The original plan was to stay at the farm for one month but I decided to leave in two weeks for several reasons. The main reason being that usually wwoofers work five hours a day and then have the rest of the day free and two days off. Our days were more like 12 and somehow you always end up working on your days off since the closest "town" if you can call it that is quite the expedition. It's probably the equivalent to a french version of a small town in Alabama. The townies look a little "off" if you catch my drift. It's possible most of them are related. The most ironic thing of all is that I had more privacy in New York than on the top of a mountain. I benefited very much from this experience, I learned new cooking techniques, saw puppies being born, tended to chickens, did some haircuts, met amazing people and lived amoung scenery that could be that of a fairy tale. It was very life changing, before this I thought Central Park was nature. Did you know if you turn your back to a rooster he will peck you? I saw him draw blood from one of the wwoofers. I also now know what a stinging nettle is. I grabbed one while pulling weeds in the garden and even the next day my hand had pins and needles and everything I touched felt like the stinging nettle plant. The washer is something I will surely not miss. Let me explain how one might use such a contraption: 1. place items of clothing in a large metal vessel with a latch across the top, 2. manually pour hot water, 3. let clothes wash for one hour, 4. srategically place each item of clothing in the spinner, a separate vessel with in the same machine. Note* if clothing is not completely balanced in the spinner the machine will have a violent fit and the whole process will have to be repeated. Madhu is very proud of this machine. She said "They don't make them this way anymore." I said, "yeah, I know, they make it all in one now." She didn't know what I was talking about and I found it best to end the conversation. On my downtime I read two books, The Kite Runner, a great book with a powerful story about redemption and another that one of the wwoofers lent me called Let's Talk About Kevin. I think I had some nightmeres about this novel about a New York City woman and her reluctant womb giving birth to a child that grows up and kills 7 people at his high school. I really loved the style of writing, but it was incredibly disturbing.
There was a couple from Montana staying at one of the guest houses, Amy and Todd who coincidentally go to the salon my ex-coworker in New York currently works at in Montana. We totally bonded being American and all. In the morning I told Madhu I was leaving and hitched a ride with Amy and Todd into town. Everyone was suprised when I told them I was leaving, but it's better to burn out than fade away.
I was feeling spontaneous so I took the next train leaving the station, which was to Montpellier. I called my friend in Paris who had an artist friend who had a flat in the center of town. This apartment had so much charachter, it was really beautiful. He ended up being a great host and showed me around town and made tapas and wine. Montpellier is a quiant little pedestrian friendly city. John Locke, the 17th century philospher wrote: "I find it much better to go twise to Montpellier than one to the other world". I wouldn't go that far, but it was a great little place. I didn't want to wear out my welcome so I walked around for a while the next day and then took a train to Toulouse. It's called "the pink city" because of all the rose-red brick buildings. It's a very youthful city with tons of great shops and cafes. Over the next two days, I walked for hours down the medieval streets, window shopped, people watched, and even got indian food. My body was craving rice and vegetables since I've been living off brie and baguettes for days now. I ordered my favorite, saag paneer. Turns out, they make indian food to satisfy the french palette using brie instead of paneer.
Next was a town called Aix-En-Provence, which is notorious for the famed impressionist Paul Cezanne. You can get a free map and do the Cezanne Trail and visit where he ate, drank, studied and painted. Included with the entrance to his house was a walking tour of the town, but the woman guiding it had a thick french accent and her tone of voice was similar to Julia Child, so I did my own walking tour of my own since I no longer have the patience to endure things that bring me no pleasure. He did his first masterpeices at age 20 right on the walls of his house and when the house was sold the paintings had to be cut from the wall. They show you where the paintings once exisited using projectors. I also went to his atelier, which was well preserved with all his things still inside including a few articles of clothing and items that are featured in many of his paintings, so needless to say, a strong presence of Cezanne is felt. He died in 1906 because he caught pneumonia from painting in the rain. I met a woman Mary from New Zealand who was also traveling alone and we went into a beautiful church where they were having mass and then to Musee Granet which is formermly the school where Cezanne learned to paint and houses nine of his paintings. Ironically, his most famous pieces are at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. After the museum I went to the bus to begin my next endeavor and I met two guys, Francois and Sam who were going to a soccer parade in Marseille. They explained their elation was a result of Marseille winning the championship after ten years so I decided to check it out. All the fans sang songs at the top of their lungs and the players rode by on the top of a bus with their huge trophy. Even though I am not a fan of soccer, it was still exciting. Francois was cool but Sam was a creep and had major nose hair and talked with his mouth full. To get the crowd to dispurse the police uses tear gas on the crowd. Sam and the tear gas irritated me so much, I abruptly left them and went to the train. I felt bad because Francois as such a gentleman but as you can see, the reoccuring theme here is giving up when I don't like something. The old me had so much tenacity, I would suffer through anything. Why finish things you don't like? So you can say you did? Now that's just crazy.
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