Fêtes en Picardie, Strasbourg, Bretagne

Happy New Year! Joyeux 2013!
Saturday evening I turned the key to my Paris apartment, empty and abandoned for nearly two weeks of holiday travels. The familiar musty smell of stale smoke mixed with cooked peas, a smell I've tried in vain to remove ever since I arrived, wafted out to greet me. I had hoped it would go away while I was gone, like an unwanted neighbor. My clothes are now permeated with it and when opening my backpack away from home I'm forced to air my clothes out a little before putting them on so as not to feel like I'm wearing eau de cologne de Paris apartment.
My little studio was cold, quiet and clean, just the way I'd left it. I immediately set about cooking dinner as I always do after returning from a trip, as though by cooking I am somehow reclaiming the place as my own.
I left Paris on December 23rd to spend Christmas with a dear friend in Picardie. The train ride was short, and in a little under an hour I had quit the sprawling enormity of the Paris banlieu to find large open farm fields and pastures. Eugénie met me at the train station in Villers-Cotterets and we drove half an hour further into the countryside to her parents cattle farm. Eugénie came to Oregon two years ago as an agricultural intern for a family raising alpacas outside of Scio. Her Ag school requires a 5-month internship in another country. Knowing I speak French, mutual friends put us in contact, right before I left to teach in Brittany. We spent a good month doing farm tours together, but I hadn't seen her since I left.
Eugénie's family live in the village of Priez (pray), made up of 50 inhabitants, where they raise charolais cattle and farm basic crops like corn and sugar beets. Picardie is extremely agricultural, and reminded me a little of the Willamette Valley, with fewer trees. It had been raining hard the past few days, and Eugénie pointed out with some concern the puddles of standing water in fields along the way. It looked to me like a regular Oregon winter.

 

Eugénie and her brother on the farm

When I arrived, her brother, only 24, was on the brink of taking over a farm of his own from an old couple, but paperwork complications were making things difficult. Eugénie took me on a visit of the region, showing me castle ruins in Chateau Thierry, the home town of Jean de La Fontaine, and the American cemetery at Aisne-Marne. With her boyfriends family we even went to the Christmas market in Reims, which is in Champagne and not Picardie, but was only an hour's drive away. Eugénie's family was kind and welcoming and Christmas with them was a delight, though a bit painful, as they stuffed me like a goose with foie gras, turkey, boudin blanc, cheese, christmas cakes and chocolate.

 

Eugénie and her family at Chrismas, right before cutting the cake

I returned to Paris on the 26th, only to head out the next morning for Strasbourg to see another friend, Magali, who had taught English classes at a middle school in Dinan last year. Strasbourg is a visual pleasure. Even before arriving at the station I noticed the transformation of the villages from dull grey buildings to brightly painted houses and Germanic architecture. It was a nice change from Paris, which despite it's lovely palaces and haussmannian-style apartment buildings tends to turn a sober grey in winter. And Christmas is no joke in Strasbourg. All the main streets, shops and houses were decorated to the max, with Christmas markets huddled in every available plaza. In front of the main cathedral, the sweet smell of mulled wine was nearly enough to intoxicate the passer-by and the piles of dried sausages, pretzels, candies, and  Alsatian Christmas cookies or bredele, would make any gourmand drool. Magali took me to a couple of excellent restaurants, where I had the best flamekuche and some darn good munster cheese.

 

The Christmas market in Strasbourg

The traditional dress worn by Alsation women 

 

Magali and I in a town near Strasbourg 

I returned to Paris again on the 30th, this time for an even shorter stay because my train the next morning left at 7am (the ticket was cheaper) for Brittany. My friend Béatrice had picked out a New Year's fest-noz put on by Amnesty International in the town of Saint Thégonnec, Finistère. The dance started at 10 and ended at 7:30am the next morning. At midnight we toasted with cider, and at 3:30am onion soup was served to keep everyone going. When all the groups had finished playing at around 6:15, a jam session made up of bombardes, bagpipes and accordions took over, and began playing a gavotte. The musicians weren't young, but boy were they enthusiastic! Tune followed tune, each musician standing up in turn to alert the change in melody. The call-and-response format of Bretonne music meant that the musicians could slip imperceptibly from one tune to another, even if the melody was new. I witnessed a tradition I'd never seen before, where two dancers break out of the ring to dance together in the center of the circle bit, then the man bends down on one knee, the couple kisses on both cheeks, and one of the dancers returns to the ring while the other brings a new partner into the center. It was cute, and apparently common at weddings. This lasted a good long time. Pretty soon, my knees started to ache and my feet began to drag. My ears were ringing from the noisy high-pitched bombardes, and I wondered how much longer it would last. No one else seemed willing to leave, so I kept dancing, the sweat dripping down my forearms clasped tightly by my partners on either side. When the dance was finally over, I looked at my watch: 7:30! The gavotte had lasted an hour.
Béatrice had arranged for us to stay with her aunt about a half and hour's drive away in Plougastel. On the way we found an open bakery and picked up a few pain au chocolat to keep us going. The sun was up by the time we crawled into bed at around 9am on January 1st. Now that's a way to bring in the new year!
The rest of the week was a wonderful series of adventures in Finistère, most notably the Chaos de Rochers, or "Chaotic Rocks" at Huelgoat (photos below), followed by visits with friends in Dinan and Dinard. It was a good vacation. I hope to go back soon.

 The town of Huelgoat

 The Chaos de Rochers

Béatrice contemplating the Chaotic Rocks