In France

Tonight I've spent a couple of hours talking with people about life and politics in Toronto, watching YouTube videos about the Occupation of Wall Street, the killing of Troy Davis and the amazing Stop the Cuts campaigns going on in Toronto and I've been momentarily distracted from our life here... Here in the tower in France. We went away this weekend - down the mountains to Perpignan - the closest city.

Basically because the tower is so remote that if we want to go anywhere its kind of a major endeavour. There are two buses a day, and only one on Sunday. So we wanted to go to the Medieval festival in Perpignan this weekend. We could either take the bus for an hour and forty five minutes in the morning yesterday, stay for an hour and a half, and then take the bus back, or stay overnight. So we stayed overnight and took the bus back this afternoon.

So we locked up the shutters of the tower.. seen below..

and left the town..

and headed down to Perpignan.
Perpignan is not the most glamourous of French cities, but has its charms. We stayed in the Hotel Mediterranean in a family room - a bit smokey, but do-able. We showed up early for the opening procession of the Medieval festival and it was nowhere to be found. So we went out for lunch and found an amazing place highlighting local wine, and we had the fixed price menu - gazpacho soup, bread with tuna and tomato sauce, bread with anchovies and mushrooms, and bread with jam and cheese plus a glass of wine for 5.5 Euro, which is about 8 bucks. Amazing. Then we went and found the medieval games area. There were all sorts of games that involved throwing rings on sticks, knocking down balls with pins, throwing coins in holes and then some strategic games that we weren't committed enough for. Super-bon. Then the march arrived. Interestingly the march was led by knights, crusaders, but then followed up by the Moors. They were a marching band, all dressed in black tunics with stars and crescents on them, with black cloths covering their faces. They were fierce and included most of the participants between 20 and 40 and all the people of colour. Interesting. - its hip to be a moor these days. Perhaps it always was. I don't know enough of the history - except the obvious stuff. Anyway. After the moors did fire breathing and the ladies and lords did their formal dancing, we walked through town to go to the Sirocco festival - which was promoted as a festival of 'nomadic, North African culture'. Given the large Moroccan and Algerian presence in the city, I was intrigued. But it was poorly attended, and attended by white folks largely involved in various anti-racist, and ethical consumerist movements. It was in an the Palais de Roi de Majorca  which was impressive but the performances  partly because the spotty rain meant that the main stage performers didn't perform and instead we watched skits which we couldn't quite grasp the meaning of other than that racism was bad.
Today, we took transit out to a box mall, and following a bunch of teenage goth kids, found the main area for the medieval festival. There we saw people show off with falcons, and bash each other around the head while wearing armour in the hot sun. Pretty entertaining.
Now we're back in our tower.all is well. good night! xo
A couple of other pics for you!

The town's main industry is the making of sandals. thus, the giant metal sandal.