Day 11: McBaguettes Exist

When I got up to the house this morning, Joelle was bustling around and quickly shuffled me into a seat. She said Jean-Louis would be back soon, he's snowed in downtown. I started mumbling trying to formulate the necessary questions like "What was he doing downtown" and "do they ever get snow down there" and "how much snow is there" and "what time does he get up"?

Before I could spit all of those out, she cut me to the quick and filled me in with essentially all the answers, which turned out to be: meeting a friend, pretty much never, I don't know, and well before the sun, respectively.

When Jean-Louis got back, his eyes were a little wider than usual also. He said it's a catastrophe down there. A little bit of snow and everyone panics. I asked him how much and he said not much, but seriously no one is prepared for this at all.

We then started driving, I asked where we were going and Jean Louis said we were picking up a friend of his, and then driving to Italy to buy bottles for Olive oil, they're way cheaper over there. On the way to the rendez-vous point, I saw the snow. It was a generous dusting (but still just a dusting, the roads are essentially clear). The render-vous point was a McDonalds, which was proudly advertising one of it's specials, the "petit McBaguette". So yes, it turns out McBaguettes exist. It's a cheeseburger on baguette bread, not the most creative thing I've ever heard of but certainly a great targeted marketing move.

Jean Louis' farmer friend got in to the van wearing red suede shoes, a fedora, a blazer, and smelling like cologne (or maybe just not smelling like a farm). He was elderly, and semi-retired as it turns out. Selling the odd product from his farm but nothing like the scale Jean Louis does. We started heading to Italy, for my first time ever. It was relatively indistinguishable from southern France actually, just that the signs are in Italian rather than French. A short way across the border, I was asked if I wanted to stop for coffee. I said I'm fine without stopping, to which our new friend asked if I'd prefer some Whiskey (in a really rough attempt at English [half of it was French]). I laughed and said I think it's a little early for whiskey, I wasn't sure if he was trying to be funny or make fun of Americans. I gave hime the benefit of the doubt, but now I'm keeping an eye on you Mr. Suede shoes.

Shortly after we stopped for coffee. I was persuaded into trying one, even though generally I don't drink coffee. It was Italian Espresso, so the cup was the size of a shot glass and only half full. I drank it pretty slowly, chided on by our old friend (yes, he's getting old by this point), who said that american coffee is pretty much just water, nothing like this. I said I don't usually drink coffee so I wouldn't know, but if he keeps mouthing off there is probably an american nuclear submarine within 50 miles of here full of americans who've had plenty of whiskey and watered down coffee (I didn't say that second part, I don't know the word for nuclear).

We got incredibly lost in Italy. There are no signs anywhere, just winding roads and toll booths. Jean Louis had arranged to sell some potatoes to a friend, as well as buy the discounted bottles, all in one stop. Once we finally found the right building, it was a little bit of an adventure finding the right store. This building is apparently three-quarters international unfriendly business office, and one quarter Olive Oil Supply Co. We opened a couple wrong doors, sprinted away, and repeated until we found the olive oil part.

The store had everything you could possibly want that had to do with olive oil, which turns out to be one of the primary exports of the region. Most of the tools were pretty foreign to me.

The drive back was quicker, and relatively uneventful. Right after we dropped off Suede shoes, Jean Louis started telling me about how he didn't really like the guy. He was preaching to the choir at that point. We were also both hungry and a little grumpy. But as soon as we made it home, there was a hot lunch waiting. Couscous and some kind of vegetable soup seasoned with cumin. Again very good.

Throughout the afternoon, we put some finishing touches on the erosion wall we had worked on a few days before. We have perfected the system for getting the 300 pound blocks up the hill, which involves a backhoe, a wooden planck, a piece of rope, a piece of sheet metal, an abandoned telephone pole, and a crow bar.

I straightened up the caravan from my laundry day, partially in preparation for the arrival of my first WWOOFer-Freind tomorrow.