Lyon - November 3, 2004

We went to the country Monday (All Saints Day - they have the day off). We drove about an hour out of the city, took a side road, then a side road from the side road, then another side road off that, before finally ending up in a field in the middle of nowhere, with a dirt path leading off into the forest. I asked Annick "how on Earth did you FIND this place?" Annick: "It's next to the house."

Oh. Apparently, Annick owns a house in the country. It's more of a hut actually - there's no power, and the one bed was upside down and rotting outside the door. They don't go there very often. We hung around there for a little while, poking around in the shed, etc, before leaving. After that, we started picking chestnuts. I'd never actually seen them in their natural state before. They're like little sea urchins, or landmines, that you have to squish open with your shoe before getting at the nuts inside. We started just by picking up a few, then more, and more, and more. We got a bit carried away. By the time we left, we'd filled several plastic bags, Roxanna's backpack, all of our pockets, and Lulu's boots. Yesterday, we spent about an hour cooking and shelling a basket of them (less than 10% of the total), then had them for dinner - and they were terrible! They're horribly dry, and have almost no flavor. If any of you have any chestnut recipes, please send them, because we're likely to be eating the things for the next couple months.

There were a lot of brightly colored mushrooms around there. We also went to a tower, at the top of the hill. Unfortunately, by that point a fog had rolled in, so from the top we couldn't even see the ground, let alone the view. The tower was interesting though - it's from the Napoleonic wars.

My name was in the paper yesterday. No, I haven't killed anyone - it was for a piece on American students in Lyon and the election. They didn't quote me, but they mentioned that I had my ballot with me at the time of the interview. There was a picture, too, with three of the students in California program (I'd declined the opportunity).

The election night fete last night was fun. I got to meet a lot of American and French students. They had a mock election (which I didn't actually hear the results for), two roundtable discussions (one of them on the air, with the hosts of a radio station), bad country music, and pork and beans. The French do not understand the pork and beans concept at all. It had real pork in it, and the beans resembled something that had come from a vegetable. In retrospect, though, the whole set-up wasn't the best of ideas. It was scheduled from 10 to 2 AM, but the results didn't even begin arriving until 1. They kicked us out a little after 2:30. By that point, they'd announced that Kerry was in the lead (77 to 67), that it looked like he would take Ohio, and that things did not look good for Bush. I split a taxi halfway home (talking politics to the driver), walked the rest of the way, went to bed, woke up three hours later to the kids running down the stairs for breakfast, and called my mom.

Me: "What's the latest news there?"
Mom: "Bush won."

Dammit! I should flee the country. Oh, wait, I already did. Oh, well. It couldn't hurt to do it again. Berlin is a few hundred km further from Bush. Au revoir.