Cycle complete!
France. My final foreign country on this journey and finally it was time to put into practice the only foreign language I can speak; French. Not that I'm fluent in it, however I've got a good enough grasp that I can explain what I'm doing, where I'm going, what I like/dislike, so can keep up conversation pretty decent when about in France. First day I got here I had been reciting in my head the best way to ask someone if they wouldn't mind refilling my water bottles. Thankfully when I asked this lovely man gardening this question 'en francais' he understood perfectly, and even returned with an extra 2L bottle of iced water out of the freezer on top of the 3 bottles I already gave him! I joked to him about where was I going to find space to put the extra bottle but I found a spot alright. So with 6L of water, which is in fact far more than I've ever carried at any point in my entire trip, I set off back into the fabulous french countryside to a jovial shout of 'Bon Courage!' coming from the gardening gentleman.
The next day as I was climbing a hill outside the large town of Saint Quentin a young man in a car beckons me over to stop for a chat. 'Parles Tu francais?' He asks to which I reply 'Oui, mais pas beaucoup.' (Yes, but not a lot.) Seeing my flag Irish flag fluttering we continue our conversation 'en anglais' and after learning the basics of what I was doing, he generously invites me to dine with him and his family for lunch at his farm house up the road. He quickly produces a pen, draws a map including the names of some villages, a roundabout and says to just pop in when I get there. Warmly thanking him for this surprising and welcome invite I press on for a half hour, following his directions carefully and reaching his house without any mishaps. Then as I enter the beautifully crafted iron gates I cycle into the courtyard of this wonderfully typical old french manor house, complete with 12 large rectangular windows complete with open wooden shutters, grand stone stairs up to the front door encased with tumbling ivy amid a scattering of blossoming shrubs to give a very pretty picture indeed. A row of outhouses ran off to the left of the house, and although empty now one could imagine them having being filled with cattle stall, horses and hay. If you Googled 'Old French Manor House' I'm pretty sure something similar to this would appear. Matthieu, for that was the young man's name, came out to greet me and although he spoke english well after 2 years spent working in South Africa, his father and 2 brothers whom I would later meet, would have next to no english and so any conversation with them would have to all be conducted in French. There's something strangely satisfying at being able to successfully converse in a foreign language, I think that's born into any traveller at whatever level of the foreign language they may speak; and it wasn't long upon entering the house that Matthieu's father came over to greet me and ask many questions of my trip. He brought me to a giant map of the world hanging on a wall and for the next 15 minutes we chatted about my route, some interesting things about the different places and also noting some pinpoints on the map I in turn inquiring about the many places that he had also voyaged to. Trying to focus your mind to understanding a foreign language is surprisingly taxing and it was with some relief that we made our way back to the kitchen where I was able to revert to english again when speaking to Matthieu. Meanwhile Matthieu had created a tantilisingly tasty looking spicy chicken curry along with a pan of fried green beans smothered in mascarpone cheese and butter. If there's one thing I've taken from french food so far, when it comes to enjoying meals, there's very little room for low fat. Here, it's 'All in!' and enjoyment is paramount rather than counting calories, although I must admit this was an all lads affair so perhaps it may be a bit biased. Anyhow out to the garden we went, where a 6 person pine table sat in amongst a circle of Hydrangeas. In total there were 5 of us sitting down including; Matthieu, his 2 younger brothers, his father and myself. Traditionally for lunch we began with a few typical crusty, crunchy baguettes alongside 2 pates, one of salmon and the other of pork, if I remember correctly. All I remember is, they were good! Next to come out of the kitchen came the aromatic spicy chicken and the green beans. These as you can imagine didnt take long to devour with 5 hungry men around! Finally for 'Dessert' we had more baguettes although this time with cheese, namely Brie and a local harder cheese, whose name escapes me at present. I guess it wouldn't be France if I failed to mention the array of drinks on display. From red to white wines, ciders, to fresh juices the drinks make up as much a part of the meal as the food itself, most of it being produced locally. As we ate, the conversation flowed freely, and mainly in the language of french so it was good to practice it some more. During lunch I learned that the Father had been to Ireland in 2003 as part of a tour group and had taken some video footage of the trip. And so after lunch we headed to the sitting room to re-watch the footage most of which was stereotypical Ireland. There were painted sheep, stone walls, the cliffs of Moher and the Burren were visited and there was rain, lots of rain! Their final night appeared to be spent in an Irish Bar drinking Guinness and listening to live trad music so you could say they got the full works! And so after a few photos with the bike it was time to pedal on again towards Amiens. Hard to believe it is just 600kms to go till the ferry port in Brittany and then it'll be back to Ireland. Let's hope I'll bring this sunny french weather with me!
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This past week I turned up in Karlsruhe, South West Germany to stay at a friends house for the night. However upon arriving at the door and ringing the doorbell I didn't receive any answer. We had the time agreed and all but unfortunately he wasn't around at this time. Anyhow I set off to find someone who had a phone with which to call him (my phone is setup for wifi when I'm abroad but not for calling or texting.
My friends house was in a suburb just outside the city and the hamlet there was almost devoid in the way of shops or people who I could approach to ask for help. I found a bakery however and asking 'sprecken tu engels?' I was fortunately met with a smile and an affirmative 'Yes'. And so I asked if I could use her phone to call my friend. She said that would be no problem at all and so handed me the phone. I called, but the number I was given seemed to be wrong when it would not ring. Anyhow with time on my hands and no one else in the shop I struck up conversation on the economics of running a bakery. With the finance background I always find it interesting to learn of how different businesses are run, so a bakery was a new one for me. I asked for how long they would leave the breads and the cakes on the shelves for? For her (and as I imagine is the case in most bakeries) it was one day for the bread and 2 days for the cakes. This meant that whatever stock was leftover would be thrown out or sold into a secondary market (to another shop) for very little. When I cast my eyes onto the shelves, this looked like an extraordinary amount given they were half full and it being 4pm in the afternoon. When you think of the pricing strategy bakers must use when pricing their loaves of bread or their sugary cakes, one large factor in this must be how much waste they expect me their to be. For if one creates 10 loaves of bread at a total cost of €1.50 each (10x€1.50=€15) and sells them for €2, but only sells 6, then he will make a loss will he not? (6x€2=€12). If this continues then the baker must raise his prices or he can cut production to a level that he believes will match demand for the day. But this is another sticky problem that leads me onto the next point. How does a baker create the right balance of not baking too much nor cooking too little on any given day? This is a dilemma that perhaps German bakers face more often than in other countries, as my baker friend explained to me. "Customers always ask is the bread still warm? But it only stays warm for 30 minutes once out of the oven. Some of my customer won't buy anything if it's not warm and so will leave for the other bakery down the road. Throughout the day I will make batches so that it's as fresh as possible." Sadly even this is not enough for some customers. The other problem associated with creating only just enough bread to meet demand is that often the shelves can look empty. And as we all know when we look for bread or cakes and see only one or 2 left, we are inclined to think that it must be 'old' or that it's 'the worst of the bunch and so was left there intentionally by others.' This my friend explained is another problem of running a bakery in that customers will hesitate to buy something of which the shelf is not plentiful off already. So if there's leftover bread at the end of the day why not give it to the poor? This was a question that without me asking, seemed to immediately raise its head based on our thread of conversation. It so happened that she had tried this already. That at the end of the day, a poor man came in looking for old bread. She acquiesced to him simply on a feeling of pity giving him some bread and thought no more of it till the next day. Next day there was a queue of impoverished people waiting for the shop to close. This she said was unsustainable for two reasons: 1. The image that you have of people of multiple social, drink, drug related problems sitting outside your shop does not lend itself to a healthy image to passing or potential customers, therefore reducing sales. 2. It also doesn't help sales if people know they can get it free by waiting till the end of the day. In this way, being generous was detrimental to the business. And so that concluded my brief but interesting introduction into the running of a German bakery. It's a tough world getting up at 4am and trying to balance pyroduction with demand for products that are low value and only profitable in volume. Perhaps we should be more appreciative to small bakeries who must balance so much to give us our daily loaves of bread. This is Rupert, and on my first day in Germany he invited me to pull over and share a coffee with him (in the end he absolutely insisted I also eat a pastry and sandwich at his expense!) We had met on the road on his way to work and chatted away for 10 minutes, discussing various things from his family to what I was doing on the road. From this he postponed his work by a half hour to just hang out at the cafe. I knew that he would surely have to make this up in the evening, given he worked an 8 hour day but that didn't stop him from taking the time to spend time and engage with a foreigner.
To be honest to me that's worth more than the food, albeit I really appreciated the decent breakfast! Time. It appears so precious to us that sometimes we can't let anything get in the way of our daily routine. We must be here by a certain time, or I can't help you out because I've something else 'more important' to do. Understandably there are situations where these excuses are entirely valid and appropriate, but think of all those times when they're not? We're all guilty of it, I included. Am I really too busy to call in and say hello to my grandparents? Perhaps you may be their only visitor all day. Or when you finish dinner only to go down to your room and scroll through your Facebook account for the 10th time that day. Could you instead have used that time to help mum wash up. (Hope my mum doesn't read this and expect great things from me!) Anyhow they're are so many opportunities where perhaps we could be more generous with our time. For me Rupert has illustrated this so well in sacrificing his time to make me feel welcome in his country, and a comparable country to Ireland at that, in its western ways. Perhaps we can all learn from his example. Was a while ago since it happened but thought I'd share with you a rather unusual, embarrassing/awkward moment, one that most people probably won't face all too often. It occurred in Serbia in the capital Belgrade, where I visited the Nikolas Tesla museum. For those of you who don't know him, Tesla was a Serbian inventor/genius who transformed the way we live our lives, mainly through the invention of Alternating Current and Transformers, both of which have changed little today, even over 100 years later.
It was July and height of the tourist season when I visited. The museum is located in a fairly average sized house where it holds all sorts of inventions and information relating to Tesla's life, work and vision. Every hour there was a slideshow and a tour given explaining his inventions and giving practical demonstrations on how they work, and so the 60 or so people in my group were all crammed around each invention. Then it came to a large 2.5 metre high transformer which when turned on would send electricity throughout the room. Now for those who know me well, I have the unusual installation of a defibrillator in my chest (long story!), which means that anything magnetic or electrical I usually have to stay away from. A good example of this is scanners at airport security which I have to go around for fear of the defib going off. In some countries they haven't heard of this and in China I had to bare my chest to prove that I did have something there! (Their overly Chinese reactions to it were priceless I must say.) Now there isn't much embarrassment at airports, people take notice, but I'm so used to it now it doesn't really bother me. However going back to the situation at the Tesla museum, we were in this compact room, with only our guide talking, otherwise the room was quiet. Just before he turns on the transformer he pops the question routinely asking if anyone has a pacemaker or defib, in order that they may leave the room for safety purposes. The way he asked it sounded like the way an air hostess will run through the safety procedures at the beginning of a flight. It's part of the routine that must be done even though it's almost entirely unlikely it will ever be needed. For him I'm sure having anyone with a defib visit would be rare enough and so when I shouted out "yes", 60 pairs of eyes craned their necks in my direction to see who this was. As you may well be able to imagine, those next 30 seconds were one of the most awkward silences I've ever experienced as I excused my way through the masses and into a room nearby, well away from the transformer. He then proceeded to turn on the device of which I could see from my position, and it was fascinating to watch the electricity fly through the air, like lightning, to a neon light he held nearby. Afterwards I rejoined the group, mingling in at the back. I guess that rules out me becoming an electrician so! |
The AuthorName: Daniel Ross Top Tips:
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October 2016
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