The Savage Coast

Sunday morning I was in the cafe where the workers have come to hate me with that contempt that familiarity breeds. Every morning I go to the Garden Ice Cafe, which offers free wifi, to check my email, facebook, this blog, etc. I do this because my Livebox, which will allow me to connect from home, has not been delivered to my house, and because actually stocking Liveboxes at the store would just be silly. I would love to write, and probably will write, a post soon about the way that French companies seem chronically taken-aback when they realize that you wouldn't mind using their services, you know, some time this week, maybe...

...anyway, back to Sunday, and I would not have started out by complaining except that it somewhat informs this story. My mood Sunday was... bland, maybe? I don't like having to come here, and I was thinking about this blog, trying to think of something to write, and I realized that I had not had any adventures worth the name in a few days. Almost exactly on cue, my facebook message screen pops up with a message from local legend Chanchan, who advises me to call my friend Franck if I want to go surfing. I was intrigued, but I'd left my phone at home to charge, so I told him I'd call him soon, and resigned myself to probably missing the session, because I still had a few things to take care of on the internet. A few minutes later, Franck posted a message on my wall from his phone:

"wtf u doin then we wait in f of garden ice ten min"

I hastily paid my bill, and went outside and met Franck.

 Approximately 30 minutes later, we were walking down a forested path toward one of the many stretches of beach that make up the Côte Sauvage, or Wild Coast. There were horseflies, and don't ask me how, but they always manage to land on the hand that is holding your surfboard so that swatting them is an awkward and ungainly adventure that seems barely worth the effort. That's why it's good to have friends...

 "You enjoyed that!" Franck seethed, when Chanchan swatted a fly perched on his arm with more force than was strictly required. Chanchan was hurt, indignant, see if I help you again... 

 The first look (the first look is like the first time, the confrontation with the reality of what you've been privately hyping up in your mind) was... well, could be good... Not firing, per se, but... whatever, let's go!

I took off on my first line (the first line is like...) just as the first trickles of water like searching, icy fingers found their way into my wetsuit. There was the usual feeling; the clawing at the water, the acceleration as the wave takes you in, the small flurry of spray at your back as the crest begins to fall forward, the hurling yourself to your feet and now you're up! and you're taking weight off, throwing it back on, your board is slicing through the water like a hand held out of a car window, up and down, using the energy of the wave and then throw all of that energy at the end section, lay back, (you'd like to think your mind is clear, but you know Chanchan is taking pictures so...) BRING IT!! slicing through the oncoming crest and then it's done, and you collapse theatrically into the shin-deep, icy brine.

It was a good start, and the next hour or so was spent chasing incoming left-handers and threading our way diagonally toward shore around portly and nude older gentleman. It's a nude beach, I forgot to mention, and I forgot to mention it because don't get too excited the only people who ever take advantage of nude beaches, in my experience, are older men.

On Sunday, the sky was blue and the waves were fun, and I was in a random spot on this Earth perfectly placed to enjoy them. This is what we want, and these are the moments that call us back. It is a beautiful kind of isolation, when you know the most significant thing in the world has just happened right here, when a moment danced lightly across the stage, twirled, and disappeared completely forever, exiting stage-right. A small, fleeting moment that somehow means absolutely everything precisely because it amounts to nothing.

 Nothing apart from memories, maybe a good photograph or two, and my satisfaction at having something to write about in my adventure blog. 

(New French vocabulary: Les vagues extraterrestres are the waves that come out of nowhere when you're not paying attention.)

  

 

 

 

Pregaming at the Cognac House

Saturday was "Patrimoine" day in France, all over France. I'm still not sure how to translate "Patrimoine", but I guess a good translation is "Heritage" day. A practical translation is "Everything's Free."Museums, aquariums, zoos; everything that is owned publicly is free. Many of the private attractions are free as well, which brings us to Cognac on Saturday morning.

Our friend Lauren works in one of the Cognac houses (Remy Martin) and we would head there after lunch, but first we were stopping off the Martell house, founded in 1715 by Jean Martell. We did not tour the actual production facility, but rather a special tourist edition, complete with animatronic boat, giving the whole place a strong Pirates of the Caribbean (CaRIBbean... CaribBEan...?) vibe. The tour was in French, and I learned quite a bit of Cognac-specific vocabulary. At the end of the tour, we were treated to a Cognac tasting (for FREE!), and then we left, with me somewhat disheartened that I never thought of anything smooth to say to our tour guide, whom I thought looked a little bit like Natalie Portman.

After lunch at a kebab in town, we clowned-carred our way to the one of the Remy Martin houses in the back of Lauren's company car. It was one of two houses in Cognac, and one that they had purchased in the 60's in order to accommodate their own vineyards, and though it was only about a half-century old, the buildings already looked ancient due to the layer, on every wall, of a kind of mushroom that thrives on the "angel's share" (evaporated Cognac) from the production houses.

No one else had booked a free English speaking tour (their loss), so Lee, Laura, and I had a private tour with Lauren who - rather sportingly - put on her best tour-guide voice while I did my best to derail her by indignantly demanding a new guide when she said she was American. Like a pro, she ignored me when I did this, and we learned quite a bit about cognac, and about Cognac. (By the way, following up a French tour with an English tour is not a bad way to nail down your vocabulary.)

At the end, we had another tasting - cocktails(!) in celebration of Patrimoine day - and then they called us a taxi. The cab driver was friendly, and we chatted a bit about Cognac ("nice to visit, but a terrible city in which to live"). Oh well. I fell asleep on my cushion bed on the floor almost as soon as we got back to Lauren's house, and awoke a few hours later ready to go again. That evening, we had pizza at a local shop, and the owner sat with us and chatted for a while about his difficulties drumming up business in Cognac. Finally, we wound up back at Lauren's, where we played "Circle of Death." (Jack Rule number 3: You must replace the word "Turn" with "Merkin"... don't ask.)

Finally, to bed, again.