Part 15: Quebec, Buddhism and Butternut Squash in a Limousine

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Quebec

Continued...
In his other hand he held a tangerine. I waved him off, but thanked him for the gesture. It was time to leave Poitiers.
By the next morning, I was on the road again - this time toward the capitol of the Limousine Department, Limoges. To save you a trip to the Wikipedia page for Limousine, the name of the stretched luxury vehicle apparently comes from the fact that the monks in this region of France used to wear hoods over their head, resembling the overhang on the first horse-drawn limousine carriages for rich folks. Though the overhang disappeared when luxury carriages became mechanized, the name stuck.
My ride to the Limoges area was also a lesson for me in European traveling. The lesson: if you are expecting to pay cash for your fuel, be certain to fill up before noon - because most small-town fuel station cashiers go on lunch from noon until 2-3p.m. I missed the boat on this one, and ended up spending an hour and a half drinking a beer and waiting by the side of a gorgeous river (The Vienne) for the service station to re-open in St. Victurnien. It really wasn't so bad. I watched the horses, and tried to convince locals of my Frenchness.
My hosts don't actually live in Limoges; they live in a sub-microscopic village called St. Yrieix Sous Aixe, and they didn't speak much English. They are amazing though, and extremely kind. While I waited for them to meet me at the church at the center of town, I watched a stocky white mutt prance around and urinate in about three different places before crapping right in the middle of the street - on 700 year old stones, no doubt. I like this dog. I like him because he doesn't bark. I'm also amused that he's wearing a collar - out here, in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE. Doesn't EVERYONE here know exactly whose dog this is? A dog with a collar here is about as out of place as a suit jacket on the Island of Molokai. Next, an older woman named Claire approached me and asked, in English, who I am and what I am doing in their village. At first I tried to answer in French - I mean, you aren't supposed to be able to tell that I'm American just by looking at me!
She invited me in for tea and biscuits, and kept me warm while I waited for my hosts. Eventually Daniel arrived, and he led me back to his home, located near a Buddhist center, only two kilometers away.
Their house must be 200 years old. The whole thing is brick and stone, including the floor. They heat it with logs pulled directly from the forest outside. In the coming days I would go up into the forest with Daniel to bring a tractor-load of logs back to the home. I will savor the memory of surfing the platform attached to the back of the Daniel's tractor, busting out in my Hawaiian/SoCal style. To get to the forest, we rode directly through the village square - right past a vicious, leaping, chained dog whose voice was totally muted by the tractor's engine. I reveled in harassing this animal and crowed like Peter Pan as I surfed by him.
Every piece of furniture in their home has a story. From the gnarled wood table that has seen 10,000 meals, to the glass bottle containing homemade organic wine, these rooms feel settled and comfortable with themselves.
On the first night I arrived, they took me to dinner and a French rock/chanson show.
After a very fast meal of Italian pasta and French cheese, my host Katherine drove us to a school high auditorium and parked our Ford Escort straddling a median in a manner you would never observe in the United States. Inside the gymnasium, an audience of all ages (even some silver-haired people) actually ENJOYED the punk band that opened the show. I couldn't make out much except the singer screaming about "LOS ANGELES" and later another song ridiculing Sarkozy (who, by the way, seems to be unanimously HATED by all Frenchies).
The real attraction for the night, though, was Les Ogres de Barback, a multi-talented family of four siblings (all of whom play at least 3 instruments). The group plays modern rock music and traditional French chanson, with a variety of other stylistic influences. Truly awesome, and definitely one of the most exciting shows I have ever seen. While I watched the show, I busted out all my obscene San Diego ska dance moves, which really aren't appropriate anywhere. It seemed, however, that the French folk didn't stare disapprovingly; I like French people. As for the music, if albums in France weren't $25 or so, I would go buy one of theirs.
Katherine is a play director, who subsidizes her meager wages by working as a teacher on the side. But drama is her true passion.
The day after the concert, Daniel took me with him to feed his horses. He is proud of them, especially the stout young gelding named Pompah. I learned how to chop off a big chunk of hay from a roll, and then unravel it to feed his horses. Daniel, an organic farming trainer, rents his horses out to plow and fertilize his neighbors' fields. He does this when he isn't flying out to places like Burkina Faso to teach training seminars.
That night I had the crazy idea of going out to the big city to visit a local brewery and hit the city's jazz club. This was a minor disaster. I rode 45 minutes in the freezing cold to find the small brewery in a suburb of Limoges. I had to laugh when I discovered that the address was a personal residence, and certainly not a brewery with an accessible taproom. After this regretful concession, I followed my directions to the jazz club. With very little difficulty, I found that my location wasn't a jazz club any more: it had been turned into another club (called the "Bang Bang Cafe"), which had also been driven out of business.
I decided to go home. I took off, got lost, turned around, got lost again (of course), then found a small restaurant located on the river Vienne, and ate a fine meal. I noticed that the restaurant, like many in France, had a soundtrack of American R&B with disturbingly sexual lyrics.
It was while dining at this restaurant that I noticed another theme on my trip: butternut squash soup. This was the second time in two days, and 7th time in two weeks that I was served butternut squash. I have nothing against the soup, I just found it funny that so many people had been serving it to me in such a short period of time. I think France has better squashes; I don't care much for the Israeli oranges they import, but their squashes are premium.
My themes for my time in France are: Quebec, Buddhism and Butternut Squash.
Quebec returns as a theme in Limoges because Katherine's daughter is attending school in Quebec, and they shared a song/video with me called "Degeneration" which I have linked with this story's posting. I suggest you check it out. My next two hosts both found it quite funny, listening to what they consider to be ridiculous Quebecki accents singing songs that sound very silly to them in the French language.
Katherine and Daniel brought over a friend named Olivier (who gave me his email address, which was very unfortunately destroyed by extreme wetness in a successive travel day) who spoke excellent English. Olivier had learned his English constructing a giant Buddha statue in Colorado and working at a university in Manitoba (come on people, you should know where Manitoba is). He said he'd learned it mostly because he shacked up with an English-speaking girl in Manitoba, and recommended that as a very effective way to learn a language. I should also say that he cautioned me against shacking up with a girl who freaks out when the inevitable miscommunications arise due to the language barrier. It sounded like a situation he had great familiarity with.
It was here at Limoges that I took the time to write the holiday postcards that many of you received. It took most of a day to write them, and cost a small fortune to mail all 30 of them out. I hope you enjoyed yours if you got one.
After three days, it was time to hit the road again. My hosts had been absolutely wonderful to me. Despite our language issues, they had shown me the great warmth of their hearts. I just needed to make one final check before heading to my next stop in Montlucon: the weather report.
My weather heading to Limoges had been perfect, and I had been able to skip the worst of winter all along. I was ready to take it for granted. Let's see here, what will the weather be like tomorrow in Montlucon?
Oh crap, it's going to SNOW!

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Photos

chevals
Feeding time

smile
Now, don't anybody look TOO happy

Vienne
At the river Vienne

StYrieix
Centre Ville