Arrival

24 hours of travel, no meals, fighting off jet lag, figuring out how Euros work=exhaustion.  I am so ready to go to sleep tonight.  I have a problem with not sleeping when I'm traveling, even as a little kid when we would drive down to Ft. Meyers, a whole day away, I wouldn't get a wink of sleep not'a one.  Ross dropped us off at 9:00am Thursday and we got to where we are staying today Friday at 2:00pm.  

At the Madrid airport, which is beautiful but strangly designed, they made me worried when they spent 10mins looking over my passport, then they took my carry-on aside and pulled me over, 'oh no' I thought ' they're going to throw something out of my bag or call me a terrorist'.  Turns out my bicycle mechanics pouch is shaped just like a bomb, so I hurriedly tried to say bicycle in Spanish, to the customs officer's chagrin: una velo, los bicyclette, las bicicletas!  : }  We flew from Ft.Wayne->Chicago->Madrid->Marseille and then we drove to Avignon, deciding to not pay tolls which set us on a long trail through several towns in Provence, some of which where a little scary ( crappy graffiti, trash, chained up dogs, the like) 

We toured around in Avignon for a little bit, in fact we accidentally drove through the main square where the town was holding a fair, that was interesting.  I learned a valuable lesson in using Euros when my hungry folks sent me to buy lunch, I went to a little boulangerie/market and bought some fresh fruit, a Provençal quiche (yum), and some nuts.  The lady was super nice with me, I think the fruit costed 2.95€, and when she said that I just blanked and said "uhhhh", that dang 90 in French I knew it would get me.  I should have known better, I had a lot of coin Euros so she helped me through, the coins can be 20cents,1,2€, etc; 1€ has a gold band on the outside the 2€ has a silver band.

I felt like a frustrated toddler, especially when speaking French today.  It's going to be a good kick in the pants to speak French, because you have to do it if you want to eat.  I can tell already though that it's going to get easier.  The encouraging part is that although I may make a lot of grammar mistakes, especially with gender, everyone today has said that my accent is pretty good, kudos to my awesome french teachers, especially Brigitte ( -in -an -en -on encore! {swinging our arms like wiper blades} Que vous êtes mignons : ) ) .  In fact we went to eat at a place in town tonight and Patrick had me ask for a table which got me speaking in French with the waitress.  She thought I was British, when I told her I was an American she said 'wow how long have you lived here?'  I said, 'one day'.  

It was a fun evening, Patrick is French and his wife Anu is Finnish which makes them a lovely couple, she speaks with an Irish accent because of having lived there for 9 years.  We got a quick walk through of their 300yr old house and we went out to Avignon.  Patrick gave us some historical facts about the town, the walls were built in the 12th century etc., and some handy hints like when you see the town Villeneuve-les-Avignon, the 'les' actually means near, so it means Villeneuve near Avignon.  Anu made us laugh the whole evening through, I love Scandinavian humor. They are going to show us some more landmarks around the city this week, and they have also promised to teach me a little something something about the regional wines and film, I guess Patrick's dad used to own a cinema, "whaaaat"-Psych

Downtown Avignon is a  maze of winding stone streets with lots of independent shops and major labels too, I saw an H & M and a Foot Locker.  For me it was surprising how quiet the city center is because you are so far away from cars.  I didn't take any pictures of the city today but I will soon, I also won't be writing everyday from now on, but I'll make sure to keep this up to date.

That's my head...

Yes, it's THAT Avignon

More photos can be found under Avignon-2014 of my google+