The Baguette: France’s Life Blood

Whenever you think of France, most people’s mind eventually cycles through the stereotypical things we’ve been conditioned to associate it with: cheese, castles, Socialism, fast trains, wine and, of course, baguettes. I knew from my semester in Paris that baguettes were an essential part of everyday French life, with millions sold each day, but I have only recently come to realize just how important they are and how they can pop up in the most unexpected times.

A few of my favorite baguette sightings:

-While waiting for a tram, I saw a woman and man running down the street. That’s great, I thought to myself, I love seeing people going for runs. Then it hit me: what is that thing she’s carrying? Is that…yup, that’s a baguette. She’s running with a baguette. I guess when the craving strikes…

-A popular way for some of the poorer inhabitants of Montpellier to earn some money is to wash the windows of cars that stop at traffic lights. One day while walking by an intersection where this happens frequently, I noticed a woman telling some of the window washers that she wasn’t interested, but instead of just shooing them off she told them to wait while she searched for some change. Not finding any handy, she nonchalantly reached into her back seat and pulled out- you guessed it- a baguette. In France, baguettes are as good as cash.

-Americans aren’t the only people that buy in bulk. Multiple times I’ve seen people walking out of bakeries with brown paper bags the size of a small child filled with at least a dozen baguettes. Where are they taking them? To an office-wide meal? To a catered affair? Stocking up for the apocalypse? Your guess is as good as mine.

Adventure is out there! (Part 2)

After leaving Malta, myself and two others that were in Malta flew to Madrid and caught an early flight to the Canary Islands the next day. The Canaries are group of 7 Spanish-owned islands just to the west of Morocco. Created by volcanic activity over the years, the islands are still active. One such volcano is Mount Teide, the highest mountain in Spain and the dominant feature of the island of Tenerife, our destination.

The best description I can give of Tenerife is Jurassic Park. The green-covered mountainsides, exotic vegetation, and sporadic threat of imminent death (stay tuned for details) reminded us all of the island home of the dinosaurs. (What? No, I didn’t keep singing the Jurassic Park theme song as we walked around. I don’t know what you’re talking about…)

Highlights from the Canaries:

-The looming active volcano towering above us. Being able to look up from wherever we were on the island and see a snowcapped volcanic peak was cool, but also a bit bizarre when we made our way down to the beach a few of the days.

-The incredibly different climates and landscapes. On the island of Tenerife alone, you can find snow and ice atop the volcano, black sand volcanic beaches, and tropical vegetation and jungle-like areas. Climb the island a few hundred meters and you’ll find yourself surrounded by clouds in the late afternoon, but come down closer to the shore and it’s nothing but sun (or sunny rain, like on the first day we arrived).

-Seeing the island of La Palma. If anyone has ever watched the Discovery Channel, La Palma is the Canary Island that may or may not cause mass destruction in the future. Scientists think that if there is another volcanic eruption, part of the island may dislodge and slide into the Atlantic, creating a massive tidal wave that heads toward the Eastern seaboard and South America. Naturally, I have wanted to visit this island since I saw the documentary, not only because of this story but because of its incredible natural beauty found all over the island. The local Canarians call La Palma “La Isla Bonita,” or “The Beautiful Island.” So, together with another one of my friends, I hopped a local flight to the island and set out on the day-long hike to the top of the caldera, or crater. A few hours of trail hiking later and we arrived at the top to stunning scenery: a massive crater plunging straight down in front of us, green valleys covering the rest of the island, and the bright blue Atlantic stretching out as far as you could see. With nothing west of La Palma, the first piece of land you would hit would be the US. Continuing with the Jurassic Park theme of the vacation, this island truly seemed like a lost world.

Looking back on Malta and the Canary Islands, this vacation definitely turned out to be my favorite thus far. With everything said and done, I like to describe it with simple reminder and battle cry from my favorite Disney/Pixar film, Up: “Adventure is out there!” Go get it.

Adventure is out there! (Part 1)

For our February vacation, I made it my mission to find crazy places to go and crazy things to do. Museums and art exhibits would be replaced by extreme outdoor pursuits and seeking out incredible sights. What was the Holy Grail of this quest? Malta and the Canary Islands.

Right now, most of you are probably saying, “Hmm, Malta. What country is that in?” Answer: It is its own country, a full-fledged member of the European Union located to the southwest of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea. Due to various periods of colonial occupation, Malta has a very unique culture that combines influences from many others, such as Britain, Italy, and North Africa. The Maltese language is actually a mixture of words from English, Italian, and Arabic, with its own alphabet and set of rules.

Malta first appeared on our radar when we met Krista and Stefan, the Maltese pharmacy students studying in Montpellier for the semester. I met them the first weekend I was in Montpellier, and little did I know that in a few months we would be visiting them in their home country, something I had only seen on maps and in geography trivia games (Sporcle.com anyone?). Myself and 7 other friends from Montpellier hopped a plane, train, and bus (literally) from our town and arrived on “The Rock,” as the Maltese like to refer to it, greeted by our two friends who had returned before Christmas. They gave us an incredible grand tour of their country, showing us everything from the most popular sights to the most far-flung to the ones they had come to consider personal favorites.

Highlights of our stay on the Maltese Islands:

-Renting and getting to drive a car. This is one of the things I miss most about being in France this year, so this was a welcome change. Plus, having been a former British colony they drive on the left side of the road, something that proved to be much less difficult than I had imagined. What did prove difficult was navigating our way around the island, despite the fact that we have some natives on board. The icing on the cake was when we turned down what ended up being a one-way street and found ourselves face to face with a line of angry cars and a charter tour bus flashing his headlights. Oops.

-Going to Carnival on the smaller island of Gozo. In order to get an adequate picture of what the Carnival experience is, imagine the mass partying atmosphere of the Preakness infield, in a city, at night, where everyone dons a crazy costume, and dances around floats to blasting music. Throw in a few cans of Cisk, the amazing local beer, and you’ve got yourself Carnival, Maltese style.

-Seeing some of the oldest manmade structures in the world. Malta is home to a complex of stone buildings that have been excavated dating back to 5,000BC. Different rooms and cuts of the stone are still visible, with some blocks weighing several tons.

-Scaling a variety of mountains, cliffs, and rocky precipices. Malta, being a country set on a rock in the middle of the sea, is full of places to go climbing or even sliding down, as it were. Beautiful views of the landscape or the sea were to be had around every turn, and it never got old. We even got to climb down into the cave where legend holds that Odysseus met Calypso in The Odyssey.

-The food. One word: pastizzi. This delicacy is either peas or ricotta wrapped in flaky pasty dough and baked in the oven. Incredible. Krista and Stefan were also awesome enough to invite us to their homes during the course of the week to share their favorite Maltese dishes with us. Krista’s was baked pasta with tomato sauce and meat, and Stefan’s was baked rabbit. Excuse me while I go book a ticket back to Malta as my mouth waters.

-Everything is SO. CHEAP. Malta is on the Euro, but somehow their prices have remained incredibly low and are some of the lowest in the European Union. To give you an example, we went to the bakery/grocery store for one day’s lunch and dinner shopping and got the following for our group of 10: 30 pastizzi, 10 pigs-in-a-blanket-esque creations, a few other assorted baked goods to share, pasta, cheese, vegetables, olive oil, bread, 2 dozen beers, and other assorted beverages. Total per person: 7 euros.

-Spending time with the Maltese. The entire country of Malta is one of the most welcoming and friendly I’ve ever travelled to. Our friends basically dedicated their weeks to making sure we had an awesome time. Fast forward several skipped university classes, 5 trips to the airport for the different outbound flights we had, and coordinating a weeklong itinerary and they never once complained. Here’s a big thanks to Krista and Stefan for being the sweetest times this side of the Atlantic.

One of These Things Doesn’t Belong…

For anyone who has been to France between the months of November and April, you know very well that the typical attire of a French person consists of dark jeans and some shade of black or gray sweater/jacket/shirt. I’ve noticed this as the winter weather continues to roll on, but didn’t realize how true it was until I had a fire drill during class two days ago.

Of course this fire drill (which the administration neglected to inform me of) happened during a rainy day, so I stopped in the teacher’s lounge before exiting the school grounds to grab my rain coat. As I filed out the front gates with the students and other teachers, I suddenly realized that I could quite easily be picked out of the crowd as the English Assistant from the States. Stuck in the middle of a group of black and gray, there I was with my bright blue running jacket, complete with areas of reflective silver. This jacket made it easy for all of my students to find me while we waited so I was soon surrounded by a circle of high schoolers all giggling and saying, “Hello! ‘Ow are you?”

Side note: I’m not really sure how fire drills in France work, but comme d’habitude (per usual) the efficiency was questionable. At schools in the States, administrators receive word from teachers that their class has exited the building, and once all personnel and students have evacuated, they see how long the entire process took. During said fire drill, students wandered outside in a leisurely and unorganized mob, lingered for a few minutes just outside the gates (with some still relaxing at the benches in the courtyard), and bit by bit began filing back inside at an unannounced moment. I saw one member of the administration during all of this, and he was talking with a group of students the entire time. I pray there is never a real fire at school.

A Day in the Merde

Even in France, or maybe I should say especially in France, you come across one of those days from time to time where you wonder why you even got out of bed. Productivity is nearly impossible and you cannot help by avoid a series of bizarre encounters. My Monday was definitely one of those days. It went a little something like this:

-Go to bed at 5am after watching the Super Bowl, wake up at 7 to catch my train and arrive at school for my 9 o’clock class to find out that the teacher is absent and neglected to tell me.

-While using a public service announcement about guns to practice conversation with a student, she proceeds to tell me how there are five major gypsy tribes that roam France and are the major gun owners, how some of her friends have guns, and how the police are usually too afraid of them to try and take their guns.

-Upon my return to Montpellier at the end of the day, I arrive at the train station to find out that there are delays of up to 3 hours for a nondescript “problem” with the trains, or the train tracks, or the French train system. One of those things (probably). Since my 4:54 train was cancelled, I hopped on a high-speed train that was supposed to leave at 2:20 but was still stuck in the station, praying that they didn’t check tickets before I had to get off.

-After getting off in Montpellier without any problems, I was greeted by a nice rain for my walk home.

Happy Monday. Or rather, Happy Merde-day.

America, On the Rest of the World

Continuing my love for Stephen Clarke’s Merde series that gave its name to this blog, I started reading Merde Happens, another of Englishman Paul West’s adventures. In this installment, he travels across America with his French girlfriend in a Mini emblazoned with a Union Jack. In one part Paul talks about the way Europeans think Americans view them, thanks to movie and TV depictions. In a strictly stereotypical sense (because no American would ever be this ignorant….), the following descriptions are right on and are worth a shout out.

“The way the Brits think the Americans view them:

-Stonehenge-1776: A time of castles, kings ‘n’ shit.

-1776-1945: Crushed by the loss of its American colonies, Britain gradually shrivels up until it is so powerless that it almost loses a war to a vegetarian with a silly mustache.

-1945-present: Saved from destruction by the USA, Britain becomes a trusted ally, as vital to the balance of world power as, say, Bermuda.”

“The way the French think Americans view them:

-Jurassic Period-1940: An area of the planet devoted solely to the production of wine, cheese, prostitutes, and body odor.

-1940-present: Supposedly a friend, but in truth as reliable as the wedding guest who sleeps with the bride.”

Mass media: doing wonders for the world’s perception of Americans. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to grab my gun and my cowboy hat, hop in my Hummer, and go to McDonald’s…

Marvejols: A Land Lost in Time

A few weekends ago, 4 friends and I visited a fellow English assistant who had the great fortune of being placed in Marvejols, France. Marvejols, for those who aren’t familiar with it (and I don’t know why you would be) is located in the department of La Lozère. This area has the distinction of being the least populous in France. Accordingly, some French people have nicknamed it “le trou du cul du monde,” something that roughly translates to the “Boondocks,” or something like that…

The Marvejols Crew: Lisa, Susanna, Darcy, Me, and Alissa (the local). Thanks to Tom (our 6th) for the photography skills.

Despite this grim description, Marvejols has all the charm of a quaint town of 5,000 in the French countryside: medieval-looking houses, mountains surrounding it on all sides, and a calm feeling you can’t find in the larger cities. Not paying for lodging for the weekend was a big plus, made possible because Alissa lives in the boarding section of the middle school where she teaches. A few sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows later and the recreation room had become our very own dormitory. We hiked up the “mountain” that looks down on the town and ventured around the plateau on top for a while.

Once we felt like we had seen the town, we hopped in the car and drove 20 minutes to a lake nearby, stopping by a castle we found signs for on the way back. Yes, castles are found in the wild of La Lozère. The area is also known for its wolf population back in the day, but unfortunately the Wolf Park (a kind of zoo dedicated only to wolves) was closed in January.

On our way to Marvejols, we also stopped by the town of Roquefort, birthplace of the smelly cheese. Being off-season (if a cheese town in France ever has an off-season) and a Saturday, we saw maybe 6 people during our 4 hours there, 2 of which gave us a tour and tasting of the cheese caves. I’ve got to say that I agree with the old say: the smellier the cheese, the better.

Getting away for the weekend was great and the French countryside is beautiful no matter where you stop. Marvejols- definitely one of my favorite towns with a population under 5,000. Check it out if you’re ever in the neighborhood.