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  • Life in France

    I don't know anything about it....?

    maybe I'll get some feedback from some one there

    maybe that someone will quit worrying about a pandemic?

    I'd like to hear about life in France? and what city in France would you consider the most "Hawaiian?"

    What would a French person want as a gift from Hawaii? and what is the common gift for someone from France to someone in the US?

    etc.

    Manoa
    Last edited by damontucker; June 1, 2006, 08:06 PM. Reason: anything to get you off your thread already!

  • #2
    Re: Life in France

    You will get some feedback...just as soon as the kids have gone back to school, after eating lunch....
    http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
    http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Life in France

      So do your kids come home from school to eat lunch...then go back to school?

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Life in France

        Right, I'm back. We had a busy couple of days, and then we went fishing for the weekend. It was nice to escape the computer.

        I'll begin with our weekend.

        We are very lucky to have a camper, so we drove up, into the Pyrenees mountains to go trout fishing. My eldest son, Keoni, is a keen fisherman. Already we live at the foothills of the Pyrenees, so we drove up an hour, to just beyond Oloron, into the Asp and Ossau Valleys.

        I had an ulterior motive...there's a pick-your-own blueberry farm, over there. It's also a campground and the guy makes jam...I can get canning jars and lids from him, for cheaper than supermarket prices...but that's another story.

        The blueberries won't be ripe for another few weeks, so we headed off to the Gave (that's the river..the Gave de Oloron) just to the south. If you happen to have a map of SW France handy, it's down in the bottom left corner, between Pau and Bayonne...look for Oloron, and then for a small villiage called Buzy. (it's right next door to another small village, called Ogeu, where a very good bubbly spring water comes from...Ogeu is much better than Perrier, the bubbles have more 'bite' and they last longer, too).

        The gorge down to the river was too difficult for the camper, so we parked about a kilometer away. The kids walked down with Adobo, our dog (yes, he's black) to go fishing and swimming, and I busied myself, setting up 'camp'. Campers are very nice...I wouldn't travel any other way, with kids...but, for the Mom, it's really just the same sink, with a different view. It takes a while to set up...pop the top, get out the bedding, cook rice, make dinner...

        It was a beautiful sunny weekend, really clear and bright...and dang cold, during the night time! Keoni got up at 6:30am, and headed off to go back fising, telling me that he'd be back for lunchtime. The little guys, Leilani and Kalani (Keala didn't come, this weekend), and I spent a lazy morning, being woken up by zillions of screaming birds, and the clanking cowbells of the mountain herds.

        Then Keoni came back at 9:30...halfway crying, white as a sheet, trembling, with the words, "Mom! There was a bear!". He'd been fishing about a mile downriver, in a very wild and very isolated place, when a deer crossed the river, just in front of him. The deer was in a panic, stumbling and tripping, and passed right next to him. Then he heard the grunting and roaring of the bear. Poor kid, he hid, crying and scared, for almost an hour, before getting up the courage to cross back over the river, wade upstream, and run almost a mile uphill.

        He NEVER wants to go back there, again! It must've gotten to him, cause that's been the 'best fishing place in France' for several years now, for him. When I think that I used to drop him off, and leave him, all day, while the rest of us picked blueberries!!! He could've been eaten! And we'd probably never have known what had happened.

        When we got back home, he went onto the Pyrenees Bear site (isn't internet a wonderful thing!), to confirm that the noise was really a bear...we were both hoping that it was a daddy deer, or a lynx...nope, it was a bear. I told him (trying to calm him down) that he was very lucky to have seen nature in action, as most people never do. Bears, here, are getting very rare, and there's a big fight between those who want them re-introduced, and those who want to keep their sheep alive. Keoni says he's very lucky, just to be alive, the heck with nature in action!

        On the way home, we stopped near Navarrenx, and caught a few trout, and went swimming. It felt safer, once out of those mountains.

        I've taken pictures, but someone (one of the kids, but nobody will admit to it) has messed with the photo thingy, so I can't empty the pictures into the machine. That'll have to wait, then.
        http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
        http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Life in France

          Admin... please close this thread....

          She is now on my ignore thread....

          I don't want to hear her opinions on this subject....
          or any others for that matter...

          I think she's a bit french fried...

          Mahalo...

          Manoa

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Life in France

            Don't be an ass, Manoa. You started this thread specifically to call her out. At least she had the decency to respond and take your curiosity at face value.

            That's a hell of a story, Susie. Thanks for sharing. I dare say it's a snapshot of a life not at all familiar to most of us.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Life in France

              Originally posted by manoasurfer123
              Admin... please close this thread....

              She is now on my ignore thread....

              I don't want to hear her opinions on this subject....
              or any others for that matter...

              I think she's a bit french fried...

              Mahalo...

              Manoa
              Ya know your a bit of a jerk
              List of local people living on the mainland

              Never forgotten

              http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a58/pomai44/pow.gif

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Life in France

                Ya know what, Manoa? You started this thread and now no longer wish to participate. Nuthin' wrong with that. But, to ask admin to shut it down because you no longer want to participate is, well, a bit arrogant...maybe? Others will want to follow this thread and that's their prerogative. You've done the right thing by putting someone you no longer wish to read on 'ignore'. Shoulda quit while you were ahead!

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Life in France

                  Originally posted by SusieMisajon
                  We are very lucky to have a camper, so we drove up, into the Pyrenees mountains to go trout fishing. My eldest son, Keoni, is a keen fisherman. Already we live at the foothills of the Pyrenees, so we drove up an hour, to just beyond Oloron, into the Asp and Ossau Valleys.
                  Is that as gorgeous as I am imagining it?

                  Sounds like a great weekend! I haven't gone camping in ages. I don't really miss camping itself, but I do love being in a wilderness area occasionally. I love big country that makes me feel small when I'm in it.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Life in France

                    Originally posted by MadAzza
                    Is that as gorgeous as I am imagining it?

                    Sounds like a great weekend! I haven't gone camping in ages. I don't really miss camping itself, but I do love being in a wilderness area occasionally. I love big country that makes me feel small when I'm in it.
                    It is...except for the bears.

                    I'm not sure that being in a camper can be considered 'camping'...even though ours is 20 years old, it does have all the 'mod-cons'; kitchen, stove, fridge, oven, sink, toilet (no bucket, here!), shower, even a TV (we don't have one of those in the house).

                    The Pyrenees are beautiful, and very wild. There's still snow up there, even now. And, as Keoni can tell you, the rivers are full of clean-tasting trout and salmon...the fish that are caught, downriver from towns taste icky. We were at the forest level, but up higher it's a scraped rock landscape. I'll have to get this camera thingy to work.

                    The nicest part, for me, was listening to the cowbells. Sheep don't seem to wear bells, but have spraypaint on them, to denote the different owners, I guess. Further west, nearer to Biarritz, there are wild ponies, their DNA shows them to be the closest living relative to the original wild horse...they sometimes have big bells on their necks, too. It's lovely morning music.

                    Old, old farmhouses dot the hills, even in far up and isolated places. When we go fishing, I collect river-washed pieces of old plates and pottery...a local version of Hawaiian beach glass...you get to imagine the age of the piece, and how it found it's way into the river. Well, I know how it found it's way into the river...the river was the trash dump, still in, in fact...once we were fishing, right in the middle of Oloron, it's got two rivers that meet, just in the center, and a lady living in a house on the edge, a bit up the bank, just threw her plastic bag of trash right into the river. We yelled, but she just made a face back.

                    After the spring snowmelt, when the swollen rivers have gone down, somewhat, you can tell how high the waterline was, just by looking at the plastic bags, stuck in the overhanging trees and bushes. Other things are thrown into the river, too...once Keoni was fishing from a bridge, and a man drove up, and dumped a bag of kittens into the river...he kept the bag.
                    http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
                    http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Life in France

                      I don't really miss cold weather, but I do miss hiking in the fall, when the air is crisp and the leaves turn color. Your camping experience made me recall my own memories of camping/hiking, even though it isn't fall. I'm not big on camping, but hiking...sigh. As much as I enjoy hiking on Oahu, sometimes I wish I could find shaded trails that weren't so muddy!

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Life in France

                        Originally posted by manoasurfer123
                        She is now on my ignore thread....
                        You have an "ignore thread?" Now, how did I miss that one...?

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Life in France

                          Spraypaint to ID sheep? I guess the sheep prefer that to branding or ear tagging, but... are those sheep raised to produce wool? One would think spraypaint would devalue the end product somewhat!

                          As for the sound of animal bells making for fond memories... to this day a distant cowbell (i.e. not a SNL cowbell!) will remind me of the summer I spent as a kid with my brother and grandparents in Hawi. The property borders a ranch, and in the early morning, we'd sometimes hear cowbells as they ambled past the nearest fence.

                          So, Susie, is this a typical weekend away? Or as special an occasion as it sounds like to the rest of us?

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Life in France

                            Originally posted by SusieMisajon
                            He NEVER wants to go back there, again! It must've gotten to him, cause that's been the 'best fishing place in France' for several years now, for him. When I think that I used to drop him off, and leave him, all day, while the rest of us picked blueberries!!! He could've been eaten! And we'd probably never have known what had happened.
                            Um, you have nothing to fear from those bears. Just don't get between them and their young. Not that I'd expect you to be familiar with bears. Islanders.
                            “First we fought the preliminary round for the k***s and now we’re gonna fight the main event for the n*****s."
                            http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/review...=416&printer=1

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Life in France

                              I've seen the spray painted sheep! I've also got pics of them! Lol.

                              When my friend took me to visit Stonehenge in the UK, there were loads of sheep on the fields next to it...they all had different colors of paint, spray painted on their bums. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it. Yes, I'm easily amused.

                              (Out of curiousity Manoa...why do you feel such animosity toward Susie??)

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