A straight shot to Arreau

The nearest town with something more than a post office and a place to buy cigarettes during my month of July was Arreau. I had been anxious to explore, and so I did, with the presence of my glittermuffin Marie. 

Marie, ever so camera-friendly

Fisherman happily awaited their possible dinner, the river gushed on by, and flowers bloomed.

We had stuffed our picnics specially packed for us by the camp owner Guy into our sacs, and with bare feet, crossed the tinkling ice-cold river lined with overhanging greenery. 

I of course stubbed my toe. Feeling like true adventurers, we then stumbled through a thickly weeded field to find a sun-warmed grassy patch. After munching on cheese and paté, a siesta was in order. 

Then a bit of meditation. Because, when the Pyrenees surround you and the rays of the sun are absorbing into your midday dreams, a cross-legged position is then assumed quite naturally.

Lannemezan to Heche til the cows come home

Cute little streets of Lannemezan

On my first day off from teaching English at the summer camp in the Pyrenees Mountains, I was determined to take advantage and thus go hiking. Eloise and I met in Lannemezan to buy some groceries with the kind addition of advice from the bored Casino worker. He suggested we hitchhike to Heche and take the great one-day trail that would afford us a view 'magnifique'.



After several minutes of discouraging looks from passers-by, our luck began to soar. A guy with booming French R&B stopped and not only took us to Heche, but also up the winding dirt road to the trail itself, saving us a 2 hour walk.

The beginning

We shrugged, accepting our strange fortune, and began the trek up a very Lord of the Rings-esque mossy, rocky path into the forest.

If a tree falls in the forest, etc etc

We're comin' round the mountain...

Yellow wolf heads painted on well-positioned trees and stones guided us. We finally decided to stop and set up camp.





It was about this moment when we realized our water supply was no more. So the conversation followed:

The hill without water

E: "I think we should go look for water."
g: "But we have a bottle of wine, I think we'll be okay."
E: "Uh...No. We need water. I'm going to go look."
g: (sighs) "Okay. I'll go with you."
(after 5 minutes of walking, we find a little stream of water)
E: Look, there are cows, let's follow them up the hill."
g: (raises eyebrows) "I don't know. You go first." (finally grudgingly follows)
(after 10 minutes of walking around, getting steadily more thirsty as someone who sits at the dinner table becomes more aware of his stomach, then we climbed through a barbed wire fence and to no avail..)
E: "So....What do you think?"
g: "What do I think?! You're the girl scout! I'm going back to the road.."
E: "Are you sure?"

And so on. We followed the road then, eventually compromising. Every corner was a thirsty hopeful moment, followed by a disappointing set of new hills and rocky terrain. At the last minute, just when the bottle of wine was supposing to be our last liquid substance before we were left in the morning, dried up for the cows....

(these are the cows)

(these are those chairs)

we stumbled upon a strange little empty cabin. A half bottle of cold wine perched upon a large wooden table, surrounded by three old yellowing over-stuffed lazy boys.

The eerie feeling in the cabin sent me scurrying out (after taking the necessary witness pictures), to hear Eloise proudly call, "water!"

The worthy view at Uncle Tom's cabin and its water trough (thanks to the cows and Eloise's hypothesis, we survived the Pyrenees) far surpassed the hour of panicking about our demise, and our eyes gladly soaked in the miles of rolling forestry accompanied by the tinkling of hundreds of cow bells.

La fin

Come to Collioure

A week before beginning my employment at an American English immersion camp as an English teacher, I went on a weekend of my own bit of French immersion with my good friends Corentin and Laura, and their friend Karine. We went camping and hiking in the sweet French seaside towns of Collioure and Banyuls-sur-Mer.

After a few hours of snoozing in the car, we arrived at the campground. Corentin assured me it was time for me to have my first French dream. I assured him that if I couldn't understand his simple request to pass the toilet paper, I was not ready for a full out slumbering adventure.

A bit of graffiti we found

We awoke for a French camp-style breakfast of pain au chocolates and juice. And chocolate milk for Corentin. Soon after, we were off to hike the vineyard-dappled shoreline mountains and breathe in the crisp air wafting from the close Spanish border.

The transparent Mediterranean allowed us to see the shapes of the boulders in the green blue water from the view of the high cliffs, reminded me of the iceburg in that motivation poster.

We found a rocky private beach and climbed down to munch on some cheese, sausage and couscous before taking a siesta.

This was the day I hitch-hiked for the first time. And it was so easy. The first car stopped. He was a little friendly French man, and Corentin happily chatted with him while I sat in the back of the car, admiring the view of the sea.

The lost trio

My three French friends discussed, negotiated, agreed, muttered, yelled, and joked in their native language, and I...listened. Many times I could only wonder when we were leaving, or why we were suddenly walking in a different direction (to which I would quickly scurry). But they patiently explained when I asked, and I patiently corrected their English explanation. At the end of our dinner (and the Crema Catalunya, which was superb), I could sense a tiring of the English explanations, and I demanded we end the English for the rest of the trip. This was only mildly successful, but I certainly practiced the vocab I knew, and learned the useful French verb 'to forget'.

This made my eyes well up in tears of happiness

Karine & 'la vie est belle en France'

After a very windy night in a tent, we packed up to go to a lovely wildlife conservation beach known for being popular for scuba diving, or 'plongée', and in our case (snorkling), 'plongée avec le mask et tuba'. Magnificent. The first few times I ducked my head underwater, I came up nervously spluttering and giggling. I gradually gained more nerve and began to swim with the fish. Every so often a big one would swim by and glare at the intruder in his water, which would bring me up laughing and choking.

We rewarded our snorkling and tanning efforts with some gelato before jumping in the car back to Toulouse. That evening I had my first French dream. However limited it was on vocabulary. I quickly emailed Corentin with the good news.