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The mysterious new genus of feline we discovered

Amanda here: We all knew that we would have the experience of a lifetime here in France, but little did we know we would also get to see an exciting new genus of cat that lives in and around the fields in this region. Now, we aren’t really sure what it is called here, but we decided to dub it the French Field Cat.

This cat tends to be found in fields that may or may not be inhabited by other animals. Our first sighting of one was a rather pretty calico in a field of bison. Others have been seen sitting alone surveying their domain. Alas, we have not yet obtained photographic evidence of this unique animal due to the speed with which we have been traveling through the countryside, but we are hopeful of posting one for everybody to see some day…

Amy here: Amanda is right. It’s rather odd to see these cats seeming to reign over their domains. Cats appear to have a haute position in France. For further evidence, I offer a photo from dinner at the home of my hosts in Vesoul last Sunday.

And here’s a photo from the Luxeuil public library on Wednesday.

2011: 04/15
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Free Day!

Amanda here: We are now in Besancon. Imagine there is a little foot hanging off that “c” there. I apparently fail at adding accent marks with my iPad.

Yesterday was a free day with our host families, which I am sure we were all happy to have as we have been going non-stop. Amy and I are lucky enough to both be hosted by Yves and Martine Kerleroux. Their son Thomas and daughter-in-law Ann were kind enough to collect us in the morning and take us to Switzerland, which is only an hour and a half away. After an excellent lunch, we went to the Olympic Museum. Here is Thomas, with me and Amy. We are standing underneath the high jump bar for the men’s Olympic record. The gardens were lovely and had some amazing sculptures depicting different sports. The museum had everything from ancient Greek Olympic artifacts, to the torches from the last 20 years. There were even articles of clothing or equipment donated by the athletes. I was especially interested in the bow from one of the archers at the Beijing games. The weather was wonderful and we weren’t the only ones taking advantage of it. Our day in Switzerland ended with a stroll along Lake Geneva before we headed back to our new home.

2011: 04/04
CATEGORY: Besaçon
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First professional day

Amanda here: We had our first professional day here in Saverne. I got to sit in on a few court cases at their Tribunal de grande instance. French courts are very different than the one I’m used to. There were three judges and three attorneys on the cases, the attorneys and defendant stand the entire time the case is being discussed and everyone wears robes. They are really quite nice robes, maybe we should start doing that in our courts…

But what shocked me the most was how the defendant’s who are in custody are brought into the courtroom: they are walked right through the courtroom by the police, and when their case is called, they have their handcuffs removed and they stand in front of the judges for the duration of their case. When the case is done, the police officers handcuff the up and walk them out. Crazy! We would never do anything like that at our court because of safety issues. Really makes me appreciate the security we have a my home court.