La Tour De France!

Here we are in France! We are just outside a little town in the south of France called Carcasonne. It has a really well preserved medieval town that is a UNESCO world heritage site, with the walls still intact and lots of watchtowers. We left Switzerland on wednesday morning after catching our FIRST mouse near the train station in Coppet. It was quite exciting to finally get one. We crossed into France and started the search for the farm stays, or "gites" as they are called here. We have found a few here in the south east part of France, and so far we've caught TWO more of the house mouse Ondrej needs (bringing the total mouse count to 7) and some other field mice and shrews. Same story as before, he shakes them out into bags and lets them go if they aren't the right things. I also uploaded some pics of him performing the surgery on the mice to get their hearts, spleen and liver. Yuck. I took French in high school, so it's been fun practicing my broken french with the farm owners. I've pretty much figured out how to explain about the traps and ask if we can set them, but of course, once I get done explaining, they always have a bunch of questions and then I most of the time don't know what they are saying, and/or don't know how to answer their question. But it's been fun. Most of the farmers think the whole thing is really funny and are more than happy to let us catch mice on their property.

After our first sucessful mouse trapping night in France, we continued to a town called Montpellier. As we entered the city, we started seeing big trucks with La Tour de France logos on them! It was really exciting. We didn't see any bikers, but we stopped into the tourist information to get maps and information about the gites in the area and they told us that the bikers would be leaving from the main square in Montpellier in the morning. We still had to find a place to stay for the night and set traps, so we headed off to do that. In the morning (no mice caught that night) we talked about going back to Montpellier to see the cyclers, but it just seemed like too much of a hassle to find a place to park and walk to the center and battle the crowds, etc etc. so we just decided to press on to the next mouse location.

As we started driving, we came aross a police barricade, the cop came up and asked where we were going, and when we told him, he shook his head and pointed us in another direction. It wasn't until we started in the other direction and ended up seeing some people standing along side the road, that we figured out they must have closed the road because of the Tour de France! So we spent the next half hour or so frantically trying to find our way back to the road we were directed away from. Finally we ended up back at the same spot where the cop turned us away, and we just opened the window and said "La Tour de France?" and he said "Oui!" and let us through! We started clapping and cheering and drove on! There weren't all that many people there, probably cause we were in farm country, but it was great. Right as we got there, helicopters showed up and did a few circles, then the support cars and trucks and motorcycles started coming through, and then the bikers! It was pretty amazing - whenever I've seen clips of the bikers on TV, it seems like there are hundreds and I imagined it would have taken at least 10 or 15 minutes for them all to pass by. According to my camera, the time it took for me to take the first picture and the last picture of the bikers was about 30 seconds. No kidding. It happened SOOOO fast! And then they were gone and that was it! It was great to see them while they were actually racing - I think if we had gone back to Montpellier, it would have been too crowded and the tourist information lady told us that they didn't actually start "racing" until they got out of the town.

So after the Tour de France excitement, we continued on to the next gite and set traps. We set traps at the farm we stayed at, as well as a nearby horse farm and also a grainery. No mice this morning. Just one shrew. But we are trapping again here tonight because the horse farm has a lot of evidance that there are mice there (i.e... fresh mouse crap).

Today after checking all the traps, we went hunting for - internet. We saw a sign saying that McDonalds has free wi fi, but the 3 McD's we checked don't seem to have any knowledge of wi fi, so. we basically drove around checking the signals along the roadside until we found a connection. So right now, we're both sitting here in the car, with our computers in our laps, outside some random hotel, pictured above. But, it's worth mentioning that while we were hunting for McD's we came across ANOTHER roadblock, and sure enough it was the Tour de France bikers again! So we parked and watched the Tour de France bikers pass through, again! I don't have the cable to upload those pics with me right now, but they pretty much looked the same as the others. They're following us! :) After they all passed through we noticed there was one of the support trucks fixing a bike to put it back on top of the car. We went over and just stood around, with about 10 other people. The guy put the bike on the car, and the bent down and picked up I water bottle cage, and just gave it to the first person he saw - the guy in front of us! DOH! I wanted it! It would have been the coolest souvenir! Oh well... maybe we'll see them again!

It's raining mice!

We got up at 6:30 am to check the traps and 7 of them had caught something! After all of the shaking into bags and identifying them, there were 6 field mice, 1 shrew and 1 house mouse. The house mouse is what he needs so he killed it and took out the organs he needed. One of the bags actually had 2 mice in it! Mug shots below.... the little guy with both front paws on the bag (2nd pic on the right) is the one that had to die.. :( And I didn't upload all the field mice pics cause they all basically look the same. Leaving for France today!

The hunt must go on!

We've been here in Coppet, Switzerland, just outside of Geneva for the last 2 nights visiting with my friend Line and her boyfriend, Sean. It's been great catching up with them and relaxing for a change. Sleeping until noon, watching movies, and eating chocolate have been the main activities. We went on a tour of the UN in Geneva, which was interesting, and then walked around Geneva a bit, eating chocolates. We also went out to dinner to a Swiss restaurant to have cheese fondue, which I've been pining for over the last few days... :)


Ondrej heard from his boss and he has been directed to continue the mouse hunt! We set some traps tonight in a field near Line's apartment and actually while we were setting the traps, Line and Sean saw two little furry things that could have been mice! So hopefully in the morning the traps will be full of mice! We will leave for somewhere in the south of France tomorrow morning after collecting the traps in the field here, specific destination TBD. Ondrej is actually figuring that out as I type this entry. We're going to continue with the Agritourismo thing, and looking for horse stables, I think.

What's with the mouse hunt?

The purpose of the mouse hunt, as requested by El En (who also provided our new trip logo below:



The lab Ondrej works in at U of M got a grant do to a senory gene evolution study on two subspecies of house mice, found in Europe. In order to do the study, they need the mice... so that's why we are here, to catch the mice, extract the DNA and bring them back to Michigan. Ideally, we should be getting a diverse sample, i.e., mice from all different parts of Europe, so that's why we have to travel around.

That's all I know, questions pertaining to more specifics of the study will have to be addressed by the mouse man himself.... I'm just the navigator! :)

Thanks for all the comments everyone, it's nice to know who's out there in the e-world. Since I'm here at Line's now, I have some time (and an internet connection) to fix the pictures and write about what we've been doing, so the older posts should have pictures now!

Horse Farms - Naaaaaaay, A-CHOO!

We found a few horse farms near Sienna that looked promising for catching mice. Like all of the other places, the people at both stables were really nice about the trap setting and led us to the places that they thought would be good hide outs for them. Now, I'm pretty allergic to horses, so I normally don't frequent horse farms, but it actually wasn't all that bad. We set about 30 traps all together in and around the stables, and while we were in one of the stables, a mousey looking thing went running right in front of us along this hose thing that was hanging from the ceiling. So, it seemed promising.

In the morning, we got to the first stable around 8am and went around collecting the traps. There was one in the room with all the horse feed that had something in it, but Ondrej was sure it was a rat, cause it was way too heavy to be the mouse he was looking for. The rest of the traps at the first stable were empty! Some of them were completely clean of all the oats that he was using as bait, because ants came in and dragged them away, one by one. Theives! So we collected all the empty traps and then took the one with the big rat in it out to the parking lot. Normally he will turn the trap upside down and shake whatever is in it into a ziploc bag, but this rat was too big. It was somehow jammed in the trap and couldn't even move or turn around. So he just pulled one of the wires out of the trap so it would come open and had to coax it out. Even after the trap was open, the rat just sat there for a few minutes. But finally he jumped out of the trap and ran off.

We went to the second horse stable and found most of the traps empty, but one of the traps with something in it. It was a lot lighter than the other one, but probably still to heavy to be a mouse.
It was small enough to shake into a ziploc bag so we took it to the parking lot and he opened the trap and out it fell into the bag. It was another rat, a smaller one. It was so cute! Since this one was smaller, and cause apparantly rats (even though they are cute) are pests, he wanted to kill it. I got all upset cause it was cute and I didn't want it to die, so he said if I would hold it while he was driving we could drive a few miles away and release it into the woods. So thats what we did with it. I know, I know....



So now after having set traps all over the place, and not been successful catching mice, I'm not sure if the mouse hunting mission is going to continue. Ondrej is in the process of working it out with his boss. So we drove all the way from Sienna to Geneva, Switzerland and here we are now in a little town called Coppet, just outside Geneva. Driving in Italy was pretty chaotic, the signs were all over the place, and I guess my navigation skills leave a lot to be desired. We drove along the Cinque Terre coastline on the way, which is a UNESCO protected area of little italian villages near Genoa. I have a friend here, Line, that I met in 1997 during a study abroad semester in Australia. She is here working for the UN, so we just spent the afternoon catching up, did some kayaking at the lake and tomorrow we will check out Geneva and hopefully go on a tour of the UN.

Agritourismo Paradise

Well, here we are just south of Florence, in a city called Siena. We left Verona on tuesday in search of a farm. I had read in the Lonely Planet that there were these places called "Agritourismos," or "Farm Stays." Basically, farmers transform part of their property into a B&B, or camping sites and you can stay there for a lot cheaper than regular campsites. We were driving along a local road from Verona and came across a sign that said "Agritourismo Paradiso." So we followed the series of signs for about 15 minutes off the local road and ended up at a really nice looking farmhouse. Unfortunately they did not have camping, but the woman directed us to another Agritourismo that did allow camping. Ondrej started to explain about the mice and setting traps on their property. Now, between the two of us, we have about a 10 word Italian vocabulary, so communicating is a real challenge. But they were really nice and led us to all of the places to set traps. They had all kinds of animals - pigs, donkeys, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, dogs, goats, etc etc. So he set a bunch of traps and then we headed to the other Agritourismo that had camping facilities.

The map we have is not detailed enough to have all the small farm roads on it, so we are constantly asking for directions, and of course, not really understanding the answer that the people give us. Im always a bit amazed when we end up where we want to be. Anyway, so we got to the other farm house and again, explained about the mouse traps, and again, they were really nice about it. In fact, if I was interpreting it correctly, they found it downright amusing.

Early wednesday morning, we got up to go collect all the traps. Again, no mice. Those elusive little suckers. One of the traps got chewed on by the donkey, but other than that, they seemed untouched.

Now that we found out about this Agritourismo thing, I think we are going to be trying to visit as many as possible. We stayed at one more place in the same area for wednesday night. Its fun getting on the backroads and seeing the rural areas, and these Agritourismos are all really interesting. The one for wednesday night seemed to be owned by an elderly couple. It was up in the hills with a really nice view. And I think we suprised them when we pulled up looking for accomodation but they were welcoming and set things up for us without a problem. Like the others, they were also amused by the mouse catching thing and were totally fine with us setting traps. This place had a lot of animals, but didnt seem nearly as well kept as the other places. There were a lot of dogs, two were running around loose and the others were in kennels. The two that were running around seemed to have some weird behaviors... like not walking straight, and licking the air. Really strange. Anyway, Ondrej set a few traps, and it became clear that the place was infested with rats. He was worried about the rats destroying the cages so he only set a few traps. It was actually pretty gross - rats running around. Ick. No mice the next morning, but thankfully all the traps were still intact. The dogs were barking all night, but it didnt seem like normal dog barking... more like howling. It was pretty creepy. Nice people, but between the infestation of rats and crazy dogs, we were happy to leave that place.

We drove to Venice and spent a few hours walking around and had lunch- its such a nice place, but SOOOO many people. And its a nightmare driving around the cities, so after leaving Venice, we decided to bypass Florence and stay near this smaller town. There are a ton of Agritourismos around - unfortunately, none of them seem to have camping facilities, but we have a place at a normal campsite and this afternoon we will visit a bunch of them and set traps!


I think we'll probably be heading north to France soon!

Romeo Romeo....

Greetings from Verona, Italy!
Internet is proving to be pretty hard to find for us, especially since we are purposely staying away from the big cities. We left Prostejov on Saturday morning and headed towards Austria. We stopped in Vienna briefly to find a camping map and some other things... it wasnt easy navigating around the city. We kept getting thrown into a series of one way streets and basically going in circles so we finally just parked the car somewhere (it probably wasnt an official parking spot) and walked to where we needed to go. Anyway, the Vienna fiasco took about 2 hours and then we were on the road again. We ended up staying the evening in a little town called Melk, in a campground right on the Danube River. Ondrej set about 10 traps near dumpsters at the campsite. It was actually pretty gross, not that I ever thought the mousetrapping was going to be glamourous. Anyway, unfortunately, there were no mice to be caught that evening, and we left in the morning to continue south to Italy.

We arrived in the Dolomite area sometime sunday afternoon, and it was cloudy and rainy. The town we stayed in, Canezi, we a cute little resort town, a huge ski area in the winter and good for hiking and cycling in the summer. We set up camp and ate and all that and planned to do a hike in the morning.
Unfortunately, the clouds and rain stayed around for monday so we didnàt get to do the hike we wanted. We took the ski lift up to the beginning of the hike and then it was so foggy, I was scared of getting lost in the fog.
So, we ate at the restaurant at the top of the lift, and then headed down. Since it didnt look like the weather was going to clear up, we just packed up and continued driving!

Last night, we got to Torpole, which is right at the northen end of some big lake that I cant remember the name of right now (i only have 6 minutes left on this computer so im feeling stressed. ha ha). It was raining all night again, but this morning the skies cleared and its beautiful! We are in the middle of wine country and theres a lot of apple farms around!

We are back on the road again, just stopped in Verona for a quick internet stop and lunch. We are eating so much good food here, tons of meats and cheeses, pizza, and CHOCOLATE!

We havent caught any mice yet, but we are sure having a swell time!

Time in the Country

So we spent most of wednesday just relaxing around Ondrej's house. Lots of eating and playing with his niece and nephew.
We walked around his city and did some shopping and he told me about some of the "nuclear exercises" they did during his school recesses where they would practice putting these masks on and plastic suits. Looking back now it seems so crazy, but they were basically practicing in case of a nuclear war! We also walked past some underground bunkers that are in the middle of what is now a park. Eek.

Thursday we all left to go to a really nice cottage about an hour or so from Prostejov. I'm not exactly sure where it was, since I just got in the car, fell asleep, and then when I woke up, were were there! But the cottage was really nice, it was basically a huge fancy log cabin near a big ski resort area, which in the summer has a lot of mountain bikers and hikers. The cottage is owned by one Marek's (Ondrej's brother) friends. We got there, settled in, and then went on about an hour or so hike through the woods and some valleys to a restaurant for lunch. The hike was pretty calm for me, Ondrej got attacked a few times by his brother, niece and nephew. I stayed out of it, except to take pictures.

One thing that seemed really strange is that people bring their dogs everywhere around here. And it seemed normal for there to be dogs in the restaurants, either sitting in their owners laps or just on the floor next to them. We walked in and the dog from the cottage we were staying at was there already just wandering around the restaurant. After lunch we hiked back to the cottage and just relaxed for the rest of the day. Ondrej set a few traps that evening for mice, but the only thing we found in the morning was a beetle munching on the grains... :( This morning we drove back to Prostejov, stopping a few places along the way. We found some mice in one of the shops, but unfortunately they're not the kind he needs!

So tomorrow morning we'll be leaving on the official mouse hunt! We'll be heading south through Austria and into Italy. We'll probably spend the night tomorrow in Austria somewhere and then continue into Italy on sunday sometime. We plan to do some hiking in the Dolomites and then, who knows!