Work continues to keep me busy. The harvest is coming to an end, and instead of slowing down, things become more hectic. We don't have enough cuves (tanks) for the incoming grapes, so tomorrow a large tanker truck will take 200hL of wine to a cellar in town. This has been the subject of much debate at the winery.

self-portrait

Tomorrow morning I'll be driven into Beziers to wait at the Perfecture (city gov't building) to draw up my working papers, and afterwards, get my driver's license. I think my french is coming along well enough that I'll be able to communicate in town, but it'll be pretty basic. Assuming all goes well, I might start looking for a bike tomorrow afternoon.

Quarante

the farthest mountains: the Pyrenees

abandoned church near my home

Quarante

Work, life and the party.

According to whom you ask, my French may be coming along quite well. If you ask my co-workers – one Japanese, one Chinese, one Moroccan, none native to France – they’d say that two weeks in, I’m doing well.

After work...

On the other hand, if you ask a native French about my progress, they’d likely grin slightly and begin to laugh before telling you I’ve got the most confusing accent they’ve ever heard. I suppose it’s the natural product of multiple teachers from multiple countries.

I hope you don't mind a bit of ash in your wine.

I’ve done well to dispel many myths Americans think the French have about us. For one, they can’t believe I don’t watch TV. Tonight, they all wanted to watch Desperate Housewives and were surprised that a) I didn’t want to watch and b) I’d never actually seen the show. I explained (in my growing French) that I don’t have time. Mostly, I eat, sleep, run, read, write and work.

The main street in Beziers. We took a trip last weekend.

I have failed, however, to quiet the idea that Americans eat a lot. I’ve become the one at dinner who’s given the rest of the food after everyone else is served. Tonight, I was given four eggs, my own large link of sausage, about half a liter of rice, lots of wine (I may have had something to do with that), and half a baguette of bread. For a while Marie would tell me, “you’re going to get a stomach ache if you eat all of that.” Now she just tells everyone that I exercise a lot and need the calories.

At the beginning of this week, a documentary film maker visited the estate and proceeded to film almost every hour of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before leaving this morning. He interviewed everyone who spoke French and followed us around for a long time running film. Don’t expect a major release state-side anytime soon.


Charles, Marie, and unnamed/unknown woman.

We had another bat incident a last week. As we were eating supper, a bat flew into the kitchen and began to circle the table. Somewhat surprisingly, nothing was broken as everyone bolted from the table to seek shelter in the hallway. Soon, Yoshi and I chased the bat (I had to pretend to be brave in front of everyone, rabies be damned) into the hall and after about 5 minutes of ducking and dodging while swinging magazines at it, it flew out of one of the opened doors and we were able to resume supper.

I actually work sometimes.

Today, work was a struggle. Occasionally, Marie rents part of the estate for social functions. Last night I experienced a French wedding reception. Similar to American wedding receptions, it included alcohol, loud music, and rabble rousing. While this is all well and good, my room is just above the “social hall.” Let’s just say the music didn’t stop ‘till the sun came up – literally. I watched the Godfather I and III last night, didn’t start them ‘till midnight. For those of you who know how long those movies are – well, they ended at about the same time as the music.

Bat this around...

(blogger is not letting me post pics right now)

Yesterday at work I finally found out what I’ll actually be doing here at Pech Laurier – and it doesn’t involve teaching English (thank goodness). I’m the trainee for the cellar master. Not a bad deal – it what’s I expected – and it’s just what I did in California, but not nearly as difficult.

At Harlan, in napa, we worked very hard and the winery was treated like an operating room. The machines were washed with disinfectant nightly, nothing that touched the wine touched the floor, and no wine was wasted or mixed with other wine. The same cannot be said for the standard operating procedures at this winery. Things are not run with the same level of precision, dedication, or degree of cleanliness. Trust me, you don’t want to know.

Work days begin early with coffee and bread but lunches are long and prepared fresh and involve alcohol (today: beer and wine). After work, we typically drink some more wine sitting around outside and, from what I understand, talk about, uh, stuff. Truth is, I can’t tell the difference yet, but the wine is nice. Yesterday we shot some guns (hunting season just opened for game birds and the guys here are pretty excited) and went on a mushroom hunt.

Last night I wanted to shower so I excused myself from supper around 9:30. I was in my shower, which you can see from the picture has no walls, and the door to my room, as well as the bathroom, were open. The hallway outside of my room leads into some large rooms here at the winery and we never close the doors to those rooms – open air. We also have a lot of insects in this part of france – warm, humid, continental climate – and what animals love flying insects? You guessed it – bats!

So I’m in the shower, soaping up, not wearing my glasses, very relaxed when I notice the light in my room flickers occasionally. I squint to see more clearly as I realize something is flying around my room, and no sooner did I think “shit, bat!” then it flew into the tiny bathroom and started circling me in the shower.

There’s not much that really scares me in this life, but contracting rabies is pretty high on the list. So far, I’ve managed to avoid it. However, I’ve heard it said that bats often carry rabies, and I’ve seen Old Yeller – it didn’t end well. And what do you always here about scared animals doing to people in unfortunate positions? That’s right, biting them. And here I am, completely naked without my glasses and in a room with a blind, scared, raging-with-rabies, flying-circles-around-me bat.

I can’t explain how quickly I moved. First, I threw the only thing in my hand at the bat. That happened to be the shower head, which of course didn’t go very far being attached to the wall and all. Next I bolted for the bedroom with the bat in chase, somehow managing to grab my towel. I headed out of the room and closed the door behind myself, not wanting the crazy sucker to sink his nasty little teeth into my neck.

I slowly open the door and peer inside trying to gauge the situation. I have nothing but my towel – no glasses, no light, no weapons. I decided to retreat downstairs and find some type of implement to aide me with my quest – kill the bat.

I returned to my room, up the ladder, slowly opening the door. Still in towel, I noticed that the bat was back in the bathroom. I crept into the bedroom to open the window, hoping the bat would sound his little sonar system off and find the way out. I gave it a chance to live. However, as I turned around the bat came at me again, and in my haste to exit the room, lost my towel.

Here I stand, basically blind, in the dark, naked. I’ve lost my first and best weapon – I long board. I return downstairs, hoping no one is out walking around the estate, and find a much shorter board and a cardboard box. Returning to the room, I notice the bat isn’t flying around. Looking into the bathroom, I see it clinging to the ceiling. As I move in to try and smash beyond recognition, it takes off and flies past my head. I hit the ground and crawled/ran back out of the room into the hall.

Looking back into my room, watching the bat circle, I considered my options. A) walk, naked, to the house, wake marie and be completely humiliated, or b) kick some bat ass, blind, naked and scared to death of rabies.

Do you even have to ask? I walked to the house, woke mar…no, I’m kidding. I went into that room like I owned it, charged the bat with box and stick, and smashed the blood right out of it’s body. Not surprisingly, bats are disgusting up close, especially when they’d been squished beyond recognition. Crazy night, but I slept well with the door closed.

Mailing address

Mr. Jonathan Fitzpatrick
Domaine de Saint Martin
34310 Quarante
FRANCE

Travel time.

My travels went as well as possible. I spent Wednesday night aboard a Scandinavian Airlines plane high above the Atlantic drinking free beer, wine and liquor, enjoying movies on-demand in the headrest in front of me. No one occupied the seat to my left, and on my right was the aisle. That meant I was able to sleep occasionally, but really I just watched movies and played video games.


Train station in Cérberé.

Arriving in Copenhagen, I was disappointed upon realizing I needed to pass through customs. This turned an already tight layover into an exceptionally tight layover, and I almost missed the biggest circus in the sky.



Spanair, most likely similar to it’s inter-European-carrier counterparts, was a zoo on wings. No food or drink for free. Coca-Cola, the eight ounce variety, cost 1.5€. That was the cheapest item on the menu. From there, we ascended through the orally consumable items into the jewelry and perfume items. I think the most expensive flavor was more than 50€. For almost the entire flight, stewardesses bumped and shoved past customers and one another trying to make the most rounds to sell the most crap.

Pech Laurier.

Arriving in Barcelona, I couldn’t be happier to find my way off the plane, through the airport and onto a train to the main train station. From the station, I began many train hours north through Spain and into France, changing trains, meeting annoying Americans, leaving annoying Americans, and eventually arriving in Narbonne Thursday evening. After calling Marie, Yoshi and Ben arrived to shuttle me back to the estate.

The Estate

The estate

Domaine Pech Laurier was built over 300 years ago. The original vines were a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to the Neil family many years ago, or so the story goes. I live in the oldest part of the estate in a room accessed with a ladder and a four-foot step-up. It’s quiet, I have my own bathroom, and I pay no rent. There were also 3 cases of wine for me to drink.

My bedroom

The way up

I don’t know if I’ll get to that wine any time soon, however, because wine is more or less on tap throughout the estate. We have it with lunch and dinner and often during the day. Marie actually puts some of the wine in 5L boxes so that it stays fresh, and that sits at many strategic locations throughout the estate. Wine glasses also proliferate.

A 5-hectare park makes up the area immediately surrounding the estate buildings. There is also a swimming pool, which I used this afternoon. Currently I am sitting outside, drinking white wine under the trees, a nice breeze blows and I have a small armada of dogs for company. Being that I don’t speak French, it’s difficult to tell the dogs “no,” “go away,” “bad,” “good,” “sit,” “stay,” etc. That means we’re best friends. There’s also a cat, but regardless of language, they never seem to listen.

The pool

The Area

Of course, vines are everywhere. This area of France is arid with rolling hills, and looks a lot like the Sicily of the Godfather pt 1 (remember when Michael visits after killing Sollozzo and McClusky in the diner and falls in love with and marries the beautiful Appolonia? That’s what it looks like here – just a bit more green.).



The small town of Quarante lies just north of the estate. It was established during the tenth century, so many of the buildings are quite old. The church that stands today is the same church that was built 1000 years ago (likely with substantial modifications, but you know – it’s really, really old). Back in 987, no one considered laying the streets out on grids, and today, Quarante is a maze of back alleys and narrow streets intersecting at ridiculous angles in the most unconventional places.


Yesterday I went running after work and was passed by more tractors hauling grapes than by real cars. Many of the roads in town are sticky from the grape juice that leaks out during transport.



Running in Quarante is also an experience, but more one of fear around every corner or actually getting lost in a town of only 1000 people. The streets are that crazy, the maps that bad, and all roads lead downhill and away. By the time I’d realize I wasn’t on the right road home, I was looking back up at the city on the hill and groaning before turning around, running back up, and trying again.

Touch and go.

In about an hour, I'll get on a train in new jersey, and 24 hours, 4 trains, 2 planes, a car and no problems later, I'll be in my apartment in France. The last week and a half, however, have been amazing - a great way to spend my last days in the US.

After quitting my job in Denver and traveling around SW colorado for a while, I returned to the front range for a few days. During that time, I was able to see friends, say goodbyes, and eat lots of food.



My plan was to leave denver and drive to omaha, stopping along the way to see grandma, as well as my aunt and uncle. once I arrived in omaha, I spent a lot of time with my nephew, Tre, playing baseball and football and eating candy for breakfast and doing backflips (mostly him). I also saw friends and family and ate a lot more food.



After witnessing a confrontation between a flight attendent and passenger resulting in removal from my plane in Chicago, I landed in Philly on Sunday night to have a couple drinks with marcus. It was a short stay, and after about 12 hours we were headed toward new york city to meet another friend for a couple days in the big apple.



Walking across the brooklyn bridge is the most under-rated NYC activity. When the weather's nice, the views are outstanding, and the architecture unmatched. I recommend anyone visiting the city to make a point of doing this, and to start in Brooklyn working back into manhatten.



I spent the rest of my time in NYC visiting friends and seeing sights, trying to stay out of the heavily touristed areas. I think I did well. I really enjoyed spending time in the West Village, and the art museum, which, despite being filled with more tourists than art, was also excellent. If you're visiting, note the "recommended" admission fee is not required.



I'll try and write more when I get to France, for now, good bye.