La Dune du Pyla

This past weekend was the weekend of l'Ascension so therefore lasted 4 days.

Cannelés:  typical pastry from Bordeaux

Parasailers off the dune

Gisèle, Gilou, Gaby and I drove about 3 hours to the Atlantic coast to a town called Arcachon to camp for three nights.

Camping is a pretty big way to travel here in France and they have really equipped sites with bathrooms, showers, pools, terraces, places to do your dishes, the whole nine yards. The first night we camped in tents with a view over the Atlantic Ocean and the next night we rented a large army tent where we were able to cook seafood feasts: oysters, mussles, sea snails (yep)!

We had a great time visiting the area which reminded me of a mix between Rhode Island and San Francisco. Driving through the ritzy neigborhoods of gorgeous painted old mansions, pronouncing the unfamiliar names with an imagined posh accent, "Biscarosses", "Arcachonnaise". We tasted cannelés, the Bordelaise dessert typical to the region. We walked along the beaches, dressed more like we were walking on the moon with hoods double knotted under our chins and sleeves balled up over our hands. It was great.

The actual "Dune" which is the main attraction is really incredible: over a mile of sand reaching over a hundred meters high at certain points. It rises out of a pine forest and cascades down into the Atlantic ocean on the other side. When you run down it, its a sensation between skiing on sand and flying, its really magical.

Day or night there are always dozens of paragliders hovered over the dune and the ocean. One twlight Gaby and I climbed the dune to watch them and had one just infront of us, so close we could have touched him had we wanted to. It's like watching humans fly, really, really neat.

At the crest of the Dune

En descendant la pente de sable

On a l'impression qu'on peut voler

au dessus de l'Atlantique qui étend devant toi

En rigolant on dit qu'on arrive à voir la statue de la Liberté sur l'horizon.

Pour moi ca sera vrai dans quatre jours

Seulement quatre.

Dans quatre jours je serai dans l'avion,

et je vais regarder par la fenêtre

Je vais observer la vue de l'Atlantique

étend en dessus de moi

Et je penserai au jour ou on a escaladé la dune

Et en descendant se disait qu'on pourrais voir la statue de la Liberté

qu'on pourrais voler.

La fête

Last Tuesday I got to do what I have wanted to do for a long time: have a huge party at my house in the garden where I invited everyone I've met in Toulouse these past two years.

The weather was on an off all day and I finally understood the memories I have of my mother stressing in the hours leading up to parties destined to be in the yard!!

About an hour before I finally settled on having half the inside open and the party spilling out onto our terrace.

We were about 30 in all and it was great. Here are some photos of the set-up, and then a few that my colleagues were nice enough to take during the party:

Au revoirs et à bientôts

It's that time,


the time to say goodbyes.


Last weekend I went to the farm in Cassagnabère for the last time this year.


I stayed for five days and we planted onions, harvested swiss chard, lettuce, and peas, we sold at the market on Saturday. Along with the veggies Dominique and I sold her plants and did very well, it's a big planting weekend for people and she sells organic seedlings that she grows in her magnificent greenhouse of dozens of varieties of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, peanuts (yes peanuts!), and many many other plants.


I did my favorite hikes for the last time around, and we ate great food as usual. I tried my best to take in the calmness of that place and soak in every last detail.

Cyril

Planting onions

One of the newborn piglets!

Me with one of our enormous heads of "goutte de sang" lettuce

Dominique

Hollande Days

Yesterday was the 2nd and final round of elections in France between candidates, Sarkozy and Hollande.

I spent the Sunday with my colleague Maryse and her family. I went with her to the polls in her village, Escalquens, here is how it went down...

To cast a vote, you take one of each slips of paper with each candidates name on it (meaning that during the first round of elections on April 22 their were 10 separate slips of paper,) and a small blue envelope into the poll (there are as many blue envelopes as there are registered voters), close the curtain, and insert your candidate's slip of paper into the envelope. You then go to the voting table for your district (in Escalquens I believe they were divided into 7 or 8), present your ID, place your enevelope in a large clear locked ballot box. The voluteer at the stand verbally declares that you have voted and you sign next to your name on a register. Voilà.

After voting we had a nice long lunch then went  for a walk along the Canal du Midi, as they weren't counting votes at the local polls until 6pm, and the official tally was to be announced at 8pm. They were all laughing at me because it seemed I was more stressed about the results than they were. But seriously, imagine the ambiance at school and at home if Sarkozy won??? Sheesh.

At 6pm we went back to the polls and watched them count, yes count, by hand, the votes.One of my other colleagues, Laurence, was volunteering and showed me around so that I could take some more photos.

There are usually 3 people opening the votes, one opens the envelope, the second hands the paper inside to a third person who onfolds the slip and reads the name aloud to the 4 people who are keeping tally. There are 3 possible votes, Sarkozy, Hollande, or "blanc", meaning you have participated in the voting process but do not support either candidate. People who vote blanc can get rather creative with their votes, and I saw several "superman"s and even some (unused) squares of toilet paper...

The votes are then placed in large manilla envelopes in batches of a certain number and mailed to the Préfecture.

By 7:30pm the votes had been counted and we knew that Hollande had won in Escalquens almost 60-40 percent.

Hard at work counting votes

On television, although the journalists were not allowed to pronounce who had won before 8pm, they kept showing clips of Paris where supporters were gathered, and the ambiance gave you more than an idea of who the victor was.

The two political parties have appropriated difference squares in Paris for their rallies, Sarkozy La Place de la Concorde, and Hollande, La Place de la Bastille.

At exactly 8pm the county knew that socialist Francois Hollande was the 7th president of the 5th Republic of France with 51.60 percent of the vote. The first leftist president in 17 years. Sarkozy had won 48.10 percent.



And how do the French celebrate?

With champagne of course.


Sarkozy gave a speech to his tearful (literally)  audience who serenaded him with the Marseillaise (the French national anthem). Hollande had stayed in Tulle, where he is from and where he served as mayor, to give his victory speech then boarded a plane for Paris to give a second speech to those gathered at the Bastille.

The image of the future president addressing the people for the first time really changed from that of when Obama accepted in 2008 with Michelle and his daughters on stage at his sides, the image of the typical nuclear family. Hollande didn't bring his partner onstage with him till after his speech almost as an after thought it seemed.

And it must be said, that the frogs outdid even themselves, by having live accordian musicians onstage with Hollande at the closing of his speech. 

Enough politics, a bientôt! 

Les Hommes Politiques

So, as promised, some more election updates...

Wednesday night saw the traditional two and a half hour debate between the two candidates, Sarkozy (UMP/droit) and Hollande (Socialiste/gauche).

They talked about the economy, immigration, nuclear energy, public education, taxes and more.

What struck me the most was that both candidates were seated opposite a table (no, there was no wine served), instead of standing behind podiums. The had decreed that neither be filmed while the other was speaking, a fact I found kind of unfortunate as we couldn't see their reactions. The debate was moderated by two journalists, a man and woman from TF1, who, frankly, did not do much moderating.
A French show Le Petit Journal, akin to The Daily Show, made fun of how they rarely intervened, or if they did quite uneffectively to limit the interruptions and digressions of the candidates.

Hollande tried to frame the debate as Sarkozy's bilan or progress report at the end of his term. Sarkozy responded by listing all the reforms he had implemented during his term and how none had been met with opposions. Pardon? He must have a short memory or be deaf/blind to not remember at least the strikes and protests his retirement reform provoked. But okay. He also seemed to forget the opposition that erasing the year of formation or training for first year teachers last year, or uproar in response to the thousands of teacher's posts he has cut in the last two years.

As if he weren't already unpopular enough among the teachers (for the aforementioned reasons and then some) to ice the cake, during the debate Sarkozy said that teachers only work 18 hours a week, for 8 months out of the year, insinuating that teacher's do not work enough, and therefore have room to work more, paving the way to erase more posts and continue to increase the number of hours teachers work a week.

 Needless to say after that comment Sarko was even more despised in the teacher's lounge next day.

Hollande at the Allées Jean Jaures, Toulouse, France

What's more exciting was Hollande came to Toulouse, to the Place du Capitole the following day, Thursday, to give a speech. By the time I finished work and hopped on my bike I couldn't access the square where he was, but watched from a giant television a few blocks away.

He spoke a lot about immigration, and giving more access to the country, its jobs and its culture to Germans, Spanish, Irish, and North African immigrants.Though he didn't expressely mention us by name, I could tell that he actually meant to say, "I love Americans, especually you, Lindsay Walter. I would love to give you residency."

Someone must have advised him to be a bit more animated and humorous as he cracked quite a few more jokes than normal and an overall more casual tone. Typical to any candidate who approaches power he began talking about how all the problems, unforuntately, wouldn't disappear with Sarkozy, although, he himself was the first and biggest problem to go. Har har har.

In other news, Marine Le Pen (Le Front National) has decided to vote "blanc" or with an empty ballot. Sarkozy received no backing from any candidates no longer in the running, a fact that Hollade did not neglect to mention in his speech in Toulouse.

The second and final round of voting is on Sunday, and we will know the results at 8pm! Really a very exciting time to be in France.

A plus.
Lindsay

La Campagne

My friend James who was visiting me and I went to the farm this past weekend to help out.

Right now they're selling these beautiful hearty lettuce called Drop of Blood for the tiny red flecks that speckle the romaine-like leaves, spinach, celery root, and their tomato, basil, squash, and peanut seedlings.

As usual we met Dominique at the market on Saturday and went back in the truck with her to Cassagnabère.

View of Colza fiends from Clermont le Fort

At the farm we seeded squash, organized the greenhouse, weeded, and oogled the 6 baby pigs their pig Valentine had just given birth to a week before.

Their ducks had goslings and the rabbits had babies too, ah springtime!

Bike ride through Colza fields

As Tuesday was the Day of the Worker (le premier mai) my school did the "pont" or bridge, meaning they didn't work Monday, and I'm finished with my classes on Wednesday so after James left on Tuesday I came to Corronssac, a village outside Toulouse, to my colleague Sylvie's for lunch on Tuesday and a killer mountain bike ride though gorgeous yellow colza field in flower with a view of the still snow covered Pyrènes.

We stopped in this tiny, charming village for a juice called Clermont le Fort. We sat outside under multicolored lights with lilacs on all the tables and music spilling out from the tiny buvette that opened onto a tiny cobblestoned square.

I really think the world has been conspiring these past few weeks to get me to want to stay here forever.

Strawberries, mint, sugar and red wine (Bordeaux) = a perfect desset.

This is How my Friends and I do Vacation

After gorging myself on museums and macaroons I came back to Toulouse where I met Emma and Helen (my girlfriends from study abroad who are also assistants in France and who I went to Budapest with) where we spent the next 4 days doing nothing but cooking, restauranting, drinking, and walking the city with no place in particular to go. We finished their visit with a double movie feature of Titanic 3D and The Hunger Games; Shameless. But hey, it was raining, what else were we supposed to do??

Here are some photos of what we ate, I mean did, while they were here:

Helen and I at La Pref, Toulouse, France

Great family style Vietnamese food at Chez Pham,
rue Mage, Toulouse, France

Self serve desserts = great idea.

Pho soup

Clean dishes

Helen pressing her dough into the pan

Goat cheese and fig tarte in the making

Bon apetit 

 I had wanted to make Emma and Helen a dinner using products, meats and cheeses from the region:

Roasted sweet potatoes, onions and asparagus 

Wrapping from the butcher where I bought Saucisse de Toulouse for dinner

Saucisse de Toulouse and Merguez sausages

Rocamadour, cheese from the region

Place Mage, Toulouse, France

Supplies for a fruit salad

Sunday Brunch, fruit salad, scrambled eggs, and fig baguettte toast