Ustaritz

We've just returned from a visit to Ustaritz, a village in the Basque country where Patrice's daughter, Florence, lives with her Basque husband, Gerard Iturria. Ustaritz is in the southwest corner of France in the Pyrenees mountains - just a few minutes from the Spanish border, and about 15 km  from the Atlantic ocean.

Gerard's grandfather went to live with an uncle in California as a boy in 1912 following the deaths of most of his family during the great influenza epidemic. He worked as a shepherd and returned 20 years later,  purchased land, married, and had several children. Here is a picture of the home built by Gerard and his father:

The house is on top of a hill with an extraordinary view of the surrounding mountains. Gerard mows the field with an ancient tractor.

On Friday evening we participated in the local festival which included lots of food, lots of wine, and lots of singing traditional basque songs.

 
The language is ancient, unintelligible, and unspellable. Here are a few verses from one of the best known songs:

Hegoak ebaki banizkio
Neuria izango zen
Ez zuen alde egingo

Bainan horrela
Ez zen gehiago
xoria izango

Want to listen for yourself? Click here.

Weekend in Normandy

We've just returned from a weekend in Normandy at my friend Odette's house. On Saturday afternoon, we visited the ruins of an XI century benedictine abbey in Saint-Evroult-Notre-Dame-du-Bois.

It rained all day on Saturday. Who would believe that we'd need to build a fire to keep warm in July?

The sun finally came out on Sunday afternoon when we visited Honfleur, a picturesque port on the estuary of the Seine. We ate a traditional dinner of mussels and dreamed of sailing away.

Paris in July

More rain in July, temperatures in the low 70s. Is summer ever going to arrive?

Paris Writers Workshop

I signed up for the Paris Writers Workshop for inspiration, encouragement, and for technical tips on the craft of writing and publishing. Morning sessions were led by Writer-in-Residence: Mimi Schwartz, author of five books and Professor Emerita in Writing at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey. Afternoon sessions included panel discussions ranging from the Secrets of Getting Published to the latest trends in self-publishing and e-Books. 

I have been working on a writing project for a couple of years now. Not just blog posts; something more substantial. The blog has been a warmup, a sandbox to play and to try on the sobriquet of "writer." However, it's relatively easy to scribble down 250 words as I tell stories about my daily life. Even easier if I substitute photos for the proverbial 1000 words. But it requires much more discipline to come up with a manuscript of 80,000 well-chosen, tightly-edited words. I have a plot sketched out on paper, but to bring it alive and to people it with living, breathing characters that you can see and hear is much harder.

How do you put the reader inside a location where they've never been? How can you transform sights and sounds and smells so that the reader can hear the voices in your head, mixing logic and fantasy?

I was thrilled to receive a positive response from an agent during the workshop.
"Call me as soon as it's finished," she said.

80,000 words.

Whew. 

Rainy June

We're setting records for cool temperatures and rain in Paris this June.

 Too bad we can't send some of this rain to Colorado where it is sorely needed to fight the forest fires.

Making movies

Patrice has been spending lots of time making movies and today's clear skies and fast flying clouds provided the perfect opportunity to film some background video for his current project. This bit was taken from the top-floor terrace of the Institut du Monde Arabe.

As you can see, filming required a great deal of concentration.  ;-)

Legislative elections

The French elected their president in May, and now, one month later, they've just elected their Chambre de Députés (similar to our House of Representatives). Seems curious to an American. We combine all candidates and issues in one long ballot every two years in November, whereas the French do not have a specific date for elections. In fact, each election is held in two rounds on two successive Sundays. Last Sunday, our district had 23 candidates for one post. Today, voters decided between the two candidates with the largest number of votes from last week.

Voting was simple today. There were two stacks of ballots, each with one name. The voter picks up both, goes into a cabin behind a curtain and puts one of the ballots into an envelope and throws the other one away. He then takes the envelope to the voting judge (called the President) who verifies the identity of the voter. Finally comes the ceremonial placing of the envelope in the transparent box as the President announces out loud that the voter "a voté."

President Hollande's Socialist Party is expected to easily win a majority of seats in the house of representatives. He also has a majority in the Senate - which held elections in September, 2011. Now Hollande should be able to pass legislation without roadblocks.
He has a big job ahead of him with the current economic situation in Europe.