Got Pigs?

Since we are so busy here throughout the week, I spent my weekend catching up on some work for school and some sleep. Katie and I worked on our expose, which we are presenting in less than two hours! Should be interesting! Our artist for this week is Durer. I also spent a lot of time working on anatomy, which is going to be by far, my hardest class. The weather was rainy and even snowy all weekend. At one point it was so foggy out that we could barely see out the windows.

Since my last post, I have tried duck, which we had the one night for dinner. I have never seen meat so dark in my life. I definitely didn't know it would be that dark! I wasn't a big fan of duck, but at least I can say I tried it.

You may be wondering why the title of my blog is what it is. Well this is a story in itself. Let me start off by saying that Sunday nights are pizza nights here. The pizza is preordered and then is picked up and brought back for us to eat here at the monastery. Katie, Morgan, Jen, Francie, and I decided that we would all go along with John to pick up the pizza since we had been stuck in the monastery doing anatomy all weekend and needed to get out. We were expecting to go to a normal pizza shop, but we were just a slight bit wrong in our thinking. We pull into this farm (yes I said farm), and John told us that this was where the pizza was. I think all of our mouths dropped open just a little bit. We could already see goats and dogs running around. 

The farmer saw that we were there and greeted us. He did not speak any English at all. He kept insisting that we go inside the barn, for what reason we were not sure. I'm not going to lie, I was a little creeped out. When we went inside the barn, there was a gigantic, humongous, mammoth, mother pig in a pen with a bunch of baby pigs around her. They were pretty cute I must say. Well the next thing I know, Mr. Farmer is reaching into the pen, pulling out one of the baby pigs, and placing it into my hands. Not what I was expecting! Of course the first thing I say is please don't pee on me! The pig started squealing very loudly. I think everyone got amusement out of watching me now know what to do with the squealing pig. The mother pig was not happy that I had her baby. I thought she was going to ram down the fence she was in. I have never seen anything so mammoth move so fast in my life. I had no idea to do with the pig in my arms and was freaking out, the thing just kept squealing. Finally, Mr. Farmer dude decided that the look on my face meant that I was ready to give up the pig. 

Back to the pizza part of the story...After the baby pig was safely back in its pen, Mr. Farmer dude took us to the next room over in the barn ( the meat room). John explained to us that this is where the babies will go when they get older. I was slightly confused to why we were there and secretly hoping no more animals were about to be placed in my arms. Well, after looking around, I saw two large pizzas and an apple pizza...our order.  So, I'm assuming the pizza was made right there in the barn. The pizza was not in boxes like it normally is in America. It was just on these trays out in the open. This is how we had to take it the whole way back to the monastery. 

From this experience I had just two questions: (1) What kind of pizza shop makes the pizza in a barn with animals right next door? and (2) How  in the world did SFU manage to find this barn pizza shop located in the middle of nowhere to get pizza for the students? Anyhow, once we got back to the monastery and ate the pizza, we found that it was actually pretty good. It was a lot different than what I am used to, but still good. It had ham and bacon on it (hence the pig farm), which was probably fresh for all we know. Well that is the story of my pig/farm/pizza experience. Now you can fully appreciate the title of my blog. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me to get any pictures of my pig friends. Maybe we will be brave and venture back to the pig/pizza farm next week to pick up the Sunday night pizza once again.  

Today Nadine, the owner of the cafe/restaurant in the village in Ambialet made us lunch. She makes us lunch every Monday. I had a ham and cheese croque, which was yum yum delish! For dessert I had a lemon tart which was also very delicious! We hiked up the long steep path back up to the monastery after eating and probably worked off everything we ate for lunch. 

Right now, Katie and I are going to figure out what we are saying for our expose. Tchao!