Sunday, September 20

From	To	Distance (km)	Average Speed (km/hr)	Max Speed (km/hr)	Odometer (km)	Riding Time (hr:min:sec)	Push-Ups
Illzach, France							0

(1263 words)

French and English

Francis's house, where we spent the night, sits next to a church, and I awoke this morning to the sound of bells. I counted seven clangs. Hearing no other sound in the house and thinking 7 AM too early to get up, I rolled over and went back to sleep. The next time I heard bells I counted ten clangs. This surprised me, as I hadn't intended to sleep that long. As I got up and dressed, I could hear Francis's children running around downstairs.

When I went downstairs, I met Nicola, Francis's three and a half year old son, and Isabelle, his twelve year old daughter. Shortly thereafter I met Francis's fourteen year old daughter, Mari, and his sister, Marie-Therese. Matt came downstairs and we all sat around the table and had a breakfast of brioche (something like bread with a light coating of icing brushed on top) and coffee and tea.

Francis had told us that his daughters Mari and Isabelle, who had been studying English in school, were looking forward to our visit so they could practice speaking some English. During breakfast I asked Mari, "How are you?" to which she replied, "Mari." I said, more slowly, "No, how...are...you?" A look of recognition came on her face and she said, "Oh, fourteen." At this point I should have blazed on ahead and asked her some more questions, but I got embarrassed and couldn't think of anything else to ask. I looked at Matt for help, but he just stared back at me. Unfortunately, that was about the extent of the English practice that Matt and I were able to come up with for Mari. Matt later posed the question, "What time is it?" to Isabelle, who promptly ran upstairs to retrieve her English book and notebook. She opened her notebook to a page filled with drawings of clocks and eventually answered Matt's question. We then worked with Isabelle for a while on subjects related to her English class notes.

As I looked through Isabelle's English book and notes, I was reminded of my first French class, which I took when I was about Isabelle's age. A few summers earlier, my family had gone on a vacation that included Quebec City, Quebec. Hearing and seeing French in Quebec was my first exposure to a foriegn language. I thought it was cool, so when I got to seventh grade I started taking French. Unfortunately, I stopped my French studies in ninth grade and in the intervening years have forgotten most of what I did know then.

At Francis's house, I did manage to get some French practice later in the day with Isabelle and especially with little Nicola, who at three and a half years was closest to my level. At one point Nicola and I were going over a coloring book of his. I asked him what the color of various things were, and he got most of them right. I helped him count the stars on the front cover, and he made it almost all the way to ten. I asked him whether two drawings of kids (a boy and a girl) were a boy or a girl, and he got both of them right. Whenever he got something right, I would say, "très bien." What was cute was that as I was asking him what color things were, he at one point turned to me and firmly stated the correct pronunciation of the French word for color, which I had been badly butchering. So my exchange with Nicola was an educational quid pro quo.

Mountain Water

After breakfast and English practice, Matt got up to take a shower. Francis showed Matt where to take a shower and turned on the water heater, which hung on the wall next to the shower. Matt proceeded to take his shower in the usual way, by dousing himself with hot water, soaping up, and putting shampoo in his hair. But when he again turned on the water to rinse himself off, only ice-cold mountain water came out. Matt was intimidated by all the lights and buttons on the heater, and was too naked, soapy, and unsure of local custom to ask for help. He simply rinsed himself off as best he could with freezing cold water, eventually giving up and leaving soap all over his back.

After Matt came out of the bathroom and reported his temperature troubles, Francis was very appologetic. The girls, Mari and Isabelle, got cute teenage "Oh my God" looks on their faces. Francis entered the bathroom and studied the lights on the heater. Apparently, the heater had shut itself off once the temperature rose above a certain level. With a single button press on the heater, Francis solved the problem. Although Matt was already fully dressed, he was still feeling a bit soapy and decided to continue his shower. After Matt was done, I took my nice warm shower.

Living in the Mountains

After I emerged from the shower, I met Anita's brother, Bernard. We all sat down at the table and spent the next several hours eating, drinking, and talking. Before the meal I had a glass of an anis-flavored liquor as an aperitiv. Anita, who had done a lot of hard work in the kitchen, soon brought out a lunch of sauer kraut accompanied by four kinds of meat: two kinds of Wurst (big German sausages) and two kinds of roast pork. Sauer kraut is a specialty of that region, and Anita's sauer kraut was wonderful. With the meal I was served three different varieties of white wine, one dry, one sweet, and one in-between.

For desert, Anita brought out a very French-looking apple torte and some cone-shaped pastries filled with yellow creme. Both of these deserts were great, as they were sweet but not too sweet. Nicola and Isabelle both poured some of the leftover yellow cream into bowls and ate it with a spoon. Little Nicola wasn't satisfied until he had a lumpy patina of yellow cream all over his face and hands. After everything had been eaten, Bernard brought out some of his homemade plum schnapps, very strong (but tasty) stuff, of which I had one and a half shot glasses full.

After several hours of sitting at or near the table, Simone showed up and we all piled into two cars and headed up the valley in which Francis lives. We drove from Dolleren through Sewen, and on up to a man-made lake, Lac d'Alfeld, where we parked the cars and took a stroll out onto the dam. From Lac d'Alfeld, we continued up to the local high point, Ballon d'Alsace, where we once again got out and walked. This time we hiked up to the top of the mountain, where we found a statue showing Joan of Arc riding a horse. The valley in which Francis lives is very beautiful. I asked Francis if he'd always lived there and he said, yes, he'd lived his whole life in those mountains.

After Ballon d'Alsace, we drove back down to Dolleren, thanked and said goodbye to Francis and his family, and rode with Simone back to Valérie's. At Valérie's apartment we had a great, simple dinner that consisted of goat cheese on a small, round piece of toast accompanied by various odds and ends like sliced tomatoes and gouda cheese. After dinner, Simone departed and we chatted with Valérie for a while before going to sleep. Matt and I wanted to get a good night's sleep, because the next day we were going to begin riding the bikes again.