The Good Side of Brittany

Emily thought my last post was quite hard on Brittany. I have little sympathy for the place - Brittany was quite hard on us, and I do not intend to sugarcoat my reflections on the difficulty of our lives there. But it wasn't all a horror, and I thought I'd put together another post to share the lighter side of seven years of hell...

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There and Back Again

Biz News - Fans of the more unusual Talbert Briars might want to take a look at this Ebay auction, on an odd piece done a couple years back for a special order. No new pipes from me, though, for reasons that are about to be obvious....


It seems like it has been a terribly long time since I have updated this blog, especially since the days when I could manage new posts each week, sometimes even every couple of days. Not so in 2008 - For us, like so many others, it has been a very difficult year and I have been too busy simply trying to stay fed and sheltered to keep up with my online writing. This may change soon, though, for today's picture is the harbinger of major news -

My wife and I are moving back to the United States!

We've lived nearly seven years in France. It's time. There are a multitude of reasons for the move - some expectedly angry and unpleasant, others fortuitous and perfectly timed. I may tell some harrowing stories in the future, but I don't want to dwell on specifics for the moment. Suffice to say that in one bright swoop, circumstances lined up ideally to enable us to make another transatlantic hop on our shoestring (nay, non-existent!) budget, and we chose to grab the opportunity. I write this sitting amidst packed boxes of books and clothes, and if all goes well, we should be leaving Brittany to return to North Carolina sometime in late April or May.

I depart France with the same jumble of extreme feelings I've had through all my time here. The people are wonderful, the bureacracy is a nightmare. The scenery is stunning, the communication is an eternal struggle. For every incredible vista of ruined castle overlooking rocky seaside cliffs, there are a dozen entreaties to government offices and business administration officials. It's nation where complete strangers will fly halfway across the country to bring you a bottle of their favorite wine, yet you have to literally scream and threaten violence just to get a fonctionnaire to acknowledge a fax. Living here has been like life with a beautiful trophy wife - lovely to look at, yet terribly difficult to maintain. But I know I will miss the place terribly, despite all the hassles, as we settle back into the relaxed, insular, Shire-like rythym of life in North Carolina. I can't help but think of Frodo Baggins, and wonder if I, too, will feel as though I'm "going back to sleep".

One aspect that I'm certain won't go back to sleep is my pipemaking - Talbert Briars will continue and carry on as always, and I look forward to once again being able to compete with the ranks of American pipemakers on an even footing, unhampered by the horrible dollar-to-euro currency imbalance that has dogged so much of our time here. It's also going to be a wonder to really be able to focus on my work again, without the pressures and immense weights of worry we have suffered for so long. All pipemaking will be shut down for the next several months, and our workshop is now closed in France. Some of the French machinery may be sold, some is definitely going with me, but it will take a long time to design and build our new workshop in the US, and until then there will be no new pipes (For those who may be interested, we have exactly two pipes remaining in stock for sale - one Ligne Bretagne and one Talbert Morta. Contact us soon if you're interested in either, before they get packed!)

I know the pipe community will probably have questions for us, but I'd ask that they be either posted here as comments, or held back until I can assemble a FAQ for this move, which will answer some of the obvious inquiries like, "Will Mortas and Ligne Bretagnes continue?", "Are you selling any of your stock and tools?", "Will your stamping change?", "Will your pricing change?", and so on. I have enough to do with the move, I'd as soon not have to type replies to the same questions many times over! And some questions have no answers as yet... The Ligne Bretagne stummels and hardware are going with me, for example, but I have not yet decided if they will change name. Morta pipes may continue if I can secure a reliable source of high quality blocks, but the material is hard to come by, and I am not interested in producing a substandard product. Time will tell...

In the very near future, the website will go offline except for a front page linking to this blog and our "Life in France" blog, where I hope to chart the progress of our move and our reactions to re-immersion in the American lifestyle and culture (Things I look forward to - KFC, good Mexican food, easy talking, and being able to get things accomplished without fifteen notarized attestations from the mairie and the préfecture plus stamped copies of every utility bill we've ever had and our marriage license. Things I do not look forward to - Loud, belligerent people, US non-health care, and Paris Hilton... though I think we have managed to foist her off on the Brits now). People interested in this social stuff may want to add us back to their Favorites for a bit, because the blogs are likely to be more active soon.

And speaking of, I'm currently looking for a good title for the "Life in France" blog if anyone has any ideas, since "An American Pipemaker in Brittany" won't work anymore. I'm going to miss sights like this being outside my front door...

Visiting Rheinbach Pt. 3, Lille

Tuesday saw us leaving Germany in the early morning for our drive back across Belgium to Lille, where we'd catch our train home in the late afternoon. The idea was that we'd have most of the afternoon to explore Lille and see what could be seen in six hours or so. This turned out to be quite a lot... So much, in fact, that we could probably spend a week just in the downtown area and still not have seen everything.

Downtown Lille is stunningly beautiful - Just look at the photos here and in the Lille web gallery to get an idea of just how much like a postcard this city can look. Or check out this little video I shot with our camera in the downtown square. In one blow, we are immediately swept back into the familiar beauty, elegance, and frustrating annoyance of France. We arrive hungry for lunch, and of course there are no places to eat. Well, let me rephrase... there are HUNDREDS of sidewalk cafés, but therein is our problem - We only have a few hours of free time to explore, and we don't want to spend that time sitting in a café for a solid three hours, first waiting twenty minutes for the waiter to acknowledge us and then another hour for our food, and at least an extra hour before we finally get our bill. All we want is a convenient fast food spot to nip into for a twenty minute lunch, and there's naught in sight. So far Lille is losing big to Cologne for convenient service, even while it stomps all over Cologne in the "looks and style" department. We couldn't move in Cologne without stumbling over a Pizza Hut - Here, we end up hiking for many blocks until we finally find ONE McDonald's in the downtown square.

Ugh. McDo. Why does the one fast food joint France seems to allow have to be the worst one of the bunch? I could really murder a Wendy's burger. Alas, it's all we have to choose from, so we wolf down our lunch burgers and dive back out into the city proper to see 17,000 works of art and architectural excellence in four hours and thirty minutes.

I quickly found it was virtually impossible to take a bad photograph in Lille - Basically, just point the camera in a random direction and you're bound to get a shot of something pretty. It's quite a different place from the Breton cities I know... Much more colorful, for one. Nantes is like some great grey, brooding stone monolith by comparison. Lille seems deliberately colorful and frilly. Wandering through it feels rather like you've stumbled into some French art film's background set. I keep expecting someone named Danielle to slap someone named Claude in an outdoor café, then storm angrily away as he yells, "Beeetch!" after her and then moodily returns to smoking his Gaulloise.

We didn't get to see nearly as much of Lille as I'd have liked, but that can't be helped. We did manage to find the tourist office, tucked away in the tower building of the Palais Royale, and on a more practical note, we were in awe of the Foret du Nord bookstore. It's a huge, multi-level affair that pretty much sells everything, and even includes one whole floor (gasp!) for English books! We're stunned again, because this isn't the France we know, and I'm beginning to wonder if the rest of France is as disconnected from modernity as we think, or if we just live in the sticks.

Before we know it, it's time to go and we're on the TGV homewards. All in all, one seriously excellent vacation. I think I'm ready to explore a bit more of Europe now.

Visiting Rheinbach Pt. 2 - Cologne, Germany

Once more, I have a web gallery of photos specifically from our day in Cologne. Most include descriptive tags. Cologne was about a half hour from Rheinbach. It was also about halfway around the planet from Herbignac, because visiting downtown Cologne was remarkably like being back in the states. Let's see...

Wide open roads? Check
Modern buildings? Check
Burger King? Check
Dunkin' Donuts? Check
KFC? Check
English language all around? Check

All sorts of things surprised us, not least the sudden pile of US fast food restaurants that we hadn't seen since moving to Brittany. The bookstores had huge sections for English language books... and English language magazines! (Which were actually IN the book stores, as we're used to, rather than being exclusively sold in little corner bars) FNAC in Nantes supplies one measly wall slot for English books... Here, there was an entire bookstore area and different spots spread over the multiple floors. This mixed right in with the impression that Germans simply have embraced the English language more - As our host said, it is the international language, despite the French attempts to bury their collective national head in the sand and pretend the anglo-saxon tongue hasn't become the new lingua franca. I suppose it goes back to France and England's long and bitter rivalry, with other countries not suffering from this degree of reluctance to accept the world of today. In that respect, our chief worries about visiting Germany - linguistic hell - nearly evaporated, and we had no problems getting on with shops and clerks everywhere we went.

Cologne looks like an American city. This is largely due to the fact that it was totally devastated by Allied bombing in WW2, and was rebuilt ground-up much the same as our nearby St. Nazaire. This came with pluses and minuses - We had no trouble at all with finding our way around, but it was rather boring and there just wasn't a lot of architectural interest until the immense gothic cathedral reared up out of the sea of glass & chrome.

Travel Observation - Germans are like Americans in subtle ways. Downtown was extremely crowded and busy, yet not once did either of us get irritated or annoyed at the behavior of other people in the streets. The laws of personal space were back in effect. People actually looked where they were going when walking, and took care to not stand stupidly in the middle of busy thoroughfares. No one came and wedged themselves in between me and a window I was looking at, utterly oblivious to the fact that someone else was looking at the window. I never once found myself brusquely body-checking passers-by who I refused to move for because they had every opportunity to see where I was walking. I go to Super U in summer crowds for anger release. In Germany, the street traffic was like the automotive traffic - tidy and always aware of boundaries.

Words just can't describe how totally immense the Cologne cathedral is, or the impact that it has when you wander upon it in the middle of this thriving modern city. It was left almost untouched by the bombing raids - a genuine miracle. It is HUGE. In size comparison, I suspect it could swallow the big Nantes cathedral entirely within itself, spires and all. Unlike the Renaissance styling of most cathedrals we've visited, the Beast of Cologne (constructed from the 1200's to the 1800's, IIRC) is unrepentantly gothic. It's a visual explosion of pointy bits and sharp details (and reminded me strangely of the Nautilus from Disney's old "20,000 Leagues" movie). It really is a building which should come with its own soundtrack - Something deep and booming like the opening theme for the Overlook Hotel from "The Shining".

In the open square before the church, there was a fascinating scattering of human statues. I hope these folks collect a good living from their work, because they certainly must suffer for it. Emily and I were in jeans and short sleeves, and we were hot (Temps were around 84 degrees F). I really can't imagine sitting motionless under heavy costume and makeup for hours on end! But they were great fun to see, and most had some sort of marionette motion that they'd do if you dropped them a coin.

Inside, the cathedral was a maze of stained glass, amazing floor tile patterns (see plenty of pics of these in the web gallery), and tourists. While looking at the Shrine of the Three Kings, I was startled to recognize a familiar accent, and found myself chatting with two ladies from the US - one from Florida and the other from Kernersville, NC! Utterly bizarre.

We tried to climb the tower, but that turned out to be a Very Bad Idea. The outdoor temps had turned the narrow, spiral stone staircase of 500+ steps into an oven filled with roughly 2000 tourists all trying to get up or down, and it wasn't long before we gave up on the ascent when we reached the bell room, rather than carrying on another zillion spirals to the very top.

Eventually it was lunchtime, and we had our first KFC meal since the states. Our first onion rings... ! Of course, it was just fast food, but it was familiar fast food, and KFC still rules over most of the fast food chains. Yeah, yeah, I know... the snobs will look down their noses and call us philistines for eating US junk food instead of sampling regional cuisine (We'd already done that in Rheinbach and every evening with Jörg... and just for the record, German dishes are excellent). But I don't care. I remain very much a contented Cheeseburger in Paradise.

Reflections: I don't know what the rest of Germany is like. Cologne was like a marvelous mini-trip back to the US, with both the good and the bad that entails. It was brash, it was bright, it was new.... and a little boring, I must admit, especially when compared to the architectural grandeur of Lille (see next post). I think I'd find US cities pretty blah things to look at these days, I fear. The focus was definitely on shopping and consumerism, with plenty of mega-stores to suit every need. I dunno.... I've turned a bit French, I suspect, given how cozily familiar it was to get back to Lille and once again be in a Renaissance city filled with outdoor cafes and something to look at in every detail of gutter or cornerstone.

Visiting Rheinbach Pt. 1 - In Motion

On August 3rd, 2007, we left Herbignac for our first extended, "beyond one day's driving distance" trip & vacation in over five full years. Ever since we moved here, we've had to work seven day weeks, round the clock, so we took the opportunity to do the pipe show as a sort of mini-vacation as well. The weekend was spent at the show, or seeing local Germany, and Monday and Tuesday were spent in the German city of Cologne and the French city of Lille. A two day vacation may not sound like much, and I'd have loved to stay longer in both places, but we were limited by time and budget.

Our trip kicked off in the scenic train station at La Baulle, where we hopped a first class TGV (France's high speed train) for a direct shot across France to the northern city of Lille. At the Lille station, we picked up our rental car and commenced our drive across France, Belgium, and into Germany. I'm dividing my posts up into three parts - This first will deal with the traveling, and then the next two will focus on our visits to the cities of Cologne and Lille. I've assembled web galleries to match, and you can see the first web gallery of our travel photos HERE.

I love traveling. There's something romantic about being in motion, and I like places that are hubs of people in motion.... usually (There are exceptions, such as the horrific Montparnesse train station in Paris, or the Chicago airport). Our friend Claudie dropped us off at the TGV station in La Baulle and we were off on our way, which as usual meant that we settled into our train seats, spent some minutes acclimating to the strangeness of being in first class (I could stretch my legs all the way out!), and then both fell fast asleep, lulled by the somnolent rocking vibration of the big electric train as it whipped across the countryside at 180 mph. In case you're curious for a window view, check this short video, which I shot as the train was accelerating away from a mid-country station stop.

The Lille train station is an impressive place. The pics in the gallery only show a couple of shots of the painted walls, but it was quite a sight.

All went just fine as we picked up our car (A funky bubble-shaped Citroen, shown in the gallery pics). It was so nice to be in a "real" car again, instead of our rattly 10 year old Clio. The Citroen had power, comfort, and enough headroom that I could have sat in the thing in a top hat. Of course, we promptly got lost trying to get out of Lille. Our Google directions didn't account for some highway destruction that involved numerous obscure deviations from the route, but soon enough we were back on the right road and plowing across Belgium.

Travel Observation: Gas is cheaper in Belgium than Germany. Why? Then again, why is gas cheaper in South Carolina than North Carolina?

I once saw a hilarious short animation comparing Italy with the rest of the EU. In my experience, the subject could just as easily have been France versus the EU - the situations and attitudes are remarkably the same. We started noticing differences in little ways as soon as we crossed the German border.... For instance, drivers actually stayed in their lanes! And, they even left proper following distances for braking (You can't leave proper following distance in France. It will only confuse the French, and they will try to fit their car into the open space). I'll touch on this more when I get to the post about Cologne, where Em and I were both boggled that we could walk through a crowded city street without feeling the urge to bash someone to death with a mallet.

All told, the traveling couldn't have gone better, especially when our host offered to drive us to the show each day in his convertible Jaguar XK8... A vehicle that was QUITE entertaining on the 100+ mph German highways.

When the show was done with, we spent all day Monday exploring downtown Cologne, which will be the next post...

Medieval Fair at Guérande

Owing to a surprise windfall of income over the past few days, we decided to take off about four hours this Saturday and pay a little visit to the Guérande Medieval Fair(e)(sic). They've had this every year but we have always missed it - usually too busy, or we'd forget and only see the signs until a week after it was over. Guérande is an ideal location, and made the medieval fairs I attended in the US look rather bland by comparison. US fairs are typically open-field events with pavilions and tents everywhere, and plenty of enthusiasm, but it's hard to compete with having a fair wrapped around and through a genuine medieval walled city.

There were plenty of folks there in costume, both workers and visitors - In fact, we were surprised at how many wandering princesses and wenches and knights and pageboys kept drifting in from the parking lot. It made the whole city a little surreal, driving down cobblestone streets past parked cars and scooters and small clusters of young people furiously texting away, while Rapunzel-esque costumed Ladies-in-Waiting (for what?) drifted down the sidewalks trailing long ribbons and often disparate parts of their outfits (It was bloody windy).

They did a great job of tarting the place up, and we didn't see half of the full production. When we arrived after lunch, they were still setting up the main exposition area, where it looked like they might have jousting (and probably a fair bit of wenching) this evening. There were some excellent huge dining halls being assembled too, though I didn't have the chance to check out what might be the main course for dinner. We refrained from spending any money that we didn't have anyway, though the smell from the on-location breadmaker's stall was enticing - Huge round loaves of hot, just-from-the-oven bread were piled in rowdy jumbles.

The dance troupe shown below keep popping up all over the city inside the walls, singing and doing various routines to medieval music (and modern medieval, such as Blackmore's Night's "Fires at Midnight"). This served nicely to remind me that I need to get some more Blackmore's Night CDs someday, to provide an elegant balance to thrashing away in the workshop to stuff like Send More Paramedics. We took a huge pile of pics, and I'll post more in coming days as I have the time. At least now my parents can get a glimpse of Guérande when the sun is out!

Batman is French?

Having either set of parents come to visit is fun for many reasons, one of which is that we get to see this country with new eyes all over again. The in-laws stayed here in town at the local hotel, a place within easy walking distance of the bakery, shops, and our house. Needless to say, it was not an American hotel. The place is really very nice - for those who may be interested, they have a website. It appears to be several houses purchased and connected together, with the result that, instead of identical uniform corridors, the interior is a maze of tiny hallways, unexpected steps, side corridors, and hidden rooms. Great fun!

While the room itself was pretty much like hotel rooms everywhere except for its camper-sized bath and shower, it did give us one surprise - the bizarre coathangers pictured above. I've traveled all over the east coast of the US and have never encountered such a thing, and it left us wondering just what one is supposed to do with them. They wouldn't hang shirts properly, and the bizarre clips at the ends seemed intended more for mountainclimbing use than clothes storage. I've never personally thought it would be useful to hang a dinner jacket in such a way that it had permanent Dracula shoulders, with the bonus of being able to hang a tie from the clips down the inside of each sleeve. We concluded that it must be meant for some bizarre garb with which we were unfamiliar... and this despite the fact that Emily's mother has traveled to Israel, Brazil, the Galapagos, and all over the US. I can only guess that Batman must be French, and spend a lot of time on layover in Herbignac. I had to suppress a strong urge to grab one of the things, yell, "Batarang!", and hurl it weapon-like at an invading British tourist...

Dazed and Confused

Emily's parents have departed back to the states, and landed safely in NC after a grueling 25 hour day of travel. This is why I dread the idea of flying over - People say, "It's only seven hours, come visit!" This, of course, leaves out the rising at 3am to drive an hour to Nantes, the three hour TGV trip to Paris, the two hours in the CDG airport, the two hour wait for a changeover flight in the US, and the hour+ flight to NC. Ugh.

We, luckily, got to drive them to the train station and then come back and go back to bed. Today, we're conscious but a little bleary and dazed. Having family over for a long visit is a strange experience in cultural reversionism. For example, I spent the whole week speaking English again and found out at a dinner party that suddenly I'd lost all my French, and was completely incapable of assembling even simple sentences. I'll write more, including lots of travel photos, when we are a little recovered and recuperated.

I did, however, want to post this entertaining photo that turned up in our local paper. A careful examination of the pic should reveal a familiar landmark, for those who have been here and seen our house! This photo was taken around 1915, IIRC, not long after our house was built. Our original permit is written on something like oilskin, a slippery, heavy paper, and spells out the fact that permission was granted by the town to build our house on this spot in 1910. Apparently construction carried over into 1911, so our 100 year anniversary may be a little vague.