Quarter Year

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTnwYI2ltxg&hl=en&fs=1]

Porto, Corsica

by Azure

We had intended to spend Wednesday night in a town called Cargese. Mike had picked it out on a map for it’s proximity to the sea and we headed there as soon as we could leave Ajaccio. We stopped in Cargese around 2pm when the lunch hours were finishing up, but the town was still shut down. We had only been riding an hour or so and though it was raining, we decided to keep moving north to make more ground on the island. We were unimpressed by the town. Quaint towns on ports or beaches are a dime a dozen on this island and there was nothing in particular about the place that made us want to put in the necessary effort of finding a room in one of hotels whose signs say OPEN ALL YEAR but whose closed shutters and absence of light say otherwise.

We ended up spending Wednesday night in a town called Porto near the sea. Mike remembers Porto from his first visit because people told him how beautiful it was. Corsica has taught us that the word “beautiful” means different things to different people. Everyone has a place on the island that is the “most beautiful” and no two people recommend the same place. Saying something is beautiful does not relate information. If someone had told us that on the drive from Cargese to Porto you will see men walking their black and tan cows with little calves trotting beside down the center of the road; or that you will drive for miles and miles into rolling mountains that you don’t believe have ever known the tread of a single human, only to be confronted with the meager stone remains of an ancient migrant way of life perched on ridges and in valleys; or that from these huge tree-covered peaks, you will descend, without warning towards the bright blue Mediterranean and be greeted by red rock cliffs that run right out of the sea– if someone had told us those things, I may have understood what “beauty” they were talking about.

As is, I guess I am glad people hadn’t gone into detail. The surprises we felt turning each corner and the joy we felt for each discovery made the rainy ride emotional and captivating. We have seen every kind of natural beauty on this island, but that drive once again surprised us. It brought us both to tears with its drama and its ability to put one in their place in how the natural world should value a single human existence. Those cliffs don’t feel us riding on their high ledges or through their amber tunnels. Their age is only magnified by the human reminders built into their walls. There are the red stone bridges and support systems, holding up the current day road, probably laid there by workers 60 years ago, there are the ruins of homes and stone fences which housed the families of the people who tended their herds 200 years ago, and there are the caves that provided shelter to the early Corsicans when they were being attacked time and time again from all sides as far back as 400AD. These cliffs are much much older.

Tuesday, Mike and I went on a tour of the area to the north, despite the dark clouds. At times it was calm, other times the wind almost blew our tiny scooter off the winding cliffs into the sea. It rained, it hailed, and finally, the clouds broke to allow the slim daggers of light to slice lines and cut holes in the sea and the hills alike. We wound along the side of the “maquised” hills all day, never losing sight of the sea for any length of time. We stopped often to take pictures, hoping to capture the true mood of the day, but in my opinion, always failed. My frustration lies in that no matter how hard we work, how much we write or how many photos we take, we can never take an accurate photo of our lives.

by Mike

This guy makes fishing nets by hand. He’s done it for 60 years right on that spot, he said. He sometimes does up to 150 per year, but sometimes as little as 50.

by Azure

We are finally caught up with the blog. When we were on the olive farm, we were without internet the whole time and it was an hour drive into the city to post. We worked until 5pm most days and it was too long and cold and dark to drive to Nice after work, so we just got bottled up there. We finally learned that we could post without being there by scheduling them, but that was also difficult, since we still had to drive down and post every few days. Long story short, we got a week behind, so all of the posts happened exactly one week before they were posted. And, now that we are LIVE, we are once again heading to a place we fear has no internet. Cargese and Serriera, where we are aiming to stay, are barely bold on the map. Where we are, a medium sized town has about 40 residents. A small town is marked on the map, but we have found that can just mean a collection of 3 or 4 families living near each other. Anyway, we are headed out this morning. We got an email that there was gas now and that we should take advantage, so Mike rushed to the pumps. We are full and ready to go back into the wild lands. Wish us luck.

by Azure

Before we met with Claude for the first time in Nice, Mike turned to me and promised that he would be on his best behavior, but he couldn’t speak for the hawk. He was the only farmer in the valley with a mohawk and his favorite saying is “You can’t tame it, you can’t tame a hawk.” In French, his favorite topic is something to do with rabbit’s milk cheese. On the first day at lunch he mentioned it to Margarite and Claude. Do you milk the rabbits, he asked. I think they thought he was more city than they could handle until they realized he was joking. A week later, when Margarite looked puzzled with another of his comments, Claude said to her, don’t you know he could be joking at any time.

This blog is a funny thing. It captures bits and pieces of our day that make us think or change, but the majority of our time is spent on things far less serious. Today, we walked around and sat in a hotel. What do you write about on a day that you sit in a hotel? We usually don’t write anything about that.

At the farm, there were a lot of animals to play with. There was a goat that would butt your knee whenever you went in to the pen. I would find excuses to go in so he would play with my knee. Another kid would always jump up and try to eat my sweatshirt. It was cute. I spent a lot of time with goats on or at me.

There was one night when we were out taking night photography in Margaret’s garden. We saw that a rabbit had escaped, but was hanging around the pen because he wanted to be with his friends, but still wanted freedom to roam in the garden. When we told Margarite, she insisted that we spend about an hour chasing the rabbit around, trying to get him back in the pen. Four people trying to herd a rabbit is not enough BTW. We had to try again later and still failed. The rabbit finally chose to go back in on its own.

There is a guy, Marciel, who we were never able to fit into any of the stories about the farm. He was the guy who lived next door and worked for them. He wore a Chicago hat everyday and I think he must have had a stash of beer in the back of Margarite’s kitchen because he would walk in and grab one every evening. He would stand in the kitchen and talk so unfiltered with her. He would get really animated with her and Claude and use words like “Putain” in regular conversation, which translated means “whore.” I am still not sure what the conversations were about.

And then there is all the time we spend riding. Everyday we are not working, we go for a long ride. If our trip was a pie graph, 40% would probably be riding. There’s never much to say about it. It’s always beautiful and always fun, but it’s more of a picture than a post. Or in our case 4,560 pictures. It has gotten to the point where we’ll see a beautiful hill town or an ancient cemetery or some cows roaming free on the road and we won’t even stop. A dime a dozen!

We spend an unusually large amount of time talking about, or if we are stopped, talking to animals. There are so many here and they are still fun to see. There are so many dogs, just running along the road, miles from any town. So many sheep grazing sometimes in front of you and so many cows and horses that just look at you.

And of course we talk about the blog a lot. We read and edit each others posts and make comments. We write almost every night in some capacity. It got out of hand one night in Nice when I had to lie to one of the Austrian girls. I told her that we were going home to have sex, so I didn’t have to nerd out and tell her that we were actually going home early to edit a post.

Oh and then there are the internet cafes. We spend about an hour in a cafe each day uploading things and doing whatever. When we were staying in Sartene, going to the internet required driving to the next town where we would always go to the same bar. The guy who works there got so familiar with Mike that he gave him his email address and phone number without Mike even asking. He’d give us free drinks too, since we are in there everyday.

I don’t know what this post is about. But, I do know that sometimes this blog gets thick and when I read back through, it doesn’t capture the times when life is just going. I think this trip is one of the most interesting we’ve ever taken, but I just wanted to talk a little about the normal life between the posts.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R9M4asxDlQ&hl=en&fs=1]

Nique le Budget!
by Azure

We went to bed hoping to go north in the morning. When I woke up it was still raining, so I didn’t even bother waking Mike up. It is a long ride to the north and doing it in the rain is really out of the question. We thought, judging from our experiences on the west side of the island that there had to be a blue sky day soon to come. We walked into town and checked the weather at the information office. Rain rain rain! Three days of rain. But wait – there’s more!

by Mike

On the west coast of Corsica there’s a tower at each point and from the top of one tower you can see the next. The islanders built them in the 1500s as an early warning system against repeated Barbary pirate attacks, but the towers weren’t so successful – the Corsican way of life was completely disrupted and the residents fled the fertile lowlands for the rocky mountains.

We parked our scooter off a red dirt road running a ridge. From the ridge we saw the tower farther down the point, we could see the sea below and the mountains behind. Corsica is a wild island. Here, the trees were low, thick and untamed and it was very rocky. The island feels empty sometimes, primitive – all over the island there are grand views of mountains and valleys with no trace of people.

We walked toward the tower on a red path that cut through the trees and passed stone walls. Walls ran wherever they wanted, in the forest there would be a wall with some steps, then more walls, then there would be a cleared area where a structure had once stood. We could see the outline of a building in stone lines covered by moss. Then there were more trees and more walls.

There are so many walls on the island on the highest abandoned hill and right in the center of town. They must have taken so much work. Who built all these walls? People say the pyramids are a wonder of the world, but I wonder about the walls.

Off the path I saw one rock that sat like a little hut and it had a hole in the bottom big enough for an arm and it was hollow inside. I wondered what the rock had hidden.

After an hour we made it to the base of the tower and a relatively modern staircase took us up to the doorway. The stone tower was quiet, we were alone. This tower was only naked stones, nothing to indicate it has changed at all since it was in use. The main room was cool and a window facing north (toward Ajaccio and the mouth of the bay) let in natural light. There were two fireplaces – one very large and the other smaller – that were well-used. I imagine one was for heat and the other was for signals, but that’s total speculation. Only the small fireplace had a chimney, I don’t know what happened to the smoke from the large one.

The ceiling was a high dome and a staircase took us up through the wall and let us out on the spectacular roof. It had a 360 degree view enclosed by the turrets. The roof was dominated by the blue sky. On one side we could see the bay cutting into the mountains and on the other a steep forested hill rose from the Mediterranean. We could see other towers on other points in the distance.

We stayed in a Catholic convent all week (did I not mention that?) and when I asked Father Joseph if the ancient sites were good to visit he said, “Well, they’re ok if you’re interested rocks and old stuff.” (well, yeah, actually I am). Later, after a disappointing experience looking for a 4000-year-old castle without success, I wondered why I’m drawn to the old stones – why care?

By standing where they stood or touching the cold stone they had shaped I think I’m hoping to understand how they had thought. What drove them to build a wall climbing the side of a hill and is that a piece of being human that I could still understand? Maybe by touching that stone I’d tap into something fundamental to the human experience that I’m missing now.

Being a human today is not what it was like to be human then. When I’m touching a stone, as hard as I try it’s difficult to forget my place in time. Some day I’d like to meditate in a place like that and see where it takes me. Meditation is for clearing the mind but I want my mind to be refilled with the mind that built those walls. What was that place? Maybe I’d need drugs instead. It’s sad that those minds are extinct.

God, everything I write is depressing. Sorry.

Anyway, we’re stuck in Ajaccio because we’re low on gas and there’s a gas workers’ strike (so the stations are empty too) and the protestors have blocked the port. The talks aren’t going well, apparently, so we don’t know how long we’ll be here.

by Mike

I woke up at 8:35 to go to mass this morning, I brought my camera thinking there might be some good pictures but of course I was over ambitious… I’m not going to take pictures during a church service. I did take a video, though. It was of the choir from Porto Vecchio singing during the mass – it was apparently a special occasion to have them there, so I’m glad we caught it. The service would have been pretty dry without, I’m sure.

I’ve been unimpressed with this church. I guess I shouldn’t have expected much since we are staying in a convent – it’s not going to be revolutionary – but there seems to be an enormous disconnect between the Fathers and real life.

Father Joseph was skeptical of me at first, probably because I rang during lunch, but then he warmed when Azure showed up. I told him we were here to learn. I think when I said that he understood me to mean that I wanted to learn about Christ and Christianity. Of course I’m way more curious about the life of a Catholic priest living in a convent, but it didn’t translate.

I asked whether he’d studied Judaism and Islam, two religions based on the same god and the same core texts. He said he had, but he was dismissive of them, saying essentially that the Jews had missed the boat and then he downplayed Mohammad’s importance. It sounded silly from where I was sitting. Here’s how he sounded from my perspective: A guy handed people a book from god and it was ok at the time. Then another guy came along and amended that book and added his own stuff and only fools didn’t follow. Then a third guy came along and amended that book and added his own stuff and only fools did follow. It sounded childish, narrow-minded.

I told him we were going to a prehistoric site that day and asked if it was good. “Well, it’s fine if you’re interested in rocks and old stuff.” (Which, actually, I am). I asked him what he was interested in. He pointed to the beautiful blue sky and the sun.
“The sun?”
“God.”
“Oh, right.”

His lectures to us were in line with what I understand of traditional Christianity: “People say that the earth was created long ago and life formed slowly, but what force drove it? There must have been some force.” “I live to serve others. You need to ask yourself, are you doing something for others or for yourself? If it’s for yourself, it’s egoism.” “Some people think that when you die that’s it, you disappear, but I believe part of us lives forever.” “My life is about knowing god. I aim to reject all material comforts.”

We got one glimpse into their part of the convent and it felt like sneaking into the teachers’ lounge. Everything was extremely clean, extremely organized. He showed us the sun room and it took our breaths away – the sun room had the best view we’d seen of the town and valley, and it must be the best you can find without renting a helicopter. The convent is perched on the side of a hill and the priests’ quarters stick out a little farther for unobstructed 180 degree views. The sun room was bright when the rest of the convent was dark, but what caught our attention was on the table and window sills – there were a dozen orchids staring at us appearing simultaneously fragile and stately and defiant and precious. It didn’t seem right for him to have orchids after what he repeated about materialism.

His office, actually, was the only place that wasn’t neat. Papers were spread on the desk as he prepared his Sunday sermon. I asked what the sermon would be about. “Well, it’s about the gospels.” Well, what’s the subject? “The teachings of Jesus… here,” he handed me a small book, almost a pamphlet. “Every church in the world follows this book so every Sunday you get the same message no matter which church you go to.” I opened the book which was organized by date. It was just excerpts from the bible, as far as I could tell.

This happened again and again when talking to him – I’d ask for perspective or an interpretation or insight and he’d defer to something like, “Well, I reject materials and try to live simply. I’ve made my choice to follow God. Other people make other choices, but you can’t go around changing your mind.” That last statement, ‘you can’t go around changing your mind,’ got under my skin. It’s either ignorance or stubbornness.

–

The first piece read at Mass today was about Adam and Eve getting expelled from the Garden of Eden for choosing to pursue knowledge. I looked at our, “we just want to learn” statement a little differently. I have two aims when I travel: To learn and to experience (which teaches). It makes my life look incredibly at odds with the aims of the Church. If the apple represented the forbidden fruits of knowledge, then humans were rejected from the Garden of Eden for satisfying their curiosity (learning) and lust (experiencing).

The Mass was bland, uninspiring, he didn’t say anything about real life and in general it looked like he was trying to project authority. Here are the quotes I wrote down: “Readjust your attitude during these 40 days.” (before Easter), “You are made in God’s image.” “Separate your heart from materials.” “Spread the Good News to your neighbors.”

The Mass was conducted in such simple words that I could understand almost everything. The message I received from our week at the church is one that I wasn’t expecting: “Don’t question things. Let God take care of it.” I’m open to talking about religious philosophies (it’s where the rubber meets the road, after all) but not if it’s without critique. Not if I’m simply told to “have faith.” I guess I don’t.

(By the way – If anyone [like Fred, especially] has some insight on the apple story I’d welcome critical comments).

by Mike

So, the convent isn’t perfect, but it’s cheap! which makes up for everything. Azure mentioned the creepy statues, but also the heat goes off at 10pm (for which they’ve given us extra blankets) and 10pm is also the curfew. There’s no bathroom in the room, but there is a sink, and that covers 80% of what you’d do in a bathroom anyway. And we sleep in two single beds, which we’ve pushed together. We’ve managed.

It’s tough to find cheap accomodation on Corsica, the whole thing is set up for rich German tourists. After striking out for a while in Sartene I walked into the old town and stopped under a pair of women talking on a balcony and told them we needed a room.
“Ah, my aunt has a room, do you want me to ask?”
“Great, yes”
“AY!” She yelled down the narrow street, and it echoed. “AY!” The aunt didn’t answer, so the lady went down the stairs to the street, around the corner and walked in a door. “This guy wants a room, is anyone staying with you?” Here on Corsica they speak a really choppy French, almost like Italian, and the French these women spoke sounded like it was coming through a megaphone through a lawnmower.
I was shown a room that was 60 Euros (too much) and not perfect. So after consulting with Azure I went back and told them it wouldn’t work.
“Sorry, we want access to a kitchen.”
“HE WANTS ACCESS TO A KITCHEN.”
“HE WANTS A KITCHEN? MAYBE MARIE HAS A ROOM!” I was standing on the street with the aunt and she was shouting at her neice who was around the corner of the building, up two flights of stairs and back on her balcony. It felt like the small old town was their house.
“CAN YOU CALL HER?”
“YEAH, I’LL CALL HER! HEY, COME UP HERE!” I went up to the lady’s balcony where she called her cousin who didn’t have a room.
“ASK HIM HOW MUCH HE WANTS TO SPEND.”
“How much do you want to spend?”
“As little as possible, we don’t-”
“AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE!”
“AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE?”
“YEAH!”
“WHAT ABOUT PIERRE?”
“Oh, maybe Pierre has a room, I’ll try him.”
“Ok.”
“OH, PIERRE DOESN’T HAVE A KITCHEN.”
“She doesn’t think Pierre has a kitchen.”
“Ok.”
“HAS HE TRIED THE CONVENT?” the aunt yelled up.
“Have you tried the convent?” I didn’t know the word for convent, ‘couvent’ – I thought maybe they were talking about a town.
“No, I don’t know anything about it.”
“HAS HE TRIED THE CONVENT?”
“Excuse me, how do you spell, ‘couve-’”
“NO, HE HASN’T TRIED IT! DO THEY HAVE A KITCHEN?”
“I THINK IT HAS A KITCHEN”
“WHAT?”
“I THINK IT HAS A KITCHEN!”
“She thinks it has a kitchen.”
“BUT YOU HAVE TO BE IN BY 10.”
“But you have to be in by 10. Is it a problem?”
“Oh, it’s not a problem, we don’t make parties or anything.”
“DOES HE KNOW HE HAS TO BE IN BY 10?”
“HE DOESN’T MAKE PARTIES”
“WHAT?”
“HE SAID HE DOESN’T MAKE PARTIES!”
I decided to get things moving along. “Great, thank you so much, That sounds perfect. So where is it?”
She grabbed my arm and led me down the stairs, past her aunt and to the bottom of the road, and she pointed up. “See the church?” Yep. “It’s just on the side. Tell them Mme. Bonne sent you.”

I went back to Azure. “I think I got a lead.”

Narrated by Mike

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYVbKcqR1yk&hl=en&fs=1]

Top to bottom: The guys sitting on the ledge the day before, Mike at the cafe on the plaza in Sartene, Mike’s favorite dog, Me checking out some good ears, The scene, Beagles like to sleep on each other, The perfect valley

by Azure

Today, Sunday (actually now it is yesterday) we decided to make it a no scooting day. We have been riding from morning until night everyday since we got to Corsica. We’ve seen a ton and done some nice hikes, but it is exhausting after a week straight. Luckily, it is also the only day that it has rained hard since we got here. Perfect. In the morning we decided to go to mass, since we are staying in the church. It was my 4th time attending a church service and honestly I would describe it as “Same-same.”

After church, we went to the center square for coffee. We sat and wrote and hung out for a couple hours until lunch. We have been asking for recommendations from everyone about where to eat and so we went to a place that a couple people had mentioned. We sat down and the woman working was initially semi-kind to us. When we asked what something was and it was clear that we were not french, she was initially cold. We ordered the leg of lamb, brocciu cannelloni and a caraf of wine. We had been talking about how usually when we eat out, it is a little disappointing. We usually order a pasta that we could have made at home for a third of the price or a salad that is sub-par, but the food was delicious. All of it.

We were very content and by the time the dessert came, we were the only people in the restaurant. With much persistence and attempts at conversation, the woman finally came over to talk with us at length. The day before we had been driving back from the other side of the island and saw a bunch of men sitting on a ledge looking at something. We had stopped and asked what was going on and found out that they were hunting for wild boars. Apparently there were dogs in the valley chasing boars and they were waiting for them to return. We had gotten back on the scooter and around the next corner, there were probably 100 more guys and families doing the same thing. We had so many questions about this, but our usual market wasn’t open and so we had to ask elsewhere–thus the woman at the restaurant.

The woman at the restaurant ended up warming up to us. She eventually gave us her recipe for cream of limoncello, which she says she never gives out and answered all of our questions about the hunters. How many boars are out there? If there are 100 hunters and one boar, how do they not shoot each other? Who gets to keep the boar? and so on. It turns out that they aren’t actually hunting, they are just sending the dogs out to see which dogs are the best. It is actually more like a dog show. And, it only happens once a year. We had to go!

So, we got on the scooter even though we said we wouldn’t and rode the 45 minutes to a middle of nowhere town called Serragia through our favorite valley, which, when we rode through it for the first time, Mike remarked that it seemed out of a fantasy. Even with the gray day, the route was just as beautiful as it always is.

When we pulled in to the dog show, the scene was this…a lot of men dressed in camouflage gear hanging around talking to each other. To the left were 8 or so temporary dog pens. Each pen had a different team of dogs in it, each team was purebred, but the breeds of the teams were not the same. There were two teams of tall beagles, one of dachshunds, two hound looking breeds and two of the shaggy toy looking breeds. I really didn’t care about the ones that weren’t beagles or hounds. On the right side of the road there was a huge tent set up. Inside the tent, a guy was preparing mutton for 80, there were a few makeshift bars set up with help yourself liquor and there was also a guy outside selling handmade hunting knives. It was quite the scene and we stuck out immediately.

A woman walked by and asked if we were German. Everyone on Corsica thinks we’re German. Apparently a lot of Germans come here and (this is the good part) every time we tell them that we are actually Americans, they get really interested and are really nice to us. I don’t think many Americans come here and I think they are also happy about our new president. The woman showed immediate enthusiasm and out in the middle of Corsica in a town of about 40 people, we shared a moment of excitement about Obama.

One guy that was tending to the fire, a large burn pile that would later cook the food, came over and talked to us. He showed us around and made us feel comfortable in the tent, even though we were obviously outsiders and he explained things to us. The prize is not money or getting to keep the boar. Again, there is no actual boar caught during this weekend, but the price of your dogs if you win the competition goes up. He said one dog goes for at least E500. I know this is a lot of money, but seeing as though people spend $2,000 on yippy dogs in the States, I thought this was a good deal, I mean these dogs can find you a months worth of boar for your whole family.

After about 20 minutes and a stop at the candy cake he went back to the fire. We debated whether to stay for dinner or not, but decided that we wouldn’t be able to make the ride back in the dark after the meal. Our scooter skills are good, but we don’t like to push it too much. We drove back to town and then to our internet cafe. All the regulars were there and the bartender gave us free drinks again. It was a good day.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syrabmSu5lU&hl=en&fs=1]

Wednesday was beautiful. We rode all day, mostly through fields. Here is our route.

… comme l’isle.

by Azure

Last Monday (2/23), we drove to Sartene from Bonifacio. We had found the only hotel in Bonifacio after the longish drive from Bastia where the ferry dropped us off on Sunday morning. We stayed two nights in Bonifacio, where we could see Sardinia from the city walls. There wasn’t much going on there, most likely because it was a Sunday when we arrived, but also as we found out on Monday, there just aren’t a ton of people living in Bonifacio and it is pretty shut down when the tourists aren’t there. That made Sartene a welcome change for us and when we pulled in during lunch on Monday. The restaurants on the plaza were filled with young people. Apparently Sartene has a University and is also considered by the Corsican author, Prosper Merimee the most Corsican of Corsican towns. We decided that Sartene was where we wanted to spend the bulk of our time in southern Corsica and decided to return the following day and find a place.

On the island, most of the hotels run about E60 a night if you are lucky. The other option is to stay in something called a “chambre d’hote” which is usually either in someone’s home or a renovated portion of a building meant for tourists. After trying all the places listed that were barely in our price range, we decided to stop and eat lunch. It was the first really warm day on the island, but as we would find out later, Sartene gets sun when other parts of the island are cold and cloudy. I wanted to soak it up, so I turned my face to the south and closed my eyes. Mike on the other hand is much more proactive about finding things. He can’t just sit in the sun when we don’t have a place to sleep, so he went walking around to find us a hotel or room. He had been gone about 20 minutes, when he returned with the news that he had found a place fr E60 a night in a woman’s house. He had found her niece on the street and had asked. We talked briefly and since E60 was actually over our whole days budget (yes, we are THAT cheap!), I turned my face back to the sun. Mike said “Are you just going to sit here until I come back with better news?” and I said “I guess so.”

About 10 minutes later, he did. He had gone back to the ladies in the street and they had told him that we could stay in a convent for half the price of the room. It was perfect timing, since the sun was going behind a cloud anyway, so we drove over to the convent and knocked on the door. The sun had returned, so again, I sat and let my face get hot while Mike went in. When he called me over and we walked in to the dark stone church, I got really excited because it was in all honesty a lot creepy. The hall to the room had no lights except for the mary statue and it smelled old. When Mike asked what I thought, I gave an emphatic thumbs up, knowing it would at least be an experience.

So now, we found ourselves staying in a convent with four Fathers (or Brothers as they refer to each other) and some creepy paintings and statues. All of the depictions of the figures look really really sad. To get to our room you enter through a small door to the right of the church. You ring Father Joseph and he greets you at the door. As you step in, an illuminated statue of Mary is to your left and the hallway is dark. There aren’t any lights until you get to our room. You can turn them on right next to the statue of St Francis of Azzizi (my Jewish boyfriend has to tell me who all of the characters are) looking sad, which is right next to the staircase, which houses a ten foot painting of Jesus on the cross floating above another saint. There are two separate beds in our room and a painting of Mary and baby Jesus hangs above them. When you look out the window, immediately below is the garden, which is beautiful and it overlooks pastures and the valley. If you look straight out our window however, you look directly at the old cemetery. There are about 7 rooms down the hall, but we are the only people staying here other than the four fathers. They inhabit a different area, which we saw today has spectacular views and a great kitchen. If you want to go to the bathroom from our room, you must walk all the way down the hall in partial darkness to the last door, all the while looking at statues of religious figures. The light for the hall is right next to our room and is timed, so when you get done using the bathroom, you have to walk back in the dark, except of course the good old illuminated statues.

I know we took this place because we knew it would push us, Mike being Jewish and I having no religious affiliations. Mike told Father Joseph on the first day that we were here to learn, though I think Mike was talking about their way of life and Father Joseph interprets it as wanting to learn about the Catholic church, so upon each meeting, we get to hear more and more about Christianity and giving up worldly possessions. It’s not so bad for me, I just want to get better at French, but Mike actually has to understand.

The hardest thing for me has been my partial understanding of the church and my literal fear of religious figures. For the first few days, I really felt like they were looking at me. When Mike wanted to push the beds together, I looked up at the Mary painting and thought about her watching us. I now deal with it well though, in the same way I dealt with the really creepy room in our house in Seattle which I am sure houses some lost souls. I talk to them like they are current day people. It really helps me, so much so that I can walk unattended down the hall to the bathroom without getting freaked out.

I’ll say things like when we walk in I’ll say “Hey Mary, hows it going? Thanks for keeping this hall dimly lit with your wreath of lights.”

And in the stairs as I go to the kitchen, “Whoa Jesus, it must be warmer there than in my room, cus I’m wearing like eight layers right now and you’ve only got a loin cloth on.”

The Mary above our beds started out formal, “Hey Mary, good looking kid you’ve got there. Why so sad, does he need a diaper change? Should I get that for you? No, you like servitude? Suit yourself. Oh and by the way, thanks for watching me sleep I love it. It makes me feel awesome.” But now, she is sort of a mediator and we sometimes include her in what’s going on. The other day I turned around and Mike was changing and he was only wearing his fanny pack. Before, I would have been really embarrassed, but I just looked at Mary and said, “Mary, what would you do with a boy like that?” to which Mike got really excited and started jumping around, yelling at Mary, “You can’t tame me, tell her you can’t tame me. You can’t tame a hawk.” I am not really ashamed to say, it goes like this quite often. There are a lot of statues and no one else staying in the church, so they keep us company. Our beds are now pushed together and Mary doesn’t seem to mind, she’s just taking care of her kid, you know. We all gotta do what we gotta do.

by Mike

Azure doesn’t remember the cemetery from the story I wrote. One of my formative travel experiences was here in Pinareddu in 2001 and I’d written a short story in which the cemetery served as a landmark.

She remembers a lot of the other parts of the story though, even one I’d forgotten – the ‘storm.’ On my first night here, sleeping alone in Francois’ empty house, I was terrified as I listened to the wind bang the shutters against the walls all night. It wasn’t even a storm really, just a windy night, but it was so dark and I was so alone that I threw my headphones on, took a sleeping pill and hid under a pillow as soon as the noises started. It was probably 8pm or something. Azure also remembers the part where I walked home from town at night and two dogs came out of the black to bark at me like they were going for the throat. I was sure they were going to kill me, I just about shit myself and ran to the house and probably took another sleeping pill under a pillow.

Azure’s on the back of the scooter as we drive through town and retrace the story. Those damn dogs are still there at the bottom of the hill and farther up I point through the trees to a white balcony, “That’s the room I slept in.” It’s high on the hill above Pinareddu with a complete view of the town, bay and sea.

I take Azure up the road toward Francois’ brother’s house and we stand outside the gate. “I walked into his house and the walls were covered in moths, his dogs were jumping up and snapping at moths under the ceiling fan.” When I had finally arrived on Corsica, after weeks of fantasizing, I was overwhelmed by the experience of travel and this house was folded into the stature of those feelings. It remained large through relived memories and retold stories, but now with Azure it looks small.

My memories of Pinareddu are exhausted so we turn around. We drive down the hill, past Francois’ home, past the beach and the two restaurants and past the cemetery.

“Do you remember the cemetery?” She doesn’t.

Francois had cancer and was dying when he drew the map on a napkin for me. We were at his kitchen table in Bellevue before my first big trip. He said, “The cemetery is the first thing you’ll see coming into Pinareddu, you’ll pass it there on the right.” I could see he was walking the path in his mind as he drew the map, rewalking it, reliving memories from his ancestral fishing village. The black lines ran from Bellevue to Paris to Nice to Bastia and to Ste. Lucia. Then another set of lines showed the five kilometers down to the town, the cemetery and then the road to his brother’s house where I would find a key to Francois’ house. I could stay there if I could get there. It seemed impossibly distant. He must have known that he would never come back. He was too sick.

I made it to Paris and I made it to Nice. Then I made it to Bastia and finally to Ste. Lucia. I was thinking of him as I started walking the winding road, I retraced the lines for him five kilometers down toward the sea and Pinareddu. I imagined that from Bellevue, he was walking through me and looking at the Mediterranean and smelling the trees again. He was passing the cemetery on the right again, and he recognized the people at the restaurants and he surveyed the beach. I imagined him walking past the dogs up the hill to his brother’s house for the key. Then we walked to his empty home where he could remember the smell of the trees and he knew the shutters banged at night and he could see the sea from the balcony.

Though the cemetery was just a landmark on the map, I’m sure his grandparents are buried there and their parents. I wondered if, as he walked the town in his mind for the last time, he expected to be buried there himself. He died that summer. He gave me a complicated gift that sparked a new direction in my own life and I never thanked him. Francois, at the end of his life, gave me a map and with it the promise of keys in far away places.

We just drove around the Southwest coast of Corsica (the area to the north of Sartene, for anyone ambitious enough to follow at home. Here’s a map.) We looked at a stretch of 20 km we’d have to drive and Azure said, “There’s nothing there….” the map was emptyish.

Here’s what was there:
- There was a white horse in a little grassy area in front of a stone shed. The shed was on the side of the mountain and had an amazing view. All of these things had views, so assume that they did.
- There were large stone walls that were falling apart, covered in moss. They were so large they stood out compared to all the other ones we see.
- There were a few scattered cemeteries with amazing views of the valley. There was one grave that didn’t have a headstone or a cross but two small slabs of rock like bookends and a pile of rocks in between.
- There were a lot of trees, it was totally forested. Half the ride was on the north side of the ridge and half on the south. It was the late afternoon, so the valleys were illuminated.
- There was a small vigil on the side of the road – a red candle with a picture of the Virgin Mary.
- There was the most perfect stone wall we’ve seen – all the little rocks fit perfectly in the large ones and it was white.

This area is so rich in secrets. There are so many things that we want to take pictures of but just pass because if we stopped for everything it would take an hour to go a mile, and that’s just on the roadside.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKo73GWx8b8&hl=en&fs=1]

by Azure

Mike wanted me to talk about my first big ride (we drove from Nice to Toulon). I think he just wants to prove that he wasn’t being a baby when he was saying how tiring it was riding the scooter from Paris to Nice. I never thought he was, but in case there is any doubt, I’ll confirm, it is hard riding 4 hours on a scooter and I wasn’t even driving. It gets cold at the end, you get tired and especially going into cities, the signs all point to the highways, so you end up driving around and around trying to avoid them. It didn’t jade me against scootering though, two days later, we went on a 5 hour sightseeing trip and it was awesome! I think it feels different knowing you have to get somewhere versus wanting to see something. Even after 5 hours of looking, I could have done more.

The video above is from our loop, not my first big ride. I didn’t take any photos on it, since I was sick and tired. The video is at sunset north of Toulon. Mike referenced it in a previous post.

by Azure

We took the night ferry to Corsica last night. I love riding big ferris, especially at night. They are like second hand cruise ships, with bars and cafes and sleeping cabins. Of course we were too cheap to spring for a cabin, but they wouldn’t let us opt for nothing, so we ended up with something called a “pullman” which Mike thought was going to be similar to a hurricane Katrina refugee bed, but ended up being like a big airplane seat. The problem was that they were in the center of the ship and it always freaks me out not to have a window, maybe something about the movie “Titanic”. When we got on, we saw people (seemingly upstanding citizens, in fact) reserving the large cushy benches in the dining areas. We soon caught on that you could really just sleep anywhere, so we searched out the only soft places left, which were the big benches right in front of the snack bar. A whole family was spread out on both sides of one and we took one side of the other. We got to lay flat and slept uninterrupted until 6am when the captain came over the loud speaker saying everyone had to get out of their rooms. It ended up being perfect for us and we now know that we don’t even need to book those silly pullmans.

I got to see my first sunrise over the ocean and we were able to hop on the scooter and ride down the coast in the morning light. For a long while there were no clouds in the sky. The cherry blossoms are coming out already and some parts of the drive smelled so sweet. It was a beautiful day.

SUNRISE!