mother and my aunt visited his grave in 1958 on their round-the-world tour coming home from Japan, the same year the World’s Fair was in Brussels.

It’s always sobering to visit these enormous American cemeteries in Europe.  As Stefaan said, “as you stand there, instead of grave markers, picture lines of 18-year-old boys, barely men, standing there.”  And realize they gave their lives for freedom.  We forget too quickly.  Fortunately, it was a moving experience for Gaël to visit the grave of his great-uncle; when leaving, he exclaimed, “I’ll never forget those people and what they did.”  Let’s hope he doesn’t.

Next we went to the Dreilandenpunt, the “Three countries point” where Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany meet.  We had lunch in the Netherlands, walked a fairly complicated labyrinth in Belgium, and walked a small path in the woods in Germany. 

Driving back we went through some pretty areas in the Ardennes region of Belgium, and some towns and areas on the dividing line between Wallonia and Flanders.  

It is indeed a wonderful place that would have a gelato farm....we wished we'd had time to find out if it was free-range gelato, and how it was cultivated....

The Ardennes--view from Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery

Stefaan explained some of the fierce political strife in these seemingly sleepy little towns, all over linguistic differences, which ultimately translate into economic and political power struggles.  Aisling had reasoned on Sunday that the Belgians could most likely solve most of their struggles in one generation by introducing bilingual education in Flemish and French in all Belgian schools; once every person started speaking both languages fluently, there would be no room for such divisiveness.  Unfortunately, such initiatives at present can only be a dream….

Signs of protest--a Flemish village proclaiming itself to be Walloon, or French-speaking

Today we are planning a relaxing day, a nice lunch, some laundry, and bowling this afternoon.  Although mussels are currently not in season, we will try to find a restaurant for dinner serving the classic moules-frites that Gaël has been begging for.  Belgium may not be the culinary center of the universe, but it certainly has so many of my favorites:  chocolate, beer, mussels, fries with mayonnaise, and waffles.  And we only have a couple more days to fit them all in…..

Locmariaquer/Lokmaria Kaer

Thursday, June 27:  I’m sitting in a cute little row-house in Locmariaquer, Brittany with a terrace out back and a view of the sea from the second floor bedroom.  We’ve just returned from a walk around the bay to “Annie’s Island”; it’s rather more of a peninsula, but my sister-in-law has claimed the clump of trees as her own private spot.  And a lovely spot it is.  A lovely walk as well, not too hot, not too cold. We were gone for three hours without even realizing it. 

The French are funny in so many ways.  Last night I went for a short walk right before bed, and the neighborhood of mostly vacation homes was completely silent, shut up tight as a bank at 5pm on a Friday.  Shutters closed, no one on the streets.  No lights, no cars, no late-night dog walkers.  Nothing but the distant sound of waves, a wind through the spruce trees, and the gravel under my feet.  They are so very predictable, there’s no wonder why there’s so much crime here, mostly petty theft.  Always up at 8 or 9, always eating lunch at 1, always watching TV and eating dinner at 8, always shut up tight at 10.  Even the thieves are predictable, usually ransacking houses from 2-3 am.  I guess life must be so much more comfortable if you always know what’s going to happen.  You’ll always take your vacation in August, just like the rest of the country.  You’ll always go skiing for two weeks in February, just like the rest of the country.  When you go on vacation, you’ll rent a little house or apartment, fill your vehicle up with everything you need to cook every meal, shower, go to the beach, take walks, etc., and haul it all to your rental house.  You’ll argue with your family while you unload it all after 7 grueling hours fighting with everyone on the motorway who’s doing exactly the same thing.  You’ll unload all your stuff, then your kids will complain that there’s no internet, or that you didn’t bring their favorite snack.  You assure them you will buy it tomorrow when you spend the first half of your first vacation day in the Super U/Intermarché/Leclerc/Carrefour buying all the food you will need for the week, plus all the things you forgot to bring to your rental house, like toilet paper, dish soap, towels and a grill.  Then, a few days later, you’ll pack it all up again, clean the rental house better than you do your own, and drive the hours back to your domicile.  It’s more than a bit nuts.

*********

Tuesday, July 2:  I started this post after our first full day in Brittany.  Please don’t misunderstand:  this is not to say that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy our stay in Locmariaquer, Brittany, or that I think all French are crazy for their vacation habits.  While much of France’s tourism is steeped in history lessons, battlefields, castles and museums, this corner of Brittany is fresh and green, focused more on nature than history.  Oh, there are still manor houses and chateaux, but the focus is towards the sea, and the history is even more ancient, that of the Neolithic period when the menhirs were erected for purposes not altogether known.  

Neolithic Menhirs at Carnac

The area is friendly; most of the towns were rather sleepy, as the high season of July and August is only getting started.  Thankfully, the sites of interest weren’t crowded, and we were able to enjoy ourselves at a more relaxed pace than usual.  Despite the quirks of the French, I still think they have preserved some of the best treasures—gastronomic, natural, architectural, etc.—in the world.

We arrived Wednesday evening late, and wolfed down a quick supper before going to bed.  I couldn’t see the ocean from the back door, but I could smell the fishy, salty breeze.  Thursday morning we took a trip to supermarket for provisions, and then took the long walk to Annie’s Island.  On Friday we walked to the village of Locmariaquer—a 15-minute stroll—then ventured out that afternoon to explore the neighboring villages of Trinité sur Mer, Carnac (with the megaliths), and Crac’h  (with the factory outlet of La Trinitaine, the producer of the famous Breton cookies and cakes).  We also bought some ready-made crêpes, which were actually surprisingly good.

On Saturday we lazed about in the morning, then took an afternoon boat trip around the Golfe du Morbihan (the Gulf of Morbihan) to see the various islands.  Not really that much to see, but the birds, the wind, and the sun were totally worth the price of the ticket.  

Locmariaquer port at low tide

That evening quite late, Pascal and Annie (my brother- and sister-in-law) arrived to spend Sunday with us.

Sunday morning we went rather early to the extremely crowded Marché de Dimanche at Carnac.  Lucie and Gaël, hating shopping and markets and crowds, opted instead for taking the dog for a walk, then a bike ride around the area.  The market was lively, selling clothes, shoes, music, vegetables, meat, cheese, seafood, fish, puppies, rotisserie chicken, handbags, kids’ toys—you name it.  We spent a great deal of time there, checking out everything possible.  We bought provisions for lunch, a typical late Sunday lunch in France, as well as oysters for dinner.  Pâté de foie gras, champagne, smoked salmon with a sauvignon blanc, a cookout of grilled charcuterie (blood sausage, chipos, uncured thick bacon) made in Pascal’s butcher shop, cheeses from the market (including a delicious smoked goat cheese), bread fresh from the bakery, salad and sautéed new potatoes from Ginette’s garden, fruits.

The family enjoying the bright midday sun in Brittany

After lunch and some napping, we took a stroll to the port in Locmariaquer.  The town and port were quiet and sleepy, only the crêperie and the hotel-bar were open, and the customers were enjoying drinks outside. 

Back at the apartment, the men prepared the oysters outside on the terrace while the children watched the Tour de France on TV, and the women prepared the sauces and side dishes, cut the bread, and set the table.  Raw oysters with a spritz of lemon or a sauce of vinegar and shallots are a rare pleasure for this Midwest girl, and I enjoyed them enormously.

The next morning we packed up the car and made the four-hour journey back to Marolles-les-Braults, with the scent of the sea still in our clothes and hair.

For more photos of Locmariaquer, visit my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/joy.garling/media_set?set=a.10201555704158224.1073741831.1345986608&type=1.