Auswanderer Quatsch

After the few bumpy days around our wedding where I missed taking pictures, we left to relax in the south of France: Collioure, Cadaques (Spain), Cucugnan, Carcassonne, Omps, Gruissan & La Grande Motte. Here’s that 365 part of the trip!

It’s been a while since I posted any picture for my 365 isn’t it? Well, I must admit that the summer was a bit more bumpy than expected. With my own wedding – in the middle of nowhere – end of august, I assumed there would be a few days were I would forget to take pictures. But I hadn’t planned on forgetting my camera in a friend’s car and thus miss a full week of pictures. I asked him for the pictures, but it’s been some time and I slowly start to feel that if I don’t renew with the habit of posting everyday I will start missing some days again. So I filled up the missing days (this post only) with pictures that others took on those days and we’ll go on like that. You’ll have to believe me that I really took some pictures everyday ;]

I am in Paris for the holidays ; and since I am staying for more than a couple days, I came here with my car and used it to drive around, visit friends and familiy (even though the snow did not really help there). One thing I like doing when I am back in France is to turn either the TV / Radio whenever possible and drown myself into some “home-vibes”, trying to find back what it was to be living there.

One commercial I heard quite often on the radio stroke me harder than the others. I think it was for a supermarket brand, marketing their “very healthy” Christmas products like Foie Gras, stuffed goose and sweet wines. Anyhow, what really hit me was the end of it. Like every alcohol beverage or tobacco commercials, food commercials now (since 2007 actually but I left France in 2006) also have their state-approved recommended endings. Any package of cigarettes must contain something like “smoking kills” and any alcohol commercial must end like “drinking too much alcohol is bad for your health”. Even though it is healthy-french-cuisine we are talking about, it was only a matter of years until food commercials also had their endings. What hit me though was that the endings are not quite the one I expected.

Here’s the incriminated (specific for radio commercials) excerpt of the law:

Arrêté du 27 février 2007 fixant les conditions relatives aux informations à caractère sanitaire devant accompagner les messages publicitaires ou promotionnels en faveur de certains aliments et boissons

Article 3: Dans le cas de messages publicitaires diffusés à la radio, l’information à caractère sanitaire mentionnée à l’article 1er est diffusée immédiatement après le message publicitaire. L’annonceur peut employer les informations mentionnées à l’article 1er ou, à défaut, le jeu d’informations suivantes : « Pour votre santé, bougez plus », « Pour votre santé, limitez les aliments gras, salés, sucrés » et « Pour votre santé, évitez de grignoter ». Sa présentation respecte également les règles et usages de bonnes pratiques régulièrement définis par la profession. Les mêmes informations sanitaires peuvent être formulées en utilisant le tutoiement. (Source: Legifrance)

The government gives the choice between three different endings, but I heard only one of them: “stay fit, exercise more”. What I really dislike about this ending is that it does not relate with the product in any way, as if the only issue there was the consumer not the product. Of course people should exercise more, but exercising more will not cover for eating a full XXL burger meal at MackDeaunalds every other day. The two other endings are barely better: “stay fit, don’t eat between meals” is also not relating to the product while “stay fit, don’t eat too fat, sweet or salty” tells a little bit about the product itself but does not incriminate it. As for the choice given to the industry to pick one… I think it could explain why I heard only the one about sport until now ; it is the least constraining for the industry and thus the only one used.

As you can imagine I don’t like being told what to do or not do. But here I feel like being taken for a newborn while the food industry is being praised… has anyone had the same feeling hearing/reading this?

We spent the second week of our vacation lost somewhere in the south of France. The house is more than old, some would say rustic, but even with no electricity, no water beside the rain-water-tank… this is pure loneliness, calm, quiet, serenity… this place is magic.

This was actually our childhood summer place. This is no family place, although all the friends we used to go with feel a lot like family. Always a lot of kids and the unforgettable freedom to do anything we want in the woods, fields and barns. I had not set foot there since ages… I’d say 6 or 7 summers… and it felt a bit odd to be mostly among adults now, those adults being the kids I used to play with and having kids of their own now…

There’s not much to do beside relax, read and walk around. I know the different paths by heart and being MlleV’s first time over there we tried to walk them all. One of those goes to “Nimes-le-vieux” a very odd place made of old 2-3m high rocks that looks like a village in ruins from a distance. We did not go as far as the “village” though, but prefered to get an overview from a hill around.

The weather was perfect, warm but windy, very comfortable in the shade of the pine forest… oh boy, even if my allergies made my life a living hell back then, I loved being back there after so long.

Almost at the top of the hill, a water reservoir, used by one of the 3 or 4 farms around. I found the parallel between this Azure water and the barbwire interesting… swimming was tempting I can tell you.

A few hours later, at the end of our round trip, we got up on a giant rock to see the house from far away.

I’m pretty sure MlleV. had a blast as well, such a nice place… how could it be otherwise?

Next stop during our vacation this summer: Arcachon and its very odd Dune du Pylat. Try to imagine: flat land, flat beaches, forest everywhere and somewhere along the shore a hundred something meters high sand dune perched up high in the middle of nowhere (have a look at the pictures on wikipedia, the view from above is amazing.

Here’s the view looking inland (east):

And here’s the sunset (obviously lookin’ west):

It was the first time climbing there for me. Gorgeous experience. I even climbed down on the other side to enjoy the water… and suffered climbing back up afterwards. Of course the best moment of all is the way back. Jumpin’, rollin’, slidin’… you do it your way, it’s just fun!