A la Campagne

This weekend my class took its first big French adventure... a la campagne (to the countryside). The trip commenced with a grand reunion at a train station called Gorge de Loup (translates as throat of wolf!?) We took a bus about an hour southwest of Lyon to a small town whose name I cannot accurately recollect. By the time we arrived most of the group was suffering from severe motion sickness--everyone was already enjoying their stay in the French countryside. A few minutes later three old men with missing teeth arrived in white vans ( sounds creepy right? Well it kind of was) and shuttled us off again to another small village called Duerne. Here we stayed at the centre d'accueil (welcome center). EVERYTHING including the toilettes were painted in every different shade of bright, clashing colors you can imagine. The lady there fed us bread (obviously, we're in France), some kind of pork that probably wasn't cooked (because that seems to be the trend) and buttered noodles. After our ever so riveting dinner my class embarked into the down to check out it's "night life". (I am pretty sure our class nearly doubled the population of the whole town.) We ran across a super sketch bar called "tip top." It had a picture of a thumbs up on the entrance and there were a few townies enjoying a drink in there. Naturally we entered and made ourselves right at home. After some time of conversing with the Duerne townies it came to our attention that it was David's (dah-veed) Birthday. He requested that we sing him happy birthday. We did. He cried. He was so "touché" (touched) that he cried! (An important sidenote off-topic, my host brother is in his room right now listening to EMINEM cleaning out my closet --teehee) Anyway in the word's of G-pa Frank to make a long story short, Dahveed cried and then bought drinks for everyone. What a night!

After a night without pillows we were awoken by none other than a coq (rooster). We ate, you guessed it, more bread for breakfast, and then headed off to the organic farm. Again we were driven by old men without teeth in their white vans. The farm was indeed beautiful though. It had a magnificent view of the French countryside. The farmer who was in charge of the place was a young, blonde, and female. She was, in the words of Prof Sipe, "The best-looking farmer I've ever seen." And thus the whole rest of the trip was about Prof Sipe hopelessly trying to get the pretty farmer to love him. There was lots of awkward French Flirting and meaningless questions all so that we could spend the optimal amount of time with her. I don't think, however, that professor Sipe's tall argyle socks were helping his game.

But in reality the concept of the farm was awesome. The idea is that there are an association of farms all around Lyon that produce different products: Meat, Cheese, Fruits, Vegetables, Eggs, Milk, Flowers etc.
They are all organic farms and they all firmly believe in a relationship with their plants/animal, their buyers, and their consumers. Everything is personal and all of the farms are open for visitation. What happens is that citizens of Lyon and surrounding areas can sign up for baskets which they buy and receive weekly (I think) and the baskets are filled with products from different farms from the surrounding area depending on what's in season at the time. It is all local, fresh and all organic. I thought it was an awesome concept.

After our farm visit and many cuddles with baby sheep and kittens, we were herded by another man with no teeth into the town hall. We were all sat down in chairs and were given 100% pure fruit juices. One was apple, one was peach, and the other was cherry. Nothing was added, they were purely pressed fruits. After one glass they gave us another, and another, and another. One thing led to another (as I have just described) and I wound up consuming 7 glasses of pure fruit juice. Needless to say I had to pee.

Next we had a two hour + lunch at a local restaurant. I sat across from one of the old French men who drives the white vans and he never asked me anything about my name or age, he grilled me the entire time about politics. I understood everything he was saying but pretended not to as a means of surviving hours of torture. The first thing out of his mouth was not Hello or how are you, this man was not messing around. Out of nowhere he abruptly blurted "How do you feel about president Obama and how did you feel about President Bush?" In French of course. To which I responded, " Uhhhh....That is a big question and it is too difficult for me to explain in French." That was then followed by a three hour long hike back to the welcome center! Two hours of stuffing yourself silly with food (and for some members LOTS of wine) followed by a long hike in direct sun is not exactly intelligent if you ask me, but that's what happened. We took a detour on our hike because the same man who was grilling me about the presidents of the USA wanted to show us the site of an American plane crash in WWII. I was expecting something grand since we went out of our way to see it, but you know what it was? IT WAS A ROCK IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIELD and some man was plowing his field around it when we arrived.

Moral of the story; Never trust an old French man whose teeth are missing.

All said and done, the trip was enjoyable and I am glad to have the experience.