d'Angers domestic

FYI
Many months after the final d'Angers post, I've started up another blog back home in Bellingham. If you're so inclined, check out Sporadigram.

See you there perhaps,
Hugh

Odds and end?

Could it be the final blog d'Angers? Technically, I guess the previous post was since now I'm writing de Paris where we're checking out the big cité before we fly out on the 10th. And since we're in Paris, I'm sure my writing will magically improve through some cosmic literary force.

How do you say goodbye to students
in French? Order twelve pizzas of
course. 

Our final days in Angers were punctuated with nice farewell dinners, returning borrowed things, and continued performances of my favorite French-speaking skills. I made extra sure not to spoil my reputation at "our" boulangerie. When I'd asked for my loaf and was moving towards the cash register to pay and move on, the woman asked, "c'est tout? (is that all?). And because I always assume I'm being asked to buy more,  I said, "Uh, no." (of course adding the "uh..." at the front as if I'd understood and was giving the question some polite consideration before my nonsensical reply). We had a two-second stare-down before we resolved that I was loafed-out. And even on our final day, I managed to again say "merci" when I stepped into a guy at the supermarche. But then, the pleasure is all mine.

K & B on the windy Maine

Bonnie visited from Geneva on our final weekend. This gave us a great excuse to re-visit some of our favorite in-town sites before we left. We always notice something new at the Chateau d'Angers (new old things if you will).

In the chateau chapel, a large space alternately used through history for worship and prisoners of warships, chateau management had allowed the installation of a large student project -- a team effort of local students of fine-arts, design, and communications to "...confronté á la question du minigolf." I have no idea of minigolf's profile across the globe but the exhibition was given an English title, "Let's Golf." And, though you might have been skeptical, minigolf proved to be a fertile compost of mixed media. Subjects sprouting from the steamy heap of scrap metal, cardboard, video, kinetics, astroturf, etc. included, from what I could tell: fashion, product design, behavioral architecture, and social psychology. And since the point of departure was minigolf, you couldn't say any of it was ironic. It was just minigolf being more interesting than usual.

Minigolf of the apocalypse: Artist/
designer/communicator Julie Galland
explains (I'm guessing) that in mini-
golf, as in life, if a ball doesn't fit,
it can be broken down and pushed
into the hole.

Over in the Apocalypse Tapestry exhibit, I noticed, this time through, that the rendering includes a rainbow. Who knew hellfire came in seven colors?

In the corner of a corner of one of the 84
panels of the Apocalypse Tapestry is a
rainbow which seems to skewer a dust-
ruffled roast turkey.

But rainbows aren’t just for unicorns and apocalypses. The up-to-the-last-minute fashion tip we’re bringing home with us is that bright primary colors have jumped off the Angers Tramway and into the eyelets of expensive, black, men’s dress shoes. No more Monsieur Grumpy at the bank, its time for stuff-shirts everywhere to feel the rainbow (yes, like the viral Newt Gingrich video).

What this town could use is some more rainbow.

On our last Saturday in Angers we went out to dinner at Chez Toi, a cafe up the street we'd been meaning to get to.  It was this night, during the peak of the German E-Coli outbreak (that France had still avoided), that I “decided” to unwittingly order carpaccio. I think Kristin and Bonnie knew what was coming to me but politely assumed (as I am politely assuming now) that I knew, too. Even after I'd eaten a few bites, I didn't realize it was raw (beef). It was sliced soo thinly and well flavored with olive oil, spices, and lemon that it tasted simple more than it tasted fleshy. I was trying to put this new experience into a known category, thinking carpaccio was maybe like cold pizza with no dough or like a plate with skin. Then it dawned on me. The last time my meat had been warmer, it went, "moi." To complicate the issue a little, because the stylized serving is small, carpaccio eaters get an automatic second plate once they've finished the first. This is where you go all in or settle for a C- on the cultural flexibility test. More plate skin please.

Sandwich retooled

Speaking of conspicuously absent dough, another fresh experience on the way out of town was Alexandra et Denis CANTON’s new, mag-lev sandwich-making system. You may have seen a typical boulangerie sandwich display—a refrigerated glass case filled with neatly stacked, pre-made jambon & beurre, poulet, thon, and plain jambon sandwiches. And they’re all made on a 30 cm baguette. And that baguette is sittin’ in there, in the case, gettin’ a bit stale, maybe soggy, or both. Well, our buddy Denis, having felt the wrath of an unhappy sandwich customer (as we’ve talked about before), has invested in a whole new program. His refrigerated case is now filled with pre-made sandwich fillings – assembled in sandwich-form on narrow steel tongues (I’ll call them tongues. I’m sure the industry has a great name for them). Only after you make your selection is the corresponding baguette unseamed. Then the magic begins. Your chosen, pre-loaded steel tongue is placed on the magnetic, hinged, flat steel insertion plate. A sandwich is born. Totally pro.

LeDrogo lays in the razor cuts on the
next round of baguettes. It's got to be
the shoes.

As you know, we’ll miss our dough. On my second to last trip into Cocagne, I saw Patrick Le Drogo (that’s the name on the paper they wrap their baguettes in so I assume it was the dude) loading the oven with rested loaves ready for fire. From a distance, I’d always assumed Le Drogo’s shoes were whitened by the constant steady dusting of flour. I saw recently that what he was wearing were some totally funky white shoes. And then, as often happens with things like this, I started seeing the same shoes on other bakers. I googled it and it’s true. French bakers have French-baker shoes.

While I’m managing to leave without having picked up a pair of baker shoes (as cool as they’d be at the skate park or dialysis clinic), I never really bought anything besides groceries in France. As Euro coins (including 1€, 2€, .02€, .50€ etc.) started to accumulate in a coin-quantity I wasn’t used to managing, I strongly considered buying a coin purse (or would you call that a man-pouch?). But, it would have been a bad investment. I still don’t see any evidence that the Sacajawea dollar coin is going to go mainstream outside of the D.C. subway system. But as soon as it does, I’ll buy a small leather Sac’-sack.

Sunset District SF finally
gets noticed by France.
Could Bellingham's
Sunnyland Neighborhood
be far behind?

Back to near purchases, I was also looking for a good t-shirt – something that captured the French appetite for slightly wrecked English t-shirt phrases but was still wearable. If you pay attention to this genre, you soon notice that UCLA is the most popular school in Angers followed by anything “… & Marshall” The word “marshall” (and sometimes “marshal”) is soo hot right now.
[Note: As you may have noticed above, I’m starting to spell the word “soo” (as in “soo heavy.”) with two Os. “So,” as in, “I told you so,” will keep getting just one one O. I think this is a good idea, it’s much like the difference between “to” and “too,” and somebody’s gotta start. Since this is the last blog, my timing isn’t the best but I’ll see what I can do. I think I know a guy at Google’s spell-check division and he’s soo nice. Or I could just start telling people that “that’s the way they spell it now. The change happened soo fast, a lot of people still haven’t heard about it.”] But I was talking about t-shirts. Jack and I were on a last-ditch, 25 minute t-shirt shopping spree (a very long time for me to be in non-food stores) when I was shocked to find my home town ‘hood, San Francisco's Sunset District, had been memorialized by the French t-shirt industry (or a least by people who flip the switch on the big Chinese t-shirt machine that fills orders for France). The shirt read, Long Beach – Sunset District S.F. The text was overlaid on an image of a cabana and tropical flowers. So, it wasn’t quite purchase worthy. Long Beach is So. Cal. And, neither place has cabanas or passion fruit (except at Trader Joes and Whole Foods respectively).

Pack it in. Pack it out. The bag-roll home begins.

Late Monday morning, with our too many bags packed up, Sue met us to confiscate the keys of “our” apartment and help us shuffle off to the train station. She offered to call two cabs but we were committed to walking. If we couldn’t roll and carry our many cubic meters of stuff the 10 minute walk to the station, how could we be expected to move it back and forth twice in Paris?

Cheap rolling luggage fail.

It was a tad hard. Hard for me because I failed to notice that after about three blocks one of my bag’s wheels melted and oozed out of commission. I’d felt the increased drag but, as I’m inclined to assume more and more lately, I just figured I was wearing out. Yes, the good times roll. The other times, the not good times, they don’t roll.

We left Angers walking towards our train beneath the metropole’s largest rendering of its new promotional slogan: “Le vie en grand.” We think this is like “The good life” or maybe, “Living large.” Either way, I think our last four and half months backs it up. It’s been a large good time.

In a reversal of our original Paris to Angers TGV experience, not only were we headed in the opposite direction, we also got an unexpected upgrade to first class. SNCF had changed train equipment which threw the normal assigned-seating arrangement into a hit-and-miss free-for-all. Not seeing any way to get five seats near each other, we were sitting on the steps near our bag-mountain when Mr. friendly conductor came walking by and asked if we were a family. “Oui are family…” Well in that case, there were five seats together in the posh box. This was a preferable enough alternative that we hiked the 7 or so cars away leaving our bags in the good hands of the second-class riff raff (I still ran all the way back to make sure none of the bags walked off when we made the one intermediate stop in Le Mans). In first class, there was no WiFi or strawberry ice cream but I think, if I’m ever offered a new office chair, I’m going to request a TGV first class train seat. It was soo comfortable (and great for typing).

Appendix 1: d’Paris
So we didn’t go straight the airport. We spent a couple of days in Paris. Kristin found a cool apartment that’s like a big hotel room, booked on-line, but accessed using e-mailed codes and lock-boxes for the door key. Pretty cool. Although, I think I needed that first class train seat because I was afflicted with a bit of dread that this apartment would be on the sixth floor of a building with no elevator. I was half right. But there was an elevator. We had a great second dose of Paris to cap off our otherwise small city adventure.  Paris pictures here.

Time to Baguette.

Slate, salt, and aragonite

This is your chalkboard on drugs.
Any questions?

Slate
Even before Angers was known for Cointreau, it had established itself as a slate mine -- this also predating the abandonment of Slate as a source of subscription-based online media revenue. And, even though contemporary global economics (privately thwarted regulation +  privately supported public subsidies for transportation = prices that can't be beat) dictates that everyone buys Spanish slate these days, Angers maintains a solid commitment to its rocky past.

On top of old slate pile, all covered
in slate.

Jack's soccer team played their last game of the season in the adjacent town of Trélazé (tray-lah-zay), one of the most historically active slate mining areas which still produces a limited supply, mostly for regional building restoration. After dropping Jack at SCA clubhouse for a ride with the team, we drove our bikes out to the stade. The Loire-a-Velo route took us right through some of the abandoned mine sites: big patches of land covered with slate shards, old sheet metal, rusty cranes, half-buried rail tracks, and mountain-sized piles of more slate shards. Think Scooby Doo flashback with French subtitles. I'll say, too that compacted slate dust makes for an eerily smooth ride (not sure what it does to your lungs though).

Workin' in a goalmine, goin' down down down...

The soccer stadium (yet another super cool temple to the sport) was built in, you guessed it, an old quarry. It was new. You won't see it on Google Earth -- that's how new it is. A recent project, it was largely funded via the European Union (perhaps a little community candy to sweeten public perspectives on the EU's €8 billion rail tunnel through the Alps). The only problem was that the host club forgot they were slated to host that day. But, somebody ran into town for the key while coaches of the four teams who'd arrived organized a less less formal set of matches. If only someone had been around to spool up the goûter stand.

Salt
As alluded to in the last installment, we made it out to the coast -- Île de Ré just off shore from La Rochelle. Our Friday afternoon train arrived too late to take the regional bus the rest of the way so we took a cab out to the island. Our cab driver spoke pretty good English and made sure we knew he was driving an American car (which he chidingly clarified was manufactured in South Korea). He pointed out the quirks of France and give us travel advice for our island visit. At one point (speaking in French to Kristin) he announced his frustration with road workers, who had left the project for the day in a mess of barriers and dirt-piles.  He uttered his already well-known catch phrase, "c'est la France." But when Kristin was translating the remark to Ella, Ivy, and Jack he interjected somewhat forcefully to make sure the kids knew he was just kidding and that France is actually a very productive country. It was an interesting kind of compliment, I thought -- showing that his first instinct was that these Americans in his cab, along with himself, while aware of the stereotypes we have of each other's countries, don't really take them seriously. But, while we might tolerate politicians using such cliched sentiments, we wouldn't want our children to think we put any stock in such ideas. But enough of these deepish thoughts,  Île de Ré is shallow and flat. This means that fish and bike-riding both come easy. And, with one full day to live the island way, those are the two things we focused on. Like the grape co-op and salt co-op of the island, it seems that all the bike-rental places also collude. But the trails were great -- winding through the tidal salt flats and vineyards, and to the quaint, shoreside towns and beaches.

'orse de Ré

Salt farmer de Ré 

'eron de Ré

Almost back from our Saturday bike tour,  we pulled over at a little stand a salt farmer had set up to sell some product. Turns out, even in the world of sea salt, there're options: sel marin or fleur de sel -- table salt or flower of salt -- regular or pure dope. The obvious response was to buy a bag of each: €1 for a kilo bag of sel marin and €8 for 250 grams of flower powder. I'm so looking forward to bringing this stuff back through U.S. Customs ("If you just take a little lick, officer, I'm sure you'll agree that it's salt.").

Aragonite
Time on the beach gave us a mystery to solve. Along with a good variety of shells we found several white, seemingly mummified fish bodies. They lacked clear head features but tapered back to where a fish tail could have been. We also saw that the hotel desk had some kind of wall-art made with these objects but we forgot to ask what they were. So, toting the mummified fish in my man-bag, I put the question to my Angers panel of experts at my final visit to the English conversation group at the Anglophone Library. Answer: squid (calmar) (Thanks, experts). Well that was the approximate answer. With some follow-up research using the squid clue, turns out the objects are cuttlefish "bones" (Thanks, Wikipedia).  American shores don't have cuttlefish. I've heard the name but never knew it was in the same family as squid. But cuttlefish have a cuttlebone. And, this roughly elliptical structure is made of aragonite (crystalized calcium carbonate) and part of a complex system for regulating buoyancy. The cuttlefish, besides having a funny name, is an amazing point of departure for random homeschool explorations into gastronomy, dietary supplements for parrots, metal working, printing, and the whole whacky anatomy and biochemistry of cephalopods. Ready kids?

Pictured here with the Angers
SCO panda mascot for scale
(as well as continued
pandering for admission to the
exclusive club of charismatic
megafauna) our cuttlefish's
cuttlebone could be SCObi's
surfboard.

 

Pictured here with 843,972
grains of sand (for scale), razor
clam shells make good press-
on toenails (as well as a solid pitch
for admission to the corrosive club
of symptomatic microfauna).

Traveling home, between La Rochelle and Nantes, our train came to a complete stop out in the countryside, on a long curve through the trees. After a couple of minutes, the engineer came on the loudspeaker, apparently explaining that the train had gotten the signal to stop because of some problem ahead on the tracks. We were in the last car and had a nice view out the back. Shortly after the announcement,  a conductor went running down the track in the opposite direction holding a flare. Really? I was pretty sure this had to be a redundant safety measure but, nonetheless, it made the view out the back of the train a lot more interesting for the next 20 minutes. Because of the delay, we missed our Angers connection in Nantes.  But the friendly station agent was standing at the ready to look at our ticket and tell us to climb aboard the train on Track 2, a non-stop express to Paris. Well, we didn't get on. I actually read French! The dimly illuminated liquid-crystal display next to the door read "Paris sans arrêt." I know that's probably comprehensible to anyone but, I'm taking it. I understood French when it mattered. It was clutch. We double checked with another station guy and he confirmed that we'd been given bunk info. Our train was on Track 3. C'est la France.

More pictures of Île de Ré here.

Pump up the Tram
Last Friday morning got off to an exciting start here on Rue de la Roë. In a full rehearsal, a grey vinyl dummy was laid across the tram tracks for a suspecting tram driver to roll over it--at least enough to simulate a grey vinyl pedestrian getting injuriously trapped underneath. And, as if we'd paid for front row seats, it all went down beneath our apartment. Many Tramway bureaucrats were on hand in for the event. They'd chosen difficult terrain -- the steepest grade on the route -- to execute the extrication plan. Next a special tram truck appeared, rolling up the rue -- part truck, part train, it had rubber wheels, rail wheels, and a lot of heft. It parked and its driver went about linking the truck and tram with a solid steel shaft, apparently to lock it in position. While this got set up, the pompiers arrived in their golden centurion helmets. Living up to their costumes, they were clearly the most enthusiastic role-players: running out of their truck, making very animated introductions with other authorities on site. And then they started bringing out the trick tools -- a system of blocks, compressors, and large inflatable jacks. With the back of the tram locked up on the fancy truck, they very slowly raised the front of the vehicle off Dummy. They even moved Dummy to a stretcher, hooked up IVs, and diagnostic equipment, and wheeled him/her into the back of the ambulance. I'm not sure what aspect of those final steps would have been different from any other trauma rescue but I was glad to know that Dummy had evidently survived.

Tramway the viral YouTube video: He was vinyl and known for mistakes.
She liked golden hats and reflective safety garb. They had nothing in
common. Friends said it would never work.  But that was before...
the big accident. In this auto-tuned remix, their lips are finally in synch.
Don't miss: Air jack training video 4756.

Angers Bouge

Bringing the blog up to date, this Sunday was Tout Angers Bouge (All (of) Angers Moves). This was much like the annual event back in Bellingham -- Get Movin'. Most all of the athletic clubs in the Angers area had some kind of booth or event set up down by the chateau. Even the Angers Snookers club was there -- a guy standing alone under a 10x10 white canopy smoking a cigarette, waiting, waiting...
Ella, Ivy, and the rest of their Angers Gymnastique crew were demonstrating from 16:00 to 18:00 (jeez I won't miss the 24 hr clock), doing their part to inspire the next generation of gymnasts. They had an impressive crowd of 4 to 9 year old girls very attentively watching the limited number of routines they could do on the padded area of the parking lot they were assigned to. There was also a good contingent of people who'd just gotten bored with the tae kwon do demonstration next door.

Angers Gymnastique Bouge

Count down

10 more days in Angers. It's gone quickly. Seems like a lot of things are still on the to-do list -- all of which can me mitigated by eating more bread. But there's still stuff on the calendar so, at least one more blog post is on the docket.

Troglodyte: It's in the hole.

Hundreds of years ago, troglodytic peasants, using simple
tools and sweat, cut stones to make an attractive
backdrop for this sign.

As it turns out, "troglodyte" doesn't only refer to pale, warty trolls with bad teeth and few brain cells. According to our household expert, the word comes from Greek, meaning, "get inside a hole." And this is what we did. For the final excursion with the AHA program (which also included Château de Brissac in the afternoon) we got on the big bus and went 25 miles southwest and 25 feet deep to the village troglodytique Rochemenier (rosh-men-yay). While much of Rochemenier is at "top-soil level," the local farmers of yester-century, 13th for starters, dug out big pits and then tunneled laterally under their fields. The relatively soft tufa and fulan limestone they were cutting into is the bulk of most Loire Valley châteaux. But, unlike larger regional caves and quarries, the Rochemenier folks maintained a hole-istic perspective--staying focused on their farming, using the stone and resulting caverns for their own homes and structures. They also crushed up some tufa for soil enhancer.

We all live in a fulan sub-terrain, a fulan sub-terrain, a fulan
sub-terrain... (Ivy under ivy in the shadowy tunnel -- this
photo-shoot was not in her contract).

After ten minutes in trogo-land, I began to wonder (as I assume anyone just like me would have) if I could live there. It's surprisingly comforting space. After hundreds of years, the landscaping has matured nicely. And, despite below-grade elevation, drainage issues are minimal. But, in the end, there just aren't enough outlets and counter-space is scarce.

Bread ovens though -- they keep following me. As it is with a cave house, built in appliances are standard. And as for the built-in bread ovens of troglo-town... I am totally down with it. It was bad enough when I just wanted the simple, free-standing, masonry patio model. But now I've made the mental upgrade to the cave-man edition.

Next stop for the big bus was our troglodytic lunch restaurant, Le Clos de Roches. While Google translates the name as "the enclosed rocks," I'm guessing it's closer to "the place where we are being inside of the rocks around us." As you might guess, the staff was very down to earth, encouraging us to explore the space and even get up close to the bread oven. The oven was fired up and soon producing baskets of fouaces -- rectangular puffy bread which break open like pita, steaming and ready for troweling on rillettes (ree-yets) -- a rough mix of shredded meat (chicken, pork, whatever's around) and lard. Rillettes is the ubiquitous, always at-hand, hors d'oeuvre (a term never used here in France). It's like the mortar between square meals. It shouldn't shock you to hear that connoisseurs insist rillettes is improved with butter. The traditional fare kept coming along with the vin, as if dripping straight into our stoneware pitchers from the grapevines growing overhead.
More photos troglodytique and of Château de Brissac HERE.

Back above ground, life as seen from the balcony of our third floor (second étage) apartment continues to be full of bustle and moderate hustle. Staying with the story of stones, "our" boulangerie finally got new bricks laid where work related to the big Tramway project had left a conspicuous patch of asphalt under their outside seating area.

As an energetic crew of four 20-somethings got to work busting up pavement and heaving buckets of rubble into the back of their truck, I was about to tell Ella, Ivy, and Jack to take note of this living illustration of why it's important to stay in school--lest life's options be reduced to a short list including picking up and putting down rocks. But then I remembered we're in Europe where it would be perfectly normal for a college graduate to take a hard-labor job. Because, Europeans unlike Americans, understand that education isn't just about hooking up with a better job than you could get otherwise, it's about intellectual growth and quality living, about preparing citizens for democracy, about making sure you know you're just a speck in history and only slightly more in life, and of course, preparing you for that standardized test that will determine at age 16 if you switch from holding a pen to holding a shovel. And since I don't know if any of that is true, it just proves my point. Stay in school, kids (otherwise you might find yourself in a foreign country, unable to speak the language, cruising for cheap laughs on a blog).

When you fix the bricks in front of the boulangarie/patisserie you get
your just desserts.

But wait, maybe all the boulangeries are re-tooling. Up the rue at the center of centre ville, Place du Ralliement, our boulanger/crepe maker/assault-victim friend totally remodeled -- and even changed the name of the place from Le Grain de Malice (ironic given the recent sandwich-throwing face-punching incident?) to an understated printing of the owners' names: "Alexandra et Denis CANTON." Can you do that? It seems like now I'd have to make an appointment to buy a brioche. What are we supposed to call it--the whole name? "Alexendra and Denis's?" No because the French don't have apostrophe's. Maybe just "CANTON?" Maybe "the old Malice."

Boulangerie goes monochrome. 

And now that the whole Place du Ralliement, along with the Tramway project in general, is finishing up the final touches (planters, fountains, lights, etc.) the event schedule is stacking up. Saturday before last -- and here comes the transportation segue -- was the Fête de Velo (bike party). Despite a lot of promotion, it wasn't well attended. Maybe it's because bikes are already such a common mode of transportation here or maybe it's just because it just wasn't attendance-worthy. Wanting to see if any French tricks they might have up their sleeve for promoting "alternative" transportation, I stuck around about 95 percent longer than I would have otherwise. That actually wasn't very long since, despite being a one-day, Saturday public event, it started at 10:00 AM but then shut down from 12:00 to 2:00 for lunch. One noticeable difference though is basic investment in production. The City of Angers is a big promoter of biking, walking, and transit. Hoping the crowds would be on hand, they hired a medium production-value educational act -- a staged game show emceed by a TV personality of some renown. Our family was exactly half of the total audience. Despite this, when it came time to grab someone "off the street," they actually ran over to the side and snared a woman who was walking by (not in too much of a hurry apparently).

It was time to play... Suer Contre Essence (Sweat Against Gasoline).
1) Vincent Chapel opens to an invisible throng. 2) The guest hair-dresser/
professional cyclist is interviewed. 3) They tag team the woman off the
street about her transportation habits. 4) Her weight in carbon
emissions is pulled on a bike-powered sled into a leaf-blower (solar
powered, I'm sure).

1

Angers Tram as seen from: 1) Place du Ralliement, 2) our
balcony, & 3) the Maine River (while rowing).

Transportation and folk-art?
Everyone loves the Tramway. The run-up to the June 25 start of service (which we'll miss) is a blur of activity. More fixtures are being installed and adjusted everywhere: ticket machines, railing, street signs, yada, yada, yada. Of course the trams themselves are running up and down our street all day, training drivers, testing systems. It's crazy busy. Crazy mostly because, on our Rue de la Roë section of the route, the large rail cars run on what's otherwise a bustling pedestrian corridor. Look out peeps! The many temporary signs that have put up around the cross streets remind people of their new responsibilities: Use prudence! Have good reflexes!

The Tram was actually as much the star at the bike party as bikes -- because it's all part of the same big plan. At the City of Angers' Velo Cite table they were handing out as much Tram schwag as bike schwag. We loaded up on pop-out card-stock models of the Tram which "we" were quick to convert into -- what else -- a Tram mobile.

Constructed of heavy-duty button thread,
shish kebab skewers, and Loire Valley wine
corks, the Tram Mobile is now permanently
installed at 33 Rue de la Roë and available
for viewing by appointment. 

The other piece of schwag, just about gone by the time we walked by, was the Tram-kini. Apparently, the Tramway was partially funded by the IMF. But either way, France just knows how stay on message.

Tram-kini®

And this is probably a good transition to the next blog-post (since I've obviously hit bottom). Yes, please tune in next time when I'll report on our trip to the beach in, Cinq à l'île or No Sand in my Cheese Sil Vous Plaît.

Ass Kebab

As Will.i.am would have to
ask, "What u gon 'do with all
that ass?..."

Up the rue, the middle eastern restaurant Saf Saf's menu abbreviates assiette (plate) as "Ass:" In an admittedly Beavis & Butthead way, I usually mutter "Ass kebab" when I walk by. It's therapeutic. You should try it. And before we leave Angers, I should really stop there, drop 7€, and dig in.

Cleaned up and ready for
a big night, silly wabbit
lays out in front of
cutting-board kitties.

Well, I finally did what Elmer Fudd could never do--killed the wabbit. I tracked it down at Super U, the supermarché near Jack's soccer club. Not that I've been tip-toeing around France with my twusty whyfull but by swiping my debit card at the tri-lingual self-checkout console, I directly participated in Bugs's demise. If "follow the money" means anything, I have bunny blood on my hands. Rabbits (lapin) are in the meat section between Foghorn Leghorn (poulet) and Porky Pig (porc). Like French poultry, the rabbit's head is left on (because otherwise you'd have to suspect the butcher is trying to sell you a large gopher). This did haunt me a little as Jack and I rode home on our bikes with plastic-wrapped rabbit in my backpack. Jack asked what was for dinner. I told him I bought a rabbit. "You mean there's a dead rabbit in your backpack!?" It's all about what you're used to I guess. Even though I bought a whole rabbit, I baked it in parts per the instructions of a very typical French method: butter (duh), onions, dijon, thyme and, towards the end, crème fraiche. It was hoppin' good. More rabbit pictures (warning--head included) here.

Our found object: Boar tusk or
cup-handle trauma survivor? 

Staying on topic (sort of) Jack and I were down by the river last week and found a mammalian jaw bone.  It had a perfectly arced piece of what looked like the handle of a coffee cup fused into its skelecature. I even suggested to Jack that this poor animal must have chewed up a coffee cup at a young age and amazingly healed, incorporating the glassware into its body (did I say I was homeschooling my children?-- what an ass kebab). We took it home and showed it to Kristin who saw the obvious boar tusk. Well sure, that's what it was. Maybe we can make some scrimshaw earrings or an eyebrow stud? But then just today I heard one of Kristin's students saying, "...they're scary and they have orange teeth..." It turned out she was talking about nutria, big rat-like animals that live in swamps near her home in Oregon. But this (thanks Wikipedia) indeed turns out to be our jawbone. Nutria have not only been transplanted to North America from South America by "fur-farmers," but to Europe, too. And here in France, they're called ragondin. And while they're generally considered a destructive invader, the vermin can apparently be converted to pâté.

Likely suspects: Wild boar (mounted at Chateau d Brisac),  ragondin
(mounted at Universite Bordeaux) and Samson, smiting 1,000 men with an
ass's jawbone (the ultimate ass-kebab).

Chartres: Last weekend (a week ago now) we trained northeast to Chartres for a sunny day in another one of these beautiful cities--complete with the archetypal Gothic cathedral, charmingly arrayed cobblestones, canals, and half timbers... you know the drill.  For lunch we met up with Fritz and Marilyn who are living in Lyons for a few months. After our pizzas, salads, and vin, we all hauled our assiettes up the 302 steps to the top o' the cathedral spire. OMG... I just made the connection between the stairway in a spire and the word "spiral." Is this architectural feature the "metaphunctional" origin of the word? One can never find a linguist when one needs one. Chartres pictures (warning, heads included).

Our tour guide demonstrated some
different ways to tend bar. 

Cointreau: Some destinations are far. Some are not. Apparently, I had to travel to Angers, the home of Cointreau, to have my first taste of this extra special elixir. While most of the AHA excursions are about regional culture and texture, this one is more about local flavor. Since you can visit Cointreau's website yourself, I, like a producer of essence-flavored beet alcohol, will boil it down for ya. A long time ago, a guy in Angers was losing money trying to sell cherry liqueur and so switched to orange peels. Around the same time he married someone with a lot of money and started spending most of it on marketing. This worked very well. The tradition continues. Let's drink some. Don't miss the gift shop.

The creepy guy with the white neck
ruffle (a symbol of purity) was the
first to give Cointreau street cred.

Initially considered a digestif, some consider it an aperitif. Today the company just wants you to know that Cointreau is the sophisticated drink of charismatic women -- charismatic women like their new "brand ambassador," Dita von Teese (pictured above). Cointreau is not inexpensive however. But if the price were lower, you might think sluts drank it. A few more Cointreau pictures.

Transportation: Thanks to the kind assistance of people we've met here, Friday night's return from gymnastics is the only weekly gym-trip we still need to make by bus. Kristin or I take the number 1 out there and return with E & I for dinner. As I waited for the 7:39 at the République stop, a woman stopped and asked, "Êtes-vous en attendant le bus?"
I heard "bus" so I said, "Oui." She said something else. I delivered my traditionally convincing apology for having no French to speak of/with. But thankfully she persevered. Apparently, earlier in the day, a bus driver had been roughed up so all the bus drivers stopped working. I've since found out a few more details but, that was the basic message the good samaritan was able to convey with effective hand gestures and carefully selected cognates (though I am pretty sure she said ass-kebab).
It just so happened that we were having some friends over for light fare and Cointreau margaritas, so site-director Sue and Kristin worked two phones, texting and calling contacts at the gym to find Ella and Ivy a ride before all the potential drivers went home. In the nick of time they found a new carpool and our brush with French labor action was mitigated. And so, we commenced with fromage, pain, crudités, and refining our sophisticated charismas.

Bon appétit.

Swiss train 65 minutes late--triggers avalanche of simple adjustments

Waking across Angers' new Tramway
bridge, Papa's got a brand new [used,
-man] bag.

It's been a longer pause in blogging than usual. In the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know that I've been wearing a man-bag. Maybe it's slowing me down. I picked it up at a second-hand  store in Bellingham five or six years ago. It's an original Brentley (you know, Bellingham's own maker of bags & backpacks that became BrentHaven, contracted its production to Chinese factories, and now only sells computer bags over the internet.) Maybe my bag was originally sold as a fishing creel or a unisex blowdryer caddy. Either way, the dimensions don't fully comply with standard dimensions for euro-metric man accessories. And its too small for a blowdryer and my plug converter.

High-speed rail agent tells Kristin
how to take the low-speed bus
to our complementary six-hour
vacation rental at Montparnasse.

It's true. Our return train out of Geneva Friday evening left 30 minutes late and dealt with consequential delays along the rest of the route. And this of course means that all your long-held notions of Swiss trains and punctuality are dashed. To be fair, it was a French train. But I can't be neutral and I must be clear: it maybe sorta coulda been a Swiss problem that caused the French train to be late. Either way, we missed our Paris connection to Angers--the last run of the night. When the conductor checked our tickets and saw our final destination, she informed us (Kristin) that we'd all be getting a complementary hotel room in Paris. Check that -- two rooms. The bad news: Jack and the rest of us would miss his Saturday soccer tournament in St. Malo--a trip that depended on leaving Angers the next morning at 7:30 AM in our a rental car. We'd also planned on leaving from St. Malo after the tournament and heading to one of the Channel Islands (Guernsey, or was it Jersey?) for the night and some of Sunday. Oh well. We managed to let go of our anticipation of another healthy dose of mussels and fries and a half day milling about in an English speaking country. And for Ivy and Ella, the abbreviated night's stay at Novotel Montparnasse turned out to be one of the excursion's highlights (even at the tender young age of 13, they're enamored with modern bathroom fixtures). SNCF (the French rail agency) even included the hotel's breakfast buffet in our voucher. When the TGV is late, they own it. Kristin tried to convince the SNCF agent that we'd be fine with spending all of Saturday in Paris and taking the same late-evening train home but, for some reason, they were required to put us in the next available seats.

I thought it would be a veggie

pie. When you don't speak

the native tongue, you may
end up eating it.

But back up, back up... Geneva was a great time! We spent three nights with Bonnie, Niall and their two daughters,  Rowan (5) and Fiona (2.5) at their place in Veyrier, just east of town nestled up against the French border. Rowan and Fiona got us all caught up on princesses, the yes-no game, Youtube princess videos, cache-cache, unicorn mosaics, and princess rolling luggage. You think you know all that stuff because your own kids were five not too long ago but this isn't true. And a lot of this new information came in handy for the final day of our visit when we stayed in during the morning rain and watched the royal wedding. Oh to be on the same side of the Atlantic as William and what's-her-name on their special day. I shan't forget it. As soon as the splendid, undeniably perfect dress stepped out of the car, Jack and I headed out for a quick lunch in the village: $27 personal pizzas. That Geneva is a pricey place. But we were feeling royal and it was a splendid and undeniably perfect pizza (since we didn't know where to look for a properly prepared kidney pie).

Whilst in the Alps, Bonnie & Niall drove us all out to the French town of Chamonix where we boarded a rack-and-pinion train for the accent to Mer de Glace - a large but rapidly shrinking glacier on the French side of Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc itself was shrouded in clouds blanc. But what the sky may have hidden was made up for by the efforts of Compagnie du Mont Blanc who, every year, drills a new ice tunnel into the base of the Mer de Glace and outfits it with multi-colored lights, a non-slip felt floor, and quirky exhibits of department-store mannequins posing as 19th century mountain folk.

Ella deep in the Mer de
Glace ice tunnels, 2011

Steve Austin, a man barely

alive, pursues Sasquatch
through the oft-forgotten
ice tunnels of Southern
California in 1976.

Frozen in time:
19th century mountain
cook works the
ice oven?

The week's main domestic development, as well as the gratuitous diversion into transportation, is bikes. During Jack's day-long soccer tournament Sunday before last, we were talkin' 'bout bikes with his teammate Alex's parents, Guy and Alison. Remembering that they had three older bikes in their garage loft, they had us over after the games and set us up. A couple of days later, Kristin and I (in another process involving multiple visits, new documents, but amazingly didn't require photographs) managed to acquire two bikes from the City of Angers' VeloCité free bike-loan program.

Here parked at the 3-day old bike
racks below our apartment, Pappa
(& Mamma)got a brand-new
ride(s).

They've been supplying bikes to residents (limited to six months total per person) since 2004 and now have over 20,000 bikes in circulation. The current fleet (the latest batch is painted in an array of modified rainbow primary colors to match the new Tramway brand) are simple yet complete 'round-town cruisers: step-through three-speeds (internal hub) with full metal fenders, chain guard, front cargo basket, generator powered rear and front lights,  heavy-duty U-lock, kick-stand, and a bell.

On the way back from Ecouflant, we
discovered that this trail goes all the
way to Angers. Better.

With five bikes "in the house" our geographic and experiential range has been greatly increased. On Tuesday afternoon, while Ella and Ivy were at gymnastics, Kristin, Jack, and I found a route up the east side of the Maine river to Ecouflant, the town I often row to. The bike routes labeled on the official Loire a Velo map looked indirect so, armed with my trusty GPS and its recently upgraded Euro street-layer, I navigated a beautifully efficient route to our "trail head." With the glint and crunch of broken glass and charred remains of burned furniture under our tires, we skirted a large industrial zone and dipped down through a sort of trailer park without wheels conspicuously accented with pieces of old carpet that softened its foreboding paint-to-rust ratio. If it spoke anything, it said, "better not to stop for a picture." But, c'est pas grave, as they say here. We were soon joined up with a shoreline trail pedaling past alternating views of heron; lawn-chair fishermen; a half-dressed couple enjoying a picnic of orange soda, whisky, and Lays; and other bucolic fauna and frolic.

Inner tubing on the Maine river.

Our other two family bike rides have also followed the river--one south along the west shore (almost to the intersection with the Loire but we had to fix a flat tire and hurry back ahead of a northbound thunder storm) and another west to íle Saint-Aubin (which included a trip on a very small ferry where the operator pulls the barge across the tributary by tugging on a fixed cable with his hands). Íle Saint-Aubin provides a good segue to the next topic--really good bread.

Oven inside

Oven outside

Really good bread is not a new theme for this blog. And, it's near the top of the list of things we'll be sad to leave behind. Out in the middle of the island, on the small area of high-ground that isn't covered with water in winter, the City of Angers has recently finished restoring a very old farm house. As if it had its own gravity, I found myself standing in front of a wonderfully restored outdoor bread oven. When I started taking pictures, one of the volunteers came up to me and launched into a fast paced French-planation. I had to interrupt with the bad news that I didn't speak French (which I usually deliver in such unintentionally bad French that people are doubly convinced that I "speak" the truth). Oven-buff laughed and, continuing with French, said something about Anglais--apparently reciprocating with bad news of his own. But, obviously proud of this monument to bread, which I had to believe he'd been personally involved with, he made sure I took pictures of the re-bricked interior and a couple of other important features. Another warning to neighbors -- I want one in my yard. Or maybe we need one on every block in the 'hood?

This newly heightened love of bread took an a slightly literal turn a few weeks ago at the counter of La Cocagne, our "downstairs boulangerie." They sell their traditional style baguette under the name, Amourette. Danger right off the bat. After one of the three or so women who work the counter greeted me, I asked in my typical but never uniform way for two Amourette. I often mess up pronunciation of "deux" (do, du, duh...) and maybe prefaced it with a "Je voudrais" or a "s'il vous plaît..." not quite sure. But whatever I said turned bread girl red. Never abandoning the notion that I was trying to buy bread rather than asking for something more extracurricular and involved, she repeated the question the way I perhaps should have asked it and then quickly recounted a condensed version of the exchange to her coworker now standing next to her (perhaps the second of the two lovers I'd requested). Oh a good laugh they they both had. I'd like to say it wasn't at my expense but when it was over, I gave them money.

Pictures:
More pictures of many things rambled about above.

Foot, gym, zoo, & droppin' outta schoo'

Vilanjou. The biggest U-11 uniforms
are a little short(s).

It's official. Jack has a license to kick in France. The soccer league office had rejected his Bellingham doctor's athletics release form, telling us that he'd need to be examined by a French doctor before playing in any games. Site director Sue came to the rescue and and hooked us up with a local doc who was willing to issue the needed stamp based on U.S. doctors' paperwork. But wait, there's more! The league office then decided we'd need to submit proof of residency for Jack. So, digging into our now substantial pile of foundational documents, we compiled exhibits A through D -- another curious chain of "proof" and unspoken assumptions that somehow provides the youth soccer office with a defense against accusations of harboring wayward aliens.

We haven't actually seen the license. All the players' licenses are kept by the coach in an attractive leather pouch which is taken to games. Upon arrival, the ten or so 13-digit license numbers are transcribed onto a game form. The first order of business is to administer the standardized skills testing and record results on each player's row on the form: number of consecutive right-foot juggles, left-foot juggles, and head bounces. The two games so far have been at very nice fields -- one in a rural town, Vilanjou, about a 25-minute drive south, and one across the river in Beaucouzé. How is youth soccer in France different from youth soccer in the United States you ask. Well... let me count some ways. 1) For the most part, parents and families don't go to the games. Most players are dropped off at their home-club field (yes, very nice publicly-supported playing fields spread throughout the land) and crammed into a few cars with coaches and one or two parents who go along. 2) Snack: In France (where as Steve Martin says, "they have a different word for everything.") it's called goûter (goo-tay). The host field provides the goo-tay for all players while the coaches (and parents with nothing better to do when their kids are out of the house) go to the cash-bar and have a beer. 3) In the U.S. you might be surprised to see the coach smoking a cigarette while yelling to his players to stay in position. 4) Back to the facilities -- even at the youth level, each team is provided a locker room. Players just don't jump out of the mini van wearing their uniforms and cleats. After the game, players go clean up, change back into regular clothes, and then partake in the goo-tay. This also allows more time for beer.    Soccer & gymnastics pictures

Last Saturday was also Ella and Ivy's second gymnastics meet with Angers Gymnastique. A lot more teams this time gathered at yet another beautiful sporting facility down the road in Les Ponts-de-Cé. "Anjay Jeem" did great -- taking second place and securing an invitation to the May 28 meet in Laval.

Ella looked good coming off the bars but, because they
don't post scores here in France, we can only assume it was...
Is it true? ... Oh my god it is... A  PERFECT 10!!!

We keep appreciating the short, one hour French gym meets during which the same amount of gymnastics takes place as the seemingly endless affairs back home. The differences are 1) team size is limited to five. In the U.S. it is often over 10 and so the rotations through events creep and creep. 2) Scores are not posted. 3) Awards are given for team score only and only to the top three teams. No self-esteem nonsense here unlike U.S. meets where awards are given for every event, overall individual scores, and team scores -- all down to 11th place. Don't do the math, it will take even longer. It's nuts. 4) While the French gym-meet regimen saves time on gratuitous medal distribution, it takes some of that back with all the bisous ("bee-zoo" -- little kisses). Ella and Ivy were better prepared this time to go with the flow of countless kisses at the medal stand. It's a process. The second place team bisses (mmwah, mmwah) with each of the first place team and then takes its spot on the second level. The third place team then mmwah-mmwahs down the line of all 1st and 2nd place cheeks. Then the old dudes who deliver trophies and medals need to get in on the action and apparently their technique is a little more old-school. Ella and Ivy reported that their medal-hanger had gross wet lips. I'd chime in about the exquisite goo-tay stand at the gym meet but I don't want to sound like a broken record. And if I'm using the phrase broken record, I might be mistaken for an old man with wet lips. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9.

Château de Brissac as seen from Anjou Bus. I'm sure they
built it there to be close to public transit.

Speaking of number 9,  Monday we jumped on line 9 of Anjou Bus (the Angers-centric regional bus system) and headed out to Doué-la-Fontaine, home of Bioparc -- the recently re-named Zoo de Doué-la-Fontaine. They changed the name as part of their 50th anniversary -- 50 years of animals trapped in the large rectangular open pits of a long-abandoned stone quarry. But, ironic juxtaposition of strip-mining and species preservation aside, it was a well-done and oddly picturesque location which seemed to provide some decent space -- at least compared to where a lot of other captive animals live (and even work).
But, Bioparc did offer some notable options that most zoos I've been to would shun. As soon as you walk in, you can buy a bag of popcorn. Pourquoi? French people don't eat popcorn. Well, silly: It's for the animals. Yes, a zoo where you're invited to feed any and all animals who will eat it, popcorn. I think of the National Park campfire talks I've listened to where the rangers would have you feel guilty for accidentally dropping an almond on the ground, thus throwing the whole natural world out of balance. But, I guess a zoo is already so far out of whack it might as well just run with it. Next, we had to take advantage of the very good restaurant that was built right to the edge of the "camp des girafes." If they had wanted to, those giraffes could have shared my fish with curry sauce. But, again, an underlying French tenet seems to bear out: if something is worth doing, it's worth doing with good, thoughtfully presented food.  Bioparc pictures.

In between animals at Bioparc.

Spring in Angers has not been any kind of subtle, incremental shift in temperature and daylight. It's been head-on beautiful. And since we've never been here before, we can be totally confident in assuming it's like this every year. Walking around it's easy to frequently wonder how so much can look so good?  Public parks, pedestrian plazas, lasting infusions of artistry in architecture, public art, and one of my favorite elements, hardscape. Well done stone and brick work is everywhere that people are expected to gather for shopping, eating, bench-sitting, smoking, and kissing. The landscaping itself can seem a little too formal and overdone at times -- like I've always found trees in boxes to be dumb. But lay down the cut stone and mortar (and maybe a bronze nude or two) and voila, you've got yourself an urban womb of rejuvenating calm.  Angers spring pictures

Stumbled upon these folks across the river carved on an evidently less-celebrated half-timber house. The primary figures are labeled with some virtues: friendship (I will keep your skull with me at all times when you die),  liberality (I have a bag of stuff which I'll probably share), magnificence (crowns and capes - wear 'em if ya got 'em) , and illegible snake slayer girl. It's also interesting to note that nipple rings and the extreme standing-eagle yoga pose are nothing new.

In my bloggish opinion, overt artistic and decorative elements need to make a major comeback in the urban environment. It's not a French or European thing as much as it is a post-industrial thing I figure. But as I spend more time here, the question is becoming more: why wouldn't you carve, sculpt, paint, inlay, (etc.) animals, people, flora into and onto your house, school, bank, so on and so on? So much wasted surface. Look out neighbors, we're gonna have a chisel party. Another option is guerilla art which I've also been enjoying a lot of here.  Found art in Angers

School report

Ivy, Jack, & Ella on their last day in the
halls of the old convent--trying to hold
back the tears.

In the run-up to Jack, Ivy, and Ella's two week spring break at Collège La Madeleine, it occurred to us, with seven weeks left in our stay, to reevaluate their options. And, we decided they could drop out. They've had a really great experience at their school, meeting local kids, learning some French, helping classmates who are learning English. But, while it was a good environment for listening to a lot of French,  there were frequent chunks of time when teachers would tell them they'd be better off reading a book or just going to the library for the next hour. Not totally unreasonable given the way we parachuted in in the middle of the school year but not a model worth sticking with till the very end or our visit. They'll still be having French tutoring with Pauline twice a week (maybe more now). Their school friends are already making arrangements to hang out outside of school (which is probably better for language learning). And I'm making a list of incredibly boring field trips that I'm sure will prove to be the best days that ever were.

Bonus conclusion

Poulet roulé

So I'm cooking a chicken for dinner tonight. I remembered seeing some kind of poultry rack under the oven, so I opened the little door and went through the inventory. There was a little wire frame and a skewer down there but where would that go? It looked the same dimension as an oven rack but I didn't see the point if there's no way to spin it. So I put it in anyway and then I saw it. A magic hole where the skewer goes. Our oven has a built in rotisserie. Wooooooooo. That's so awesome! I'm sittin' here bloggin' while the bird is spinnin' to golden perfection. Life's little surprises are so good sometimes.