One of the best things about staying with a frenchie in France is that you get to see how normal, everyday French people live. It's an immersion into their culture. I like to think of it as "authentic" traveling. Not that I have anything against tourist destinations and big cities. I definitely can't say I didn't love London or Cancun, but when you are in those places, you have sort of a cushion. A "cloud nine" phenonmenon.
Anywho, because I was staying with Coralie, she took me to the French countryside to see her grandmother, who lives in a village outside of Bourg-en-Bresse in the province of Rhone-Alpes. Here I could directly examine and experience the simplistic, quiet way of French country life?
Haha. Think again.
After eating a spectacular french lunch with Coralie's mami and cousins, I settled down in my room to take a quick nap to help with my jet lag. I am almost asleep when, all of a sudden, a siren goes off, a siren that sounds a lot like a tornado warning. Out of all the nasty natural disasters there are in this world, a tornado scares me the most. So I just laid and quietly hoped that I wasn't about to face one of my biggest fears in a foreign country without my mommy. But Coralie calmed my fears by coming in and telling me that the siren was a signal to the volunteer firemen that there was a fire. In the countryside, they do not have an institutionalized firehouse with professional firemen and such. They depend on volunteers to help fight any fires. When I was told that it was only a fire, I relaxed. I knew about fires. I live in Arizona, I see fires all the time. No biggie. So I curled back up and drifted off to sleep. But less than 5 minutes later...
KABOOM!!
I sat up and watched as Coralie and her cousins charged pass my window going to see what happened. But I already knew, something exploded. Eventually, Coralie bursted into my room and said, "You have to see this" so I followed her to the front yard where immediately I saw black smoke billowing into the sky. We ran back into the house to get to the backyard, where we saw that the smoke was coming from the neighbors shed. All of the cousins and me were all excited, everyone was asking me if I was scared and now thought that France was a dangerous place (the answer: definitely not). Neighbors and other family members gathered around to watch the spectacle. Eventually the firefighters arrived and quenched the fire with long hoses spewing out water.
So much for peace and quiet, but it will be an experience I will remember for years to come.
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