Chapter 3: Lherm, France: "Center of the World"

Arriving in Lherm

After 40 hours of travel, we finally arrived at the Cahors train station a little before midnight. Walking through the terminal we began looking around for our host. Like any homestay system, the first moments of meeting your host is like an awkward adoption scenario. I began to nervously look at each person around me as my possible host for three weeks, including the very raggedy and sketchy looking lady peering around from a dark corner. After everyone else seemed to have found their loved ones at the terminal but us and the eerie woman, I was convinced we were going home with Mrs. Bellatrix Lestrange. Then Fiona, our host, turned the corner and welcomed us to Cahors! A charming woman, Fiona explained to us about the basics of her house on the half hour car ride there. When we arrived we were blown away by her beautiful property which is situated on a hill overlooking rolling plains of France. That night, despite not having slept for two days, Peter and I joined Fiona on the patio for a glass of wine and talked for a couple hours while watching a lightning show in the distance. From that moment the hospitality has yet to cease.

Getting ready for lunch at Fiona's!

I hated cats - until these two came along.

Us with Fiona

About once a week, when the gites are empty,
we get to swim in the pool!

The village, just a short walk away, is equally as amazing. Lherm is incredibly small with a population of only 300 and a village center consisting of one shop and one bar. Nevertheless, the place is booming. They have had Shakespeare plays, operas, and weekly village festivals! Lherm apparently discovered 60's and 70's American music and haven't left it sinec. I've done the congo line to Cotten Eye Joe, and danced the YMCA with a town of people that apparently can't spell it out.

Then there is the rich and famous of Lherm. Many of the movers and shakers of Lherm aren't french at all, but are apart of an apparently large group of British and Dutch people who have moved or retired here. Lherm, for all its size, is very international. Even the bartender here, and our neighbor and friend, is from Spain. One of these British expats was explaining just how international Lherm is to me and ended her statement by repeating that Lherm "really is the center of the world." I chuckled and then realized that she was completely serious. She might be a little wrong, but her statement does hold some truth in it: Lherm is bumping, and Lherm is international.

The village of  Lherm!!

The French body surfing line

Workawaying

I am already such a believe of the workaway.info program. In exchange for staying and eating at Fiona's, we provide 25 hours a week of work. Nothing has been overbearing, but it is definitely fair. Since I've been here I have cooked, mopped, trimmed hedges, cleaned chicken coops, split wood, server tables, babysat, and much more. We have also met other workawayers. You do hear the rare story of a terrible host who calls their workawayers "slaveaways", but the workaway community is for the most part extraordinarily kind, and if it ever breaches some type of trust level you can always leave. If you ever want to travel, please look at workaway.info!!

Cooking dinner for the gites

Cut all this wood in one morning.

Current Status and Future Plans
Financially I am doing fantastic. Believe it or not, I have made more money than I've spent while in Europe so far. Here are some tips if you ever go traveling.

•  If your in a village for more than a week, meet locals and offer to do any yard work or whatever for some basic payment.
•  Rural areas are cheap, and you need to penny pinch in cities. Find a corner grocery store and buy some nuetalla and bread and get some water out of a tap. If its more your style, wine in France is cheaper than water (there really are bottle for 2-3 euros). 
• Hitchhike if its common in your country! We succesfully hitchhiked about an hour away from home and made two great friends out of it. Be safe though, don't get in the car if you don't want to, and be with someone. I met a girl who hitchhiked from London to Paris in a day between five cars.
• Network network network! I never expected this skill to be so handy in Europe. From networking with locals and people vacationing here we have made many friends and already have friends to stay with in northern France and England. One family might be bringing us to Stonehenge, the Shakespeare's Globe, and  "Downtown Abbey."

We are traveling a lot around continental Europe in the next 2 months and so have bought a eurorail ticket for 600 dollars. We may of been able to pull it off cheaper, but I don't think I was ready for too much unknown. Still that ticket will get me from Barcelona ->Normandy ->Paris -> Berlin -> Prague -> Vienna -> Budapest -> Venice -> Florence -> Rome -> UK border. 

We leave this workaway on the 26th and will be visiting Barcelona for a week before going to our next workaway in Normandy!

Outside Cahors