Lou Ann's EuroBlog

"The rewards of the journey far outweigh the risk of leaving the harbor."
- Unknown

Well, I was wrong about not being online again for a few days. Here I am!! :-) It was my intention to spend the whole day today driving from Villereal to Caen ... but it seems that I WAY over-estimated the driving time, and I arrived in Caen early afternoon. So ... I stumbled upon an internet cafe and will spend some more time typing to you about my week in Villereal. AND ... I have a computer with the U.S. English keyboard option, so you don't even have to imagine me cussing under my breath every time I mix up the a and the q or the z and the w. :-D

So ... back to Villereal. The most important ingredient in the time spent there is the mix of personalities ... and there are certainly some personalities. Some of you know some of the people who were there, but none of you knows all of them, so please bear with me as I introduce you to some spectacular people.

First of all ... our fearless leader ... Danny. Danny (and all of the other teachers with me) is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher (at our school, we call this HILT). Danny's mother was French and her father was Colombian, and she lived for a while in Colombia growing up and has spent MUCH time in France as well. She grew up speaking French, Spanish and English and speaks all three without an accent. It was her idea to find a property in France and to rent it and split the rooms on a weekly basis. She did the research on the gite, interacted with the owners, and made all of the reservations with them accordingly.

Next we have Doina (I mentioned her yesterday). Doina is Romanian and fluently speaks Romanian, Hungarian, French and English (and I don't know what else!) She told me that she has even translated books from English to Romanian!! She moved from Romania to the United States at the age of 49!! She just (JUST) retired from teaching at Jefferson (ESL), and in August is going to move to California (Palo Alto) to be with her daughter and grandchildren. She's very excited!!

Jenny is also an ESL teacher. She grew up as a "missionary kid" (her parents were missionaries) in South Africa. She speaks Spanish, Portuguese and English. Jenny has a friend, Alyssa, who is a college student at GWU and a student in international relations. Alyssa is doing a summer internship at the US Embassy in Iceland and Jenny met her on her way to France and brought her along for our week in the Southwest. Alyssa, by the way, is also fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Andrea is Danny's neice. She is a physics major at UNC Greensboro and spent the Spring semester in Russia (can't remember the city ... Andrea are you out there? Will you tell us the name of your city??) studying Russian (she's already fluent in Spanish, so decided to study Russian in college ... she says that Chinese will be her next conquest). After classes were over two months ago, she shipped home the cold-weather clothing and took a small suitcase and a back-pack and spent two months wandering around Europe. Turkey, Greece, Italy, etc. Her final destination before heading home was Southwest France and her Aunt Danny.

Danny's aunt and uncle were there as well ... but did "their own thing" most days, so I didn't really get to know them (except for some long late-evening discussions with her uncle about the probability involved in the Monty Hall problem ... if you have time, read it ... it's a lot of fun!!)

Also, the owners of Fonguillères play into the picture. Their names are Susan and Marcus Smith. We only interacted with them a couple of times, but they were quite interesting ... deciding to pack up their two young children and move from a London suburb to the countryside of France ... to give up their careers to buy a run-down property to fix up and rent to vacationers (and fix it up they did ... it's a fabulous place!!)

FYI ... Danny, Doina, and Danny's aunt and uncle arrived a week before I did and stayed the whole two weeks. Andrea arrived the Thursday before I did and only stayed through Monday evening. I arrived Saturday afternoon and stayed the second week. Jenny and Alyssa arrived Monday morning. So, there was only one day on which we were all there (Monday).

Well, moving along, I think that I'll move on to the topic of food and drink (as you know if you're reading the comments, has already been a requested topic!) We were literally a 2 km walk from the village (although sometimes I drove instead of walking). There was a small market (called "8 a Huit") right in the main square in the village, and a larger grocery store between the village and home. So, we got some of our main staples from the grocery store or 8 a Huit.

A quick, fun note for those of you familiar with the French language. The word "huit" means 8, right? That's what I've learned in the past few weeks. SOOOooo ... I assume that a grocery store called "eight to eight" (translated) must be OPEN from eight o'clock a.m. to eight o'clock p.m. Now, I know that the grocery stores are usually closed on Sundays in France ... and some even on Mondays. But I believe that it was Tuesday that I decided to be at the doors of "8 a Huit" at exactly 8:00 when they opened because I was running low on my breakfast staples. Well ... they do NOT open at 8:00 a.m. They open at 8:30 a.m. I didn't even ask about the closing time. Duh! :-) Well, it's a good thing that it was only a two km drive ... I drove back home, cut up some melon I had purchased the previous day, ate it, and drove back (with Doina in tow) to be there when they opened at 8:30. LOL!! Go figure!!

Kate has requested that I talk about the bread, and so I will do so! :-) The bread here is TO DIE FOR!!!! Kate ... it would be worth the trip just to eat the bread. It's easy to get wonderful (fresh!) breads at the grocery store (lots of different kinds ... baguettes, wheat baguettes, wheat/nut/raisin breads, etc.), but even better to get the freshest breads at the morning markets (I'll talk about those later) that we went to most days. BUT ... the MOST to-die-for bread that I've EVER had in my entire life was made by a little old man (Jenny says that he looks exactly like Billy Crystal in The Princess Bride) in a small shop about 1 km from Fonguillères on a little non-marked rural-rural-rural road. I want you to imagine this. There's this little road tucked away through some corn fields and a small stretch of foresty stuff. You wouldn't notice the road unless someone who does know about the road pointed it out to you and said, "There's a road there." And you'd have to do a double-take because you'd really not be sure that it really IS a road. Got it? Anyway ... you drive down that road and on the left, just past the HUGE wood-pile on the right (that's EXACTLY how the directions were given to us!) you have to turn because there is no sign. Just a house. With a building of some sort attached. And a parking area for approximately 3 cars. Picture it!! Dark and tucked away. Now, you have to go during the hours of 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. That's it. That's the only time they're "open". And only Monday through Friday. I have started calling him "the bread man", and everyone at Fonguillères knew what I was talking about, so I'll refer to him like that here, too. Anyway ... the first time that we were actually in the vicinity during the "open" hours was Thursday, so we stopped by there on our way to one of the cities that we visited. The goal was to purchase bread for our lunches and then to find some meat in the city and make sandwhiches for ourselves. So ... Danny drives past the wood pile and voila ... there are about 15 cars stuffed into the 3-car parking area and spilling out into the street, etc. The directions to the bread man also mentioned that he's quite "famous" in the area. I guess so. The line was out the door. There are about 6 different loaves that he makes, and when he's out, he's out. They are not wrapped or anything. You ask for "un baguette" or whatever, and they hand you a baguette, and while you're paying the 0,72€ for said baguette, it is burning your hand because he MUST have JUST taken it out of the oven. Amazing!! SOOOOOooooo ... I got in the car with everyone else (not all of whom bought loaves of bread ... I don't understand some people!!) and on the 25 minute drive to our destination, I ate what was supposed to be my lunch. It just smelled SO good, and was so warm in my hands ... how could I have NOT eaten it right then and there?? Anyway ... the bread man of Villereal is TO DIE FOR!! I went back the next day, and they were out of baguettes (I waited too long), but they had some other loaves, and I bought a couple (one for me ... one for a wine & cheese thing we were to do that evening). YUMMMMM!!!! Kate ... you MUST try the bread man in Villereal some day!! :-)

Well, it seems that I've written a novel. I will write more about our week at the gite next time ... which really WILL be a few days from now, as I don't at all possibly imagine that I'll have two minutes inbetween things to be finding internet places until at the very first possible moment on Monday ... but it may be Tuesday or Wednesday. In the meantime ... imagine the bread man and his hot bread and the aromas coming from that little, out of the way place. And smile..... :-)