Allez, allez René!

Other than wild alligators and volcanic eruptions, most things are better experienced in person rather than seen from behind a TV screen. This includes the sea (la mer), salt swamps (les marais salants), and triathlons (les triathlons), all of which I experienced with my host family this weekend in La Baule, a commune/municipality/city on the Atlantic coast (which they call the sea).

I was glad to finally meet Dany and René's two grown children, Caroline (pronounced kah-ro-leen) and Stéfane, and Stéfane's wife Nathalie. Caroline is sweet and smiles a lot. She showed me how to cook and peel chestnuts, and played some old records for me, French classics like Henri Salvador, Julien Clerc, and Jacques Brel. She loves dancing to ABBA, especially La Reine de la Piste ("queen of the dance floor").

Stéfane is a jokester. He told stories using lots of funny voices and hopped down the stairs with his arms poised like a little velociraptor. He's going to be a fun dad in about 4 months. With her long red hair and slender fingers, Nathalie appears tranquil as a swan. Stéfane would often touch her round stomach, his face radiating with happiness. When we went to the beach, he dug a hole in the sand so that Nathalie could lie on her stomach.

The Aubineaus have an apartment in La Baule, with a garage full of bikes! I rode alongside the sea on a trendy (kind of) "comfort" bicycle, much softer under my tuchus than the VTT (vélo tout terrain, mountain bike) that I've been riding. Neither a picture nor a thousand words can capture the sensory treats that the sea offers, but I'll say that the water sparkled like an outfit any member of ABBA might have worn.

I rode with Dany and Caroline past the salt swamps of Guérande. Sea salt is farmed in these flat marshlands. The seawater floods the land and then drains, leaving behind large grains of salt and fleur de sel, white salt crystals also used for seasoning. Fleur de sel is very expensive in the United States, but salt season is long past so I won't be bringing back any salty souvenirs. The cultivated beds were majestic even while napping.

We returned just in time for the Grand Prix, and I'm not talking about cars. The 21st Triathlon Audencia featured five different races, for everyone from handicapped athletes to professional triathloners. I saw three of the five races: Triathlon Découverte (for those "discovering" the triathlon, René's race), Triathlon Courte Distance (for amateurs, but it wasn't so short), and le Finale du Grand Prix (the pros, a number of whom placed in the Olympics!). I watched the swimming (la natation) from afar, and could only see a thousand little heads bobbing in and out of the water. The second part, le cyclism, was fast and exciting, but the athletes turned into an indistinguishable rainbow of spandex swim-bike-run-wear and spinning wheels. The final part, la course à pied, was when the athletes came alive -- though no doubt they felt like they were going in the other direction.

Seeing the pros run by was like watching a Gatorade commercial come to life, for lack of a more profound image -- though their sweat was not strawberry or blueberry-colored. I could actually hear their breathing and their feet pounding the pavement in a steady rhythm; I wondered if in their heads they were reciting song lyrics, or maybe reciting Baudelaire? On the less poetic end, there was plenty of snot dripping and snot rockets (couldn't find it in French) flying. A few were foaming at the mouth. They came in all different sizes, some tall and bulging, others little and lithe. A few were so lean and muscular that it made me cringe to see their muscles flex with each stride. They looked like power wrapped in spandex.

During René's race, we positioned ourselves next to the fueling station. The waterboys and girls stood ready with little cups of water as the athletes ran by, some thrusting their hands out for a cup, others humbly requesting eau, s'il vous plaît! My favorite was a gentleman who ran by and asked for une bière (what it sounds like), s'il vous plaît! We all shouted Allez! Allez! as René biked and ran by.

At one point, I turned my head one way and saw la mer shimmering like ABBA. Then I looked the other way and saw my French family jumping and shouting. I was really inspired to do a triathlon, but then I remembered that that requires swimming more one lap. Zut.

Allez. A fine weekend at the races.