DINDE!

Bonjour tout le monde, ou bonsoir pour moi. I just got back from Montpellier after a long, five day weekend. I was fortunately able to rearrange my schedule so that I could have Thursday off for turkey day. Being in France for my second favorite holiday (first one, 4th of July), made me a little homesick and sad to miss an authentic Thanksgiving, but as the big day approached, I realized us Americans in Montpellier were going to do it right, but let's start at the beginning.

I took my usual, 4.5 hour train ride south to the coast on Wednesday. Upon exiting the train station, I hear gun shots. Curious, I thought, this can't be good and/or safe. I look around to see droves of people with banners and signs. Ah oui. Une greve (a strike). France may be famous for its wine, cheese and bread, but number four is probably their strikes. Everyone in France strikes; for example: gynocologists, ski lift operators... this strike? The wine makers of Languedoc. So, the streets were FILLED with a mob of angry, striking wine makers. Riot police were everywhere... SDFs (refer to earlier post) were running around with flares and fireworks. Me? Where was I? Unable to take the tram to my friends place, I was stuck in the MIDDLE of this strike. There weren't actually guns, they were... cannons? Trash cans were on fire, people were chanting and I was carrying 30 lbs of groceries trying to get away. Someone even threw a flare at me. Quoi????

Well I made it safely a la maison and was eventually able to take the tram chez Darcy, who was hosting the grand Thanksgiving feast. There, Americans were whipping up all sorts of seasonal dishes: stuffing, sweet potato pie, the works. The next day, a friend and I spent the day cooking and preparing for the big event. We created a beautiful table scape of ginko leaves and hazelnuts and set up for our big ol' turkey. Oh. Except in France, people don't really eat turkey, the largest turkey we could get was 4 kilos. 8 pounds. There were 30 of us. Everyone arrived to Darcy's place with wine and food in hand. We had pumpkin pies, foie gras, Maltese dishes, Algerian dishes... too much food to even comprehend. It was really cool to share Thanksgiving with our friends who are from around the world. Countries represented were Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Australia, New Zealand, Malta, England, Algeria, Greece, France, Jamaica and I'm sure I'm missing a few! It was a great success and will probably be one of my favorite Thanksgivings for the rest of life!

This weekend in Montpellier was also the Fete de Vignes... WINE FESTIVAL. Working at a wine shop for the past several years, I was obviously, for lack of better words, psyched! We all know Bordeaux and Burgundy wines, Champagne, etc, but my region, Languedoc has excellent wine as well! The usual mixture is of Syrah, Carignan, Grenache and Mourvedre, and like my wine shop boss, I love Syrah (Shiraz for you Aussie lovers). At each stand, I sought out their Syrah or their wine with the highest percentage of Syrah. I found one that smelled like my brothers hockey gloves... it was delicious. Well, we ended up tasting for about four hours because everyone was so friendly and interested in us Americans. I got to meet the winemakers of some wines that I sell in the US! It was great.

And now, I am back in Marvejols, doing my teaching thing. My kids are hilarious and obviously spend a lot of time on Google translate because the questions they come up with for me are absurd, inappropriate and amazing. It's almost December, which means it's almost vacation again. Oh la la. It is sad that I won't be with family during the holidays but I have some excellent plans with some friends from Hobart who are teaching lacrosse in England. I left the planning up to them, so I'm not too sure what's going to happen or where we are sleeping, but I trust them... I think. We are going to Amsterdam, somewhere in Germany, Edinburgh and Manchester then I'm heading down to London to catch my flight. My word.