Sunday, October 17, 2010

Lacoste, laundry, and labor unions

Lacoste called us home again; it took us around two hours to drive back. Why can’t there be as many things to do within two hours of our home in the USA? We haven’t been any farther away than that since we got here and haven’t run out of things to do yet! Maybe I just need to read more guidebooks about the Savannah area. Hm.

We decided to drive through Manosque, a larger town that isn’t touristy. All eyes were on the lookout for open gas stations; in case you haven’t heard, they have been striking over here for some time, with oil refineries shutting down, ports blocked, and over 50 ships stuck outside, airplanes flying from short distances told to bring enough fuel with them to return to another country, and gas stations running out of diesel (the fuel of choice over here). We had been turned away once already back in Digne-les-Bains, but when we passed the same station later in the day they were open again, so we promptly filled up. Supposedly most of the gas station shortages are being caused because everyone is making a run for the fuel now, and really (they keep saying) they have enough; but things are definitely uncertain. SCAD has talked about canceling fieldtrips, although they haven’t yet. Alan spotted an open station and we topped off the car; on a full tank our little 308 SW Peugeot can go for 1060 km, so we should be fine for a while.

We stopped in Céreste to show Mom and Dad the little Roman bridge that we’d spent so long looking for one day. Another stop at the one open (and therefore very crowded) supermarket in Apt rounded out our trip home. Laundry was the first order of business upon our arrival, and luckily most of it got dry before it started to rain and we had to bring it inside. I will appreciate my dryer ever so much more when we get back to our apartment! Mom and Dad were out for a little walk and Alan and I thought about mounting a car-rescue, but they made it home before it really started coming down.

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