So what does one do when a French friend proposes a hike in the Vosges that would be “all day long” but should be fun and beautiful and cheaply offered through the university’s sports center?
Well, if you’re me, you respond with an excited yes, text Martina to invite her along, and tell yourself 7:20 isn’t all that early to be at the train station after a night out at a concert. Then you pack half a picnic (because you’re smart, and you coordinated the other half with Martina), you remember to pack your rain jacket because the forecast warned you’d need it, and you try on your “kind of hiking shoes,” figuring today would be a good day to really put them to the test, since they’ve only done city stints up until this point.
What you neglect to do is go on the website and read about everything you need to bring, get your bearings as to where exactly you’ll be hiking and how long it’s really going to be. And you neglect to bring your moleskin because it’s frickin 6:30 in the morning and thinking is difficult.
The result? Beautiful, amazing views, surprising synchronicities... and the most paralyzing, painful, 21 kilometers / ~ 12 miles up and down a mountain, how-the-hell-am-I-going-to-finish-this kind of hike you’ve ever taken.
When Albane invited Martina and I for a “day in the Vosges,” neither she nor we were prepared for the day that was to follow. Little did we realize that the hikes offered through the university, while open to everyone, are frequented by seasoned hikers that often do day-long jaunts every weekend, and lead by a professor who considers a “fast clip” to be the default method for steep accents and rock-laden down-hills. And, though I really didn’t have any other option considering my meager wardrobe here, my shoes pretty much failed the test within the first hour. Burning blisters after the very first uphill, I had six hours to go and my moleskin was biding its useless time back in my Strasbourg apartment. Oy.
But who’s complaining? We came in ignorant, but – somehow – managed to make it through the entire 7 hours of nearly-non-stop trekking, even though we were always the last three and by the middle of the day the leading prof seemed a bit peeved to have to wait for us at every fork in the road. A lesson in knowing what to expect, perhaps... though I must say, if I had known within that first hour how long and how fast and how far up we’d be going, my morale would not have held up as long as it did. And in the end, legs like deadweights, heel blisters the size of half-dollars, and exhausted as anything, we were pretty damn proud that we’d made it... especially when one of the seasoned hiker sat down next to us at the bus stop and exclaimed (in French equivalent): “Man... that was a tough one...”
The hike took us from the village of Saint-Marie-aux-Mines up one side of the valley’s peaks, where we saw shin-high rock markers with a “D” on one side and an “F” on the other, denoting the old German-French border back in the days between 1870 and the end of the first world war, when Alsace belonged to “Deutschland.” The prof leading us explained that, when Alsace was returned to France, the engraved “D”s had been shaved down to acknowledge France’s ownership... but many were then re-etched by scads of disgruntled Alsatians who were nostalgic for their German identity (remember: this was pre-Nazi, and German Alsace had been a wonderfully wealthy and prosperous place prior to the first world war).
During the first hour, we also saw the remnants of old trenches from World War I, stone bunkers peaking out from under our trail, and trees commemorating the final “liberation” of the region. While the evidence of bunkers disappeared as we traversed the valley to mount the other rim, the longer I climbed with burning blisters, protesting legs, battling rain and wind with no end in site, the more I tried to imagine fighting a battle along the steep slopes, weighed down with gear and weapons, never knowing what the next day would bring. I thought about all the times in history when people have been made to walk for miles upon miles, hours upon hours, days upon days, with death the only “relief.” And I couldn’t begin to comprehend how...
After about three hours of what felt like a veritable march through the mountains, we came upon one of the many “farm-inns” or “ferme-auberges” in the region that cater to hikers and the like with cheap, hot meals and, if need be, a place to sleep. While we’d all packed our own food, we were aloud to pile around one of the long wooden tables and eat, sheltered from the rain, as long as we bought a drink (or more) from the menu. I chose to try the farm’s home-made yogurt (“yaourt maison”), went over to the refrigerated unit to pick out my flavor, and what d’ya know... lined up below my choice of honey, vanilla, Mirabelle, and raspberry yogurts was the goat cheese à la Gaspard! The familiar “Chèvrerie des Embetchés” label stared back at me, and I couldn’t help but get excited to see it even though it made sense that’d it’d be offered there... Lapoutroie was just on the other side of the ridge, and the farm-inn itself is situated at the edge of Le Bonhomme, one of the five villages in the Lapoutroie “canton” (district).
But wait... no, it WAS special that it was there, because the woman who ran the farm then proceeded to mention that her nephew worked on the farm... “Is it Gaspard?” I inquired, disbelieving the coincidence and then reminding myself that I am in a rather small commune of villages, and it really all makes perfect sense that people would be related... “No, no, mais c’est chez Gaspard...” Okay, so I didn’t just meet Gaspard’s aunt, but still... I met the aunt of one of his co-workers on a random hike that just happened to be kind of in his area. In any case, it was kind of exciting.
There were other exciting synchronicities and random “only in a village region” type things that came to light during the course of the day...
At one point we heard this terrible racket that sounded somewhat like a crib full of babies being maimed by wild animals... (seriously). As we rounded the bend, we came face to face with a pack of not-so-wild (and thankfully baby-less) dogs – mostly husky-like in breed – being hitched up to a wheeled contraption by a helmeted mother, father, and looked-to-be-about five years old boy. It took a second to get past the whining cacophony to realize that the contraption was a kind of summer-time dog-sled with wheels... and a good 10 minutes after we passed them the sound of pounding paws had us jumping to the side of the trail to let the lighting-fast ensemble jet past, the father standing up in back steering, and the mom and son strapped into the front seats with smiling concentration lighting up their faces. Sweet.
The second synronicity that came to light was the realization that, while the hike was advertised as exploring the Vallée de la Lipvrette, the day’s main goal was to mount one of the higher peaks of the Vosges in the region, le Brézouard (1228 meters, or nearly 4,000 feet). As soon as I heard the name, my memory jogged back the presentation I’d given on Lapoutroie and the literature I’d read about the region. Le Brézouard... if I was remembering correctly, that was the same peak – or set of three, actually – that one could reach from Lapoutroie. In which case, it was also the same one that potentially holds a mysterious piece of Tichenor family heritage... or just a really cool coincidence.
Let me explain...
As part of my village project on Lapoutroie, I wrote to the owner of the local “Musée des Eaux-de-vie” (Brandy Museum) to try and make a contact within the village. He mentioned he had some books on the region and would make photocopies for me to read when I came. While my stop by the museum only turned out to be a brief (and slightly hung over from the night before...) 10 minutes of exchange, M. René Miscault stuck to his word and brought down a good 15 pages of photocopies for me, from literature dating from the 1960s back to 1849! A couple days before my presentation, I sat down to do some research... and was hit with a double take a mere four pages into the reading.
There, in an instructive description of a hike out of Lapoutroie and up Le Brézouard, was my name. Well, almost. The text read as follows:
“Ne pas oublier de faire le détour, à gauche, jusqu’au sommet même de la roche. Nous avons admiré le Tchènor: ce n’est qu’une réduction de la roche où nous sommes...”
“Don’t forget to take a detour, to the left, until your reach the sommet of the same rock/crag. We’ve (just) admired the ‘Tchènor’: it’s nothing but a reduction of the rock we’re on...”
Tchènor?? So sure, there’s an ‘i’ missing and an accent added, but this had to be the first time I saw something so close to my family name used for anything other than... well, a family name. After an excited long-distance call to my dad from my cell phone (that’s one way to loose your month’s credits fast), I began to skim the rest of the literature, in search of an explanation. Sure enough, I found the word another three times, dating back as far as the 1849 dictionary of terms, in which it was described as a “charnier” in French, and explained to have been a place (back in 1849...) where one “often finds human bone remains.” Um... okay. But what does the French word “charnier” mean? My trusty French dictionary provided me with an exhilarating definition:
“A pit where one piles corpses in large numbers”
So... my name means “mass grave”????
The mystery is, as of yet, unsolved... I’m hoping to get on the trail by writing to the Brandy Museum’s owner again and asking him... something? I’m not sure what more I want to know... the name comes from the local language, le “patois Welche” (or “foreign dialect”), which is totally unrelated to Alsatian and based on Celtic and Latin roots. Not sure if I can really find any relation between our family name and this random word in a dying dialect that paints such a lovely picture of our origins... an old family of french grave diggers, perhaps? Who knows...
The whole point of this side-track – besides the utterly morbid synchronicity of it – is that, as the group of us hikers finally reached the height of the peak and stood, fighting against the wind and looking out over the lush green valley, I made the connection between the mountain I was standing on – Le Brézouard – and the literature I’d read. This was the mountain that held my name!! Given, we didn’t come up the Lapoutroie side and thus didn’t pass this mysterious “Tchènor” point (the leading prof had never heard of it...), but still! Talk about synchronicity!
The one day i happened to be invited to a hike that happened to be in the same region that I happened to do my project one in which I happened to find this strange synchronicity with my name... and the hike happened to go to the top of the very mountain that held the mystery name itself!
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After finally making it back to the beauty of our respective apartments (and showers!) at 19h (7pm), Martina and I met up again around 8:30 – thanks to our bikes, as walking any farther was pretty much out of the question – to eat a traditional, celebratory dinner in a locally recommended Alsatian restaurant. While I’ve had the privilege of eating damn good Alsatian food rather frequently chez moi, Martina had yet to really eat an Alsatian meal... and she was craving Choucroute (Sauerkraut), one of the local specialties that varies from its German counterpart in the kind of meat it piles onto its cooked cabbage.
Alsace is the land of “Charcuterie”, a special word that refers to every kind of something you can imagine eating that comes from a pig. As far as I know, there is no equivalent in the English language, much less individual neighborhood stores that specialize in selling only pig-products, which are EVERYWHERE around Alsace.
In any case, our goal to eat traditional Alsatian was completely fulfilled sitting in this cute restaurant, surrounded by locals speaking the language, accompanied by a demi-litre of some top-quality Alsatian white wine (Pinot Blanc). For the entrée (which actually means what it should mean: the “entering” dish, or appetizer), we exchanged a knowing glance and ordered what we had both promised to try before leaving France: Escargot (snails...).
Done “Alsatian-style” with garlic, butter, and tons of parsley, we decided to share the platter of six, so that if we just couldn’t do it, we wouldn’t have the usual twelve staring us mockingly in the face. As it turned out, we had no problem finishing of the dish! As my host mom later exclaimed, they’re delicious... as long as you don’t really look at what you’re eating. It was enough to have to dig the little fork into the shell and pull out the “meat”... and yes, it’s totally the sauce that makes them great, so if you’re ever going to try the delicacy, make sure it’s just that... a delicacy. You don’t want to eat this kind of thing out of a fast food stand...
Martina enjoyed her Choucroute (which I stole bites of from the side that included my newest meat-addition: sausage!) and I went traditional with a Munster “Tartiflette,” which is essentially a personal-sized casserole with potatoes doused in the local Munster cheese (delicious when cooked, slightly too stinky for my tastes when fresh) and mixed with the local “lardons” or fatty bacon bits which I still haven’t brought myself to really enjoy (even though the ham here is simply heavenly). With a shared dessert of Mirabelle and “Quetche” (special kind of plum) sorbet, we were happy as Alsatian pigs, taken in reverse (i.e. we’d already been slaughtered during the day, and the evening consisted of the delightful stuffing-oneself that one usually associates with the pigs’ pre-slaughter self).
Meeting up with Martina’s Strasbourg-met German-accented friend at the close of the evening, I received one of the highest of a genre of compliment I have now gotten used to: “If you’ll allow me... I mean, it’s not really a compliment to your nationality... but... how... I mean... I just can’t believe you’re an American! I would never have guessed! You speak perfect French!” I assured her that I most certainly did not speak perfect french (a fact that has been growing in evidence since my first days here). And in my head, I knew things would’ve been different if I hadn’t just drunk a quarter bottle of wine (it seriously makes the french flow easier) or spent the entire day talking with a native French speaker (Albane), which makes a HUGE difference. But nonetheless, it was one of those compliments that makes you feel special to have transcended the stereotype, even though you with the stereotype just didn’t exist.
Martina and I make a pretty good french-speaking duo, as neither of us really has the strong accent associated with our nationality, but nonetheless we do have some sort of accent that elicits the question “Where are you from?” Martina’s goal is to become accentless, and she’s certainly closer than I am. But at this point, I’m just happy that people can’t class me as American within the first sentence, or even the first conversation. They often think I’m also german if Martina introduces herself first. I’m not sure exactly what it is... I mean, in english, accents are sexy things! But I can’t help but classify the American french accent as completely “moche” (ugly).
One thing that did set America apart in a positive way... Albane, who’s majoring in English at the university, simply “loves my accent” when I speak English. Huh? Accent? English? But as she explains it, the American english accent is simply coveted over here, while the British, far more common and far more difficult to understand to a foreigner’s ear (including my own...) is considered rather every-day and nothing special. I explained laughingly that the British accent is deemed damn hot over on our side of the Atlantic, and she just couldn’t believe me!
The world is so relative.
And on that note... i bid you “au revoir” till next time (which may not come until after the summer adventures have begun!)
