There's only way to describe our daily schedule-- grueling. There was technically enough time to sleep 8 hours, but most people stayed up late enough to make that impossible. This made it difficult for me, as one of my primary motivations was to speak as much french as possible. There were a couple of nights when I went to bed early, but for the most part I felt I'd be missing out if I didn't stay up with everyone and try to integrate. Here's the schedule:

6:30 AM

Every morning, our kind but firm boss would flick on the light switch promptly at 6:30, and say "Bonjour, il est l'heure!" in an all too pleasant sing-songy way. If you're trying to translate that, you might think it means, "hello, it is the hour." But really it means, "good morning, it's time." I think it's a rule that any kind of sound, no matter how pleasant that sound is, becomes intensely annoying after it wakes you up earlier than you want a few times. That's the way we all felt after a few days of hearing this pleasant voice for a few days.

7:20 AM

This was when we started work for real. You might be thinking, "wow, that's not much time for breakfast!" and you're right, it's not. Especially when you're going to working hard all day and need to fill up your stomach in anticipation. But, think again, French people don't eat large breakfasts. Ours consisted of Bread, butter, salt, confiture (jelly), and a choice of café au lait, hot chocolate, or tea. That's it. French people like to drink their coffee out of bowls for some reason. I guess so you can easily dip your buttered bread into the bowl. Needless to say, for me this was a very small breakfast, but I really was never that hungry, considering I had just gone to bed 6 hours before. The first day though, after working for a few hours, I was freaking out as I started to get really really hungry. Everyone knows Europeans don't snack, right? That's one of the reasons we're so fat and we're not, right? Well, maybe.

10:30 AM

Break time! I was stunned the first day, when we were called over for a break complete, with coffee, wine, saucisson sec (dried sausage), Camembert slices, more bread, chocolate, and some kind of portable dessert, like a madeleine. Apparently snacks are allowed when you're working your ass off. This break quickly became my favorite meal of the day, as it was consisently reliable. The Camembert was usually nice and warm, as it had been sitting out in the sun, and I never really get tired of saucisson sec. Maybe you're thinking it was cray that there was wine at 10:30 in the morning? Well, truthfully, there were always 2 bottles for 20 people, and neither was ever emptied during this break. It's just a little. You know, because it helps digestion. Duh.

This break lasted about 10 minutes, then it was back off to work.

1:00 PM

Lunchtime!

You'll notice that at this point in the schedule we've already worked about 5 hours, before lunch time. I think the reason for this is that it allowed us to avoid most of the hottest part of the day, during lunch time. Lunch would be waiting for us when we got back, and was very similar in content of food to dinner. About the same amount of wine too. For the most part I would say people drank less wine at lunch than at dinner, although there were a few exceptions. I remember one particular day when two guys dueled it out and ended up drinking 11 glasses each. That was a fun day of work for everyone after lunch! Lunch lasted until about 2:20, when we would return to the fields.

5:30 PM

Every day, our boss would say the same thing when it was time to stop- "Prenez vos seaus!," which meant "Take your buckets!" That was the signal that it was time to bring the last of our grapes over to the bins, empty them out, and return to the Domaine. This became the most coveted line of the day to hear. When we returned, we had about an hour or so before dinner to relax, and potentially shower, although there were only 3 showers for 20 people, so sometimes you had to wait until after dinner. Dinner finished up around 8, and then the rest of the night was prime time for socializing. Most people stayed up until 11:30 or 12, so you can see that's not a lot of sleep for 8 days straight of work.