Two thousand eight is a great year, in my opinion: Not only is it the International Year of the Potato, it's also the International Year of Languages.
Did you know . . .
. . . That there are over 1200 varieties of potatoes cultivated in the "potato park" at the International Potato Center in the Peruvian Andes!?
. . . That, of the 6700 languages in existence, about 50% are considered "in danger of disappearing," and that, in fact, one language does disappear every two weeks?
Thus, tomorrow I am going to eat a pomme de terre and study francais. (Not to be confused with eating french fries.)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
The French Villa
The last month has been a blur for me. (But not for you, since I haven't written anything at all, so you're welcome for sparing you that slightly "twanged" feel I'm sure my Ashe-slant writing imposes, and sorry for not assuring you that I haven't, in fact, been kidnapped, though that's an apology you'll probably have to pass along since the kidnap-worriers are precisely the same subgroup as the non-computer-users. Anway, moving forward . . .) I finished up my last papers in Bologna. Packed up my apartment. Said goodbye-for-the-summer (isn't that a cottage song?) to everyone I knew. Flew to Salt Lake City (where they lost my bags). Did training in the Salt Lake City office of my new favorite company, Backroads (http://www.backroads.com/) - learned how to repair bikes, drive a trailer, and handle tricky customer service "challenges". I was so impressed - the training program, the trainers, and the leader-focus of the company just knocked my new bicycle-style socks (but not my new bike shorts, because they're spandex with a tight padded butt and thus remained firmly in place) off. And then, and then . . .
Went on a mock trip to Southern Utah - Bryce and Zion National Parks. This was awesome, and also holy-shite-level hot. On the awesome amazing side, it was beautiful. I slept my first night on the bank of a desert river. (Actually, as one of my co-leaders pointed out, it's not actually a desert. But it's sandy and sand-colored and cloudless and little-red-horned-guys-with-pokers hot, so I think the label is perfectly, though not scientifically - how do you like that one!? - justified, and I'm going to continue using it.) Since it was - yep - hot - I went tent-less and lay in my sleeping bag listening to the running water, peeking at the moon and the stars, and feeling impressed, even in my slumber, by the red sandstone cliff in front of me. With my training group, I made lots of fancy picnic lunches, did some public speaking exercises, went on some hikes and bike rides . . . and ate food prepared by camp chefs that you'd never in a million years guess didn't come out of a professional kitchen, enjoyed the company of my awesome co-leaders (at least most of the time - the too-many-leaders-in-one-campsite virus definitely unleashed a few strains of hyper-competitiveness), and learned a ton. It was really awesome. And then . . .
Got my summer assignment: Family Camping Trips in Southern Utah. Yep. While the Canyons were spectactularly beautiful, and I'm spectacularly in love with Backroads, I was less than thrilled with the assignment. It's all about the match, kind of like choosing a college, and looking at the three principal elements of the trips - "Family", "Camping", and "Desert" - none of them really got me going, especially since I really believed I was heading back to Italy to do trips that essentially focused on biking and gastronomy. But a miraculous intervention occurred, and . . . I write to you now from a villa in France! My scheduled changed at the last minute, and I'm now kind of an "all-Europe back-up." I'm stationed in the Leader House - although I prefer to refer to it, according to my mood, as either the "Villa" or the "Chateau" - in Provence, and I'm scheduled to do a trailer drive to the Czech Republic and to be on-call as a replacement leader for any last-minute leader injuries or the like. (And I guess they almost always use these on-call people, so - for me - that's great.)
Not bad, eh! (My two housemates right now are Canadian. I haven't yet heard any ehs flying around, though. I think it would be an interesting study to quantify eh usage per province. These guys are from Montreal.)
Went on a mock trip to Southern Utah - Bryce and Zion National Parks. This was awesome, and also holy-shite-level hot. On the awesome amazing side, it was beautiful. I slept my first night on the bank of a desert river. (Actually, as one of my co-leaders pointed out, it's not actually a desert. But it's sandy and sand-colored and cloudless and little-red-horned-guys-with-pokers hot, so I think the label is perfectly, though not scientifically - how do you like that one!? - justified, and I'm going to continue using it.) Since it was - yep - hot - I went tent-less and lay in my sleeping bag listening to the running water, peeking at the moon and the stars, and feeling impressed, even in my slumber, by the red sandstone cliff in front of me. With my training group, I made lots of fancy picnic lunches, did some public speaking exercises, went on some hikes and bike rides . . . and ate food prepared by camp chefs that you'd never in a million years guess didn't come out of a professional kitchen, enjoyed the company of my awesome co-leaders (at least most of the time - the too-many-leaders-in-one-campsite virus definitely unleashed a few strains of hyper-competitiveness), and learned a ton. It was really awesome. And then . . .
Got my summer assignment: Family Camping Trips in Southern Utah. Yep. While the Canyons were spectactularly beautiful, and I'm spectacularly in love with Backroads, I was less than thrilled with the assignment. It's all about the match, kind of like choosing a college, and looking at the three principal elements of the trips - "Family", "Camping", and "Desert" - none of them really got me going, especially since I really believed I was heading back to Italy to do trips that essentially focused on biking and gastronomy. But a miraculous intervention occurred, and . . . I write to you now from a villa in France! My scheduled changed at the last minute, and I'm now kind of an "all-Europe back-up." I'm stationed in the Leader House - although I prefer to refer to it, according to my mood, as either the "Villa" or the "Chateau" - in Provence, and I'm scheduled to do a trailer drive to the Czech Republic and to be on-call as a replacement leader for any last-minute leader injuries or the like. (And I guess they almost always use these on-call people, so - for me - that's great.)
Not bad, eh! (My two housemates right now are Canadian. I haven't yet heard any ehs flying around, though. I think it would be an interesting study to quantify eh usage per province. These guys are from Montreal.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
