After lunch on Saturday we finished up with our visit in Aix and headed to our next stop: Châteauneuf-du-Pape. It's a small village outside Avignon that is known for its wines. In fact, its wine-making history is closely linked to the Avignon Popes of the 14th century, who were apparently big fans of viticulture.
The "hotel" where we stayed definitely lived up to the village's name. If this isn't a castle, then I don't know what is.
It was surrounded by vinyards and had an adjacent winery, which was conveniently open for a quick tasting. As with the previous tastings that I've been to, I wasn't able to pick up on any of the "subtleties" or "complexities" of the various samples, but I was able to tell whether I liked something or not. And I guess that is all that counts.
After the tasting, we walked around the vineyards for a bit and it was beautiful out.
The reason for our visit to Châteauneuf-du-Pape -- aside from Emilie's ongoing efforts to convince me that France is "le plus beau pays du monde" -- was to see some of her cousins in nearby Avignon. And, as with all my family-related visits with Emilie, it was an exhausting French course.
The exhaustion wasn't from the dinner itself, though, which was broadly manageable from a comprehension perspective, but instead from the play that we attended after. It turns out that we visited during the 65th annual Festival d'Avignon, which celebrates a broad range of art including theatrical performances, and the cousins had arranged tickets for everyone.
The play was a comedy about a psychologist, his various patients and their interactions. And even for me, it was pretty funny. That said, at times it was hard to follow due to the heavy use of slang and references to French pop culture that an American stood little to no chance of comprehending.
About mid-way through the performance I literally froze in fear as the psychologist's character broke the "fourth wall" and scanned the audience for a "volunteer". The prospect of trying to carry on a complex conversation on stage as part of a show that people had paid money to attend was absolutely terrifying.
And thus I channeled every moment from my past in which I had avoided being selected as a "volunteer" (namely the times in school when I hadn't done my homework or otherwise hadn't prepared for class) and subliminally willed the actor not to choose me. And fortunately, he didn't.
It wasn't until later that we learned that the volunteer was part of the play. Good times.
No comments:
Post a Comment