Final Days of Le Castel, and France!

"That's the first time I've ever seen a centaur in a tuxedo- I guarantee it."

-Jake

More flickr photos have been uploaded! A week ago, Christine took us to a beach. It was actually very hot, so we spent most of our time under the umbrella. The interesting thing about this beach is how much the tide changes daily. Before we left, it must have fallen a good 200 feet. This allows for easy harvesting of Normandy's famous mussels, which reveal themselves when tide is at its lowest point.

This is a picture of some naturally occurring mistletoe. Out of incomprehensible boredom, one day we took a walk to the nearby town of Belval Gare. Gare is the French term for train station, but, strangely enough, Belval Gare has no train station to speak of. However, there is a a railway track which runs through the town. Herego, this probably explains the qualifier Gare as a a means to distinguish Belval Gare from Belval Bourg, a painfully plain town further down the road. Anywho, we saw mistletoe along the way. What you may not know about mistletoe is that, besides being common throughout Normandy, is that it lives in a mutually beneficial symbiosis with the treetops of its host.

These signs are posted outside of every French town, signifying you've left and that you may drive faster. The inverse is also true- the back of the sign is identical except for the red line, indicating you've arrived and you should slow down. When we arrived in Belval Gare, we didn't have to slow down because we were already walking. At the end of the walk we thought we would treat ourselves to a sandwich at either the local restaurant or boulangerie (bread shop). We had no cash and there's no ATM in Belval Gare. So we walked back home hungry- for 3.5 miles.

On Saturday, with the van back up and running, Mary drove us to the Coutances train station where we caught a bus to Granville, a coastal town.

Granville is known for its rocky beaches, popular for the well-to-do French during the early twentieth century. Over the centuries, Granville had developed as a cod-fisherman's town and a harbor for French privateers.

Mary found a little bookshop where she snagged two little books for two euro apiece; one details a great variety of the world's cheeses, and the other is a cookbook of traditional Norman recipes.

Seeing as all restaurants are closed from 2-4 PM, the bookshop also killed time until the bar across the street opened for the evening.

Back at Le Castel, a new chore has been added to our repertoire- making fresh apple juice for the morning! In order to maintain the educational aspect of this blog, I've taken the initiative to inform our readers just how this interesting process works. Read on!

First, apples must be grown on trees like the one pictured above until they are literally "ripe for the picking."

Next, a number of apples are hand-picked from the trees and placed in an appropriate apple receptacle; a basket, barrel, or (in our case) a plastic crate all work just fine.

Finally, the apples are placed in a juicer where they juiced. This smushy step separates the yucky, pulpy pulp from the the scrumdiddlyumptious, pure apple juice. Observe Mary's smiling face and adroit technique.

By the way, the only reason that we must make apple juice each evening is because there are once again guests at Le Castel! Maybe the planets have aligned, but by some cosmic coincidence one of the guests is a recently retired history professor from Oxford University who now leads historic tours of the historic university. We finished planning, no longer than a week ago, a trip to stay in Oxford with a distant relation of Mary's. The professor gave his contact info and kindly offered to give us a personal tour of the campus!

Everyone in Great Britain (and thus, Le Castel) has these electric kettles, often in the place of a standard coffee brewer. This is something I've wanted everyone to know for a while, but I don't believe has ever made it into a post. Just as you'd imagine, knowing how guests take their tea (How much sugar? Milk?) is a nuance expected of any aspiring socialite and/or host. Additionally, these kettles are capable of boiling water in about a minute!

Before I forget, as a tip for any traveller dreaming of a long-term European vacation, know that you will need converters to use any Euro electrical outlet with your standard American plugs. Outlets are different between the UK and the rest of Europe (similar to the currency...). I'm thankful that my well-travelled Aunt Faith was able to provide a couple of universal adapters to Mary and I. If you mean to spend more than a month across the pond, I recommend investing in a solid adapter and a small three-or-four outlet surge protector.

This bird was hovering in place due to the ferocious wind.

Tomorrow evening, France will be behind us! 

Photos,

Jake