Horse Love

So I'm staying in a space hotel! Well, kind of. Tarbes is a not particulary exciting town, but it has this gorgeous 4 star hotel that was nice enough to put me up. Very modern and sparse - see-through chairs and lots of white. It's the kind of hotel where you can't figure out how to turn on the shower, since the faucettes are so uber-designed. What this hotel is doing in Tarbes, I'm not sure (as other hotel owners have said to me), but I'm sure glad it is. The free wireless made me so happy I wanted to cry. As I settled in the wonderfully plush sheets, the BBC was airing a story on global warming, and for a second, I was in heaven.

So, I was running around today, trying not to stress completey, and i barely made it to a tour at a local horse farm. At least that's what I thought it was. On the tour itself, there were a bunch of words I kept missing, as my horse vocabulary in French just isn't that strong. There were some beautiful horses at this estate, and as we were touring, i couldn't figure out why the guide was so obsessed with breeding. We then went into a large barn, where a skiddish mare was standing. And then a large male horse was lead in, and well, um, the point was for them to get to know each other. My jaw dropped, and i looked in my dictionary. The name of the estate is Haras National. Haras. Stud farm.

Once I figured that out, it started making sense, like when we watched a vet do a pregnancy test on a horse. (If you don't know what it is, let's just say it involves an arm length plastic glove for the human, and the back end of the horse). Overall, it was a good lesson - use the dictionary earlier.

Later this evening, i stopped by one last hotel to write it up. As I did my schtick, the owner was not happy I was there. He starting guiding me towards the door, saying they were listed in Routade, and that was enough. I told I was just doing my job, and that Americans aren't that bad, anything to keep him talking. He started feeling bad, and eventually showed me a few rooms. We went through the bar, and he started telling me about the region, and before I knew it, he was pouring me an Amagnac, and telling me how to hold the glass to warm the liquer. It was actually pretty refreshing.

Trust me, though, they all don't go like that...