Cape Clear Island

On a very sunny day this week, I took a ferry to Cape Clear, Ireland's most southerly island.  It's visible from the second story of the house and I had seen it in the distance when I was kayaking.  I expected to arrive in some semblance of a village, perhaps a street lined with tourist shops, but the ferry let us off in a very quiet harbor with two cafes and a craft shop.  During the summer the island hosts language camps for students wanting to improve their Irish.  The place was very quiet-- only the sound of the wind.  The roads were all one-lane wide, lined with stone walls covered in brambles.  If I had any problems to ponder or any emotional depths to delve into, this would certainly be the place for it.. but as it is I just walked around, took in the scenery, and returned the stares of some cows and pigs.. I can kind of see it as a setting for another "Misery" by Stephen King, especially during the winter... Very beautiful though.

The ferry captain favored us with some Irish songs on the return trip.

Walking the Dogs!

We piled the three labs in the car and drove toward Mizen Head, the most southwesterly point of Ireland, past rocky hills until we got to the dogs' favorite spot: Barley Cove.


A long time ago part of it was a golf course-- you can still see the shapes in the dunes--but it was taken over by rabbits. Everywhere you look are rabbit holes. No wonder the dogs love it.

Weekend

On June 1st we had to turn the heat on and light the fire, but the very next day a heat wave swooped in!  The newspaper showed kids jumping into the ocean and called the heat "scorching," which is pretty laughable, but it made the long weekend feel like a true holiday!  Irish from Cork City drove down to their holiday homes; we had Brits, Californians, and Swedes staying in the rooms...For three days, I didn't go farther than the front yard, but made countless trips from lawn to kitchen to dining room to wine rack to kitchen and back.

The large gravel patio in front of the house is set back from the road and affords the best view in town (left). After the guests had eaten all of their breakfast sausages and toast, we started getting mid-morning coffee-drinkers. Then lunch outside on the tables or afternoon wine in the Adirondack chairs. One day I was doing so much back-and-forth outside that I had to put sunscreen on my face (story of my life)...

The restaurant was fully booked both Saturday and Sunday night, so amidst serving afternoon tea and answering the phone and endlessly loading the dishwasher and washing machine, we'd prep for dinner ("we" being myself, Katarina cook and owner, and an Australian WWOOFer helping behind the scenes).

Then there was a moment of calm.  Before the evening commenced, we could sit for a few minutes in the dining room, admiring the set table and the lit candles and listening to Rod Stewart... 

Almost everyone who stays or dines here is positively lovely.  I usually have little chats with them. Very nice people.  Then again, being on holiday and getting waited upon in a nice place, why shouldn't they be pleasant?

One couple was from France and I got to serve them in French!  Wonderful!  They were visiting a good friend of the House and came two days in a row.  French men, they're so charming when they're married; after some French banter he tipped me and gave me a kiss. They invited me to come stay with them in Normandy. It's legit.... I tell you, I have more open doors than I have time for... 

Dinner: sixty odd courses and a dozen empty bottles later, we'd have some red wine of our own in the kitchen and wait for the last tables to leave.  I can't blame them for wanting to loiter in there-- it's downright classy.  But we eventually see them off with a smile, run a last load in the dishwasher, prep for breakfast and then go straight to bed.  It's a healthy existence, all this work, and it was quite fun.  Good mental exercise-- waitressing.  People are back to work, though; the weekend's gone and so is the warm weather.  All for the best: I now have time to write this and I get to wear a new cashmere sweater I bought at the charity shop for three euro. Score.  If no one comes for dinner tonight, maybe we'll get to light the fire and relax ourselves!

Landmark Day

One year ago today, I flew to Anchorage!! thus beginning my summer in the Midnight Sun. I remember it so vividly!  I did a few calculations and in the past year, to the day, I've traveled 20,669 miles.  After I fly home, I'll nearly have traveled the equivalent of the circumference of the globe. Fun facts!

As an ode to Alaska, and because I can't get enough of them, here are some photos.

Filleting the 23 salmon we caught. It took all night.

On a roof overlooking the tundra.

Reid's first catch in Alaska, two pike.

Last year's dried salmon, for the dogs.

 

The only two brave enough for the challenge: 38 degree water for 20 minutes.

  
To be honest, none of my experiences in Europe have compared to Alaska... Not that it's a contest. 

Taking to the Sea

It's easy to forget how high up Ireland is on the globe.  It's not Alaska, but the sun still doesn't set until 10:30 and it's fully risen when I wake up to serve breakfast.  It's not always master of the sky, though: we've had many gray, windy, wet mornings.  A couple days ago, I awoke to a very promising day; the sun was gleaming off the harbor.  So after a few hours of work, I headed for the water.  I had intended to rent a kayak for a couple of hours one day, but thanks to small town connections, I have a free sea kayak at my disposal,  just two minutes from the house.  I took her out.

I paddled across the bay and along the shore to the tip of a peninsula.  I found a cove and went ashore.  Exploring this jut of land was one of my particular motives in kayaking because I can see the peninsula from the house, but it's not accessible by road.  So I wandered up and around and got a fantastic view of the islands, the sheer coastline, and the Atlantic beyond.

While I was tromping around the cow pastures, the wind had picked up and it took some effort and some getting-wet to launch my kayak against the waves.  Once in the wider water, things were rough.  I was riding up and down on the waves and rain pelted my sunglasses and I had a long paddle against the wind to reach home.  But the taste of salt splashing on my face made me feel like I was really sea kayaking!

"Irish Girl"

It was a quiet Saturday night at the B&B.  After Katarina went to bed early, I held down the fort and waited to show one more guest to his room.  I did so with my feet propped in front of the fire, eating chocolates and reading a book. What a job.


There's a big film festival in town, well, big for a town of 700.  A film festival in a town without a cinema.  The main street has yellow and blue streamers hanging across it and shops have been turned into screening venues.  I saw one film, "Runway," which was filmed here in Schull.  Locals had been extras so at the viewing everyone was anxious to pick out familiar faces.

The film festival is bringing in lots of people.  Last night I served dinner to a group of big movie directors/producers.  The conversation snippets I caught were about casting and talent and Glenn Close... The only uncertain moment I've had waiting tables was opening a bottle of wine for them. My on-the-ground French education included bottle-opening: I can do it; but opening one with an unfamiliar opener in front of these worldly people while trying to look experienced in a candle-lit restaurant...a different matter.  But I got 'er done, although I'm no sommelier.

By the fire, I also chatted with a guest, an Irish woman just slightly older than me.  We talked about Italy, Obama, tech jobs, and this charming house and at the end she asked my name again. "Oh my gosh, that's the perfect name!" was her shrill reply.  It's true.  Everyone is delighted when they learn of my Irish name.  It's never fit so well as it does here. If only I could mask my accent, I'd have them all fooled.

For You, Dad

I've been asked to elaborate a bit on my time in Italy and since things are tranquil here in Schull, I can certainly do that.

I could recognize Florence's skyline, even before seeing it, because of Brunelleschi's dome on the Duomo:

 

But it didn't prepare me for viewing the Duomo from the ground.  It is massive and as it's surrounded by other buildings you can never get a full view of it.  The exterior is entirely decorated with white, green, and pink marble, which I found really impressive every time I passed it.

I studied up on Michelangelo a bit since he's a superstar in Renaissance history and Florence was his home.  I saw David and other sculptures and had podcasts to give me context.  Michelangelo, at 26, sculpted the original David out of a "flawed" chunk of marble rejected by other sculptors.  And if you've ever thought that David's head is slightly too large, that's intentional: he was commissioned to stand on top of the Duomo so Michelangelo created him to look proportional from the street.  There are your two hsitory tidbits for the day.

Michelangelo was also a common thread from Florence to Rome- there I saw Moses (in the same church as the chains which are said to have bound Peter) and I capped it off with the Sistine Chapel.  In the Vatican Museum all visitors flow in the same direction and at times we felt like cattle getting slowly herded into a corral.  "Thank goodness we're not here in July," we repeated.  Not only would summer see three times as many tourists, but it would be sweltering!  Even in May, I was in a sundress and sunhat... I always envisioned Rome as hot and dusty, though.. the Romans having to wash the dust off their sandaled feet...  Anyway, the Sistine Chapel:  thankfully I had a podcast explaining it because Michelangelo's ceiling is overwhelming.  Thirty minutes looking up and listening and some order was wrought out of the initial chaos. There was also The Last Judgment frescoe.  Epic.

That was the most we saw of the Vatican.  The Pope didn't grace us with his presence although pictures of him holding a baby were everywhere: signs for his beatification (apparently he's one miracle away from becoming a saint). We went to St. Peter's Square, but didn't go inside the Basilica because it would probably look like just another cathedral, plus we didn't want to wait in this line:

Old Dogs Can't Jump

On my first venture outside the House into surrounding Ireland,  I brought two of the labs with me on a run.  We followed a seaside path, through a field near a crumbling chapel and a graveyard full of Celtic crosses:

Soon the trail plummeted onto an enclosed rocky beach.  The dogs rooted around and went swimming.  As we tried to leave, we found that the trail we had descended was steep rock up to my shoulders--easy enough to go down and easy for me to climb up, but the doggies... The puppy got a running start and scrambled up, but the old mama dog couldn't do it.  She gave a distressed little "don't leave me here."  The puppy came back down to show her how to do it; I tried in vain to lift her.  We searched for an alternative way out: the cove was surrounded by waist high brambles and jagged rocks jutting into the bay.  I eventually found an accessible way onto the rocks via the water; I apologized to all of the barnacles and microscopic beings I was probably killing, and the dogs followed me out.  Good thing I didn't have to go back on my second day and tell her I'd gotten her old dog stranded!

Imagine a Bed & Breakfast in Ireland....

 ..and you probably have a pretty accurate picture of where I am: a big stone house with ivy covering the front, wood floors and candles on the tables, blue and white teapots... The view out the front is of sailboats, a ferry dock, and rocky hills.

The house serves as a restaurant in the evenings and on special occasions.  My first day here was one such occasion, lunch for a party of 20.  I spent all morning peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables, all afternoon aiding in the kitchen, and in the evening, I waitressed  (tips!).  I'm really quite good at this sort of work and it feels good to do it.  I've been idle for too long.  And if providing charming hospitality isn't enough, I work with lovely people. Katarina--the owner, chef, maid, piano teacher, bookkeeper-- is my main company, but friends drop into her kitchen frequently and everyone has been wonderful. 

I serve breakfast, I serve tea, I weed in the garden, I garnish plates, etc., as Katarina continually pleases the guests with her meals.  "Lovely, just lovely" is the Irish compliment for delicious... The kitchen is a good place to be as it's the warmest part of the house.  The mornings have been downright chilly and even though the sun shines during the day, the wind has been howling around the house.  Perhaps that's why the Irish drink so much tea. :)

My morning jog

Getting There

A lot has changed since I wrote last!  At Easter, my job ended and I said good-bye to my students... That seems so long ago now... I then spent a short week in western France exploring the Atlantic-coast cities and hiking in the Pyrenees.  I stayed with Francoise and Lucien, the French couple that befriended me upon my arrival in France, and theirs was probably my most heartfelt good-bye.  No time for tears, however.  The next day I hitch-hiked to Nice with Katie and that's where my three-week trip began.

If I recount for you all the cool stories from my trip to Rome and back, we'll never catch up, so I'll limit it to one sentence per place:  My favorite spot in Nice was a monastery with a magnificent rose garden and a panoramic view of the city and sea. In Monaco, I walked past million-dollar yachts and saw the preparations for the Grand Prix.  I decided to stay two extra nights in Cinque Terre, Italy because hiking on the cliffs and swimming off the rocks was soul-cleansing.  The best pizza I had in Italy was in Pisa: a HUGE dinner with other hostel-goers. Florence was a trip down memory lane to World History class (the birthplace of the Renaissance) and also my first taste of Italian cities: mopeds everywhere.  I met Erin in Rome and we did a killer job seeing the sights without waiting in a single line. After hot and sunny Rome, the Alps were literally a breath of fresh air and I had a glorious day of hiking on Mont Blanc... Et voila! Three weeks of travel and I'm sure you feel as if you were there....

I'm in Ireland now, in case that's news to you. But let me tell you how I got here.  After a final, lovely day in Toulouse, I touched down in Dublin and that's where it started: immigration.  Handing the man my passport, he asked: "so how long are you here for?" I could've lied and said seven days and skipped along, but the time for quick thinking passed and I answered "two months."  Wrong answer. Americans are allowed to visit for up to 3 months without a Visa, but what I'm doing is apparently a "working holiday"- a whole different ballgame.  Do you have a letter of reference? No. Is someone picking you up from the airport? No.  Do you have your host's phone number? No.  Do you have a return ticket home? No. Do you have proof of medical insurance? No... the list goes on. This ordeal caught me totally unawares; my heart was pumping like mad throughout. I felt very foolish and calmly began to imagine who I would call if they sent me back to France... But this immigration guy, although he was very stern, gave me the benefit of the doubt.  I walked away slightly rattled and sorry I had made a bad impression on the first Irishman I came across.

The day didn't get any worse, but I can't say it got much better. The most painful part was spending three times more money getting from Dublin to western Ireland than I did on my flight from France.  There was also one dreadful moment when I went to pay for a bus ticket and couldn't find my wallet-- I broke into a sweat rifling through my bags, realizing I no longer had emergency cash stashed elsewhere. I was screwed in Cork (pun?).

Alas, my wallet was there, fallen into a hidden compartment. I paid for the bus, the bus that unexpectedly didn't go the full distance to my destination.  It deserted me in Skibereen, 15 miles from Schull.  So close and yet so far away.  It was 8:30pm by this time and I vowed to be happy as long as I arrived before dark (thankfully the days here are long).  I went into the nearest pub (ignoring the half dozen heads that turn as I entered with backpack and luggage) and asked after a cab.  Within minutes the whole bar was for my cause: the lady bartender knew all the cab drivers firsthand and tried to get me a deal; another woman called every friend in her phone seeing if they'd help a stranded girl; the old men swore they'd drive me there themselves if they weren't intoxicated.  Despite this wellspring of Irish generosity, I took a cab in the end: the last, painful extraction from my wallet (if I lived through this one, I'd surely survive).

I arrived before dark, 14 hours after setting out, but not as ragged as you might expect.  Yet I'll be happy if I don't see another plane, train, or bus again for months.

Albi

Not my photo, but this is the most common shot of Albi, a town an hour from Toulouse by train. It straddles the River Tarn and the big building is Saint Cecile-- the largest brick cathedral in the world.

Albi is a romantic's dream!  Not an uncobbled street can be found in the center of town; brick paths wind down steep wooded banks to the river, which is spanned by arched bridges and aqueducts; heavy bows of purple wisteria hang over the alleys.  Follow narrow flights of stairs to tiled terraces and you'll soon find yourself dead-ended on someone's back porch, with their potted flowers and clothes line.  Turn off the main street, mount a few steps and you'll discover this courtyard, quiet except for the incessant cooing of pigeons:

The Cloister of Saint Salvy

The Palace of the Berbie offers this view of the Tarn, complete with gardens, a vine-covered promenade, and the orange-shingled roofs of the stacked houses across the river:

I spent Saturday in Albi, arriving around noon when the sidewalk and terrace cafes were filling up.  It was sundress weather.  Kids ran through fountains and the homemade gelato shops were doing good business.  With so many picturesque alcoves, it was hard to choose where to eat mine.  The heat made the fragrance of flowers hang in the air and the atmosphere felt like summer vacation, without lots of tourists.  Albi isn't huge, but in addition to its charm, it has a few attractions that draw crowds-- the Cathedral Saint Cecile and the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum (I visited the museum--of the French artist by the same name-- but I'll spare you the details).  This weekend there were only a couple coaches worth of tourists so there was an agreeable array of people (no one likes walking around a deadbeat town unless it's supposed to be that way).

I went inside the enormous Cathedrale de Saint Cecile and it was 15 degrees cooler inside-- out of the sun, surrounded by all that stone, the familiar smell of candles and old wood.  Cathedrals first impress with their size and grandeur, and after a few minutes of taking it in, it's the details: the decor and the carvings.  Put the two together-- such elaborateness in so much space -- and you could spend days in there and not see every intricacy.  Saint Cecile stands out from the rest in that every foot of it--the walls, the bays, the ceilings-- is painted:

France has a lot of towns with cathedrals and quaint streets, but Albi turned out to be one of my favorites.  A smooth train ride through the country and back and an afternoon spent wandering through this treasure of a town-- it was a Saturday well-spent.

First Spring, Now Summer!

This week has been a string of shining days, days that beg to be spent outside, days with surprising, new-found longevity-- 8:30pm and it's still light?  Winter is over!  80 degrees, not a cloud in sky.  The birds sing so loudly that I can hear them over the rush of wind as I ride my bike.  Cut grass, dandelions, all of a sudden the trees have leaves again-- it feels like summer in Boston or New York. I shop at the best street market in town where I can get 10 kiwis for 1 euro; apples for 80 cents/kilo; oranges, strawberries, mushrooms, avocados...

I spend hours in the long afternoons enjoying Toulouse's parks-- lying on the grass reading with my new Kindle and listening to the music circle of some students next to me.  One guy even had a trombone.  Katie and I had a picnic by the Garonne downtown-- tomato and goat cheese sandwiches, olives, fruit, and wine-- trying to "bronze" our ghostly legs. (I learned that wine doesn't do much to quench your thirst; I should've had some water in addition).  She strummed her ukulele and I tried to remember "Let it be," which I learned on the ukulele this summer...  I rode my bike in a sundress carrying a baguette-- with this weather, I can ride my bike anywhere, so I spend less time on the metro. I've been trolling the streets for an unclaimed lilac bush where I can poach some flowers.  Being so residential, though, all of the lilacs are well secured behind fences.  Until this morning! On my jog in the green zone behind my apartment, there by the road was a whole bank of lilac bushes; I returned with a bag and a knife and now my room is full of my favorite fragrance!

Ode to Spring

April... such a pretty month, especially following March.  Even after living in Austin where March was the loveliest month of the year, I still connote it with dirty snow and dreary countenances.  April, though, is springtime!  And it feels like it in Toulouse.  The first two days of April were the sunniest, prettiest days anyone could ask for.  Flowers--daffodils, tulips, pansies, and poppies-- cover the roadsides and the parks.

A patch of flowers that I pass on my bike on my way to work.  The picture doesn't do it justice-- it's painfully pretty.

 Yesterday, in celebration of the glorious weather, I rode my bike along the canal to le Jardin des Plantes (Toulouse's "Central Park," if you will), where I wrote and read and observed the Mallard ducklings and all the picnickers. 

I'm well aware that ever since graduation, I've been on a paid vacation-- first Alaska, now France.  I have so much free time, it's almost a crime, but instead of guiltily trying to fill it, I've chosen to accept the blessing.  There is a season for everything-- a time to run and a time to rest, a time to work and a time to play-- and all one can do is enjoy it as it comes.  So during these lengthening days, I'm relishing my last weeks in Toulouse.   It's hard to believe I leave in less than a month!  Besides the usual reading and writing, I occasionally try my feet at the slack-line and frequently research the next steps of my European adventure (a month on the rails, but you'll hear about that when it happens!).  Praise God for spring and all the newness it brings!

Hitch-hiking

I never told you about hitch-hiking back from Barcelona, did I?  Well, now that I got my hands on a few of Katie's pictures, I will.

It wasn't my first time to stick my thumb out.  My debut was this summer in Alaska: a group of us, after walking to town, piled into someone's truck bed to save us the 6 miles back to camp...  But the real hitch-hiking experience was at the end of the summer, the final seal on the two most adventurous months of my life... Reid and I had four days before our planes left Alaska, so we stood with our backpacks by the highway (one of the most scenic routes in the world) to see where we'd end up.  In those four days we hiked, camped, slept near a glacier, got picked up by a dog-musher (not in her sled with the dogs--that would've been really cool-- it was just her occupation) and made it to Seward, a seaport town and the destination we were shootin' for.

Hitch-hiking from Barcelona was different: with Reid, it had been carefree-- not for a minute did I worry about my safety-- but this time, being two lone girls, caution (and a tinge of fear?) was thrown into the mix. And while Alaska in the summer is a hitch-hiker's paradise, it's not as common in Catalonia and southern France.  You have to be more strategic because any old road isn't going to hack it.

We tried hitching straight out of the center of Barcelona, but saw pretty quickly that it was futile.  I was embarrassed with all the Spaniards driving to work and gawking at us.  We weren't well-placed, so we switched to Plan B and took a train to the outskirts of the city.  From the train station, we had to get to a gas station on a near-by highway.  This mini trek included traversing the tracks, crawling under fences, and hiking through weeds...

At the gas station, a couple of construction workers laughed at our attempts from afar, making me smug when our first ride pulled over 10 minutes later:  an 18-wheeler driven by a Polish man.  It was our first time inside a semi-- pretty cool being up that high.  I didn't mind at all that we were in the slow lane, as long as we were moving! Homeward bound!  The Pollock knew no English or French so conversation was limited; we smiled and nodded a lot, until he came up with the words "telephone numero?" to which we said no.  He dropped us at a big junction just south of the border.

At the junction, we used the bathroom and were making ourselves some sandwiches when a trucker walked by, saw our "France" sign on the ground, and offered us a ride.  It was like negative waiting time!  He was a 30-year-old half-Portuguese/half-Italian guy, very talkative, dancing to music, giving us soda.  I'm surprised he didn't ask for our numbers.  But, he let us off with a smile in Narbonne, France.

We were making good time, flying high off our success, singing while we waited for one more ride.

This time it wasn't a semi.  It was a French businessman in a nice car-- man, how that thing flew after being in the slower trucks!  He said he picked up hitch-hikers whenever he could because he had hitch-hiked around Europe as a college student.  Katie, whose French is better than mine, sat up front, allowing me to sit taciturnly in the back, worn out.

We made it, quite successfully, in fact.  Maybe it quenched our need for adventure for a little while.




For kicks, here I am in Barcelona eating octopus:

Andorra

It's a land-locked country between France and Spain, half the size of New York City, and it's where I decided to venture this Saturday.  I figured I'd never be this close again!

I love an early start, so it was still dawn when my train started south. The two and a half hours felt quick after the six-hour trip to Paris and back.  Andorra is so small and mountainous that it has no airport and no train stations.  Only by car, bus, or helicopter can you get in, so my train stopped on the French side of the border and left us to go the rest of the way by bus.  Thing is, the bus only runs every so often-- not often enough, it would seem.  Ninety plus people poured out of the train, all of us going the same direction, but the bus only held fifty.  The next bus wasn't coming for perhaps an hour, creating a chaotic scene.

The mob of people could be split in two: young people in snowsuits carrying skis and snowboards, headed for the slopes, and older, rough-looking people going to stock up on cigarettes and liquor in the duty-free zone. The latter group outnumbered the skiers.  I was at the very back of this "line" and saw that I'd be stuck at the train station if I didn't make a move.  I skirted around the back side of the bus and wedged myself right into the door.  I don't think they noticed amidst the shouting and jostling (a convenience of traveling solo).  It took a while to push my way onto the bus; one rude lady told me to respect the line; I got hit in the head by someone passing their shopping cart over the crowd to someone on the bus.  People got separated-- one person on the bus and the other not going to make it, so they were passing tickets out and making plans to meet later.  By the time I paid and was on the bus, I found the only remaining seat, in the back near a rowdy group of men speaking a convoluted style of French (definitely not civilized Parisians, these guys).  As I sat and the bus took off, I was proud of my pro-active self, glad I wasn't stuck with the forty people left behind.

The guys played Indian (?) music out of a little boombox, making me feel like I was riding through the Himalayas, not the Pyrenees.  The road was a series of switchbacks across the sides of mountains.  Within a few minutes, we reached the Andorran border, where it dawned on me that I didn't have my passport.  I had completely forgotten it, hadn't switched it from one purse to the other.  When I went to Spain we hadn't so much as tapped the brake at the border; I hadn't needed my passport, so I didn't even think of a border check, but there it was.  Turns out Andorra isn't part of the EU, that's why.  As the bus pulled over and the guards got on and everyone took out their National Identity Cards, I found my TX driver's license, however much good that would do.  I wasn't really nervous-- what could they do? Send me back; my trip would be short-lived, but all I'd suffer would be the minor embarrassment of getting kicked off the bus in front of all those people.

They let me in!  Where did I live? Where I was going? What I was doing?  They told me with a frown not to do it again.  The ordeal gained me some attention from the people around me on the bus.  "Une americano!"  Did I speak French? When was I going back to the U.S.?  "Great, I'm coming with you!"  Despite their gruff appearance, I could tell they were joking.  A sweet Moroccan lady sitting next to me took my hand, stroked it and cooed comforting, protective words-- I must've looked shaken up, but I really wasn't.  

With the uncertainty of getting back into France looming over me, I cheerfully went about my day in Andorra.  I shopped with the rest of them.  I wasn't in the market for alcohol or cigarettes or perfume, but I did buy shoes.  European shoes, you might envision heels and boots, but I got these babies:

First sneakers I've bought in four years. No more UT freebies. They didn't have any in burnt orange unfortunately.

Thankfully I found what I was looking for because if I hadn't, I would've had to buy things just to prove to the border patrol that I had shopped.  The shoe place gave me a huge bag so I looked legit.

I took another bus further into Andorra, to the capital city (not a drive for the easily car-sick).  Lots of ski stations along the way and a city full of stores.  A river ran through it, lined with beautiful trees:

Andorra-la-Vella

Andorra is reputed for its scenery; at least that's what's advertised to Europeans, but I wasn't blown away.  The mountains were nice, but not overly impressive, nothing compared to the Rockies.  The buildings and towns in the valleys could have been more aesthetically pleasing.  Andorra-la-Vella and Pas-de-la-Casa had nothing other than stores, hotels, and restaurants, which makes one appreciate well-rounded cities like Toulouse, London, Paris.  But it's unfair to compare it to cities twice the size of the whole country.  Eighty percent of Andorra's economy is in shopping and skiing tourism, so it serves its purpose and people enjoy going there!

Walking around, peeking in stores, reading in the park, watching the day change from sunny and 60 to snowing, drinking hot chocolate.. then catching the bus back out.  The moment of truth arrived when we pulled over at the border, but to my relief the guards got on, walked the aisle, gave us a look over, and sent us on our way without checking passports!  I was safe and sound back in France, headed home to Toulouse.

A weekend in Paris

I never imagined I'd be in the position to spend a weekend in Paris on a whim, but there it is.  I canceled my Friday afternoon classes, scurried to the train station, and was northbound by noon, excited not only to see the City of Light again, but to explore it with company this time.  My friend Reid and his mother were the reason for the trip.  How nice to go on a trip where all I had to do was get myself there! He booked the hotel and made the plans.

The night I arrived was rainy-- I looked like Mary Poppins with my big black handbag/suitcase in one hand and my umbrella in the other.  After meeting Reid's mom and hearing about their bus ride over from London, we trotted out for a late dinner in a brasserie, which I happily ordered for them in French (they joked that I was their French-speaking guide, but in reality they could've gotten on just fine without me).  Vegetable soup, steamed potatoes, pate, bread, fish with the eyes still in it, and red wine.

The rain had stopped when we walked out of the restaurant.  We headed for the Eiffel Tower which was only a few blocks away.  As we stood admiring it (you always remember the first time you stand before it), it burst into sparkles before our very eyes-- must have been midnight.

Blurry, but I like it.

Other highlights of the weekend included an afternoon of reading in the sunny gardens of Versailles, a morning at the Louvre, buying bread, cheese, and six bottles of wine for nights at the hotel, a sunset boat-ride on the Seine, and a trip up the Eiffel that Reid finagled for us-- for half the price, we got to skip the 3-hour wait in line! (Let me know if you're ever in Paris and I'll tell you the secret).

We went up the Tower on our last morning, a clear sunny day-- Paris is a very white city from up there!

On the second story-- that's plenty high already, then you keep going up all that way!

Reid and his mom at the Louvre

Some trees were in bloom and there were daffodils and tulips in the parks-- a change since I saw it under snow at Christmas!

Versailles

 

The sunset we witnessed on our sight-seeing cruise-- we marveled at the perfect timing of all of our excursions and the beauty God blessed us with.  When the boat turned around and we trolled back toward the Eiffel, the sun had set and everything wore its night-time lights.