Festivendanges

The grape harvest is wrapping up here in Sancerre. We have learned that the hills, rocky soil and climate in our area here create a perfect spot to grow grapes.  This makes wine (and tourism) the main industry here. When we first arrived,  tractors pulling wagons full of grapes were a very common site but harvest seems to be wrapping up now. The smells and sites are refreshing breaks from class.

 


We had the, ahem, privilege of being right in the middle of the festival that celebrates the completion of the harvest - called Festivendanges. By right in the middle I mean this was the view from our kitchen window.

In some ways this was nice - free live music right into our apartment and free VIP passes for everybody b/c we had to walk through the concert to get into our own front door (after a bag search by security). Some of the bands were good. The Moorings (mix of celtic / folk / rock) endeared me to the electric violin. However, by law music / noise making is supposed to end at 2 AM. Apparently, this rule is routinely bent and the last band of the Friday night concert, The Flemish Flamingo's, played some odd form of disco consisting almost entirely of deep thumping base.

It was so awful that it reminded me of a sleep deprivation interrogation technique that could be roughly recreated by someone standing outside your closed bedroom door and pounding it every two seconds with their fist hard enough to rattle the lamps and windows. At one point my delirious wife told me she thought she was going to lose her mind.

So, at 2:25 AM I did what any man of the house would do - I got dressed, got my google translator app and waded into the concert. It wasn't pretty but I got my point across. After failing to convince the sound control guy I approached a security officer and pleaded my case. The event director took notice and shut it down for the night.

The next day we visited the event food stand stand right outside our door for lunch and managed to order for everyone in French. The goat cheese on hamburger combo here is amazing! The event director I encountered in the middle of the night passed by and we were able to communicate with some non-verbals, his limited English and my limited French. Hilarious! He was very kind and bought our drinks and really looked out for us through the rest of the festival.