So East it's Ouest

Hiking or randonée is much more interesting in France than the USA because of how stress free it can be.  A friend told me that there are nearly 90,000 kilometers of state maintained foot paths in France.  Hiking is interesting in that sense because nearly all paths are marked and mapped, it's like being in a statewide park basically.  It's very easy to find a 5 hour long hike and not get completely lost while doing it.  Sometimes French people get the stereotype of not being outdoorsy which is not really true, lots of people go on hikes on the weekend but usually they like to be well equipped when they do aka hiking shoes, walking poles, French picnic supplies, and the zip off hiking pants getup.  But I have a secret I think I might have just done the best hike in France, and not very many people know about it.   If you've been reading the blog you'll know that I've lived near Avignon before and that I have a thing for the Mt. Ventoux region.  Well th...

Short and sweet. 3 days.  Chez les Sheep.  Returning to aclimate to cold weather by traveling to the south of France to hang with the cool kids in the Avignon english group.  Trains are great👍🏼.  I'm telling ya after this 'sejour' in France I'm so comfortable now changing train stations, taking buses, planning out public transportation.  After getting into Lille at midnight on Wednesday I awoke bright and early to catch the ouigo to Paris and on to Avignon.  It was snowing as I got into the metro so I made an arrangement with Lille that I would come back only when the weather is warmer.  (I'm turning into a cold weather sissy because I don't have my puffy down parka) 4-5 hours later and poof you're in Avignon.  I made my way down to the mirror pools out front of the train station to send another location text to Daniel and Delia when they sneakily peaked around the front gate and scared me.   They helped me lug my bag (full of beer bottles)...

I got to visit my friends (aka my people=aka my French family) in Avignon!  🎶Reunited and it feels so good🎶.  The word relief comes from the old French word to raise up or alleviate and that's exactly how I feel when I'm with them.  It's great with these people, even with a 1½ year break we just picked right back up where we had left off.  I spent just about a week with them down in the south.  I got to take off a layer or two and enjoy some of the nice weather; made it for both of the meetings, went out in service a few days (which in this beautiful corner of the earth is basically preaching/sight seeing) but mostly we ate together, my favorite type of vacation 👌🏼😉.  There is no such thing as too many cloves of roasted garlic.  With this lot lunch will always end at 6:00pm and include conversations of architecture in paradise.  I managed to bring down some 'maroille' cheese and beer from the north with out any accidents or stinky cheese clo...

The cinéma-quiet, historic, dark, posters, fun.  Last night I got the opportunity to go to the Utopia an old cinema hidden in a corner near the palais des papes in Avignon.  This was on the top of my list of things to do.  I convinced Margaux and we got into the car and after a major bout of being completely lost and some running sprints later we made it to the Utopia with 2 minutes to spare.  Including a narrow twisting lane of cobblestones with man playing an accordion with a mustache, hmmmm.  I could tell we were in the right place because I saw a large group of old bikes in front of it.   It's pretty amazing, an old glass building full of history but it's lively as well.  It's the kind of place you go that they are proud that none of they're movies are in 3D, they only have one hall, and you only pay in cash.  And everyone who likes movies goes there; there were old couples, single pregnant ladies, college kids with tattoos and spiked hair, an...

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 ...