Sunday and Monday
Aug. 25th, 2008 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lagilmanOkay, none of you even blinked at me being menaced by a goose. I'm really not sure what to make of that... Anyway. Getting this done while I have time.
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Sunday I also slept in -- until 10, in fact, when beautiful, deep-voiced church bells woke me in a panic. I say in a panic because I was supposed to meet someone that morning at...10. Well, as it turns out she overslept too, having just come back from a trip the evening before, so all was well, and sometime around noon we finally connected and hit the road.
The plan was to attend Le Fetes de la Vivre in Couches. This is a celebration of a local Kill The Dragon Dead myth that only occurs once every twenty years. Couches is in south Burgundy. We are in north Burgundy. H, my companion, used to be a tour guide and seems to know almost everyone there is to know in Burgundy (I'm not kidding). We did not, needless to say, take the main highway route to Couches, but rather drove along the Grand Cru trail, hearing all sorts of stories about the wine-making families, and the local history, and discussing many varied matters. Perhaps the highlight of the drive down, however, was spotting the horse laborer plowing between vines, accompanied by his wife and children eating lunch.
When we of course pulled over to take photos, H. discovered that she in fact know the woman's mother, a local producer. Their first wine will be sold in the States next year, market forces willing, and she may be coming to town, so we exchanged contact info. A nice, totally unexpected bonus to the trip.
Another amusing discovery of the day -- nobody guesses that I am American, even with my craptastic French. Even H, who knows I'm from the East Coast, says there is not a trace of "American" even in my English (H. speaks Polish, German, French, English, and probably a few other languages beside). Q le fkuc? I'm starting to have fun with it, tho.
Finally arriving in Couches, what we discovered was every SCAdians wet dream -- a Faire commemorating an event, set in the actual village where said event allegedly took place, complete with locals who could claim to have family who were there for the alleged event, honest! Some of the costumes and music were a bit sketchy, authenticity-wise, but the energy and enjoyment was so vivid, you just didn't care. And with that backdrop? Seriously. Nobody was bitching. There was a market, competing taverns, and a parade that started with amazing flag-work and drummers, continued with beautiful draft horses and antique farming implements, and ended with a huge dragon (who would, I was told, be ceremonially burned at the end of the celebrations). I took almost 150 photos, which will be posted to my flickr account, um, later.
And did I mention the drummers? Fabulous drummers. Lots of drunk monks dancing. There might even have been suri-dancing. If so, my camera will never tell.
And then, walking back to the car in a light rain, we looked up and saw that rainbow arching across the sky over us like a benediction.
We made it back to Dijon for a late supper (I'm not going to detail all my meals; rest assured they're deeply satisfying) and the slumber of the exhausted.
Monday was my birthday. I did not work. Dinner involved duck (not goose) livers, cheeses, red meats and redder wine. And my waiter mocked me, and gave me a birthday kiss. Nothing to see here, move along...
(I was amused that, since part of the plan for the day was to "find-and-acquire" the perfect gift, that nothing of all the pretties came home with me. I just don't want things. Oh sure, there are wines I faunch after, and lots of foodstuffs, but not much in the way of Wanting to Own, just Experience, which is a vastly different thing.)
Tomorrow, back on the Research Trail.
As always, coins in the begging bowl make the storyteller happy...
-----------
Sunday I also slept in -- until 10, in fact, when beautiful, deep-voiced church bells woke me in a panic. I say in a panic because I was supposed to meet someone that morning at...10. Well, as it turns out she overslept too, having just come back from a trip the evening before, so all was well, and sometime around noon we finally connected and hit the road.
The plan was to attend Le Fetes de la Vivre in Couches. This is a celebration of a local Kill The Dragon Dead myth that only occurs once every twenty years. Couches is in south Burgundy. We are in north Burgundy. H, my companion, used to be a tour guide and seems to know almost everyone there is to know in Burgundy (I'm not kidding). We did not, needless to say, take the main highway route to Couches, but rather drove along the Grand Cru trail, hearing all sorts of stories about the wine-making families, and the local history, and discussing many varied matters. Perhaps the highlight of the drive down, however, was spotting the horse laborer plowing between vines, accompanied by his wife and children eating lunch.
When we of course pulled over to take photos, H. discovered that she in fact know the woman's mother, a local producer. Their first wine will be sold in the States next year, market forces willing, and she may be coming to town, so we exchanged contact info. A nice, totally unexpected bonus to the trip.
Another amusing discovery of the day -- nobody guesses that I am American, even with my craptastic French. Even H, who knows I'm from the East Coast, says there is not a trace of "American" even in my English (H. speaks Polish, German, French, English, and probably a few other languages beside). Q le fkuc? I'm starting to have fun with it, tho.
Finally arriving in Couches, what we discovered was every SCAdians wet dream -- a Faire commemorating an event, set in the actual village where said event allegedly took place, complete with locals who could claim to have family who were there for the alleged event, honest! Some of the costumes and music were a bit sketchy, authenticity-wise, but the energy and enjoyment was so vivid, you just didn't care. And with that backdrop? Seriously. Nobody was bitching. There was a market, competing taverns, and a parade that started with amazing flag-work and drummers, continued with beautiful draft horses and antique farming implements, and ended with a huge dragon (who would, I was told, be ceremonially burned at the end of the celebrations). I took almost 150 photos, which will be posted to my flickr account, um, later.
And did I mention the drummers? Fabulous drummers. Lots of drunk monks dancing. There might even have been suri-dancing. If so, my camera will never tell.
And then, walking back to the car in a light rain, we looked up and saw that rainbow arching across the sky over us like a benediction.
We made it back to Dijon for a late supper (I'm not going to detail all my meals; rest assured they're deeply satisfying) and the slumber of the exhausted.
Monday was my birthday. I did not work. Dinner involved duck (not goose) livers, cheeses, red meats and redder wine. And my waiter mocked me, and gave me a birthday kiss. Nothing to see here, move along...
(I was amused that, since part of the plan for the day was to "find-and-acquire" the perfect gift, that nothing of all the pretties came home with me. I just don't want things. Oh sure, there are wines I faunch after, and lots of foodstuffs, but not much in the way of Wanting to Own, just Experience, which is a vastly different thing.)
Tomorrow, back on the Research Trail.
As always, coins in the begging bowl make the storyteller happy...
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:11 pm (UTC)I came late to the conversation.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:45 pm (UTC)Drunk dancing monks are not.
and... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I hope you experience all the most wonderful things you can imagine! Yay!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:52 pm (UTC)My great aunt Sarah was once bitten by a goose. She sued the goose owner who turned right around and sued Sarah. Why? He claimed (and the court agreed) that the goose had been so traumatized by Sarah's reaction (it was reportedly QUITE loud and heard across many farms) that it was from that point on unable to lay eggs.
Sarah was pretty menacing too - says family folklore.
edited to add: I am very jealous at the moment because I too want to be wakened by "beautiful, deep-voiced church bells." Truck horns do NOT strike the same note at ALL.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 09:48 pm (UTC)Couches looks like it was beyond incredible. Lucky you!
And happy post-Birthday!
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Date: 2008-08-25 10:03 pm (UTC)We celebrated your birthday, didn't you hear us?
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Date: 2008-08-25 10:12 pm (UTC)Re: goose: Yeah, they're menacing. What...how did he end up on the table?
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Date: 2008-08-25 11:09 pm (UTC)Frolicking with drunken monks, oh my!
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Date: 2008-08-26 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 01:17 am (UTC)I missed the menacing goose thing, but man, you do not want to mess with those birds.
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Date: 2008-08-26 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 03:48 am (UTC)I received the books! Thank you! And Happy Birthday!
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Date: 2008-08-26 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 04:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 04:48 am (UTC)Loud bastid he was, too.
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Date: 2008-08-26 04:08 pm (UTC)Mine (the 40th one) is Sunday. We're zodiac-siblings. Whee!
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Date: 2008-08-26 06:35 pm (UTC)::grin::
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Date: 2008-08-26 06:40 pm (UTC)Or, as I said, escape out the kitchen window from the adjoining building.
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Date: 2008-08-26 06:56 pm (UTC)http://autojim.livejournal.com
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Date: 2008-08-26 07:54 pm (UTC)And how wonderful to be celebrating there!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-30 12:42 am (UTC)