525 - Join Us in France Travel Podcast

[00:00:16] Annie: This is Join Us in France, Episode 525, cinq cent vingt cinq.

Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent, and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.

Today, I bring you an episode in three chapters.

Chapter 1. What makes Christmas in France special?

Chapter 2. Bringing Notre Dame back to life with color, light and music, as well as news about how more and more people are able to visit it.

Chapter 3. A conversation with Oscar Newsome Smith, a young man who decided to embark on a quest,and who shares his strength and enthusiasm for life, and to bring good in the world. I think it’s great, and I hope you do too!

Let me wish you a Joyeux Noël and Happy Holidays to all of you, my wonderful listeners, as we celebrate this special time of year, I want to take a moment to thank you for being such an important part of my journey. Your support, enthusiasm and passion for exploring France mean the world to me.

This year has been full of incredible moments and sharing them with you has been the greatest gift of all. Whether you’ve been listening since the beginning or recently joined our community, I am so grateful for every download, listen, share, comment, and for your participation in this endeavor and for being guests on the podcast for many of you as well.

Thank You, Patrons!

[00:01:49] Annie: As always, a special thank you this week to my one new Join Us in France Champion, Brenda Johnson. And to all my current patrons, it is wonderful to have you on board in the community of travel enthusiasts and Francophiles who keep this podcast going.

And remember, Patreon supporters get new episodes as soon as they are ready and ad-free.

If that sounds good to you, be like them, follow the link in the show notes. And of course, patrons get lots of rewards for doing that.

You can check them out at Patreon.com/JoinUs.

And to support Elyse, go to Patreon.com/ElysArt

Chapter 1. What I L ove about Christmas in France.

[00:02:48] Annie: Chapter 1. What I love about Christmas in France.

Christmas with Family

[00:02:52] Annie: Traditional foods for Christmas dinner, Le Réveillon de Noël are diverse. Different families do different things. But this year my family is gathering at my brother’s country house in the Pyrenees and there will be 17 of us around the table. It’s always a big table. They always throw a wonderful party with a beautiful table, a roaring fire. Music, because my brother is the pianist of the family.

We all sing Petit Papa Noël, which brings Santa its magic to our home and then the gift sharing starts. As far as food is concerned, from what I can remember, my sister is bringing foie gras, which she makes herself every year. My sister in law is roasting some chapon. I think you call them capons? Capons? They’re large chickens. And I am bringing the Yule log, two of them as a matter of fact, as well as wine and bread for the meal. Other family members are bringing other things. I’m not in charge, so I don’t know what all is going to be there. But it’s going to be a feast of singing and eating.

And some drinking as well, but we’re all calming down on that as we get older. And the new generation of French people is a lot more careful about how much they drink, which is great.

We’ll all spend the night at my brother’s house, so it’ll be an adventure packing the dogs, their beds, their food, our pillows and comforter for the people, the yule log, the wine, etc, etc.

It’s always an adventure, but it’s always fun to make our way down towards Foix. His country house is in a tiny hamlet, called Fougaron. And then the next day, on the 25th, my immediate family will make our way back to our house. And the freeway to my house is always very packed on that day because everybody’s traveling to visit family.

We’ll have oysters and shrimp and a great cheese platter. That’s the day for the big cheese platter. More gifts sharing and we’ll call our US relatives, of course.

Christmas Markets in France

[00:04:58] Annie: Being from Toulouse, going to Christmas markets is not a big deal. I mean, people do it, we have a Christmas market, but it’s not that great really.

And in some parts of France, it’s much, much more important, especially in Alsace and in Paris.

Midnight Mass

[00:05:13] Annie: Some families go to midnight Mass. I haven’t done that since my brother sang in a boy’s choir. Not every church in France even holds a midnight Mass. Local parishioners are aware of where they can go, obviously, since, I mean, they go frequently, so they are aware of what’s happening, but we have lots of churches in France, and there’s no way more than a fraction of them will be open on Christmas Eve.

One tradition that lives on is Christmas decorations, no matter, you know, who you are, most people have some sort of Christmas decorations, and many have a nativity scene or a crèche in the home. I think that’s still a big thing for Catholic families, even young people who never go to church enjoy having a crèche at home, and a tree, and lights. And even families that are not Catholic, or Christian, at all will have usually a tree and lights and so forth.

So it’s fun to see people enjoying the season.

Food Traditions

[00:06:10] Annie: There are unique regional food traditions in Provence, like the 12 desserts that we’ve talked about on other episodes. In Alsace, you have the gingerbread, you have the spätzle, you have the Gewürzseminar wine. In Toulouse, we don’t. serve mulled wine at the table.

I’m not sure they do in Alsace either. We save the best bottles of wine for Christmas and we’re not going to be adding sugar, or cinnamon to them. That’s what you do to cheap wine. So, that’s more of a Christmas market thing, but I wonder if in Alsace they have mulled wine in the home, or not.

At any rate, Christmas is a family affair and it’s a wonderful time of year. I hope you have a great time, whatever you do, wherever you celebrate.

Chapter 2. Notre Dame

[00:06:57] Annie: Chapter 2. Let’s talk about Notre Dame coming back to life. Was it worth saving Notre Dame after the fire? Some say it’s totally changed, and they question why it means so much, and why we’ve put so much money into this.

Let’s get something straight. It’s not totally changed. The whole point of the restoration was to bring it back to its original 12th and 13th century glory. The goal was to let visitors experience the same sense of awe and majesty that medieval pilgrim would have felt 800 plus years ago.

That’s what Notre Dame is about. The only reason to claim it’s changed is if you preferred a dusty and dark cathedral. And when we compare the photos, as someone just did on our Facebook group, of the cathedral right before the tragic burning, and what it’s been restored to today, it looks so dark. The stone was so, so much darker, because it hadn’t been cleaned in, well, because it, yeah, it hadn’t been cleaned since at least Violet Le Duc. And the windows hadn’t been cleaned and all of that, and it does take a toll. All cathedrals change much because of the passing of time, and lose much of their true identity.

I had the good luck to visit the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona in early November and one of the things that takes your breath away when you enter is the light. The color of the stone is light, the stained glass is clean and it lets a lot of light through. And that’s how most medieval people experienced cathedrals, and we’re not in a position to do that very much these days, but with Notre Dame you can, and with the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, you can too.

More than 2,000 incredibly skilled artisans worked on this projectdrawing on deep historical expertise. They used original tools and techniques, to painstakingly restore every inch of this masterpiece. It’s a marvel of human dedication and precision, accurately rebuilt down to the smallest detail.

And why does it mean so much to France? Well, because it is one of the greatest achievements of human craftsmanship in history. The ability to create something this magnificent in 1160 is just astonishing. That’s the legacy we’ve saved, and that’s why it was absolutely worth it.

Ile de la Cite tour rewriting, January 2025

[00:09:38] Annie: This January I’ll be in Paris rewriting my Ile de la Cité tour which includes the Conciergerie, the Sainte Chapelle, and Notre Dame Cathedral, now that things are back to normal. My tour will examine the beauty of the cathedral inside and out, and reveal the stories that this gorgeous church tells. There will be a few set off points inside the cathedral, as well as a walk around to admire the workmanship.

This is new, so it’s going to be a quite new tour. It’s going to be built on the old tour, but it’s going to have a lot of new additions to it. Anyone who has bought that VoiceMap tour in the past will be able to download the new version for free, which is one of the many things I love about VoiceMap, and it should be available late January. I’ll keep you posted on the podcast.

The Return of the Notre Dame Choir

[00:10:32] Annie: Let’s also take a moment to talk about something else that’s truly special, the return of the Notre Dame Choir to its home. After five long years of being displaced by the fire, the choir is finally seen again in the cathedral. Notre Dame’s choir school is world famous for its rigorous training and for carrying forward a musical heritage that stretches back 850 years.

The sacred music sung by the choir rises up to the vaulted ceilings of the cathedral and it echoes the same traditions that made Notre Dame a hub of musical innovation in the Middle Ages. Did you know that polyphony, that’s layered voices harmonizing, was actually first developed there? Notre Dame wasn’t just a place of worship, it was also a center for music research and teaching.

Over the past five years, the singers, who range from children to adults, have performed in alternate venues around Paris, across France, and even in the United States. Despite all of the upheaval, they’ve maintained high standards thanks to the dedication of the members, and their directors. During their time away, the choir adapted to performing in different spaces, from the majestic cathedrals of Auvergne to the Opéra Garnier, where they sang for the first time in their history.

But this return to Notre Dame isn’t just about stepping back into a building. It’s about reconnecting with the cathedral’s unique acoustics, something that they’ve missed deeply.

One singer explained it beautifully in an interview. She said: Notre Dame is like a vast vessel, its sound changes depending on where you sing. It’s like having a conversation between the music and the space. Sound travels much slower than light, so depending on exactly where you stand in Notre Dame, there can be 7 seconds delay between a note someone sings and when you hear it. That’s why it is important for performers to watch the conductor and all stay on the same beat, and not listen to their own ears.

Same for the organist. They sit so far from the conductor, that it’s the conductor they follow, not what they hear. It takes a lot of training and practice to do this right. And they are masters of that in this choir, but this is also why they often choose kind of slower paced music, becauseotherwise it’s difficult to make very fast pieces work perfectly in that space.

For their inaugural concert, they’ve chosen Bach’s Magnificat, a jubilant and challenging piece that’s dedicated to the Virgin Mary, you know, the namesake of the cathedral. It’s a perfect choice, full of celebration and renewal, reflecting the spirit of this historic moment. The choir director, Henri Chalet, spoke about the emotional and technical preparation for this return: ‘we feel the emotion of the world watching us’, he said, ‘but we’re ready. The challenges of the past five years have only made us stronger’. One choir member shared their personal journey of seeing Notre Dame transform: ‘The first time I entered after the fire, there were massive holes in the vaulted ceiling. Later, scaffolding filled the space as they worked on rebuilding the spire, and now, seeing it fully restored is overwhelming. It’s a moment of joy, pride, and awe’.

Notre Dame’s musical tradition goes beyond the performances, it’s about education and passing this heritage to future generations. The choir school trains 150 students, from young children learning their first notes, to adults preparing for professional careers. It’s a living legacy. that means so much to France and to the world. It’s a moment to treasure.

And if you want to go see the cathedral, and I hope you do, one of the things that many people have reported is that they are letting people in even if they don’t have a ticket, especially in the early hours. The cathedral opens at eight most days, and I don’t think you can even get any tickets until 8:30. So if you arrive early, you’re very likely to be able to get in. And if you arrive late, after dark, so in December it gets dark, you know, I mean, sunset is at 5:15 or 5:30 or something.

So it gets dark early. It’s cold. There’s not so many people out. So it’s not too difficult to get in after dark as well, because the church stays open till 8 PM.

But continue looking for tickets on the app, but I think they will quickly loosen the rules. It was hard to get in at first because there was so much demand for the opening, the first 10 days.

But now it’s going to get easier and easier to visit the cathedral, which is great.

And now it’s time to move on to chapter three with Oscar.

May your holidays be filled with love, laughter, and a touch of French magic, of course. Here’s to more adventures together in the year ahead.

Merci beaucoup. Passez de très bonnes fêtes. Back next Sunday with an episode with Suzie Klatt about her first time in France. Ah, to be young again.

Introducing Oscar Newsom-Smith

[00:16:17] Annie: Bonjour, Oscar Newsom-Smith and welcome to Join Us in France!

[00:16:22] Oscar: Bonjour Annie, merci beaucoup madame, merci beaucoup!

[00:16:26] Annie: So, lovely to talk to you. You are on quite the adventure, the quest, I guess, tell us a little bit about what you’re trying to achieve, and about you, and what led you to that, to that quest. I want to hear all about it.

The Quest: Walking from London to Turkey

[00:16:40] Oscar: Yeah, so to the viewers that aren’t aware about what I’m doing, I’m basically walking from London to Turkey, and I’m currently in the city Graz in Austria, in the Austrian Alps. And essentially what I’m doing is I’m raising awareness, and donations, in order to build an eco community in southern Turkey, in the city of Samandag

You might be wondering why I’m doing such a thing. Well, I’ll ask you if you can remember the Turkish earthquakes that occurred back in 2023. Some of you will remember, some of you won’t. Annie of course, you know yourself, talked about it before. And so the idea is to help rebuild southern Turkey because it got decimated by the earthquake.

[00:17:23] Annie: Mm hmm. So you said something about an eco community? What does that mean?

What is an Eco Community?

[00:17:28] Oscar: Yeah, so an eco community is essentially where everyone is part of the community, it’s where they have this attitude that the environment comes, like, simultaneously, it’s important, it’s simultaneous, to basically the standard living of the individuals that are part of the eco community. Pragmatically, it’s also anything to do with environmental, social, and governance rules and regulations.

Why Turkey?

[00:17:55] Annie: But why in Turkey? Like, why did you go to Turkey? Because you could do something similar in the UK. I’m sure there are people in need in the UK.

[00:18:02] Oscar: Yeah, so a lot of people ask me this question, and the response is basically, there hasn’t been any earthquakes that have happened in England. The earthquakes that happened in Turkey were the worst earthquakes to happen in a century, they needed the help there and then. Of course, a lot of other individuals will say, well, why not Gaza?

Why not Ukraine? And the simple answer is that, bureaucratically, I cannot get involved with those two conflicts, so I can’t do anything about those two. But I can get involved with the Turkish earthquakes, bureaucratically, physically, mentally, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s exactly why I’m not only rebuilding southern Turkey, I’malso trying to create this trend within the construction industry, which is that of creating an eco trend.

[00:18:47] Annie: Okay. So you have been working in the construction industry for a long time.

[00:18:51] Oscar: Exactly, yeah. Well, I wouldn’t say a long time, because I’m quite young. I’m only 27, but I’ve been working in construction for the last five years, coming up to the last five years. I was a carpenter by trade, and then I worked my way up to becoming a manager, a site manager. And I also ran my own small little business called Racso Developments.

So I’ve done, yeah, I’ve become an entrepreneur as well as work as a site manager and a carpenter in the construction industry. So yeah, I’m very well tied with it.

[00:19:21] Annie: Right. You mentioned Southern Turkey, that’s a large area, do you have a place in particular in mind?

[00:19:28] Oscar: Yeah, it is a very large area, to be honest. Yeah, I don’t know the province of Hatay, so Samandag, for example, which is where I’m actually working, is 40 miles north of the Syrian border in the province of Hatay.

[00:19:43] Annie: Okay. Okay. And there are people living there right now, I suspect. Have they started rebuilding?

Challenges and Corruption in Turkish Construction

[00:19:50] Oscar: No, because there’s no… there, well… okay, so there’s two answers to that question. So first of all, a lot of people died, of course during the earthquakes, and a lot of people had to leave. So a lot of people left. And there’s the grand majority of the people down there living in tent s. And there’s a small minority that had been rehoused.

But the problem that’s going on now in southern Turkey because of the levels of corruption within the construction industry, the big building contractors have started to build again in the Hatay province, but they’re not building to the building code once again. So what this means is that when the next earthquake happens, the buildings will come down again.

[00:20:31] Annie: So, are there some specific things that you wish they would do that they haven’t been doing? Like, when you talk to them, what you tell them, what should they be doing that they’re not?

[00:20:40] Oscar: Yeah, so basically they’re just not abiding to Turkish building code regulations, it’s as simple as that. And they’re not doing this because within the construction industry there’s, we’ve got this thing called the builder’s dilemma, so at the top you’ve got quality, bottom right you’ve got cost, bottom left you’ve got time.

You can achieve a project by sacrificing quality if you build really fast, and build really cheap. And this means that your profit margins skyrocket.

Essentially, the building contractors, they’re building them cheaply and they’re building them fast, so that their profit margins can grow exponentially.

However, the problem with this is that it’s not sustainable, and it’s not very good if we want to advance as a civilization, because we’ve got to look at the value of each individual, rather than the value of money in itself.

[00:21:30] Annie: Right. So you interface with the Turkish government with this, or is this solely you doing this out of your own fruition?

[00:21:41] Oscar: So, the Racso project itself is a British social enterprise. I am also partnering up with a Turkish building contractor, like a sustainable architecture firm, and also a local charity called SADE. So, we do have close ties with the Turkish government, but we avoid working with them in any way because they’ve got really bad reputation.

[00:22:04] Annie: Has any construction started in any of this area, that you are sponsoring?

[00:22:10] Oscar: Yes, as a percentage of the people that have been displaced, so 3.3 million people have been displaced, of those 3.3 million people, 5% got another house, have been rehoused.

[00:22:23] Annie: That’s not a lot yet, huh?

[00:22:25] Oscar: It’s not a lot, and it’s what I was saying before, it’s that basically it’s not good at all because those buildings aren’t built correctly.

[00:22:33] Annie: Right, so yes, this is a part of the world that’s subject to a lot of earthquakes.

This is hardly the first one. This was bigger than they had been, right?

[00:22:44] Oscar: Massively bigger, exactly. It’s the biggest one in over a century. And yeah, it’s an area with high seismic activity, precisely. They knew it was coming, not specifically, because, you know, things would have changed. But people who build in these areas, they know that there’s going to be future earthquakes.

So they knew, they knew what they were doing, which makes it all 20 times worse.

[00:23:09] Annie: So, I don’t have any building experience really, but I would assume that when you build in an earthquake prone area, you have to either reinforce the heck out of it or build in wood.

[00:23:22] Oscar: Yeah, wood or steel, exactly. But they build in concrete, usually concrete.

[00:23:28] Annie: Because that’s the traditional way, I suppose.

[00:23:31] Oscar: It’s actually not. Stone is the most traditional way. It’s Stone and wood. Wood all over the world is the most traditional, and that usually does very well against earthquakes. Wood does very well against earthquakes anyway. And stone, stone buildings do very well, usually because the walls are so thick.

Buildings that were built in the 1700s, they had got some walls which were about a meter thick, so they’re not coming down. And the older buildings, funnily enough, didn’t come down. It was the newer buildings that came down.

[00:24:00] Annie: Mm mhm All right.

Personal Motivation and Initial Response

[00:24:02] Annie: So did you wake up one morning and you thought I’ve got to do this? What motivated you? What took over you to do this?

[00:24:10] Oscar: Yeah. No, valid question. So basically,I was watching it on the news and I remember being in bed at home, and I remember speaking to my cousin, and my cousin’s girlfriend. And this voice, this was just on a FaceTime, very similar to the podcast now, right? Yeah, my mother’s voice came into my head, and she’s around, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like a spiritual, well, maybe it was a spiritual thing, but her voice came into the head, and I remember her saying the following in the following circumstance.

Can you remember the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami? Some of the viewers may be able to remember it, some may be too young to remember it, but basically, I remember my mum uttering the words, I wish I could go and help. And that came into my mind when I was watching the news in my bed, whilst I was speaking to my cousin and my cousin’s girlfriend at the time.

And then I was like, right, I need to go. I need to catch a flight. So I told my, I came up with the decision the day after. This was on a Thursday, came up with the decision on the Friday. I told my boss on that Friday. And I booked a flight for the following Tuesday, and I was out in the earthquake zone on the Wednesday, so it was very quick.

It was a really quick turnaround.

[00:25:29] Annie: And what did you do on the earthquake zone?

[00:25:31] Oscar: So I basically, well, I get to Hatay, and it’s insane. It was absolutely insane. It’s very similar to images you’ll see about Gaza, or even Ukraine, right? It’s very similar. So you just see entire buildings just collapsed to rubble, you see some buildings are like a 45 degree angle, and it’s just, it it took my breath away, in a negative way, I think that’s more of a positive saying, but it really did outstand me how much damage there was.

And to answer your question, I basically handed out food, water, hygiene products, for example, sleeping bags, tents, etc, etc. And I befriended a group of people out there and I worked closely with them, in order to achieve all of the latter.

[00:26:16] Annie: Amazing. Amazing. All right. So let’s talk about your walk, because you decided to…

Okay. So obviously the first time you flew there, cause you got there quickly, then you flew home, and then you decided I gotta walk it back.

[00:26:31] Oscar: Some people would probably think that way. It’d be like, yeah, let’s just do that, spontaneously. But mine was more calculated. So, I was on route to my work, this was after I’d come back from the disaster zone. So, I got straight back to work. And I decided to set up the charity/social enterprise. And I was on, I got on the train to get to work. And I was looking around and everyone’s really low. Everyone looked really depressed, staring at their phones or reading really closely into their book, or whatever. They all looked really depressed.

And I had my notepad. Which I’ve actually got right in front of me. This stain notepad, right? So I’ve got it written, all written in this notepad. And basically I asked myself, how many people on this carriage, on this train, are actually achieving their childhood dreams? And I thought, probably not many of them, so not that probably wouldn’t look that depressed.

And then I thought about my own childhood dreams. And Annie, I’ll be completely honest, when I was 11 years old, I used to have this desk, bedside table. And on this bedside table, I’d have this globe. And I used to envision myself walking all over the world, just on this globe. And so I thought, okay, well that was my childhood dream, and let’s take into consideration where I live, and where my charity is.

So I thought, okay, well what I can do, that’s when I had the epiphany, what I can do is I can walk from London all the way to Turkey. And now I’m doing it. Yeah.

(Mid-roll ad spot)

[00:28:03] Annie: All right. So you mentioned the charity. What’s the official name of the charity?

[00:28:09] Oscar: It’s actually officially a social enterprise. And social enterprises are essentially charities. The idea is to turn it into a charity once I’ve finished with the walk, because it’s a lot quicker to set up a social enterprise, but yeah, the official charity name is The Racso Project.

[00:28:28] Annie: Racso. Spell that. I wouldn’t know how to spell that.

[00:28:32] Oscar: R-A-C-S-O. that’s basically Oscar, spelt backwards.

[00:28:41] Annie: Very good. Very good. All right.

The Journey Through France

[00:28:43] Annie: So you decided to start this walk. So we want to talk about, especially you walk through France, because you’re done with that part for now, butI’d love to hear how it was to, like, how did you map it out? What supplies? What do you take with you? What does it entail?

[00:29:01] Oscar: So France was particularly unique for me because I had a great great uncle who passed away in the Battle of the Somme back in 1917. It was August 23rd 1917, and actually when you gave me the choice of when to talk, because you sent out a couple of different dates where we can actually have this podcast, I chose the 11th of November for the reason being that it was the last day of World War I. Yeah, it was… it was really touching for that reason. My great grandfather’s name was James Jackson. And unfortunately, I didn’t get to see his grave, but I did walk a lot of the Western Front to pay my tribute to our boys, French and British, who fell in the Great War.

And basically, I had a lot of food with me at that point because the distances in France were really, really big. And there weren’t many services open, so I would usually take with me like a lot of tuna and rice, and pasta, and pesto and a lot of water, because I was walking through the summer heat and I wasn’t, I didn’t have that many clothes at that stage.

And in terms of route setting, I basically did La Via Francigena, which is a long pilgrimage from Canterbury all the way to Rome. So I went from Canterbury, so I walked from London to Canterbury, and I did a route called The Pilgrim’s Way. And then from Canterbury to Reims in English, I did Via Francigena.

[00:30:34] Annie: I suppose you took a boat through the channel. You didn’t swim that, did you?

[00:30:38] Oscar: I was actually thinking about canoeing across. But yeah, it wasn’t possible. So I just took a ferry across, exactly.

[00:30:44] Annie: Right. How much stuff do you carry with you, or does that depend on how things are going?

[00:30:50] Oscar: At the start I was taking so much with me. I had the laptop, I had all the electronics needed to charge up the laptop, and I had so much more foods, and I had everything I needed.

[00:31:02] Annie: Tent?

[00:31:03] Oscar: Yeah, I have a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat. I had all the clothes that I need, best set of shoes.

And that’s pretty much it, to be honest. I’ve got a few other bits and bobs, but it would take me quite a bit to just name each one of them.

[00:31:18] Annie: Right, right, right, right.

[00:31:19] Oscar: I’m carrying around about 25 kilos in total of stuff.

[00:31:22] Annie: So you are self sustained on this walk, I mean, you stop at grocery stores, obviously.

[00:31:27] Oscar: Precisely. I mean, even if I have the money to afford a support vehicle, I still wouldn’t go for a support vehicle, because the money I would spend on the vehicle, I could just send directly to the people of Samandagg.

[00:31:42] Annie: So,you talk to people along the way, I assume, and they give you donations. How does that work?

[00:31:48] Oscar: Yeah, so sometimes they give me donations in cash, sometimes they give me a donation just to support me as an individual, and sometimes they want to support the charity, and therefore I say, look, just donate via the GoFundMe, and they do. And, yeah, sometimes, I’ve met some people that donated loads, it was unbelievable.

And, yeah, it’s really touching to see how I’ve influenced a lot of people to, not only donate, but also to, you know, to… big things in their own lives as well, and hopefully altruistic things, you know, like setting up their own charity or… or volunteering, or whatsoever.

Walking Solo

[00:32:26] Annie: Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so you have all this stuff with you, you’re walking this path, you’re meeting people. I was reading through the documents you sent me, and you said that one of the hardest thing about doing this is feeling lonely at times.

[00:32:43] Oscar: France was the hardest place in terms of solitude, because that’s where I met the least amount of people. And I speak conversational French, conversational level of French shall I stay? So I was able to speak to people, but there were days, and days, and days where I just didn’t see anyone. So the solitude is definitely hard. But since Luxembourg, Germany and Austria, the people have been really friendly, and I’ve met a lot of people in those countries. So, it’s been pretty, I’ve been able to cope a lot more recently, but yeah, France was really, really lonely.

[00:33:16] Annie: Huh. Do you ever stop like at a guest house, or a place that’s designed for pilgrims, or at a hotel? Do you always sleep out?

[00:33:25] Oscar: I’ve done maybe 120 days on the roads, and I’ve slept in a hotel for maybe 15 days in total.

So mainly camping. Mainly camping.

[00:33:36] Annie: And how do you find a good place to camp? You just like, Oh, this looks okay, I can sleep here?

[00:33:41] Oscar: Yeah, basically, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you have to be conscientious of police and neighbors, and farmers, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, I’ve met the police a few times, and I told them my story, and they said, just crack on Oscar. Just don’t worry. Because, yeah, supposedly you can’t do it in certain countries, but the police, as I said, they sometimes don’t care if you’ve got a really, really good cause, because as long as you keep the place tidy, and you don’t litter, and you don’t have a fire, then there’s nothing wrong with it.

[00:34:13] Annie: Right, and you’re not going to stay very long. I mean, I assume most places you stay for the night and then you move on.

[00:34:18] Oscar: Yeah, precisely. Precisely. Exactly.

[00:34:20] Annie: You schedule days off?

[00:34:22] Oscar: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’ve had a week off. I will have had a week off by tomorrow. It’s been the most needed week, oh, in years. So, yeah, I do schedule time off.

[00:34:32] Annie: Yeah, how many kilometers can you walk in a day? I suppose it depends on the terrain as well.

[00:34:37] Oscar: It depends on the terrain, and it depends how sharp I’m feeling mentally. My personal best is 58.5 kilometers.

[00:34:45] Annie: Whoa. In a day, that’s amazing.

[00:34:48] Oscar: Yeah. The idea is to try and get a 70 kilometer day in eventually.

[00:34:53] Annie: Wow. That is fast walking.

[00:34:56] Oscar: Yes. But it’s like I’m walking, including lunch and breaks and whatever, around about 5km an hour.

[00:35:04] Annie: Wow.

[00:35:04] Oscar: So every 8 hours I’ll do a marathon.

[00:35:08] Annie: You gotta be really fit by now.

[00:35:10] Oscar: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve lost a lot of body fat. I’ve maintained muscle mass, and so I feel strong. Yeah. I feel very strong.

[00:35:17] Annie: Yeah. And do you run into problems with dogs, or wild animals, or cattle, or whatever?

[00:35:25] Oscar: Yeah, I have, but it’s how animals are usually really scared of humans. We’re so alien-like, right? Even the bigger predators like bears, most bear attacks, and most other sort of interspecies attacks usually occurs when the human is overly aggressive. So a lot of these attacks are just basically a form of self defense from the animals.

So the idea is to stay calm, as calm as possible, and to let the animal know that you are the alpha and that you are the one in control. And because you’re the one in control, you’re incredibly calm. So I was in this field once, and I get woken up by this group of horses. And there’s little calves there, so I’m like, ooh, better be careful with the calves. And I get out of the tent. Well, the horses came up to the tent first of all, and they were like sniffing at the tent. And they weren’t happy with me. Then they started to kick the tent.

Wild Encounters and Night Walks

[00:36:25] Oscar: So I was like, right, I’m not having this. So I got out of the tent really calmly, and they sensed I was calm, so they were okay.

They were okay, but yeah, I mean, I’ve had loads of wild boar come up to me during at night, loads of badgers, loads of dogs as well, just barking at the tent. I’ve had a couple of German shepherds, and they’re obviously quite sketchy, but you just have to be calm. You could say I’ve been lucky, but it’s not luck, it’s likejust calculating my body language, I suppose.

[00:36:52] Annie: That’s amazing. I would be so frightened.

[00:36:55] Oscar: Yeah, I mean, walking through the night is also quite difficult.I remember walking through the Black Forest once and my GPS battery died. So I had to walk five miles through the Black Forest, pitch black, and I did hear wolves and stuff like that.

But again, you just have to stay calm and carry on.

[00:37:13] Annie: Why did you decide to walk at night? It was too hot during the day or something?

[00:37:17] Oscar: No, I just, I had to get through the forest to get to my father. My father was with me at this point, and I just had to get to my dad. So I had to walk through the forest. There was no other way around. Well, if I’d walked around the Black Forest it would take me like three weeks instead of one day, for example.

[00:37:33] Annie: Uh huh.

[00:37:34] Oscar: So I had to go through it.

Family and Friends Support

[00:37:36] Annie: So, do you ever have, like, you meet friends, or family, or people you know, and they help you out for, or like, they have you stay over for a bit, or something?

[00:37:46] Oscar: Exactly. I’ve mainly had family come over. I’ve had a couple of friends come over. I’ve asked most of my friends to come over for the more dangerous parts, like in Bulgaria in the mountains and in Turkey itself. But yeah, I’ve had a couple of friends, and a couple of family members come out, yeah.

[00:38:03] Annie: Right, so yeah, because I mean the only reason why I even know about you is because your uncle reached out to me. He’s a podcast listener. And what’s his name? I can’t remember his name. Tell me again.

[00:38:14] Oscar: Simon Owens.

[00:38:15] Annie: Yeah, there you go. And he said, my nephew’s doing this amazing thing, and he might be a great interview.

And I thought, why not? You know?

Raising Funds and Awareness

[00:38:22] Annie: Especially, the Christmas episode, I wanted to do something special that perhaps would motivate people to donate, or help do a good deed, you know, do some good because we do all get busy with our own lives. And like you mentioned at the beginning, we know about these disasters, but life goes on.

There’s going to be another one probably next week, or something. And when people can’t constantly have all the misery of the world at their fingertips, it would be too difficult to, to live like that. So that’s why most of us just forget about it, you know.

Just emotionally, it’s hard to, well, that’s probably, that’s how I feel about stuff.

[00:39:02] Oscar: The good thing is, is that I set everything up so people don’t even have to go through the depressing parts of it. All they have to do is support the project, and to believe in the project as much as I believe in everyone else.

[00:39:15] Annie: Yeah, and how much money are you hoping to raise and how close are you getting to that?

[00:39:20] Oscar: My initial target was £200,000 for the next four years,

so £50,000 a year. And by the end of this walk, hopefully £40,000.

I mean, if we hit it, I’ll be over the moon. If I don’t reach it, then I’ll just carry on.

Just keep going.

[00:39:37] Annie: Yeah, you seem like an unbeatable kind of character, like you’re just going to… …you’re not going to let too much get in your way, I don’t think.

[00:39:46] Oscar: No, I mean, the harder parts are already out of the way. Like, setting up the charity was really hard. And going, like, just networking in the region of Hatay was super hard. And just going out there to volunteer was really hard, as well.

[00:40:03] Annie: You just mentioned the name of the region, can you spell that? Cause I’m sure lots of people won’t know how to spell that at all.

[00:40:10] Oscar: H-A-T-A-Y, that’s the province in which I’m working in. And there were many provinces, this is for the users and for yourself Annie, there were many provinces affected around about 10 or 11. The 11th one was not that badly affected. So yeah, there’s around 10 really badly affected provinces, and Hatay is the most southern province.

[00:40:35] Annie: Interesting.

[00:40:36] Oscar: It is interesting, also because I’d actually never been to Turkey prior to the earthquake, and I always wanted to go.

So you don’t really have any connection to Turkey, you don’t have relatives or…?

No, I’ve got no relatives, well, I have prior to going to Turkey, I never had a Turkish girlfriend. So, no, no, no, not even, no, I’d got no, no links.

Sustainable Construction and Eco Initiatives

[00:40:58] Oscar: I just felt a level of responsibility because it was my industry that failed the people of Turkey, so that was the main reason for having gone as well.

[00:41:06] Annie: I think by now people know how to build, you know, for their region and it’s unfortunate that it just doesn’t happen a lot.

[00:41:15] Oscar: But it doesn’t happen a lot, we basically need proactive people in our society. We need people to take innovative action in order to create a better world. And there’s the four industries that we need to tackle and we need to maximize their efficiency. The first was construction, the second one is production, the third one is farming and agriculture, and the fourth one is travel and transportation.

Travel and transportation is basically on its way, with electric vehicles and eventually you’ll have electric planes, et cetera, et cetera. And you’ve got farming and agriculture, which there is a slight shift in consciousness about using pesticide, for example. And then you’ve got production, which is really hard because it’s in China.

And you’ve got construction, which is the most polluting industry in the world, which is the hardest one to change. And this is why I’m taking this opportunity to try and revolutionize the production industry, starting in Turkey. And where I find this whole mission really exciting is in the following,

if all goes well in building this eco community, in Samandag, southern Turkey, the idea is to bring it back to the developed world, like London, Madrid, New York, Hong Kong, etc, etc.

[00:42:27] Annie: I mean, even for French people, I’m really interested in electric vehicles and I drive an EV myself. Well, I had an old diesel that needed to be retired. And I thought, okay, do I just go with another gas car or petrol car? Or do I just make the jump? I made the jump and I’m very happy I did.

And I feel like electrification is simple in many ways. Like, an EV works, like it’s just a car. The fact that you plug it in at night doesn’t change anything. It’s still a car and it works like a car. It’s very easy. I know there are some things that are going to be tougher to electrify.

Airplanes is one of them, but we should do the easy stuff first, right? It’s fine if we don’t get around to electrifying planes immediately, that can happen in 50 years or whenever there’s been a revolution in batteries technology, or whatever.

But in the meantime, there’s a lot we can already do.

And it’s the same, in France we know that building in wood is a lot more eco friendly, those are comfortable houses.

I lived in the US in a wood framed house, so I know that they are really, really comfortable.

[00:43:38] Oscar: They’re really well insulated as well.

[00:43:40] Annie: Exactly. But French people think, oh no, you know, if it’s not a brick house, it’s not right.

And it takes a long time for people to realize that maybe their assumption that the brick house is the only way to go is incorrect. For example, in Toulouse, on my way to the metro, they built a large development that has stores on the bottom, and then offices, and at the very top there’s some condos. And it’s all wood construction. And it’s the biggest wood framed construction I had seen in France ever.

And I thought, Oh, wow, this is progress. In my opinion, this is progress because yeah, they can do cement blocks kingdom come, but perhaps we should really look at making some changes that are… because I mean, wood is renewable, and cement is not great.

Like, cement is difficult to make without producing a lot of CO2, as far as I know.

[00:44:39] Oscar: Exactly. I mean, the most important thing to take away from this conversation is the fact that wood is regenerative. You can grow as much of it possible. And that makes it a lot better, a lot healthier for the environment. And it’s a lot more, it’s a better insulator than most brick and mortar.

[00:44:57] Annie: Yeah, all the wood framed houses I’ve lived in, several in the US, obviously, were fantastic. They were great houses. There was nothing wrong with them.

[00:45:04] Oscar: Yeah. no, no, there you go, there you go.

[00:45:06] Annie: Yeah, the story of the three little pigs it’s not true. It’s just a story.

Ha ha ha ha!

[00:45:13] Oscar: I mean woods, wood is more flexible than brick, some wooden houses are stronger than brick in certain areas, like, where there’s high seismic activity. And sometimes brick is better for other things, but, honestly, wood… wood is better.

[00:45:26] Annie: Yeah. So I know in California, I don’t think in California you can even build a all brick building, I don’t think they’d let you do it.

[00:45:33] Oscar: No, it’s against building code.

[00:45:35] Annie: Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that’s a really fascinating thing, and I really admire that you want to, you know, help improve people knowing about this so that they will make progress.

[00:45:47] Oscar: I’ll just clarify the not allowed to use brick, that has to be supported through by steel beams. So it’s to say that just brick, so some viewers might think, ah no, you are allowed to use bricks. You are in California, but it needs to be reinforced, and usually that’s through steel. So steel and brick go well.

But just brick alone is most probably not allowed.

[00:46:09] Annie: Yeah, yeah.

[00:46:10] Oscar: Just wanted to clarify that.

To all the structural engineers that may well be,listening to us.

[00:46:15] Annie: You never know who’s listening, right?

And, honestly, I mean, I’m not by any means a construction anything, I just like to read about stuff, and I do know for sure that wood is a renewable… I mean, burning wood is not good, burning anything is not good. But using it in construction is really a very good way to go, as far as I know.

[00:46:36] Oscar: One thousand percent.

[00:46:37] Annie: All right, so now let’s use this last few minutes of our conversation, tell people how they can support you, the GoFundMe that you have, I’ll put links in the show notes, obviously. I really hope that many listeners, perhaps they have a little extra cash, please, I mean, it doesn’t have to be a lot of money, you know, every little bit helps, I’m sure.

[00:46:57] Oscar: Yeah, exactly, every little bit helps, and people always want change. They’re asking, there’s a lot of people around the world that are asking for change. There’s a lot of people that are asking for governments to act on climate change.

I’m here creating the change that people asked for, so they should put their money where their mouths are, and they should invest and donate to the Racso project, they should believe in me as much as I believe in them.

If you really want to donate, which I hope you are, then you can donate via the GoFundMe link. And please check us out on Instagram @RacsoProject and LinkedIn: Oscar Newsom Smith. And I’m also on TikTok as well: Oscar’s Mosaic Journal. So, I’m about to set up a YouTube channel as well, but that won’t be, yeah, I’ll tell you about that later on.

[00:47:50] Annie: Yeah, that’s hard to do. I mean, that’s a lot of work setting up all thesesocial media and stuff. It kind of, I mean, and you probably don’t have electricity every day. It’s not like you can plug in every day.

[00:48:01] Oscar: It’s not, exactly. I mean, the TikTok and Instagram go simultaneously, I can make a video on an app, and then I can just copy and paste. And I’ve had someone helping me with their TikTok anyway. But then I’ve got someone helping me with my LinkedIn now, so I would have to focus on Instagram, and that’s obviously simultaneously LinkedIn.

So then basically those two and YouTube.

So yeah, it is a lot of work. It is a lot of work, but it’s manageable, basically.

[00:48:28] Annie: Yeah.

Challenges and Beautiful Moments

[00:48:28] Annie: What’s the most beautiful thing you saw on this journey so far? It doesn’t have to be in France.

[00:48:34] Oscar: I would say, my best view, which is my favorite moment, was probably, actually I’ll tell you what, it’s not even a view. I was in my tent and I was starving, and this dude comes over and I was quite wary about it, so I thought well maybe it’s the police, or maybe it’s someone that’s a bit angry and I say Servus, which is hello in Austrian, and he goes, Servus!

I was like, okay, and then he drops his bag off, right in front of my tent. And it’s full of chocolate, full of food, full of drink. There’s like a nice omelette, onion omelette in there. He knew that I was like just camping, and he felt like he wanted to give me food, so he just drops off this bag of food and it fed me for the entire day.

So, I’ve had loads of instances like this. Like, so many people just give me free food, and free accommodation, and whatnot. But I would have to say that, yeah, my most beautiful moment was that one there, there and then, it was so nice.

[00:49:41] Annie: Yeah, because I mean, if you’ve been walking all day, that’s a lot of calories you’ve burned. You need the calories back, don’t you?

[00:49:48] Oscar: Yeah, I mean, I’m probably burning around about 4000 calories some days, which is quite a lot.

[00:49:53] Annie: Yeah, you’d have to eat a lot too, no wonder you’ve lost all your baby fat.

[00:49:58] Oscar: Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t even fat before, so I actually lost a lot of muscle and fat in France, because everything was closed, because I was walking in August. So most places in Europe close and people are on holiday. And so I lost around about six kilograms of fat and muscle, and then I put the muscle back on, and the fat just never came back. But fat is actually quite good for the winter month, so I should probably start a carb load, just load up on the carbohydrates, I might do that tonight actually.

[00:50:27] Annie: Do you get very cold? Like, do you get very uncomfortable at times?

[00:50:32] Oscar: Yeah, freezing! Freezing, yeah! When it gets down to like minus one, minus two inside the tent, yeah, it’s pretty hard to fall asleep. I mean sometimes, there’s been some nights where I sleep maybe an hour or two, it’s so cold. And my sleeping bag is a comfort of five degrees, so I’m about to buy another one.

My uncle’s coming over tomorrow, he’s joining me tomorrow, and he’s kindly offered to buy me a minus five comfort sleeping bag, so that’ll hopefully help a lot. Yeah, massively, massively, because five degrees comfort it’s not good enough.

[00:51:07] Annie: Yeah, not enough. Not when you’re walking through Austria it’s mountainous and cold.

[00:51:13] Oscar: When it gets like minus two, if you’re in a five degree sleeping bag, you’re just going to crash,

[00:51:18] Annie: Yeah, and you probably get wet a lot, I mean, you probably get rained on a lot?

[00:51:22] Oscar: Yeah, there’s all of these harsh elements that come into play, but honestly, it just grows hairs in your chest and it makes you tougher mentally and physically, so you get used to it, yeah!

[00:51:33] Annie: Well, like I said, you’re not going to let anything… (stop you) You will make it! I’m really confident that you will make it.

[00:51:39] Oscar: Touch wood!

[00:51:39] Annie: Yeah!

[00:51:40] Oscar: Yeah, touch wood, yeah!

[00:51:41] Annie: That’s great. Just don’t break anything. Don’t break anything.

Yeah. No, no silly trying to take a shortcut and jump over something. I have a very dear friend who she didn’t want to get wet and she tried to go underneath a waterfall, behind the waterfall, and she slipped and fell, and she was in the hospital for a whole year. Yeah, yeah. And she was only 19, or something.

She was a friend of my daughter’s. And they played basketball together. She’s perfectly recovered now, but she was very lucky that her brother was there and called, you know, he ran off and got help, and all of that. You probably don’t have cell service most of the time, right?

[00:52:24] Oscar: I call a personal locator beacon, so if anything happens, I just call that. Yeah, I mean, that’s, sometimes it’s comfort, if you’re too comfortable you’re less aware, and most accidents happen when you’re just way too comfortable, so you just have to calculate. And this isn’t just me, because I might be walking a marathon a day, but people walking on the street, when it’s icy, more likely to be more comfortable. So actually, it applies to everyone in life, to not be over comfortable, just be cautious, not even cautious, but just be conscious of the risks. Yeah, you just got to calculate everything.

And of course, I’m taking massive risk, but you have to take… yeah, you have to be calculated with your risk taking.

[00:53:08] Annie: So does your GoFundMe have a name? I’ve never done GoFundMe, I have no idea!

[00:53:12] Oscar: Honestly, GoFundMe, and then if you put in my name, Oscar Newsom Smith, it pops up.

[00:53:18] Annie: Okay, okay.

GoFundMe, Oscar Newsom-Smith, and I’ll put a link in the show notes, and also like on the app when people read, people listen, they’ll be able to get to it quickly. And every little bit helps. So if you only have 10 bucks, that’s fine, give them the 10 bucks. If you have a hundred, even better.

[00:53:34] Oscar: Yeah, yeah. If got a thousand, then…

[00:53:36] Annie: That’s great. That’s great. We would love that. We would love that.

All right, Oscar. I send you great wishes. Wonderful, what you’re doing is great! It’s like you’re a dreamer. I love it. I love it.

[00:53:46] Oscar: Oh, thank you Annie, it’s very kind.

[00:53:49] Annie: Trying to effect change, you’re trying to actually make the change that we all wish would happen, but somebody has to make it, right?

Somebody has to do it.

[00:53:59] Oscar: Exactly, And so there has to be change and there will be change. So yeah, I will create the change. I just need everyone’s support to get this up and running. And it will happen. I know it will happen.

[00:54:11] Annie: Fantastic. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me, Oscar. That’s lovely and sending you my best wishes and probably a little cash as well.

[00:54:20] Oscar: Oh, thank you, Annie.

I’m very grateful for this and thank you for hosting me on your show.

[00:54:26] Annie: All right. Au revoir.

[00:54:27] Oscar: Au revoir.

Copyright

[00:54:35] Annie Sargent: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and Copyright 2024 by AddictedToFrance. It is released under a Creative Commons, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.

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Transcript for Episode 525: Walking for Hope: A Christmas Quest to Rebuild and Inspire