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.