Too much dairy

15h France time

This past weekend, I took off with two American assistants named Alex and Lacey to the Beaujolais region. Beaujolais is located close to Lyon, and every year, the region releases a new wine called the "Beaujolais Nouveau." The wine has been aged only six months, and so, from what I've heard, it's not great. I tasted it, and I couldn't tell you one way or another. But it was released at midnight this past Thursday to enormous celebrations, and the festivities continued into this weekend.

Alex, Lacey, and I visited a medium-sized town called Villefranche, where we saw the majority of Beaujolais Nouveau celebration. We first came upon a "Beaujolais Marathon," where French men and women were preparing to run (or finishing up the race, or both?) equipped with a shiny, golden cape (which looked like a space blanket) and a bottle of the new wine. Everything you need to run a marathon. Then we found the wine festival in the center of town, where vendors of wine, cheese, baked goods, and chocolates lined the streets. We tried lots of little glasses of the Beaujolais Nouveau from different winemakers, cheese samples, and these revolting chocolates that had wine in the center. We also got to see/participate in various musical performances up and down the street; we saw at least three percussion ensembles similar to the one I saw in Toulouse. We also caught a performance by a Michael Jackson impersonator who danced pretty well.

Beaujolais performing groups in Villefranche

After we left Villefranche, we visited a little town called Beaujeu, then continued on to our bed and breakfast. While it took us quite a long time to find, it turned out to be adorable, run by a lovely woman who had the biggest dog I have ever seen. She directed us to dinner that night, then fed us breakfast the following morning. On Sunday, we went back to Lyon, where we spent about an hour in "Les Halles," a big, bustling indoor market near the center of town. Then we hopped a train back to Limoges.

Today I found out that I won't have to teach one of my classes tomorrow because its teacher will be a "gréviste"-- a striker-- in the teacher protests. I wonder where the demonstrations will be. Maybe I'll get to see some of the action!