Lyon to Barcelona

Week One of LeapFrog Voyage

Monday, June 9^th, 2008.

Week one of LeapFrog has ‘just come to an end, and what a full on week it was! It included saying goodbye to Benji’s adopted home Lyon alter a good 18 months, tasting calves head, beating the frogs in our first challenge in Nice, meeting up with a 2007 French presidential election candidate, a couple of arguments within the team regarding planning, and a night camping in a farmers field. Luckily we have a couple of days in Barcelona and the sun to catch up.

Hours after some of the team meeting for the first time, from Left, Kiwis Mark and Benji, Frogs Antoine and Max.

The camera got a beating and we have heaps of footage for our first week and we’ll be slowly editing it up as we go – Pilou in Nice being the first one.

lt’s no secret that food is an integral part of French life, culture and even their psyche! Lyon is regarded as the centre of gastronomy in France, but we thought we’d go old school and eat in one of the local ‘Bouchon’ that serve typical food from the Lyon silk weaving days of the 1800s. Only the best is good enough for us so we blew our budget of 30 euros per day in what is reputedly the best Bouchon in Lyon- Le Café des Fédérations. Walking in, there was a poster on the wall of a pig with a slogan in French «Dans le cochon, tout est bon! (In the Pig- everything ’s good!) This should have proved to be a warning sign. My black pudding of pig’s blood wasn’t too bad, but it was the refried cow’s stomach and the calf head that really showed nothing went to waste in the good ol’ days.

Some quotes from the latter two, “its like eating deep fried seasoned sponge” and “arrrggghhh that just slides down the throat like a jellyfish“. To finish it all off, we had a cheese that was nicknamed tue mouche (kills flies). Never again.

Yep, that’s a bit of meat from a calves head dangling from the fork… great first French meal at Lyon’s Cafe de Federations.

The Cote d’Azur didn’t really turn the weather on for us but provided a sunny morning for our first team challenge – Pilou. This street game, unique to Nice, involves juggling an old coin with a plastic tail with your feet and trying to land it in the opposing partner’s square. So on the Promendade des Anglais looking out over the azure blue Mediterranean, the two frogs and two kiwis battled it out for first challenge honours. What struck us the most was the number of old Nicois French locals who came up to us and said. ”Wow- you’re playing Pilou!! I used to play this when I was a kid before the war. It was the only thing we had to do!”

An old 10 centimes coin and a bit of plastic is all you need for the ‘pilo’

Finally before our rest in Barcelona, Max the Frog organised an interview in the small rural town of Mailhac with Gerard Schivardi who presented himself for the 2007 French Presidential elections (and unfortunately lost, with a take of 0.5% of the vote). Driving into this quaint silent French village was straight out of a film , as locals lent out of the windows of their stone houses to have a chat. Meeting Monsieur Schivardi at the tiny town hall, he explained the village had 5000 years of history and we felt a little inferior with our history of less than 200 years in New Zealand. After our interview about his views of French politics today, I asked him what he knew about NZ presuming he would know little,  but he could not have paid us a better compliment. He had met some NZ’ders in France during the Rugby World Cup and summed up his experience of the Kiwi Psyche to us by relating it to the All Blacks rugby team. “An All Black is honest and plays in the spirit of the game. He always gives his complete all no matter what. And if he goes down and is unable to play, you know it’s because he really can’t continue.” We left feeling we have a culture we can be very proud of, despite our country’s relatively young age.

The interview with French Presidential candidate Gerard Shivardi

So with hopefully our first tan of the summer, this week we head to Toulouse to meet a mystery guest (to be revealed soon) and then learn about a French delicacy- Foie Gras (geese liver!) It just better be better than that calves head….!!!