Au Temps De La Reine Jeanne Orthez

... 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

... an atomic bomb had gone off; scenes that reminded me of the great storm that swept across southern England in October 1987. Many local people are employed in the forestry industry and the effects of the 'tempest' will have hit them hard. The first major town south of the park is Mont de Marsan and as with all towns in France containing the word 'mont' (and there are a lot of them!) it signalled the return of hills. The road south from here was busy and I was ...

... recommended to go because there are many more boats in its ports. But we were not prepared for what we would find there... Every freaking foreigner (Australians, Kiwis, S.Affers, Brits etc) were there with the same intentions, there were lines out into the street (in the rain) waiting to get into yachting crew agencies asking about work. We got talking to a couple of genuine seeming people saying that it was really competitive and people were pretty much ...

... we could sit in. Once we found the house we went to the park and sat and chatted and also managed to watch a typical French game of petanque. The group of men gradually got larger and they were probably wondering why we were watching so much from the bench we were sat on. Then a phone call from Andrei told us it was time to head to the apartment as the hosts were home and the rest of the group were already there. So this is where I was really wondering what ...

... to think how nice this house was, with the main bedroom downstairs which included a Jacuzzi bath tub in the room - unfortunately I would not be sleeping here. Then he showed us upstairs to where we would be sleeping. We had the complete top floor to ourselves which included our own beds and a bathroom. My bed was even hidden in a little alcove in the wall about 4 feet off the floor. The final selling point of this house was the view from pretty much every window. You were able to look ...

... a call from Andrei saying everyone else is at the hosts. I was concerned about what state of costume dress I may find him in, and not surprisingly my suspicions were correct. We were greeted by a cow. Great, I am going to have to hitch hike with a cow. We have quite a random group. Myself and Neil, Andrei, a mad (but also friendly) guy from Romania and a german couple. Oh, and a vegan. I look forward to my steamed vegetables every night from here on in. Yip-ee. We eat corn ...

... that I thought a horned pig was aggravating me in real life. My eyes shot open awake and I actually threw a fist, which of course hit nothing but air. Until next time, phantom boar. You'll be mine! I have a theory, which isn't really a theory. I call it the Three Week Theory. En somme, it states that anything at all is worth trying and experiencing for at least three weeks. C'est à dire, in my experience, three weeks is all you really need to get a good ...

... off agriculture) love their jobs, and though they are mostly men, some of women would like to quit their town jobs and join their husbands with the animals. I can't write about Aussurucq without bringing up our landlady. At first, I joked about her being crazy because of her incessant need to be doing something, fast, at all times. She speaks French to me faster than I am capable of speaking English, even though she knows it is ...

... to bown under the influence. I had the best score (119?). We drank quite a bit. Christian is drunk and he has a big test tomorrow. Good luck!

June 8
I stayed home and ate with the mom. I kileld time by listening to the radio, but it's mostly American music. Bummer. It's the father's birthday today, he's 43. We all dress up nice and head to a ...

... There were many French women there including Caroline our tour guide. I did the French kiss on the cheeks greeting with all of them!

That evening I went out with Christian and his friend to the park to play some soccer and hang out. That night Christian and I were home alone so we decided to take his parents car out to drive! It was only his third time driving. We drove around a little buit and came home. He ...