Paradis Bormes-Les-Mimosas

... then finally the hostel. yayyyy.


we ended up meeting 2 australian girls, and one girl, meng basically became our travel buddy for the trip. we spent our 2 days in tours mostly chilling at cafes drinking amazing cafe cremes, and looking at the ridiculously cute timbered houses of place plumerau. we also read trashy girl magazines in french and meng cooked us an amazing dinner. all in all tours was pretty fab.

So we booked a ...

... to my 2nd class mostly thanks to M. le proviseur. and its a lycee professionel class. these are the classes where they place kids who are not going to college, those destined to be in the work force....

so i try to play 2 truths and a lie, which is a bit too complicated for them, and instead just do introductions. they weren't super talkative so i asked them what their favorite things to do are.....
answers:
" ave sex weeth chrees' muzzer"
Sainte Maxime, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France lahildenbrand

Hey team!!!!
so 2 weeks into france and i've yet to write a thing. im so bad at this game. meh.
today i went to the beach, it was wonderful!!!! becca thought it was cold, she was wrong :)

so apparently sainte maxime is infiltrated by german tourists, who knew? the only frenchies on the beach were...well enjoying themselves quite a bit..... ;-)
oh frenchies. :)

omg do ...

Just paid a fleeting visit to St Tropez on the way to Avignon (so we thought)... had to be done really.. a quick wander around and a very quick coffee. It was much smaller than I thought. Lots of nice boats but loads of tourists too.... that was about it!

... handstands and all the rest.... spend hours cleaning the sand out of our bags and clothes! The next day was a stunning 26 degree day.. so so so nice. We never thought we would be at the beach again. Were tempted to stay but found out the next 2 days were not going to be great weather. Sadly we headed off at 4pm to head to Avignon.. Saying goodbye to the med forever was very hard.. and sad....

We also took the short drive to Port Grimaud, to visit this small but new harbour town built in what was once marshland, but is now row after row of condos and homes built in a web of jetties to allow the homes to anchor their boats at their doorsteps. Of course, we would have rather spend our time on the beach, but with bad weather, Grimaud was a nice alternative.

... see I listen Flemming!) who we really enjoyed getting to know. They invited us over for Cameron Cakes (waffles with custard and strawberries) and hot chocolate with real cream on Cam's birthday and we took them for dinner with us that night. They have a brand spanking new Hymer which we all look at admiringly but as it turns out they have had nothing but trouble with it...it is unfortunate that the weather has turned bad here as we ...

... able to visit Les Arcs, St Raphael, Cannes, and Antibes, and enjoy the scenery along the way. We met up with a friend of Lola's so it was really a good day. In Cannes we did not see any celebrities but in a nearby town Kid Rock and Pam Anderson were married. Sting: Also in Cannes, Lola and I went swimming. There were many people swimming and some of them were walking along these submerged rocks. I went ...

Mallorca to Nice: Its been 2 weeks now since I left Mallorca where beaches and sunshine were plentiful. Arriving in France,its seems I have climbed a peek in the backpacking learning curve. I think I get it more than I ever have before. What's to get... well, it's one of those-you have to be there situations,hard to put in words, but I'm trying. Before I left, my ears would always perk up when world travelers around me would slip into the backpacking conversation mode ...

... accommodation: there will almost always be at least one person who snores and many's the time I wished I'd invested in a cheap (but non-leaking) water pistol to shoot them in the night. I don't know if I'd actually have the chutzpah to use it but I get a lot nastier when I'm kept/woken up and really, why should they sleep but everyone else have to be kept up listening to them? :) From here I'm going to Germany where Gerry and I were invited by a fellow backpacker we met in Valencia (Hi Matt).