Sunrise escargot?

Every white dot is a snail.

I’ve never really watched a snail for any length of time. Have you? But this morning, I found myself sitting on the ground watching a snail make it’s way up a stem of grass. And I have to say, they do move just about as slowly as people imply. There are snails everywhere here—I think I first learned of escargot from a joke my dad told me that I didn’t get since I didn’t know what it was (I kept trying to remember the joke, but can’t beyond it had something to do with an “s” painted on the side of a car that won a race?? Maybe Dad still remembers that one?). I used to wonder why the French would eat them, but I suppose if they are so abundant eventually someone will find a way to eat them.

But I’m getting ahead in the story. We had decided to get up at 6am to walk down the hill below the village so we could take photos of Lacoste in the morning light (since it faces east). I woke up a 5am for some unknown reason, and I almost thought about getting out the camera gear and taking some star trail photos because Orion was perfectly framed in our window, but I didn’t want to wake Alan. So we got up for real at 6am, dressed warmly, grabbed our flashlights, and headed out.

Lacoste at sunrise

It didn’t take more than 15 minutes to reach the spot we had picked out, with cherry trees on one side and a vineyard at the bottom of the hill and Lacoste rising above it on the other. We had only brought one tripod, so I found myself cold (which was odd as I had been wearing shorts and a tank top and sweating yesterday, and now I had like 3 layers and was shivering), bored, and with no company but some snails (ok, and Alan, but really a photographer is not much company when they have a camera in hand!). So I settled in for some wildlife observation. The little dude was just about to the top of the stem (whether to eat it or if he were reaching for the stars I’m sure I couldn’t say) and just as it was getting exciting (oh no, the stem is bending, will he fall the 2 inches to the ground and have to start the 15 minute process again?!) Alan calls for me to bring him filters or some such thing. Oh, the life of a photographer’s assistant… er, wife : )

The window to our house is circled.
We are actually in the studio for now, which is directly
below the house, so you can't see it's window.

Anyone know how to tell if they are
table grapes or wine-making grapes?

The sunrise turned out very nice, and Alan took some great grape photos as well (no, I didn’t eat any of them, but I wanted too!). We came back to the studio for a late breakfast before heading to the grocery store in Apt. We are still map-less, but there were good signs and Alan remembered most of the way from going with the school. I find it very amusing to see salsa and maple syrup in the “Exotic” section, along with other American branded items. We’ve been having fun trying out the local brands, and they have really good chips here! So either there is something in them that the FDA says will kill me or we need to do whatever they are doing : ) We didn’t pay the 1 euro to unlock a “trolley” to use (our British landlords gave instructions about bringing a coin for the trolley and it took me forever figure out that we didn’t have to take a trolley to the store, they were talking about the shopping cart) but did remember to bring our own bags and left feeling successful.

Storyteller and the crowd

In the evening, the town was going to host a modern dance group at 7 pm in the little square we can see from our balcony—or so we thought! Instead the whole town, SCAD students, and tourists walked from place to place with a running monologue in French (really might have made more sense if we knew what the guy said) with four different dances in four different spots. It was interesting to watch, and all the French people kept laughing during the monologues which really made me wish I spoke French!
A man (maybe the mayor?) invited everyone to snacks and drinks in of the squares afterwards, but since I couldn’t figure out what the food was we just walked leisurely home, a nice end to a long day.

Dancers

Finger-food for everyone : )