Le Mont St. Michel

Arresting view of Mont St. Michel from the road.

My second visit to Mont St. Michel, one of France’s most visited attractions and teeming with tourists in the summer, came unexpectedly, unplanned, and seven years after my maiden voyage during college. Our group was an international mix of French, Mexican, and American. None of us knew one another well at all. Some of us had trouble communicating, but we managed to conquer northern France’s sacred beast of an abbey sitting on a rock in the middle of Normandy’s colorless windswept mudflats, just fine.

The giant abbey in the sky

Claude opted out of touring the abbey (which by the way is absolutely essential if making one’s way all the way out there) because she lives conveniently close and for her, a trip to Mont St. Michel is like a jaunt to the skyscrapers and lakefront of Chicago for me. Almost comparable. While the Mexican couple did an audio guide tour in Spanish, I surrendered to a guided tour in English by a French man who’d lived in England for seventeen years and had the most wicked sense of humor.

Surprisingly tourist-less cloister

Somberly enough, I’ve just learned today from an alumni magazine that the university professor who had taken a group of us to France and Mont St. Michel in 2002 had died this past February. He had been 85 on that trip and had walked everywhere with us. I think, even at 22, I was too young to realize the enormity of the history behind the 1,300 year construction of Mont St. Michel. I wonder if he’d been frustrated with our naïve attitudes, our surface-level comprehension of this extraordinary architectural wonder.

As I embarked on my second guided tour, I couldn’t help but be slightly annoyed at my younger self, idiotically having seen the rooms more through a camera lens rather than my own eyes and fantasizing about the bus ride back and being able to rest, rather than imagining sleep deprived pilgrims who had come from far away, risking their safety to cross the temperamental tides and mud flats dotted with quicksand traps.

This time, I let it all sink in. The guide’s humorous anecdotes certainly helped. We learned that the abbey is in the shape of a cross, so as to remain stable and not crumble down the pyramid-like granite base on which it’s perched. Miraculously, either in order to convince myself that I had grown up a little and could maintain a longer attention span, or because of an unfaltering desire to get my 8.50 EUR worth, one month later, I still remember several “fact or fiction?!” tales from our guide. Because he was so good, I tolerated his perma phrase: ‘you know, the truth is usually stranger than fiction.’

Dragon slaying Saint Michael, after whom the abbey and surrounding bay are named was thought to weigh souls on a balance to decide who went to heaven or hell. Making a pilgrimage to the rock would surely grant one passage into heaven, right? If anything, all that walking would rid the soul of a few pounds. Everyone’s favorite new fact and sure to be story at the first barbecue of the summer was where the word barbecue had supposedly originated. Jumpstarting the snoozing mood from a discussion on the daily habits of the Mont St. Michel monks, our guide led us to a grand fireplace and explained that pigs were roasted from head to toe or more intimately from beard (barbe in French) to ass (cul). When the English speakers arrived, their anglicized pronunciation of “barbe cul” morphed into “barbecue,” unknowingly coining a phrase that is not only practiced, but recognized just about everywhere on earth.

I've become addicted to learning word origins as their birth sometimes occurs so haphazardly. One would think a new word develops from hours of contemplation, brainstorming, and running one’s tongue over its syllables in a kind of scientific trial and error method before announcing the final product. As in the origins of barbecue, this appears not to be the case.

After a quick multilingual picnic lunch on the back doorstep of a tourist shop with a superb view of horse-led guides into the bay, our group made our way down the Mont with the intention of doing something similar. In fact, anyone can wander into the bay or surrounding mud flats sans guide, but as it’s easy to become stranded on an island of quicksand, sneakily enveloped by a strong current of water that seems to appear from nowhere, guides are recommended.

View of the rock from the bay

I wasn’t about to nearly finish my time in France, then end up being stuck there, literally. We departed from the base of Mont St. Michel in rain jackets, shorts and bare feet. My child-like excitement to hike to a distant island 3 km resulted from having no shoes. I was giddy to let my toes and feet sink into Normandy, then pull them out, creating all sorts of onomatopoeic fun.

The bay hike begins

Our guide tested the surprisingly strong bands of water current arbitrarily shaping the mudflats. Bouts of wind blasts and sheets of rain subsequently shaped and re-shaped the looks on our faces like clowns full of expression in a slow motion cartoon. The solitary island turned out to be a bird sanctuary, useful for the birds in case they needed a break from flapping their wings. The wind would easily keep them floating motionless in air.

As desolate as the mudflats appear to be, they are perfect terrain for horse racing. The ground is neither too hard nor too soft. This is convenient, seeing as Normandy has the most horses of any other region in France. They seem to fit into the landscape, the old fashioned mode of transportation giving Mont St. Michel a timeless feel. That is, until a glance at the parking lot pops that imagination bubble.

Horse and rider on the mudflats

Maybe that's why days of bay hikes, races, and getting stuck then helicoptered out are numbered. In order to make Mont St. Michel more aesthetically pleasing, the government wants to permanently fill the bay with water, making the abbey adorned rock a true island, with a bridge providing access rather than the causeway. Considering this idea has existed through Chirac's presidency and that the speed at which the French "get things done" has never been record-breakingly fast, I'm fairly certain we all have a little more time to pretend our feet are being eaten by quicksand in the bay of Mont St. Michel.

Beachcombing and St. Malo

I couldn’t believe this was called work. By now, I knew I had lucked out big time with the family that had chosen me to help them. I was their first WWOOFer ever and they were my first WWOOF hosts. While they were audibly worried that they’d work me too hard after hearing reports of poor drifting kids subjected to 12 hours hard labor each day on Spanish farms, I was silently worried I wasn’t working enough and vowed to do whatever I could to compensate for my trip that was slowly becoming a cultural excursion week.

Getting up, Catherine, Michel, Claude, and François, and I made our way to St. Malo for the sole reason that I’d never been there and needed to see it. Feeling a little guilty, but also secretly excited about my Tour de Bretagne, we happily scuttled westward in the family’s anti-GMO van, picnic lunch and all.

Our one pit stop was at Michel’s parents’ house, situated in a one-lane village, comfortably sidled up next to an Atlantic beach guarding masses of mussels and oysters. While François ran off to photograph birds and the rising tide with his tripod, the rest of us headed for the muddy bay, which unashamedly squelched with each bare footstep, making me giggle every time. Armed with violently flapping plastic bags, our mission was to collect as much salicorne, a green plant that sprouts in the bay, the sea water giving it a salty taste, as we possibly could. When low tide hits, it’s time to pick.

Salicorne can be used with garlic, parsley, and butter to accompany fish, poultry, and red meat. When it's soaked in vinegar, salicorne is a great substitute for pickles used with cold meats, fish, and raclette. Catherine sells the popular plant to campers and market-goers. It remains a very popular sale for her as I assume it's hard to find in stores.

That night, Catherine and I stuffed glass jars full of the crop. I got this one to take home.

While the family got straight to work, grabbing at the stalks like they were in a competition to see who could procure the most disappearing currency, I stood like a motionless fool awed by the jaw-dropping silhouette of Mont St. Michel in the far distance. Apparently cultural excursion week had become infectious making my work ethic even harder to find.

This vast, and I mean vast, windswept beach had been the childhood playground of Catherine and Michel’s children. The postcard perfect balcony from the grandparents’ house looked directly out onto the beach, a blinding turquoise band of water filling the window. Lungs inflated with sea air carried in by assertive winds, I didn’t know how life could get any better.

After comparing my pickings to the rest of the family, it was obvious that I hadn’t been as greedy, or more likely, not as efficient. Whatever the case, we eventually washed our mud caked feet in buckets of water supplied by grandma, while her toy-sized dog Zazie ran ladders for entertainment in the grass. Fueled by the juice boxes and the pre-packaged cakes that grandparents can always be counted on to have, we set off for our final destination, St. Malo.

As stunning as St. Malo is, a fortified city planted on a sandy beach, it’s a tourist trap, almost guaranteeing shoulder-to-shoulder contact with strangers inside the ramparts during the summer. When we arrived, it was nothing of the sort. It was early evening, the sun was a giant orange peach sinking slowly toward the horizon, and we’d just splashed about in the warm water for a bit, something that never fails to give me a natural high.

Waves on a St. Malo beach. The posts are there to break the momentum of the waves so they don't damage houses nearby.

On a lovely act of decisiveness by Catherine, we ate our picnic dinner right on a concrete dock behind a line of parked cars and a massive ship tied to land by a rope the size of a human thigh. Spotted with seagull droppings and stained with oil, it was certainly not the most picturesque setting, but we laughed ourselves to tears as tourists walked by and gave us strange looks for eating our dinner in what was really a seaside parking lot. Later, we made up for it by stopping at a gourmet ice cream shop that had a flavor available in saffron.

Rampart walls hug the city and act as sightseeing loop. Here, one can easily imagine how the fortifications blocked both strong sea winds and English attack. We ended our night in a circle. And undoubtedly slept well.

Day Two: Le Travail Commence

The heat that's been plaguing the Rhone-Alpes really makes me miss the cool mornings in Bretagne and the fresh country air. Opening my windows in Chasse lets in the faint odor of factory pollution and slightly burns my nostrils. I never realized it existed until I left for a farm in the paradise that is northern France.

A glimpse of the farmhouse

Catherine tapped on my door at 8:00am and we had a breakfast of baguette, butter, and jam...the standard French breakfast. Very bready and leaving one hungry again 30 minutes later. Not wasting a crumb, Catherine showed me how to put most of one's leftover food in the bucket for chickens. Chickens, she told me, eat just about anything, while rabbits have very fragile stomachs and will die if they eat the wrong plant. From that moment on, I was terrified to feed the rabbits.

I began by picking cassis or blackcurrant from the dozens of bushes that bordered the donkey pen. It was an incredibly calming activity, making me feel zen-like within minutes. Michel eventually wandered by and told me it was even more serene if done barefoot, the sensation of the earth on the bottom of the feet. He was right. I returned my knee high rubber boots to the shed and disappeared into a world of berries and my thoughts for a few hours, until Claude came out to see the donkeys.

My blackcurrant harvest, Pitchoun keeping me company

She spoke rapid-fire French and I have to admit to nodding and smiling when I couldn't pick up what she was saying. Then, she surprised me by getting on one of the donkeys bareback. The next thing I saw was the donkey bucking and kicking rodeo style, Claude screaming doucement! and seconds later, she was thrown from its back, groaning on the ground. Shocked, I stood still for a good three seconds before reacting. Then dropping my tub of berries, I ran to fetch Catherine who came to her daughter's aid. Saying that Claude was prone to tomber dans les pommes, an expression that means 'to faint,' I tried to explain that she had been at the donkey's mercy instead. After that was eventually cleared up, Claude went inside to rest, while Catherine and I went to go feed the animals.

The guilty holds his head low.

The one thing that bothered me was that every animal we went to go feed would later be killed as food themselves. In fact, we ended up eating an old rooster with chickpeas that night for dinner. It pained me to look at the warbling grey geese and ducks that paddled around in the water, knowing their lives had a foreseen expiration date. Catherine showed me the specific breed of duck that's used to make foie gras. A canard/dinde, or duck with a turkey face that doesn't make any noise when it tries to quack.

After feeding the rabbits and chickens, I spread the dirty hay full of rabbit droppings over a patch of garden, then went upstairs and took a really long nap. The fresh air had happily infected me.

I woke up to the smell of jam cooking on the stove. The scent of the fruit of my labors emanated from the kitchen up the wooden spiral staircase and into my bedroom. Catherine was making jam from the berries that I'd picked that morning. They'd go into glass jars to be sold at the Saturday market in Fougères. Not only was the jam homemade, but so was the glue that held the labels to the jars. Catherine made her own glue with a mix of flour and water heated over the stove.

Groggy from my earlier work, I couldn't believe how she hadn't yet taken a break. After lunch, we'd taken to the garden and removed sick or dead potato plants, then called it a day.

During the evening, I watched a live music program on TV with Michel. Tracy Chapman came on and although Michel hadn't ever heard of her, he was impressed. But as soon as a punk band followed with a Fleetwood Mac cover of White Winged Dove, he turned it off, shaking his head. From there, he unveiled a cabinet full of jazz records and was surprised when I wasn't familiar with the American artists. Not a huge fan of jazz myself, I told him I was open to listening to some it, wondering how he'd gotten into it himself.

The soundtrack for the sunset that evening became Argentinian, Gato Barbieri and Brazilian, Astrud Gilberto. Michel told me that he used to live and work in Lyon during a time of economic prosperity, so he'd treat himself to a concert every week. He'd meet people who introduced all kinds of musicians to him.

I went to sleep that night with jazz notes dancing in my head, wondering what the next day would hold...

Day One at the Farm: Fougères

I owe my reason for WWOOFing to my good friend Kathrin who has done it several times and suggested that I try it while in France. She told me that it was a great way to get to know a different part of the country in an authentic way that's easy on the wallet. I paid for my somewhat expensive train tickets (as they were last minute), packed a bag and set off for Bretagne. The map below gives an idea of my train journey. I left from Lyon in the Rhone-Alpes (17) and traveled to Bretagne (1).

The TGV from Paris sped west through territory unchartered by me before. Leaving the heaving crowds of tourists, the train rolled past open meadows and hills that became brighter shades of green by the minute. My final destination was Fougères, a small ville fleurie with an astonishingly complete medieval castle. From there, the family picked me up in their white van, sporting stickers against chemicals and pesticides. My organic experience was about to begin.

Stone houses in Fougères. The difference of architecture in the north made it feel as though I were in another country.

We drove along small winding roads towards their farm. The family's two children who were in their early twenties had come along for the ride and within twenty minutes we arrived at a large stone farmhouse draped in colorful bursts of flower. I was greeted by a friendly black caniche (poodle) named Pitchoun, a provençal word meaning small, and a cat named Pirate. The interior of the farmhouse glowed from the light wood cupboards, and tables. Jars of medicinal herbs and dried fruit were lined up on the shelves.

The shelf above my bed.

Catherine, the mother, showed me my room, which I absolutely loved as soon as I stepped into it. I especially liked the skylight and the wood paneled ceiling. In order to have total darkness in the room, the woman showed me how to put a painting of Mont St. Michel she did on a piece of wood over the skylight.

After getting settled into my room, Michel, the father, took me on a tour of the farm, and after dinner, the daughter, Claude took me on a stroll through Fougères. She was pretty well-informed on the city, explaining the castle's long history to why the windows were so low to the ground on many houses (so pigs could eat the trash off the streets).

A view of the Fougères castle with stone and timbered houses in the foreground.

Stream running through the neighborhood. To the left are a couple wells (hidden by the flowers) in which women used to wash clothes.

View of Fougères castle from ramparts.

Claude told me that this was one of her favorite places in the city, perfect for watching un coucher du soleil. As you continue ascending the stairs, you can see more and more of the castle, which used to be made entirely of wood until it burned down and took a lot of the city with it. The stone towers were rebuilt, but interestingly enough all during different time periods.

Yellow timbered houses

These houses look like they've come straight out of a fairy tale, but are still inhabited. Michel informed me that the reason why the houses are top heavy or jut out more on top is because the higher one lived, the less taxes one had to pay. As most people weren't rich enough to pay taxes to live at street level, more people lived higher up, needing more space than below.

By the time we got back to the farm, I was exhausted...and hadn't yet worked! That would come the next day...

Gone WWOOFing

From July 2-9, I'll be volunteering on an organic farm in northern France in Bretagne. I have no idea what to expect, but I'm excited to be working outdoors where it'll hopefully be cooler than here in the Lyon area. I'm looking forward to hiking, reading, and escaping Chasse for a week. Will report back soon...

La Fête des Voisins

A mix of all kinds of food is currently sitting in my stomach willing itself to digest. Ok, well the reason I'm sharing is because of a comment that "colleague x" made tonight at our "neighbor party" translated literally from above.

There was a sign-up sheet for "un repas" or meal in the lobby of my building. It seemed casual. We would set up a table outside near the laundry lines and parking lot. I figured it couldn't be much more than pizza, chips, and pop. I figured wrong. This isn't America, it's France, where eating is an art, a regime, a scheduled event with courses, magical baskets of apéritifs, cheeses, bottles of wine, and fresh desserts. Being my last day of teaching, I decided to go easy on myself, and got an apple tart from the grocery store. My dessert never got eaten. Why? There was so much food, so much home-made fresh, delicious food that no one even touched my store bought cake. It's currently sitting in my fridge. It got beat out by an identical apple tart, a home-made apricot cake, and cream puffs drizzled in warm chocolate.

I thought the first course of home-made pizza and salmon/aubergine quiche was it, so I filled up on that, only to turn my head to see taboule, vegetable salads, chicken wings, and bread landing on the table. Cheese was to follow, along with a steady "taste this, taste that!" from whoever was sitting beside me.

Colleague X, a normally quiet man, turned and said to me, "now, you need to tell your new President how much food we fed you here in Chasse so that we have good relations between the U.S. and France."

Running French Errands

Well, French errands are really just the same as ordinary errands, but generally create a little bit more stress than errands in one's native country.

When I first arrived to France in September, going to the bank, post office, doctor, city hall or even the grocery store were all new to me. Even though I could speak French before arriving and had lived in Hungary and Spain beforehand, these things all required me to pump myself up before stepping out the door and silently recite what I needed to say over and over again in French. A pocketsize dictionary was like a secret talisman in my bag. I would over prepare, bring any paper or identification card even slightly related to the visit, at least four passport photos of myself, and several photocopies of all of this. Okay, maybe not for the grocery store.

This all took time, therefore what would be a short and simple visit to the bank in the U.S. became an entire morning's worth of energy in France. There was the paperwork preparation, the looking up of French bank lingo in lifesaver dictionary, the walk there, the nervous constricting of stomach muscles before approaching the counter, the bizarre look from the clerk at the sound of my first words, then the problem that I forgot one paper, the going back home to get that paper, photocopy it, laminate it, and sign it in gold pen, and repeat.

Now that it's June, I still over prepare and form at least one introductory line in my head, but my stomach muscles no longer constrict in anxiety. After almost nine months of being here, I've either gotten used to it or just don't care if the French freak out at my foreign accent anymore.

Upon finally receiving my green carte vital (medical card), I decided to finally take care of the vaccination suggestions that the doctor in October had recommended I get. My tetanus shot had expired and I had put off getting it in the US, because I had no health insurance. An idle Wednesday morning was the perfect time to discover the Chasse medical building, perched on top of the pharmacy in a neighborhood I rarely venture to.

Sounding the bell, I entered, wondering how it would compare with doctor's offices in the US and Hungary. It resembled both in different ways. The French medical building was more modern than Hungary's as in the US, but the doctor's desk, computer and examination area were the same room as was the case in Hungary. A man that looked to be in his young twenties with a stethoscope around his neck greeted me and was extremely kind, using gestures even when I could understand everything.

An older man, the doctor, appeared full of smiles. They told me to go to the pharmacy to get the "elixir" that would go into my vaccination. It was the first time I've ever had to go retrieve the liquid that was to be my shot. I got a standard check-up and the younger guy took my height and weight while the doctor tried to guess them. It was all very pleasant, and luckily I didn't mind about the weight guessing. When asked why I didn't come earlier for the vaccination, I told him that I had just received my medical card a few weeks ago. He nodded his head in understanding, "ah c'est la France."

Yoga en France

After waiting for my cold to go away, come home from vacation, and get paid, I was finally ready to take on a yoga class in Chasse.

Without an idea of where exactly the class would be held, what I would need to bring, or even if the instructor would let me participate without paying, I walked through the silent alley next to the schoolyard to the building where I was told the classes would be held. Not a thing stirred in Chasse. It seemed as though everyone was asleep.

Wandering around the building, I found a door, walked in, and followed noise and light upstairs. People were waiting outside the door to a large room. Inside the dim lit room was a circle of red mats, mirrors and a sparkly mural of Paris scenery, Eiffel Tower and all.

The first thing I noticed is that everyone had blankets or towels that they put over the mats. Did they think the mats were dirty?

After introducing myself "je suis nouvelle", the instructor let me participate and hoped I'd be able to understand everything.

How hard could it be? If I couldn't understand, then I could just look at everyone else and copy their moves. This proved to be more difficult when lying down on your back or being face-down on the mat. Also, not being familiar with French yoga lingo, I could barely relax, while trying to concentrate on what things meant.

Did this disturb me? No. I went to yoga not only to relax, but to better my listening comprehension in French. Also, it was a great workout. Afterwards, I couldn't even lift my shaking arms. And although the instructor had to help me a lot, I felt like a part of the class within no time. The class consisted of two girls who looked about my age, two older couples, and another older woman. It's the first time I've ever seen men in a yoga class.

The move that made my arms shake was something another woman described as a "cauchemar" or nightmare. While I did struggle with the moves and the language, I came home feeling great that I'd accomplished something. Then completely sore the next day.

Things Are Not Always What They Seem

Chasse is my roost for 9-10 months in France. No matter how often I travel or for how long I'm gone, I come back to Chasse. It's where two suitcases of my stuff is. It's where my job is, but it isn't completely where my heart is.

Chasse and I have a rollercoaster relationship.

One day, I'm on a pleasant walk up the forest road that leads to farms that sit on the edge of small cliffs overlooking Chasse and I see a baby lamb looking at me curiously from behind a fence on a green hillside with a chateau-esque building in the distance. Someone might drive by thinking I might like a ride down into Chasse so I don't have to walk. The thought is very kind, but my purpose is to walk. On days like these, I'm content to be there.

View from the top of my walk up the forested road leading to the countryside in the hills above Chasse.

Another day or possibly that same day, someone will stop their car and ask for directions while I'm wandering around and when I don't know where something is, they shake their heads, maybe even giving me the hand and a sigh as if they've already wasted enough of their time. Then, the train that I've planned on taking to get out of there, has either been "deleted" or leaves later due to more railway construction. Two or more of these tiny little events can cause a downward spiral so steep and fast that I've completely forgotten about the baby lamb.

As a fairly patient and adaptable person, this comes as a surprise to me. I had one of those days today. A black and white day, one with sun and rain, one with so much positivity and so much negativity that today seemed like two days.

I woke up to chainsaws trimming the trees in the schoolyard. It was okay, they started at 9, not extremely early. I decided to get up. With not enough food for breakfast, I got dressed, grabbed my huge plastic bag and walked to the grocery store. As I was shopping, my stomach growling, I ran into a colleague from school. Caught off guard while admiring my cheese options, I was at a loss for what to say. One of the nicest of my colleagues, she seemed pleased to see me and started chattering away. Some people I find easier to speak to in French and for some reason unknown to me, she is not one of those people. It's almost as if she doesn't completely hear what I say and therefore, I'm more likely to put my verbs in the past rather than the present or vice versa.

After my debaucle of awful French conversation, I walked home with my groceries feeling a bit down on myself for not being able to hold a smoother dialogue. I kept telling myself, that I was having an off-couple of days. I could barely concentrate in French class the previous night either. By the time I got home, I'd fallen onto the couch, leaving my grocery bag by the fridge. Feeling a little down, I just lay there until forcing myself to get to the post office where I had to mail my rent money.

It was a refreshing January afternoon. Not warm at all, but certainly brisk. I wandered around slowly, not yet wanting to go home after the post office. Walking past a huge building on the way to the train station, I decided to walk up some stairs to see what it was exactly. It's not possible to see from the street. I stumbled upon a miniature park, then found a sign for a music school and the youth and culture house. Most every city, village, or town in France has a maison des jeunes et de la culture or M.J.C. These centers usually have programs for children, adolescents, and adults, like artistic and sporty activities.

I went into the building, but no one was there, so I took a brochure. Chasse's M.J.C. offers:

judo, modern dance, shooting, badminton, gymnastics, hiking, art and decoration, yoga, ftness classes, gym "douce" (I can't translate this) 'soft or easy gym', and aqua gym. I had no idea Chasse had a pool or a M.J.C. I was also excited to learn that I could sign up for yoga classes on Wednesday nights. Just the particular night I was looking for some kind of activity, something to do in this sleepy town of 4,000 people. I plan on heading back there after pay day to sign up.

A bit more cheerfully, I walked home and ran into one of my students and his family. He was really excited to see me and greeted me with a chipper hello, baguette under his 9 year old arm. Seeing my students on the street is a fresh reminder that I'm here to help them with their English. A reminder of my purpose for being where I am.

Just as I entered the parking lot of the school, I saw an old-ish map that I'd never really looked at before. It said, Pays Viennois: Balades et Promenades. I did a double-take. After scouring my tiny seeming desolate town for places to walk, trails leading into forests, I had given up on local hikes. This map had a list of at least ten hikes, their length, and what one would see (chateaus, rolling hills, ancient churches, wildlife). There was only one that seemed reachable by foot from Chasse. The others were scattered and would require taking a bus or train to get there, hence a hassle.

I could see that the one hike nearest Chasse appeared to stem from the forest road walk I generally take past the baby lamb. Immediately I began daydreaming of spring morning hikes. And I wouldn't even have to leave Chasse (like I've had to for the past four months to see anything 'seemingly' noteworthy).

It appears that I should have looked a little closer and not just quickly scan over the place I call home for my 9-10 months here.

Lance Back in France

He's coming out of retirement, pulling a Brett Favre. Lance Armstrong is looking to race in 2009's Tour de France beginning in Monaco next July.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. He did get me interested in the sport after all, but I have a weakness for underdogs and I truly enjoyed watching 2008's almost dope-less race. It was nice to see different stage wins, no-names get their claim to fame and their lion. In other words, not one person dominated the entire Tour and we were kept in suspense until the near end.

However, on that note, it would be interesting to see if Lance can pull himself together and compete against all these young hopefuls.

À toute à l’heure Lance...

Headlines

Whatever John McCain's reason for choosing Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick, the subtle difference in two international headlines got me thinking...

In France's Le Monde, the headline read, "McCain choisit une femme pour la vice-présidence." In other words, "McCain chooses a woman for vice-presidency."

In the New York Times I saw, "McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate." Variations of this were similar in other U.S. newspaper headlines.

I don't think the majority of people knew who Sarah Palin was before McCain made her famous and it may be safe to say that "woman" was the first thing that came to the minds of many when they heard the news.

It seems very typically U.S. to be as politically correct with headlines, in this case, omitting any hint to Palin's femaleness. On the other hand, France's headline has nothing to hide. In regards to our first thoughts on McCain's decision, is the headline chauvanistic or simply blatant and honest?