En Bretagne.

Well, sporadic internet access has kept me from the computer. That and being in Brittany for the week. I still haven't written about Wales, but since it figures into a lot of my stories, I don't guess it matters, for the time being.

Last Saturday, I began my foray into Bretagne. I opted for it rather Belgium, which is a bit farther off. This region is the western most peninsula of northern France; Angers sits near the boundary between Bretagne and the Loire. A good place to be. My goal when I set out was to spend time with real Bretons, preferably Brezhoneg speaking Bretons. What better tool than couchsurfing to make it happen. I spent my first evening in Auray, a city on the southern coast, between Vannes and Lorient. There was a couchsurfing meeting there that night. To be more specific, it was actually an Indian cooking party, which, while being outside my immediate goals, proved a to be a good start. I rolled into the city around 11am, killed a few hours eating some lunch and trying to catch some sunshine, and then headed to Morganez' house. After a few other couchsurfers arrived, we drove a little bit closer to the coast and set out on a ballade, a short hike. Well, it was 4 hours long. But it was really nice weather. The sun came out, first time in a week for me. There, one were about eight of us; mostly French, one brésilienne. We had a pretty good time. Saw a chapel built by a Welsh monk.

We got back at about six and started cooking. More people showed up, until we had a good 12-15. We ate at about 11. The food was pretty good. Most of it vegetarian, but it WAS Indian food. However, the french are lightweights when it comes to spice. There was one prefab dish that everyone screamed was so spicy. I'd give it a three out of ten on Maharaja's scale of heat. People started trickling out around 1h30, but the last four of us didn't go to sleep until 4h30. I had already been snoozing when Morganez whipped out her Breton and Welsh books, including a Breton book for learning Welsh. Very fun.

The next day, a handful of us went into the city, guided by our host and a couple others, we saw the cathedral and a few other old buildings, as well as the old port around which the city had been built. We stopped at a candy store, and I got a kouign-amann, based on the recommendation of everyone there. It's a little pastry made with rolled layers (almost like a pecan roll) and butter. It was very good. As we left, it decided to rain. Apparently Breton weather isn't that much different from Welsh weather. One of my new friends has a comic depicting a Breton standing on top of a hill, his arms held wide to praise the 'telle variété de gris.'

The next day, I traveled to a small town in east central Bretagne by way of the larger city, Vannes, which is also on the coast. I spent the day wandering through the old city and around the port. I went into a couple of museums, but nothing really worth telling. The areas around the old town walls were pretty neat. Under the choir in the cathedral was a tomb containing the remains of some Stuart royalty, daughter of James Something of Scotland and wife of François I, duc de Bretagne.For lunch, I stopped in this really posh looking bistro. Ornate silverware, fuchsia napkins and pink lights everywhere. The look on their faces when I walked in, with my pack on my back and all. The food was good. Avocado and chicken salad, followed by curried pork lo mein, or something like that. I honestly didn't know what I was ordering.

At the end of the day, I took a bus to Locminé, which really is about as country as it gets. Lots of farms, food processing plants, etc. I went to stay with a friend I had met at India night. Yann's a really cool guy. His plan is to finish renovating his Breton country lodge (lodge it is, being longer than three times it's width and being made entirely of stone), begin renting the rooms, and go to California and start wwoofing. I told him I wanted to do the same, just traveling in the opposite direction. We got along well. He fed and gave me a place to sleep, and the next day, he drove me all around la forêt de Brocéliande, the heart of Bretagne's mythology. Legend, and I use that word very loosely, has it that Merlin and Vivian have their respective tombs here. The Bretons of course claim the legend of Arthur and all associated with him as their own, much like Wales. I visited both tombs, but the what was most visually impressive was a ballade in le val sans retour. Pictures on facebook. All in all, I had a good time, and Yann seemed to as well.

The next day, today, I came to Rennes, the capital and one of the largest cities. I spent today in out of museums and book shops. Rennes is a pretty city. It has a canal running up the center, and it doesn't appear to have had major changed to the pre-'modern' architecture. I saw an exhibit that told the history of Bretagne, including a couple of videos on the two regional regional languages, Breton and Gallo. There was also a history of the city as scene in the songs from the different periods. That was pretty cool. I saw a couple Picasso's at la Musée de Beaux-Arts.

Tomorrow I'm headed back to Auray to join a couple couchsurfers and make are way up the coast, towards Lorient. I'm also planning on attending a fest noz Saturday night, just outside of Vannes. Should be pretty good.

A bientôt.

I've got nothing.

Well, quelle semaine. I've almost made it an entire week since last posting.

My rendez-vous with the director of my department was unabashedly rude and unapologetically confusing. There was talk of mutiny, but after that first guy was verbally disemboweled, our courage was decimated, our hopes shattered. I'm making the best of it though. I've managed to wriggle into a class of Old French. I don't know if I'm going to appreciate that come the end of the semester, but doubtless I'll learn something useful.

Classes are going well. The grand majority of my time is spent in the library, studying before, in between, and after classes. Imagine my horror when I heard I could only check out five livres at a time. She very nearly throttled me when I told her I checked out nigh on forty last semester. However, with the help of one Ally Watkins, I made it to one of the city libraries on Saturday, where I proceeded to check out several more books.

I then went to le Muséum des Sciences Naturelles. Very fun. It was split into two different sections, one on nature(?)(the living kind), the other on prehistory. The first was pretty neat. It put a lot of emphasis on the surrounding Anjou region, with specific references to the flora and fauna around the rivers. The 'county' I live in, Maine-et-Loire, is situated around two major rivers that lend their names to the region. Very neat. Good vocabulary builder. The prehistoric exhibit was also interesting, though it was easy to get lost in the details. Lots of fossils of stuff that swam in the ocean. A few interesting notes about the mining history of the regions. A few skeletons, a few skulls, and fairly large nugget of gold.

The evening proved entertaining. My host family was again celebrating the birthday of their youngest daughter, this time with extended family. Luckily, I got invited. There were about ten or so people who showed up, making it a rather large crowd. It was a bit intimidating at first, but after a couple of glasses of champagne and speaking with a septuagenarian about her theatre days, it turned out to be a rather fun evening. Pâté, lasagna, cheese, salad, galette, and fruit. Quite a meal. The best part? I was seated next to Lancelot. His brother, Tristan, was a few seats away. Very cool names.

Nothing much to report now but school.