The Crocodile Farm

The Dollé's took me to a Crocodile Farm this weekend in Southern Ardèche. Pretty awesome, right? I was a little surprised when they told me all about it because this is what I got from the conversation: We're going to an exotic crocodile farm right next to the nuclear power plant in the middle of nowhere. When I hear something like that, I usually think, "O.k. Hayley, got to keep working on the French, but don't worry, it's getting better!" (And that right there is my habitual self motivation in the mirror.) However, they weren't kidding and I didn't misunderstand. Last Sunday, we drove to the middle of nowhere in the rain to this huge warehouse-looking structure with the ginormous power plant billowing smoke in the background. (I know this sounds like a nightmare, but it was less creepy in person. Sort of.)

I enjoyed the crocodile farm. As soon as we walked in the building, the artificial sun and heat and tropical plants were all very welcoming after the cool, dark, rainy exterior. We spent several hours walking around the structure and learning all about crocodiles. Now that I'm very knowledgable about them, I'll give you a few facts:

1. Crocodiles are very very very lazy
2. Crocodiles in Ardèche eat twice a week
3. There are 23 different types of crocodiles
4. Crocodiles live to be around 100 years old
5. There are only 20 albino crocodiles from Mississippi left in the world (2 of them are living next to a nuclear power plant in France.)

The farm was a scientific research center and it is also a place where they bring endangered crocodiles as a safe-haven and breeding ground. The center works on introducing the crocodiles and the offspring back to the wild. There are tons of other facts that I learned but I forgot them all. It was a worthwhile visit though and since I rather love animals, I thought it was all interesting.

Once we left the farm that afternoon, we went to Chateau Grignan in the Drome Provençal (it was my second visit there) and after that we went to the creepiest, and I mean creepiest, antiques shop ever. It was huge and scary, and it would be the perfect setting for a Hitchcock film. This shop was also in the middle of nowhere, and it had every possible nightmarish thing imaginable. Dolls with missing body parts, dummies, chainsaws, empty dungeon-like halls, and clowns.

I enjoyed this place a whole lot less than the crocodile farm. I also thought it was terrible not only for the creepiness, but also because they had poor animals living in horrible conditions. There were camels standing out in the cold rain without shelter in a small enclosure, and there were these poor, poor birds (cockatoos and other very social birds) that were stuffed in a very small, very dark rusty iron cage outside. There was no natural light in the cage (or no artificial light for that matter) and they were all standing on rusted steel bars. The cement floor was was covered in the birds' waste and my heart went out to them.

Other than all that, there's not much else happening here for a little while. I didn't have school yesterday or this morning because my class is taking a baccalaureate exam for next year, and since I'm all graduated, I was free! Unfortunately I've got 2 hours of economy class in about 15 minutes, so I should probably go change out of my pajamas...