a man in Arles

Last night I went to see about a man in Arles named Le Condor.  Arles is a city just north of where I'm staying right now with Maxime and his family in Saintes Maries de la Mer, it's in the Provençal region of France.  Maxime has an extensive family here in Stes Maries; his great-grandma, great-aunt and grandma, and some aunts.  So right now there are 4 generations here hanging out for a couple weeks, plus Jake.  They've been very welcoming, we eat pretty much all our meals together and go out to the beach together.  I've had the chance to get to know Max's sisters too, which is very cool.

But back to this guy named Le Condor.  Max's grandmother sings in a tradition Provençal choir, and this group was asked to perform with a musician named Le Condor in an enormous band that plays traditional music from all around the world with a modern "feel".  The concert was held in an ancient roman theatre in Arles, with crumbling pillars and original stone (so cool).  I didn't really know what to expect, so when Le Condor walked on stage after an opening Peruvian flute solo with an enormous black trench coat and blonde ponytail, I knew this was no ordinary "traditional" music concert.  Then came the lasers.  This guy had every laser and light show in the world on his stage, with fog machines and confetti at different points. He played a tiny recorder/flute called a galoubet, traditional to the Provence region, but it was tiny in this huge guy's hand.  I say hand because he always played it with one hand with feet firmly planted spread apart and the other hand swaying gently with his eyes closed.  Remember the black trench coat.  Then his entire band come out, with violins, tamborins (another celtic drum), guitars, more flutes, even more flutes, and lots of bag pipes.  The music was always fast, with lots of little stoccatos, like the Braveheart soundtrack for Peru, Ireland, and Spain.  I was excited to see Scarborough Fair and El Condor Pasa on his playlist for the night, but his rendition of Scarborough Fair was too quick for me.  The bagpipes were cool.  But overall this guy was more funny than anything else.  I'll include a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYZ2NdeCU3Q

We've been mostly relaxing since we arrived, which has been nice for me after the party in Bayonne.  We went to this secluded beach that was only accessible to local residents, which was a huge sand delta with flamingos and herons and other beautiful birds.  Unfortunately, Maxime's uncle slowed down too much and got stuck in the sand.  We spent another hour trying to get the car out, and actually it was kind of fun. Everyone had a positive attitude while we tried to get the car out, even the dog Tapas helped dig out the tires.  On Tuesday night I went to a toro piscine, which is in a big arena with a square one foot pool in the center.  They let a bull run free in the arena and then allow any man (18 and older) at the event to get down into the arena to try to get the bull to chase him through the pool.  Apparently bulls don't like water.  Maxime and I did a different game where we had two buckets, one for filling the bigger bucket and the other for holding the water.  Then I tried to distract the bull while maxime used the smaller bucket to fill the larger bucket with water from the pool.  There were four teams like us, and we were definitely winning with the most water in our bucket, but then the bull caught a guy by the butt and tossed him around real good.  So the game stopped.  The guy looked really hurt, laying there clutching his leg.  An ambulance arrived and I realized just how dangerously stupid this game was.  It was still fun before somebody got hurt.