La vie à Carpentras

Just one little example of a stand at the market

The weekend after Thanksgiving was also la fête de Saint Siffrein, the patron saint of Carpentras.  What does that mean?  A huge market taking over the entire city!  This was on a much larger scale than the Friday markets which take place every week.  I don’t really know why, but the street that my school was filled with all sorts of horses.  Other than that, however, it was really just a very very large market.  Fun to walk around, but not a whole heck of a lot to do if you didn’t need to buy something :)

Some of the BTS boys at the play- they're such sweethearts :)

I went to a play with the BTS boys during the week: “Ne te promene pas tout nue” which means “Don’t walk around naked.”  It was a really interesting experience- the play was about a man who was trying to get promoted and his wife was just wearing lingerie in every scene and then some sort of bug bit her on the butt, so she kept walking up to the other characters and bending over and sticking her butt (no worries- she had on a thong, so she wasn’t actually naked) in their faces to try to ask them to take out the stinger that she was convinced the bug had left.  Yeah, I thought it was strange too :)  I joined David, Sébastien, Guillaume, and Benjamin for dinner afterward and ate my first ever double cheeseburger!  Seems strange that it was in France and not in the US…

The crew at wine tasting/appetizers

Atop the tower

I briefly left Carpentras to pick up MARY KOLARS who had come all the way to France to visit me.  Hannah, Mary, and I headed up to Notre Dame de la Garde and ate some fabulous food for dinner.  Mary and I stayed in a hostel right next to the train station, so that we had an easy exit in the morning.  We caught the bus in Avignon because we had to get to Carpentras for a full day of events with the France-Etats Unis (US) association.  My host dad, Steve, is the president of the organization, and Joelle is really involved in all of the operations too, which is why I had been invited.  There were four students from the IAU (Institutes for American Universities) in Avignon who came along with us.  We first went to Moulin à Huile in Saint Hippolyte le Graveyron, where we saw olive oil being made!  Then Steve drove us over to Chateaux de Barroux so that we could take some pictures of the region.  We went from there back to Beaumes de Venise for appetizers and wine tasting.  The wine was delish and so were all of the little treats.  Michel, a French man that I had met at the Thanksgiving dinner, was there and invited us to go olive-picking the next day.  (Remember this detail!)  We spent several hours enjoying French wine (tough life, right?) and then went to the town hall in Carpentras, where we had some more pastries, more drinks, and had a photo shoot in the mayor’s office.  A nice girl took us on a walking tour of Carpentras from there.  We were able to go up into the Porte d’Orange, which is normally not open to visitors.  It was a really great view of the city and the region!  It was pretty chilly, so we went to get some hot chocolate and to warm up before attending the inaugural lighting of the Carpentras “Christmas tree.” 

The "Christmas tree" with the Carpentras mayor!

Mary and I and our olive man

Chestnuts!

The following day, Michel came to pick Mary and me up to go olive-picking.  I should note that at this point, we thought that we were going to learn about the olive harvesting process and that we might be helping out a little bit.  As it turns out, Michel dropped us off and said, “I have to go… I have family things today” and left us with his friend, who led us to where the 4 IAU students were already hard at work.  Apparently they only harvest olives two days a year and it was one of those days… and we were the slave labor to do all of the picking!  We spent the next two and a half hours using rakes and our fingers and pulling olives down from trees onto a net down below.  When the tree was sufficiently bare (we always left a couple of olives for the birds), we pulled together the net and dumped the olives into a bin.  As far as slave labor goes, it wasn’t all that bad- we had a lot of fun just chatting and it was really low key.  After we finished, our host brought us in and gave us châtaignes/marrons aka chestnuts and we roasted them over an open fire.  (Literally!)  Mmm- very tasty.  Michel showed up after that to pick us up in an ENORMOUS pickup truck that must be some sort of delivery vehicle.  He insisted on bringing us to see something in the region, so we ended up driving to Orange and taking pictures by the Arc de Triomphe.  Then we went to Avignon to drop the others off, and Michel drove me and Mary back.  He took a ton of roundabout back roads and I think it took us more than an hour to get back, instead of the normal half an hour trip.  The most comical part was that even though Mary must have told Michel a half a dozen times that she didn’t speak any French, he kept forgetting and ended up chattering on and on and on in French.  We talked about everything from the dance club he offered to show us around to how he used to use a dog as a chick magnet.  He was a hoot and a holler for sure.  Hopefully I’ll see him and his wife, Mireille, more often this year- they were both so nice!

Skary Jack-in-the-boxes

Other Carpentras news?  Santons, little figurines, are extremely famous in Carpentras and there’s a huge display… and the city was actually really lively for Christmas!  Caitlin came to visit me last weekend (December 17^th).  Notable events included visiting the Christmas market, seeing several of the roving displays (“spectacles”), taking pictures with Pere Noel, ice skating, visiting the market in Isles sur Sorgues, and going to a Christmas concert with 100 guitars.  The spectacles were absolutely frightening- especially this one that involved life-size jack in the boxes.  There was a little baby in front of the display and I have no idea how he was keeping from bawling his eyes out.  I would have been so scared!  We helped some adorable little children that were having trouble with their skates at the patinoire.  One of my favorite parts of the day was that they were blasting music over loudspeakers in the whole city.  They also have gorgeous lights that decorate the entire city.  Beautiful! 

Pere Noel :)

All in all, it’s been really interesting to see how France celebrates Christmas- it’s somewhat different and somewhat the same as our celebrations in the states.  I have to say that I’m a little bit disappointed that I won’t be in Provence for Christmas because the tradition is to make 13 desserts!  And obviously you have to eat all 13… you wouldn’t want to be rude ;)  I’m posting from Barcelona Spain, so Bon Nadal (Catalan) and Joyeux Noel (French) to you all!  I hope that you are able to celebrate with family and friends- I stayed up late to skype with mine :)