Cont.

So WWOOFing was a success! I landed myself an excellent farm, farmer, and climate, and had what was by far the cheapest (310 euro in TOTAL!) and most psychologically enjoyable vacation of my life. Essentially, it was an extension of what my experience in France has amounted to, but on a higher level: tranquillity, nature, solitude, reflection, food, middle-aged people. Impeccable.

The farm was called La Belle Verte ("the beautiful green," or the title of a film) owned by Jalna Laborde, a gap-toothed forest creature of a woman who loved yoga and lived her life with more zest than I have ever seen in another human being. She grew up in a suburb of Paris, but decided at some point in her thirties to become a farmer... and here she is, selling her wares every week at the local market and somehow making a living. Her farm is small, but 100% organic; she works hard to keep her compost going, and uses alternative fertilizers like carbon and horse hoof trimmings. I did a lot of general farm upkeep in exchange for my stay: trimming raspberries and strawberries, composting/mulching, feeding the mules, helping with the market, harvesting some herbs and topinambours (see side panel, "Gastronomie").

 the yard

 

Sam

 

our stand at the market at Ceret 

But aside from her technically- and philosophically-sound farming methods, Jalna's general practices -- in life, in cooking, socially, emotionally -- were excellent. She wasn't an out-of-the-loop country moron, nor was she too involved in her own spiritual principles to alienate anyone; she had tons of friends, some of them other farmers, who were constantly stopping by the house; she was conservative with her resources, but not maniacal enough not to have electricity or hot water; she was knowledgeable in herbs and natural remedies... and so on. I really admired her thinking and frankly, for the first time here, I felt a very human connection with a French person.

I've never been in such accord with an adult before, who I find are usually extremely wasteful. It's true! I feel like adults should know better -- by age forty-five, why on earth are you not recycling? letting it mellow if it's yellow? still eating mysterious American beef products? Life is an adventure in discovering ways to live better, and it blows my mind when people older than myself complain of sickness or constipation when all they eat is cheese and bread, you know? Don't people learn as they get older? No?

The region itself would have been great for tourism, had I not been working the whole time. Les Pyrenees-Orientales are stunning: snow-capped alpine peaks in the distance, but with the valley climate of, well, the south of France. (Even the bees came out, it was so nice.) Jalna gave me a couple of days off to go exploring, so I went to the sea, to a small beach town called Argeles-sur-Mer, and on a couple of good hikes and runs in the mountains.

Ceret, the nearest large town, about an hour away by foot

Mont Canigou

the road to the farm

Argeles-sur-Mer

I cried when I left.

For my last day of vacation, I went to Perpignan, the nearest large city and the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region. I Couchsurfed with some very hospitable oceanography doctoral students, and spent the time eating olives and admiring the Catalan influence:

 

view of the city from the top of Palais des Rois de Majorque, the old citadel

 

Cathedrale Saint-Jean, 3rd longest nave in the world!

olive trees

Donc... back in the Vosges, as if I'd never left (isn't that always how life feels after a vacation?). This is really the home stretch, though: six more weeks of work, another vacation (Belgium and the Netherlands, hopefully), four more days of work... and then I go home? Chapter done?

Also, I took my GREs in Paris and got a 1360! (If I agree to play by the rules of this crackpot system, at least I'm going to play them well.)