When Nic first traveled to France, he did so as an exchange with the UT UTeach program. For half the program, a group of French teachers stayed with NIc and other UTers and then returned the favor when the Texas group went to France. During this exchange, Nic became friends with a cool chick named Celie.
Celie taught in Paris for one year, but she met a dashing Spaniard and asked to be transferred to the Spanish/French border so they could live together. She was gracious enough to invite Nic and I to stay with her in Perpignon, France.
Quite by accident, we were in France during National Day, the French version of the 4th of July. There were lots of events planned and Celie took us to a small, medieval town down the road for “interactive fireworks.” She said something about fire dancers. Intriguing! We were drinking some beer in the city center when all the sudden all the lights went off. Drum beats were crashing from a few blocks over and about every ten seconds we would see flames shoot up. My first thought was, “What the ….” Around the corner came a marching band of demons dressed up in horns, helmets, and lots of macabre outfits. There were men on stilts blowing out fire. And they were coming. Right for us. In fact, if you looked scared or excited or were a teenager, they really came after you with the fire. After the fire breathers passed by, everyone followed them through the town. Keep in mind that this is a town where the buildings were made in the 1600s. Small, winding alleys, cobblestones, and a castle at the end. TOTALLY CREEPY. It was like a living nightmare. Plus beer. Awesome.
After our night of terror, we made a trip to a small town on the Mediterranean- complete with castle, amazing water, and 5 wineries. We sat at a small cafe on the ocean and had French tapas. We even ate escargot. Celie thought it was funny that Dad thinks escargot is practically France’s national dish. She said they are just an appetizer and not her personal favorite. They tasted tomatoey and you got to use toothpicks to dig them out. Plus, leftover snails’ shells look so much cooler on your plate.
Southern France was beautiful. I wish we had more time there. Nic and I looked at real estate in the small town. Now, if we can only save up 850,000 euros, we can have a small flat overlooking the ocean and eat snails everyday.
