"le Cheval ...... mange?"

Hi. Day 8. It's Eleanore again.

On Rosetta Stone, there was one phrase we learned: "le cheval nage." The horse swims. Today, we were on a walk and we came across a little FAT pony, just grazing on the trail. It looked like a bear at first. Frances thought it looked like a lion. And we finally decided it was a cow-horse. The horse was not swimming. It was eating. "le cheval mange."

We fed it some grass. And then my dad told us to pet it. So we did. And then...my dad said, "You've GOT to get on that pony." So....we did. It was fun and scary because we were so far from the ground. Our feet were two FULL inches from the ground, and the horse was WILD, and at any moment it could have BUCKED us off and sent us sailing to the river below hundreds of feet! Good thing my dad was right there to rescue from MORTAL DANGER!!!!

Phew. Well, then.

Next, there was a steep stone wall, dry-stacked, BARELY held together by a dozen crumbling CENTURIES. It could have cracked and avalanched at ANY second. But my dad offered money, so we scaled it. Up and up and UP we fought, and, finally, clinging by our FINGERNAILS from the top, we SUMMITED!!!! And we got a Euro. That's $1.35 in America, people.

Back on the trail.

We saw: a french farmer dude lifted his full-grown ram by one horn to get him off the ledge he (the ram)had just jumped up to. Have you ever seen a RAM scale a rock wall?

We did: the par course in the park by the river, including what I thought was slalom training (increasing heights of posts separated by a few feet) but soon found out was POST VAULTING. My dad did not do it for his own reasons. But I did. See the video below.

More mortal danger: FRENCH LESSONS WITH THE WOMAN WHO SPEAKS NO ENGLISH!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!!!! Or should I say, "Courir pour la vie!!!!" Yeah, my mom was in heaven, talking with that old, magenta-red haired, pointy-nosed woman behind an acre of DESK with a chalk board behind her which was surrounded by bookshelves that only held dictionaries...FRENCH DICTIONARIES. Torture chamber. GIVE ME DEATH! Frances is really brave with french...she actually speaks french. Speaks it. During the lesson, there was a bowl of candy sitting in front of her. The whole time, I saw her mouth watering and at the end, of course, she asked, IN FRENCH, for a piece. She got one. I did not.

Next, we hunted for wine for my parents. The wine shop owner had a french name, was born in Algeria, but was Swiss.

Thanks for reading about our deadly day.

Eleanore