Last Day in Narbonne

June 13^th –

Most of the family met us at our hotel, and we went in their cars to Narbonne to walk around a street fair and market. It was similar to other street markets I’ve been to, with lots of booths selling an assortment of items. There was a large building where all the food was sold, and we walked inside there for a bit. There was a stand that was selling horse. See? It’s not that uncommon in other parts of the world to eat this meat. I’ll be eating horse later on this week, in fact.

Afterwards, we went back to Hervé and Katia’s house for some lunch. Before that, though, they decided to make a treat for us – escargot! These were not like the escargot I’ve eaten one time back in the U.S. They collected these snails themselves from the yard, and threw them on a pan to show us. Yes, they were alive. Not for long though. I felt kind of bad for them since they were then put onto the stove and cooked. Katia tricked me into thinking that the high pitched noise coming from the pan was the snails screaming. Will calmed me down and told me that it was the water sizzling in the pan, and that snails do not in fact have vocal cords, therefore cannot scream. Then came time to eat them. I tried one, but didn’t really like the taste all that much. Will convinced me to eat one more, and then I was done. Making the snails was kind of a treat especially for us, and Will says that most Americans will never eat these kinds of snails in their lives because the only kind they make in America are Burgogne snails, which are cooked with lots of garlic and butter.

For lunch we ate cassoulet (bean and duck stew), a specialty of Southern France. The entire family was over, so there was a ton of cassoulet. I couldn’t believe how large the pot was that they used to serve it! More and more food kept coming out, and I was so stuffed by the end of it.

Then came time for petanque. I ended up on a team with Will, Katia, and Katia’s mother, Michelle. I had some poor throws, but then also a few good ones. It was pretty fun, and our team ended up winning the first round. We played it again, but this time the other team won. I was getting pretty tired by the end of those two rounds, so I’m glad there wasn’t a tie-breaker.

We had already checked out of our hotel in Narbonne earlier this morning, so we were ready to head to our next location – Carcassonne. It was only about a 35 minute drive, and we are staying in a walled city with little shops and restaurants. It’s actually a really neat place to stay. Our hotel room has a beautiful view, too. We found a little restaurant to have dinner at, and Will and I had the Croque Monsieur sandwich. The shops were all closed by then, so we decided to do our shopping the next day. Will and I were looking forward to having a more relaxing day than we’ve had since coming to Southern France.