Pret for la Fete

After the afternoon milking, the city held a Fete (French for party) in our honor. Starting at 7, we gave a brief presentation on our work in the city and appreciation of their acceptance. Then we went over to the indoor Pelota court for aparitif (think fingerfood), then meat(sausage, lamb, and thick cut bacon) on the grill. Then we sat around talking. I will include a travelers tip here: listen all the way until people stop talking when you ask what's in the bottle they're holding because L'eau=water, L'eau de vie= grappa. This minor blunder aside, the party continued with dancing, singing, limbo, skinning rabbits, and Pelota until 5 AM. T
I feel like up until now I've neglected to mention the French Students: through most of this experience there have been 7 talented master level historical ecology students with us. The three weeks we spend here are the beginning of a prolonged partner university program between the university of Pau and UGA. Step 2 is going to be their month long visit to UGA in Mid-august. We were sad to leave them on Friday but the beach town of Saint John de Luz beckoned.

Larrau

Once again sorry for the delay and banality of the title. For the past three days Ive been in a homestay in Larrau France (Thats a picture of the city). This city of about 200 people is in the Pyrannes and is one of the closest French cities to Spain (This picture was taking on the separating mountain). The family I stayed with are sheep milk and cow meat farmers and I took a three day first hand look into their lives. We were asked to keep a journal with our academic observations and learning. The following are lessons learned that didn't quite make the academic cut.....


The 10 Things I Learned Living with a French Farming Family
1. Dont Diss the Short Shorts
This was the first thing I learned while in Larrau, and it became apparent before I even officially met my host father. I was waiting for my family to show up when from up the hill, a lumbering 6'4" 220lbs (guesses) comes strolling up the hill in his comedicly short rugby shorts. Im talking this guy look like he could run down an antelope. Im talking this guy looks like he came right out of Harvard's 1980's rude and smooth crew (without the picture in front of me, he probably bears striking resemblance to either 5 or 6 seat). After checking it was not thigh high Thursday, I realized this guy was for serious and decided never to diss the short shorts. This lesson was perpetuated as this forty-year old man and his practically identical brother out-walked, out-lifted, out-milked, out-ate, out-played, and out-everything-ed me.

2.Always Eat Your Stick
For people left vaguely confused by the title, let me explain. The french word "prendre" litterally translates to "to take" but is also used as eat regarding food (every meal was a chorus of "prennez!". So you will understand my confusion when while sitting at the breakfast table, my host grandmother tells me "Il est necessaire de prendre votre batton" I was very confused until Michel handed me my walking stick. I also note that I was advised to take my "batton" (stick) not my walking stick; this is not an accident. Over the next two days, I used this stick not only to walk but to stop myself from cascading down a mountain, drive dogs (see #4), louisville slugger some cows (see #6), and most importantly tell a stampeding herd of 100 cows to stop. You might be saying, how would a 5' long stick help you do that? It didnt, but it was comforting to have something between me and the cows when Michel told me to get in front and stop the cows from running down the mountain.

3.Herding dogs are awesome... as long as your not a cow or sheep
During my stay with sheep and cow farmers, we had to herd a lot of sheep and cows; go figure. Helping us were three herding dogs. I have never met happier, friendlier, cuter dogs than these three; that is except when they're herding. For example one of them had two nose rings, and they're not just for fashion. It turns out he had killed too many sheep so they had to put barbed wire in he nose so when he bit them it would hurt him too... he still bit them. But these dogs were increadably fit (they dont ride in cars, they run beside them for miles), happy (all three never stopped wagging their tails my entire stay) and obedient....(huray for transitions)

4.How to drive
...dogs. This is probably the coolest thing I've learned how to do; let me explain. When herding the goal is to have the dogs do as much work as possible, and for this reason you have to learn to drive them. Drive? It works like this: you have your stick, and your voice; your stick is like the steering wheel, your voice tone is the clutch and shifter, and your words are the gas and break. In other words, you point the stick in the direction to go, either sound nice or angry, and tell them what you want, I was skeptical until I found myself on a mountain, standing still, and herding sheep through this dog. There was only one problem: they only speak Basque...

5.I dont speak as much Basque as I thought I did
Please wiki Basque because it's actually what this program is studying and thus rather important but in brief summary: The Basque Country is in the South West of France/North East of Spain, is seeped in history, and has its own culture and language. (they speak French fluently too but Basque is everyone's first language). It sounds like this odd mixture of the harshness of German or Russian and the morphemes of Elvish. It's all they speak to eachother, and the dogs. For those of you wondering why I thought I could speak Basque: I didnt. Even with the grandmother spoon feeding me every sound I struggled to pick up the language. Luckily they let me write down the dog commands phonetically on a 3X5, and so I managed.

6.There's no such thing as a "non-business end" of a cow
...

7. The French eat ridiculously well
For those of you who haven't been to France, both lunch and dinner are at least a three course affair. My meals with the family followed this general trend: Soup, Sausage/Pate/Cold Cuts, Hot meat dish, cheese, dessert. Everything except the bread and wine are made/produced in the house. Everything: pate(meat paste [its better than it sounds], sausage, eggs, meats, milk. The only negative comment I have is the portions...

8.There is no such thing as an empty plate or glass
They actually use the word "replenishable" instead of empty. I experienced this semantic difference first hand as they kept feeding me. One time I finished my plate, looked up to answer a question, and when I looked down there was more food on my plate. By the end I learned to guard my plate and glass at all times

9.What a Brebis is
It's a sheep literally, but my understanding of this word now spans beyond most peoples conceptualization. Through herding, milking twice a day, sponging (no not sponge baths, but putting a cylindrical sponge in female sheep), and artificial insemination, I now have a knowledge of that animal I could only dream of before this trip.

10.I should have brought my camera
Throughout this entire experience I wish I had my camera but its just not feasable to do what I have to and have a camera on me. Having hiked through a lot of American mountains, I feel confident in saying that this place is more beautiful than anything we have in the states. Every task is made interesting by the beauty of the mountains and novelty of the language. For anyone looking for a backpacking trip, foodie pilgrimage, or relaxing vacation, Larrau is the place to be.

The First Post

I apologize for the ubiquitous title and kinda late posting, I've been typing these up as we go and didnt want to pay for internet. And Im sorry the pictures arn't working, they will be up ASAP.

Au Canada
Friday: Originally my incentive to fly through Montreal on my way to Paris was purely fiscal, but I realized soon upon arrival that it was the perfect transition into France living. For those of you who don’t know, Montreal is in Quebec Canada meaning there are two official languages (French and English). This may seem nominal, but to someone who has never been in a French speaking country (at least while I knew French) having a little warm-up was appreciated. All of the signs had both languages, but the most useful tools were things I typically consider relatively annoying and mundane: the final boarding calls over the loud speaker, and paying for things. The announcements were first broadcast in French, then directly followed by English, a convenient correction key for the want to be Francophone listening. Secondly, the $2.10 in Canadian money offered some interaction with the Quebecois cashers, and trying to maximize my word per dollar I bought the cheapest thing at three different stores. Did I need 3 packs of gum? No. Did I consider trying to buy a fourth even though I knew I didn’t have the money so I could see if I could talk my way out of the predicament? Yes.
After a lack-luster checking of my passport (he didn’t even turn it the right way) I picked up my complimentary copy of Le Monde (French newspaper) and stepped off North American soil for over 12 weeks. I had forgotten I was technically flying Air France until the in-flight dinner was served; it included the usual, generic chicken and grain hot dish, dinner roll, pâte, an ounce of gouda, a bottle of wine, a bottle of port, and UCGO (unidentified congealed green object)…. Wait, wine? Heeding Dr. Gragson’s jet-lag warning and not wanting my first bottle of wine to be plastic, I offered the wine to the guy next to me. His eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas; this is how I discovered I was sitting next to two Frenchmen.
Emmanuel and Michael (pronounced Mee’chelle) are two of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Long story (like the whole 6-hour flight long) short, they’re two French bankers who live a block from the Arc de Triumpe and who love America. They were kind enough to speak with me in French the whole flight and thus kept me awake the whole flight practicing French. At the end of the flight, they gave me their email address and phone number offering to help me out of a tight spot and show me around Paris if I wanted. Who knows maybe I’ll ask them to take a group of En Francers out to an obscure restaurant at the end of June when we’re in Paris? The arrival and meeting the others went swimmingly, other than the airline loosing Mary’s bag!….
Rêved Up in Paris
Saturday: I thought of this really clever entry title, but really there isn’t that much to say. Our train got delayed until 5PM so we decided to do a (power) walking tour of Paris. Seeing as I didn’t sleep on the plane, this would be nearly two days without sleep so it was like walking through a dream. I got some cool pictures though. And Mary’s bag? got into Pau the next morning, so it ended up being a non-issue!


The Vineyard
Thursday: Today was the end of our three day intensive French lessons. They were really meant for the other members of the group who didn’t speak French before the trip. We’ve been eating lunch at the college cafeteria, does this sound like a two hour, three course, wine bottle event? It is. The past three days did bring two particularly noteworthy activities: The Chateau and The Vineyard.
The Chateau is really old (surprise!): the brick part was built by Richard the Lionheart to look over the ford over the river, the Henry IV expanded the tower into the chateau and eventually Napoleon III moved in for a summer. I learned all of this and some spiffy French jokes in the tour (given all in French mind you!). Luckily one of the French students who I befriended came with us and would explain anything I didn’t understand. It was cool to see the Chateau, but the highlight of the day was clearly eating fresh liver (gras) and sipping wine in an outdoor café while watching the sun set over the Pyrenees.
The highlight of the trip so far has been the trip to the Domaine Nigri Vineyard. This white wine producer seems to specialize in sweeter wines (according to the wife they go well with fish and cheese). We got a tour of the vines, cave (where they keep the barrels), bottler, and finished with a tasting of all their varieties. Just remember the 5S’s: Swirl to Smell, Slurp your Sip and Spit. Their 10 hectares makes roughly 110,000 bottles annually. So I left 109,999 left for the rest of the world.