Rugby World Cup

For the past couple of weeks I've been watching the Rugby World Cup on TV. The sport is very popular in France, so there is plenty of coverage. To be honest, before a couple of weeks ago I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a Rugby World Cup (it began in 1987 and is held every four years). But after watching a couple of matches I'm a bit hooked.

I find the rules (assuming they do, in fact, exist) to be absolutely inpenetrable. The players and fans seem to know what's going on, but I've yet to crack the code. It's kind of like attmpting the New York Times crossword puzzle on Friday or Saturday -- I can stare forever trying to make sense of what's in front of me, but I never seem to make the slightest bit of progress.

The lack of partity in the tournament borders on comical and there are effectively two groups:

1) Those who are competitive: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, France, Ireland, Wales (yes...Wales) and Scotland; and

2) Those, such as the U.S., who are likely to get absolutely destroyed if they play any of the above teams

As an example of the lack of partity, the U.S. team's score during its loss to Australia in the first round was 67 - 5. For reference, the scoring system is relatively simililar to (American) football.

This weekend was the semifinals, with both France and New Zealand knocking out Wales and Australia, respectively, to reach next weekend's final. As such, Emilie is brimming with national pride in support of Le XV de France.

New Zealand are known as the "All Blacks" due to their black uniforms and are perhaps best known by the broader public for their pre-game "haka" ritual.

I think that I would be pretty intimidated by that if I were on the other side.

We'll see how France does in the final. New Zealand is the top ranked team, is the host nation and thus playing on home turf, and beat France 37 - 17 in the pool play (opening) stage. But I guess anything could happen.

Euromillions

 

On Friday Emilie and I bought some tickets for Euromillions, the pan-European lottery that's more or less equivalent to Super Lotto in California or PowerBall on the East Coast. The value was up to over 147 million Euros (about $200 million), so we figured why not.

I've only played the lottery a couple of times in my life, with zero success obviously. I'm well aware of the odds, so its not something that captures my interest very often (perhaps once a decade or so). Nonetheless, I've noticed that when you do play it provides a nice, albeit temporary, distraction from reality.

I vividly recall one time when I was a kid and my parents took part in a Lotto pool with some coworkers or friends. Leading up to the drawing, I daydreamed about all the things that I planned to buy with "my" winnings. I don't know how much I thought that we really had a chance to win, but it was nonetheless fun thinking about it in "what if" terms.

This time was no different. And since Emilie was gone for the weekend, I decided not to check to see if we had the winning numbers until she returned on Sunday night. While I knew that we hadn't won even without checking (unless a miracle truly did happen), the fact that there was even the slimmest of possibilities of winning was a nice feeling to have.

And given that I was at work today, you have your answer for whether we won. I don't even think we got more than two numbers. But it was still worth it for sheer possibility if nothing else.

Sunset

The weather has taken a turn for the worse and it's supposed to continue raining all weekend. As such, I decided to take advantage of a brief clearing to take some pictures down by the lake at sunset.

While walking by the docked boats, I came across a duck that seemed to be honing his tightrope skills. His balance on the chain was pretty impressive.

 

 

Here's the view towards Geneva. There were a couple of sail boats out, but they all seemed to be heading in for the night as the storm approached.

This is the last photo that I took before heading back to the apartment. I like the reflection of the light on the water.

A New Month...a New Strategy

 

For as long as I can remember, I've been about three months behind with this "blog". As hard as I try to keep up, the combination of too little time and too much backlog proves to be my downfall.

The original goal of the blog was to keep family and friends "back home" up to speed on what is going on with me here in Switzerland. Unfortunately, due to the delay I've simply been keeping everyone up to speed on what was going on.

To address this, I'm going to try a Cliff Notes-esque strategy, in which I briefly hit the high points and, where relevant, include some of my favorite photos. Thus, the detailed posts (those that were travel-related, in particular) may be a thing of the past... unless I ever get all caught up.

In the meantime, I hope that the more timely posts make up for the lack of depth. And if all goes well, I'll hopefully get the mid-June through September period completely updated real soon.

Locmariaquer / Nantes

We finished up our Brittany visit with a stop in nearby Locmariaquer to see some of the area's megaliths. The main sights were the Broken Menhir of Er Grah, the Table de Marchand dolmen and the Er-Grah tumulus.

It's believed that the menhir was erected around 4700 BC and collapsed around 4000 BC (likely due to an earthquake). Given the menhir's original size (nearly 21 meters high and weighing 280 tons), there is no consensus on how the menhir was tranported to / erected on the site. What is known, however, is that the massive block was transported from an area a couple of kilometers away and is the largest known block of stone erected by Neolithic man.

The Table de Marchand dolmen / tumulus was constructed subsequent to the erection of the menhir. This is known due to the fact that the massive capstone is actually a fragment of the broken menhir. Interestingly, the same is true for the capstone of the dolmen from Gavrinis (the nearby island that we visited on Monday).

The Er-Grah tumulus is a vast stone construction (140 meters long) that was erected over a couple millenia from around 5000 BC to 3300 BC.

***

On our way back to the airport we stopped in the city center of Nantes for lunch. The restaurant that we ate at -- La Cigalle -- was very nice and is known for its decor and fresh seafood.

While walking back to the car we walked through a plaza that offered a view of (part of) the city's cathedral. Unfortunately, we didn't have any time to further explore the city as we had to head to the airport to catch our flight back to Geneva.

Belle-Île

Today we took a day trip to Belle-Île, Brittany's largest island, which is about an hour-long ferry ride from nearby Quiberon. Given the beautiful weather, we decided that we'd rent bikes on the island and spend the day exploring it.

The initial part of the ride took us through the island's inland area, which for the most part has been deforested over the years and been replaced by farms.

Our first stop was Sauzon, one of the island's two main ports (the other being Le Palais, where we disembarked). We arrived at low tide, which resulted in what was effectively a dry dock.

Some of the boats appeared to be floating, as their keels were stuck in the thick mud.

Here's a nice view of the coast just outside Sauzon, where we stopped for a break.

Next we headed to the northeast point of the island -- Îles des Poulains -- where we saw one of the island's lighthouses (small building on right of photo).

The surrounding landscapes were very nice.

The next part of our journey took us by a number of farms, with lots of cows, horses, donkeys, sheep and goats. The cow in this photo didn't seem particularly pleased with our arrival during mealtime.

After making it back to the coast, we came across a bay where there were a number of people swimming and a couple others surfing. At this point we tried to take a shortcut by ignoring the "no bikes allowed" sign and following a pedestrian trail instead. This backfired terribly, as we ended up hauling our bikes through narrow switchbacks and deep sand.

Our final stop of the day was a bluff on the western edge of the island. The area served as inspiration to Claude Monet for a number of his paintings, including this one:

The following are my photo recreations, the second of which required me to climb down the bluff.

We definitely saved the best spot for last, as this area was easily my favorite. I really liked the landscapes with the steep cliffs and rocks shooting out of the sea.

We also passed another lighthouse that allowed for a nice photo with the colorful brush in the foreground.

By this point it was getting late, so we had to bike back to the port where we disembarked. Fortunately, we just had to traverse the narrow width of the island, rather than following the roundabout path that we took on our tour.

Along the way, we passed a small village with some houses that were typical to the island.

Here's a photo of the harbor, which I took while waiting for ferry back to Quiberon.

***

For dinner we went to a local creperie in Carnac. While we were exhausted from our day in Belle-Île, we wanted to make the most of our final night in Brittany with some local fare.

Carnac

 

For the balance of the trip we're staying in Carnac, a small coastal town about an hour north of La Baule on the Bay of Quiberon. The area is known for its beaches as well as its megalithic sites (think Stonehenge), which date back to around 3300 BC.

This morning we visited some of the megalithic sites and they were pretty interesting. The more that you think about them, the more questions they raise in terms of how they were built and their intended purpose. Add in the fact that they were erected over 5,000 years ago and they get even more perplexing.

The following are some sites that reflect "alignments" -- i.e., rows of stones erected at regular intervals. According to one local legend, the stones reflect a Roman legion that was turned to stone by Merlin.

The sites also include a number of dolmen -- tomb-like structures that consists of three or more upright stones that support a flat horizontal "capstone".

There were also a few tumuli -- raised stone / earth structures that cover graves and are often constructed as part of dolmen.

I liked the following road, which we had to take in order to get to the tumulus above.

The following tumulus is on an island not far from Carnac. The stones on the interior that formed the dolmen were massive and raised more questions regarding how something like this could have been built so long ago.

After visiting the megalithic sites we drove to Auray, a town that's important from the perspective of American history. It's where Benjamin Franklin landed in 1776 while seeking military support from the French during the War of Independence.

Here are some pictures that I took during the drive back to Carnac. The first is a farmhouse that I liked and the second is the view of a nearby town from a bridge that we crossed.

We spent the balance of the afternoon on the beach in Carnac in front of our hotel. Luck was on our side with respect to the weather, as it really felt like a summer day yet there was hardly anyone around.

Guérande

Today we visited Guérande, a medieval city not far from La Baule that is known for its well-preserved 15th-century ramparts. The main reason for the visit was a wedding-related lunch, but we also took the opportunity to tour the city a bit.

We ate at a nice creperie that was hidden along one of the city's narrow cobblestone streets. The food was excellent, with countless options of both crêpes salées (savory) and crêpes sucrées (sweet).

The following tricycle was parked outside the restaurant and I thought it would make for a nice picture. It looks a bit like a postcard, right?

One of the main sights in Guérande is St. Aubin's church, which dates back to the 15th century and is known for its gothic architecture.

After walking around Guérande for a bit, we drove through the area's salt marshes on the way to Le Croisic. Apparently, roughly 15,000 tons of salt are harvested in the area every year, including 300 tons of fleur du sel.

Le Crosic is a small fishing fishing town on the Guérande peninsula. We unfortunately didn't have a lot of time to explore, but we were able to walk around the waterfront for a bit.

And here is a nice church that we passed by.

We spent the balance of the day on the road, as we had to head back to Nantes to pick up a rental car and then drive to our next destination -- Carnac. And by the time that we arrived it was after 10pm, so we had a good excuse to call it a night.