So East it's Ouest

After reading my blog for a bit did you ever catch the draft that 'the French are...' I know it's terrible comparing cultures and the like but I know one thing I've never said about 'the french' is how cool and laid back they are in fact just the opposite usually.  Well today I've got news for you.  Do you wanna know where the cool kids are at?  The south west corner of France baby.   So the coolest kids on the block are those from le Gers seriously check it out its beautiful, but I recently took a trip to another little region and hope to return to an area that isn't quite French and isn't quite Spanish in fact it's quite...Basque.   This region divided between Spain and France speaking their own language (not related to any language in Europe) and being all cool and the like.  You like good food?  San Sebastián has more michelin stared restaurants than anywhere else in the world, or maybe you like something cheap healthy and yummy well the basq

 When I'm in France there are times when I feel like I need to represent the mid-west.  First off no one over here knows what that means so I end up just saying 'near Chicago' but I add 'it's the real USA'.  Why do you think that TV shows about 'Americain life' take place in Indiana.  The middle, parks and rec, a Christmas story, etc.  So many Americans come over here from California or New York or Colorado that I feel like I have to share a different side of American culture and I find that the French, although sometimes horrified, enjoy learning about it.  It takes a local who has spent her time enjoying if not braving blistering cold winters back home , cough and not feeling guilty about sitting this one out -19F as the high are you kidding me?, in order to truly understand one key of Mid-western culture, Euchre.   Now I know many a mid-westerner who does not know or like to play the pride and joy of the Midwest that is euchre but all will agree that

I technically live in the department of Lot-et-Garonne (the names of the two rivers) which is the old region called Aquitaine but I am right on the northern edge of...you guessed it Gascony.  Aquitaine has its own list of cool places and people; Eleanor of Aquitaine (cough she started chivalry), Bordeaux, lots of ducks, the town that was used as the basis for Beauty and the Beast but this is a post dedicated to the ancient wild beautiful region called Gascony. Who do you know from Gascony?  Uh I don't know a certain man called 'd'artagnan'.  Just kinda a big deal, not only because he is made fun of for being a gascon but also because try as he would he was very gascon.   Yes they speak with a cute twang, adding a -g- to the ends of words and yes they are friendly and different from other French from different regions.  Like the south east this region spoke a language called Occitan long before it spoke 'proper french' making it sound much like Catalan but not qu

Ducks are so nice.        I love ducks.      They      are  delicious.   S outhern France how I love your love of duck.  Foie gras (inh umane I kno w, a discussion for another time) , cuisse de canard confit, magret du canard, oscillicoccimum, parmentier au canard...etc etc.  The south west especially is known for their love of chicken's more classy and dignified (noisy) water cousin the duck or canard { kaa-nar} in French.  Try duck and you will taste the difference.  Duck has much more dark meat and a richer flavor and a much thicker layer of fat under their skin.  It also has to be cooked well in order to be nummy (or nummy nummy nummy), if it's overlooked it will be tough and chewy. In the southwest however they take duck to a whole 'nother level.  They feel that duck fat is healthy for you.  In fact they swear by it.  Say what?!  The people in this area have much better cholesterol than even the average French person and as a result less heart problems,

Hiking or randonée is much more interesting in France than the USA because of how stress free it can be.  A friend told me that there are nearly 90,000 kilometers of state maintained foot paths in France.  Hiking is interesting in that sense because nearly all paths are marked and mapped, it's like being in a statewide park basically.  It's very easy to find a 5 hour long hike and not get completely lost while doing it.  Sometimes French people get the stereotype of not being outdoorsy which is not really true, lots of people go on hikes on the weekend but usually they like to be well equipped when they do aka hiking shoes, walking poles, French picnic supplies, and the zip off hiking pants getup.  But I have a secret I think I might have just done the best hike in France, and not very many people know about it.   If you've been reading the blog you'll know that I've lived near Avignon before and that I have a thing for the Mt. Ventoux region.  Well this vacation I

Italy is green, Provence is lavender, Basque Country is red, and Gascony is...woad.  This is my color of blue y'all.  Gorgeous.  I noticed right away a difference in he blue around here especially the shutters and when I found out that it was a natural dye it all made sense.  Cause I'm a natural girl in her own natural world. What is woad?  Woad is actually a plant that has yellow flowers but when it is made into a dye it turns blue.  They used to think that the women who dyed with woad were witches because they would dip fabric into a blue bath and when it was raised out of the water it would turn yellow, it was the invisible marker of its time.  The buildings around here have their own beauty, usually a sandy yellow or plaster white with bricks with white borders around the windows and woad blue shutters, they mix stone and brick.  Most buildings are old like small fortified cities old, remember how people call this the Tuscany of France?   If any region around me is beautifu

|Not having a car| The impossible is possible here in France although I won't say it's easy.  Try thinking about how you would live one week with out your car.  Now how do you get groceries, go to work, bring home that landscaping you wanted to get, get home after dinner with friends at 10:00?  You start to realize how dependent we are on our cars especially in the US.  When I came home the last time I realized just how odd you look if you don't have a car, just seeing someone walking along the side of the road is weird if not creepy.  Unlike the US however in France not having a car is  do-able.  You can take a train or a bus, ride your bike or simply walk 20 minutes to get your groceries, making sure you make several small trips a week so as not to look like you're working on the chain gang with a large sack slung over your shoulder on your way home.  Might I say by not having a car over here not only do a save money and the hassle of paper work but my legs get a pret

Bathroom.  Bedroom.  Stove top .  Heat.  Or not.... The joys of house hunting in France.  I have now realized that in the US we take many things for granted.  We assume that an apartment or house will have a toilet and bathing facility of some kind, we assume that a furnished kitchen includes a stove top if not a complete stove top oven, we assume that the building will have central heat. Well if you assume anything about France it's not to ever assume anything.  Furnished , check.  Sink, check. Floors, check.  Oven, nope.  Bed, nope.  Fridge, nope.  Washing machine, nope.  Table, nope.  Couch that is counted as a bed, check.  TV, are you kidding?  The joys of searching for and acquiring housing in France.   Let's start with the search.  Why are there so many restaurants in France, you only need to look at some real estate ads to understand why.  A kitchen consists of a stove top and a sink.  No oven, no fridge, no counter tops, and definitely no dish washer.  When I Face

Hello again.  So some news, I was accepted into the Academie of Bordeaux.  This year I am being sent to a town called Agen (Ah-jan), like agent with a french accent) in the south west of France in between Bordeaux and Toulouse.  Its a town of about 30,000 people and it is the prune capital of the world I believe.  Nothing like a change of pace: good weather and an impeccably scrubbed colon.  The great news is that this time the school I'm working with sent me all my info quickly and they are in contact with me already.  I'm going to be working with only one school this time a high school that also specializes in aeronautics which sounds pretty cool.  There is an English congregation and a train that does direct routes to Avignon.   

...Italy. So I took up Anna-Maria's offer to visit down near Pisa in Tuscany.  Using the super cheap and super simple (a bus goes straight from Lille to the front door of the airport) Charleroi airport in Belgium I headed on down bearing gifts from Lucia from the north of France.  Anna and her husband Nick live in a small town nearby called Vicopisano nearby Pisa.  He is Dutch/Italian she is French/Italian and they speak english, italian, dutch and french fluently.  Ridiculous.  They both work as language teachers and Nick also heads up a bagpipe troup and is a Scottish aficionado (kilts kilts kilts), he wears a bowler hat.  They are part of the english group in Pisa and they study with many nigerians so they are now learning nigerian pidgeon,  things like 'You face be fine'=you're looking good. Tuscany  vs the south of France:         Basically Tuscany is really similar to the south of France.  Differences: they speak italian, cheese/coffee/pasta/ham, green shutt