Bristol Pau

... the ruins at Delphi - for a sense of the sheer reach of human history; the museum at Athens, with the see-through floor revealing something of those times.
Lows: all of Albania really - the sheer poverty of our near-neighbours. And, not to be too trivial, but the weather in Greece: hard to take the grey skies... especially when so sunny in UK! Having had it as a target since way back, it did tarnish the dream somewhat!!
And so life goes....on.

... the same statuettes and bottles in which to collect your holy water. It was difficult to feel any empathy with the people there when it seems to us to be little more than a huge sales opportunity for the church. Difficult to like but interesting to visit!

Mike could recognize very little of Pau as expected. It seemed a lot bigger, but it was interesting to revisit the were Mike spent a miserable and lonely month all those years ago

... no introduction. After a bit of

souvenir shopping at the top (where there is also a great café with some interesting Tour de

France artefacts), we descend to St Marie De Campan, and from here to our hotel in Campan.

WHAT I EXPERIENCED:

We had just climbed the Col d'Aubisque and I was almost at the bottom of the Col behind my friend, Paul Middlemiss, when the ...

... 169m) and the Col De Pinodieta (176m) before lunch.

The walled town of St Jean Pied de Port offers a perfect lunch stop, and then we cycle on to our first proper climb over the Col D’ Osquich (500m). The sign of the small town of Arudy will no doubt be very welcome at the end of this 180km monster day! We get our Raid carnet stamped twice today – we are well on our way!

WHAT I EXPERIENCED:

So, nearly ready for the off! Thankfully, false alarm about arrival of guests to take over house in absence means we have one more day in which to prepare... much needed!
We will just about get there - I think.
Round about now it occurs to us we really ought to have assembled scooter on trailer and gone for little spin to test strapping arrangement, etc... just to make sure it all holds up. Oh well, the road will be a good test of all that... I guess.

... and then hold it just under the microphone, which would produce an eery ringing sound through the speakers. Then he would proceed to sing along with the feed-back noise by whimpering in a high-pitched Billy Madison impression, which would last for about five minutes, until it was time for his next composition of alternating C octaves. 2. A German band, Zombie Zombie, who preferred to speak in English in order to appear more ...

... to pick up or drop off one or two people at a time - it just seemed like forever waiting to get there. So of course upon arriving in Toulouse we discover we've missed the train to Narbonne, big shocker. We're lucky enough to catch the next one an hour and half later which got us to Narbonne just ten minutes after the last train to Barcelona for that night had left. Everything in town was already closed so we strolled around till we found a sleepy little hostel and got a couple ...

... declaring it to be the Target of Pau. It must be the national sentiment in the U.S. that within the oligopoly, Wal-Mart is the villain, Target is for whatever reason the good guy, and K-Mart... wait, wasn't K-Mart supposed to whither away with Martha Stewart or something? Anyway, after doing a little grocery shopping at Auchan today, I decided that I actually do prefer it over Leclerc. More choices. Similar prices. Happenin ...

... me and let me try, try to make you want to go out there, and try to ...

June 6
Back from Lourdes

June 7
Im up at 6:40am to get ready for school. School was pretty boring. For lunch I go out with a few of the Americans in my group and then back to school. After school to the pub for some billiards again. That night many of the people in my high school group go out bowling. We drank quite a bit and it was mt first ...