Hotel L'Ecrin Bourg-Murat

Our stop-over in Brive was a little interesting...some old bum woman saw that Paul and I were eating left overs, and she kept bugging Paul for him to give her some...Paul was a bit tired and wasn't really interested in being polite...and told her to...**** off! oh Paul, what a classy way to deal with bums!

We left the west coast and headed inland to look for work. We stopped at Angouleme for lunch which had a spectacular view from the old city. We carried on into the Dordogne, and looking for a campsite came across a municipal site in a little town called Argentat-sur-Dordogne. The weather was stifling hot, which that night brought on 24 hours of massive thunderstorms and then 3 days of rain! The Dordogne was flooding and even Argentat lost electricity one night!

alright, our first rest day. I apologize to anyone who finds a typo in my writing first of all. the french use a different keyboard layout and i'm not very adjustable apparently. So where to start? so far our trip has been wonderful, and having a day of rest only amplifies our feeling. today, while resting, we've managed to meet with a friar of the local cathedral and monastery dedicated to saint ...

My week with friends Clive and Emma in the tiny hamlet of Nanteuil has flown by. The days were filled with Spanish lessons, eating and re-tiling the roof, which was my only bit of "exercise" in what was otherwise a lazy week. As expected, I heartily embraced the French cuisine and the culture of long lunches with numerous cheeses, pâtés, cold meats, and red wine. I confess that I overcame my ethical objection and sampled foie gras, the product of force ...

On the 20th of July Simba and I left Cambridge to visit Dechen Choling - the Shambhala Land Center in France. I was going to study Kyudo for a week (explanation in earlier entry) and she was going to do childcare for family camp. On the first day we settled into our lovely tent at the bottom of the lawn in front of the chateau. The advance Kyudo course was going on and as we walked past Simba said ...

Stayed at a campsite in the Dordogne which is the best I have ever seen and based around a large chateau with a Lake. The Dordogne is pretty and we used the time to just relax a bit and treat it like a holiday. On route to le Verdoyer the roads were so straight that you could travel without a bend for over 5 mins. I wished I had a Porsche not a Nissan.

... the connection - she phoned the center on her cellphone and we got picked up by Ed - who I met in London at the Shambhala Center a month or so ago. We still arrived in time for dinner. The program was great and so were the people - mostly Dutch on the program itself. It was so enjoyable to be around Shambhalians again and have the support and interesting ...

... took it. Take the Americans for a TOUR! Pascal drove Reece and I around to a few villages which lasted about 3 hours in which he smoked almost an entire pack of cigarettes. The entire ride through the French country side was filled with Pascal singing French songs while repeating to us, as if he forgot the first 5 times he said, that the French eat good, drink a lot, and make llllooooovvveeeee. Now mind you Pascal is in his late 50's but appears to have the labido of an 18 ...

... 47 of us on this trip --almost everyone is 22-24 years old. I´m one of the oldest which is kind of weird. There are also only about 7 guys on the trip the rest are all female. I also thought most of the people would be from Canada and the USA, but about 88% are from Austrailia, there are 2 from South Africa, 3 Kiwis and then 8 from Canada. I´m picking up all kinds of Aussie slang.

Heading to the Wine region, we made a stop at Fontainbleau. The country is so lush and green with lots of canola fields which are buttercup yellow. The town itself is very quaint. The Chateau itself is on 62,000 acres of gardens and rivers. Checked out the local market where unfortunately following my nose found me sniffing smelly cheese and another ghastly smell....herbed horse! We are staying in the Chateau de Cruix, which is ...