Unreal.
I have now started two separate
blog posts since the 20th, on two separate occasions, and been
unable (for one reason or another) to finish and post either of them. Lame! The
reason for this is that I’ve been legitimately doing responsible things. You
know; eating, doing homework, sleeping, verb revision, working out, going to
class… sounds boring, eh? Not boring, actually, but notably less exciting to
blog about. Instead, I have ridiculous news for you.
Catherine has invited me to make
macaroons and cookies in her kitchen.
I’m going to type that out one
more time, just in case anyone didn’t catch it.
I am going to bake with Catherine
in her kitchen.
 |
| For reference, this is what the Mediterranean Sea normally looks like. |
I’m aware that I typed in my
little bio box on the side that I was totally wrangling for a chance to learn a
thing or two from Catherine (Who wouldn’t? The woman is an instructor at a
French culinary school.) but I didn’t actually think that would happen! In
fact, it should be noted that now that I’m faced with entering Catherine’s
kitchen to do more than pilfer a spoon, or deposit dishes in the dishwasher,
I’m not actually sure this is a good idea.
Oh… the irony…
She’s very keen on the whole
idea, which is one of the primary reasons I’m convinced I may have just been
adopted. At the very least, I promise to keep you up-to-date on that new
development.
In other news, I was clearly not
a casualty of the sea this past
weekend. On Sunday morning, I was invited to go with Michel and Catherine to
their favourite stretch of sand bordering the Mediterranean
Sea . Accordingly, I packed up my little backpack of beach things
and off we went. It was humid and warm, but the wind was easily 30km/h and the
normally flat, tranquil water had regular waves rolling in. Basically, it looked like the Atlantic looks normally, and for the Med the water was unusually rough.
As a result, I did a lot of
walking-up-and-down-the-beach-with-the-surf-rushing-over-my-toes, and
sitting-in-the-sand-reading, and taking-pictures-of-the-gorgeous-waves.
Please note that none of this
involves swimming.
 |
| This is what the Mediterranean Sea looked like from Thursday of last week until Monday. |
Catherine went in just up to her
waist and was knocked over by the waves. Unsurprisingly, she decided the water
was too rough for swimming and got out. Michel was thrilled with the waves
though, and happily stayed inside the area protected by the breakwater to
bodysurf.
 |
| That's me, standing on a spit of sand that you can normally see at high tide. Sunday, the water was in the process of retreating to a low tide, and the water definitely soaked the bottom half of my dress. It was an interesting walk haha! |
As you can see from the pictures,
it’s not like the sea was trying to trick anyone. It’s not like it was calm one
moment, and then frothing and white the next. That being said, a middle-aged
couple nearby still thought it was a good idea to put on scuba masks and swim
out past the breakwater. I don’t know what they were doing, exactly, but I know
they weren’t wearing flippers, and that they weren’t exactly strong swimmers.
There are two buoys at the beach,
a red one (closer to shore) and a yellow one (well away from the shore). I kind
of assumed that the couple was going to swim out to the red one and back, that
maybe they had set a fitness goal for themselves, or they thought it was normal
for the water to be that agitated. Maybe they thought there would be fish to
see out that far? Either way, Catherine and I watched from the shore, with the
rest of the beach, as the two swimmers went out past the red buoy, and then on
towards the yellow one. We commented to each other that the whole thing looked
like a bad idea. What is starting to horrify me as I sit and write is that I
watched, for an hour, as these two swam out into the water and vanished
into the waves on the horizon.
Monday morning, reports started
coming in on the news stations here. Three dead, five more missing. Seven dead,
three more missing. Nine dead, six more missing. There still isn’t a final
count on how many people drowned last weekend, because there are several
in hospital under close supervision.
How are you supposed to respond
when you’re abroad to a situation like that?
 |
| Report from le Populaire http://www.lepopulaire.fr/limousin/actualite/departement/correze/2013/07/29/parmi-les-victimes-de-noyades-dans-l-herault-un-usselois-de-73-ans-a-peri-a-palavas-1642966.html |
Guys, I’m still not entirely
sure. In Canada ,
I’d have used my smartphone to figure out how to contact the Coast Guard and
report it. There were certainly enough SNSM* helicopters flying overhead that
morning to say it would have been reasonable to do the same in France .
In Canada
though, I’m pretty comfortable in feeling that I have the right to report
something like that. That I’m able to judge when it’s a good idea to report
something verses not report it. I’m also comfortable dealing with the fallout
of messing up a report, or in knowing my surroundings well enough to accurately
describe where I am to someone on the other end of a phone.
 |
| Canadian Search and Rescue (SAR) Coast Guard vessel. Check it out... it's bilingual! http://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/eng/CCG/SAR_Main |
That being said, I don’t have
a smartphone in France .
I’m also not a totally fluid speaker, and I’ve discovered on more than one
occasion that a reaction involving emergency services is often seen as an
overreaction. (Case example 1: drunken brawls in the streets and plazas with
broken bottles apparently don’t merit calling the police. Basically ever. The
only one I observed where the police were called involved a knife, and
four people beating each other with chairs from a nearby restaurant.)
Further, France (and Europe
in general) don’t use 9-11 as their emergency call number. They use an assortment of different numbers depending on the service you want. Which I didn't have memorized at the time. (I would have ended up calling SAMU, which wasn't what was needed...) The organization of
the emergency services system is different too. Most are actually associated
with the military, and I’m starting to think that it’s the fire department in France that
handles everything the Coast Guard normally does in Canada . The result of the weekend
is that I now know the three main emergency numbers used in France , but that I’m still very
hesitant to use them.
… ah… I’m not entirely sure
where the number 16 went, but I’m sure it’ll come back soon. It’s probably
doing something important.
SAMU (the equivalent of calling
an ambulance) – 15
Police – 17
Pompiers – 18
No comments:
Post a Comment