Anxieté

Well, thank you, I was fine until you mentioned it.

The problem with my French and living here is that unfortunately, the brain continues to learn.  So despite efforts to avoid improving my French (cheap wine), my old brain is getting better at it.  Fugh.  That doesn't  need translation, does it?

So, it rained all last week.  Then Saturday, we had beautiful weather, 82 degrees.  Our hosts hosted a birthday party - a garden party.  A perfect French garden party - complete with amazing pastries, food, wine, little bi-lingual kids in cute little dresses, appropriate toasts to the birthday grandmother, decorations and perfect weather.  It is disgusting, how easy it seems for them.  My kids made friends with them and spent a pleasant time of it, swimming, catching various animals, games, until the tears started.  Somebody was tired and pissed that her brother pushed her into the pool, where she cut her toe open and now she can't swim.  Oh the wailing.  I pretty much walked over to the tail end of the party and begged the moms to bring their kids back to play with my kids, as my kids are tired of having only each other.  They willingly agreed.  And then clucked their tongues in that very French maman way when I told them we are here for seven weeks.  "Ah!  That eeez a very long time."  Yah, they get it. Cool.  We have new friends.

Back to the important stuff.  So Sunday it started raining.  And I mean - angry rain.  Thunderstorms rolling through (just like last week).  We, being from Oregon, don't let rain stop us from doing anything.  So I made some epic salami sandwiches (getting good at it!) and packed up more bread, cheese, Cokes that cost more than wine, two different kinds of cookies, potato chips (mustard flavor, of course), and pretzels and we packed into the car.

Then the sideways rain started.

And I, being from Oregon, said, "Let's just go to Le Grotte de Betharram."  Turn left.  Your other left.  Follow the signs.  If it is going to sideways angry rain on us, I don't want to be on a tiny train going up a mountain to 6,000 feet and freezing, only to NOT have a view because it is sideways raining.  Nothing gets past this girl!

Everything was fine.  Until I got up front to pay.  And they have this "Act of God" disclosure.  To the French, it doesn't quite read as "Act of God," more "accident."  To translate it, it says "Act of God."  So I paid for our tickets and noticed a blue and white plaque.  Pretty much it stated to wait above ground if you have anxiety (check), claustrophobia (check), it's dark (I'm fine), heart issues (well, I might have heart issues - I know I have hypochondria) and that the tour will take at least 40 minutes.  Okay, so yeah, now that you mention, I do have "anx-eye-ay-tay".  Merci beaucoup for bringing it to my attention.

Okay, now I'm not fine.  It's like a not fun ride at a theme park, or delivering a child. WAIT.  WHAT?!  What did I just commit too?  I was fine right up until the moment I had to make good on it.  So, instead of freaking out or taking a Valium, I conveniently ignored my improving French and pretended I didn't see it. Besides, all the pictures showed caverns beneath the ground, not European sized closet spaces.

I feared the double doors.  Why does everything in this freakin' country have to be French doors?!  Because as we lined up, I noticed the double doors that look shockingly like an elevator. EL-E-VATE, as in, my blood pressure.  YOU MEAN, I need to take an elevator DOWN, like a coal miner?  People die in mines!!

That is a brief version of what went through my mind.  All would have been fine if I could just stop reading French. DAMMIT!

The tour guide showed up, in his cute little beret and grey jacket lined with red.  Probably gave some Act of God warning, and started the tour.  Opened the doors to... a giant six story cavern!  YAY!  And it was cold - 15 degrees celsius!  Woot!  Woot!

The ceiling - you can see where the river ran through it.  It is smooth, and the space next too it looks like a riverbank, no?

The first explorers had to light fires in the cave (duh) and wrote their names with charcoal on the ceiling.

The Grotte de Betharram is the second largest cave system in Europe.  Who knew?  Andre does - my host.  He was happy to hear we went there.  It is all limestone and carved by water.  This was very exciting to the part of my BS that studied geology. And the fact that the caves I've seen are all lava caves, not limestone cave.  I also thought parts of it look like a version of the Narrows in Utah, except no sandstone and wind, just carved by water.

The tour guides speak French and English, and the English speaking group of us were at the end of the group.  They played a French and English version of the commentary and then the guide told us the rest in English. At one point he just spoke in French to the main group and they all laughed and started walking further down into the darkness.  A British dad said to his young daughter, "I wonder what he said."  I turned to her and I said, "Oh.  Something about a dead body they are trying to recover."  Poor girl - her eyes were like saucers.  The dad just laughed.  Whoops.  I let that one out, eh?  See what happens when I'm around the English speaking?  My humor should only befall foreign ears.  International incident... check.

To me this looks like a scene out of Star Wars in Jabba's palace.

There is a river in the bottom of it still, 3-5 degrees celsius.  So the cave dripped on us, all the time, but at least it wasn't angry sideways rain.  There was a tiny boat ride through the river - seriously, maybe 300 feet in a boat with a dragon head that looks like a... oh, a Viking boat.  Kid you not.  We laughed about it.  And then you keep walking and walking.  At one point you pass through the mountain from the Mid-Pyrennees to the Haute Pyrennees.  There is a plaque that marks the transition.  As opposed to being underground, you are mostly in the side of a mountain. They take you straight into the side, drop down, and take you out via... petit train.  Kid you not.  I felt like one of the 7 dwarves.  Or something.  What is it with the little tourist trains?  I thought they walked everywhere in this country.  Le petit trains are everywhere, including one inside of a mountain.  I felt more like a hobbit than ever, the Bilbo one.  I wanted a dragon to come out and a mountain of gold and a bunch of singing dwarves.

Not gonna lie - the pics taken with the eeePhone suck.  No flash photography - to protect the structures (I read that in French).  But what is really impressive was this comment from the Tween: "Yah.  This is kinda cool."

Shut.  Up.  You did NOT just say that.