Jiggety Jog

Everything went smoothly this morning. We were up early (thanks to jetlag) and used our food voucher for breakfast at the hotel. The lines at the airport were long due to the fact that you go through U.S. Customs here before getting on your flight. But we had plenty of time as the agent last night told us to show up early. Our bags took forever (again!) in Orlando, but wonderful Elizabeth was there to pick us up. We headed to Taco Bell for some lunch before heading home to see Kira!

Thankfully Elizabeth had the idea to go inside by herself first and put Kira out back – when Alan and I went in she barked at us first, but when she figured out who it was she got all excited and peed everywhere. Either that or she thought we were ghosts… Lol. I wish I knew what went through her mind! She did seem happy to see us; we decided to stay in Orlando for today and tomorrow and make the final trip home to Savannah on Sunday. Everything felt so normal and yet wrong all at once. I guess being home will take some getting used to!

Things we will miss about living in Lacoste:
1.    Hiking
2.    Hiking
3.    Hiking!
4.    The inconsistent Lacoste bell that never seemed to ring exactly on the hour
5.    Fresh food from the market
6.    Fresh bread
7.    The views around every corner
8.    Curvy little roads
9.    Roundabouts
10.    The metric system
11.    Small, efficient diesel cars
12.    Seeing all the fit athletic outdoorsy people (especially the older ones!)
13.    Saying “Bonjour”
14.    European fashion
15.    Colorful little birds
16.    Agriculture everywhere
17.    Nougat
18.    Muscaté grape juice

Things we will not miss:
1.    The hike up the hill to the house
2.    Everything being closed for two hours over lunch
3.    European parking lots
4.    Mistral wind
5.    Lack of wildlife

Things we are glad to get back to:
1.    Kira!
2.    Clothes dryer
3.    Consistent Internet
4.    English speakers
5.    Some more variety in our clothes
6.    An oven I am not afraid of! (or, our own kitchen)
7.    Taco Bell
8.    Pandora Radio

Things we are not glad to get back to:
1.    Pickups and SUVs
2.    Bad drivers
3.    Traffic lights
4.    Billboards and bombardment by advertisements

A journey of a thousand miles...

Step 1 to reach home: Check out of hotel.

Step 2: Wait for car lease guy for 15 minutes in the 2 minute waiting area at the terminal. Sign paperwork, and return car.

Step 3: Check in at Lufthansa, get told that you can’t carry on anything more than 8 kg, so our littlest roller bag has to be checked (thank goodness they didn’t actually weigh our other ones like Alan’s camera bag!). After groaning about paying $55 euros for an extra bag, we are informed that Luftansa give you two for free! I swear I read on their site yesterday that you only got one, but we didn’t argue.

Step 4: Fly to Frankfurt, passing over Marseille and Provence on the way. Clouds were covering where we thought Lacoste and our valley would be, but we had a very nice view of the area!

Marseille, Cassis, and the Calanques

Step 5: Fly to Toronto, Canada, and enjoy their very nice in flight entertainment system.

Step 6: Land a little late in Toronto and rush to customs to pick up or luggage to go though U.S. Customs.

Step 7: Tell Air Canada lady we only have 45 minutes to get our flight, can they check on our bags?

Step 8: Start watching the clock with the 4 other people waiting to go to the U.S., all of us with short connections, but ours in the shortest.

Step 9: Hobnob with the customs guy who says he could whiz us through if we didn’t have any checked luggage.

Step 10: Luggage comes 15 minutes before our flight leaves and the attendant tells us we can’t go though. She books us on the 10:15 am flight in the morning, gives us hotel vouchers, and we head back to go through Canadian customs.

Step 11: I spend my first night in Canada! We contemplate that we should have asked if we could spend a whole day here, but really we aren’t prepared and it’s probably time to go home.

A fond farewell to Lacoste

This sign means "You are now leaving Lacoste."
We may not be able to see around the bend,
but we hope whatever the road brings will be
as wonderful as our time here has been.

The car’s windshield was frosted over this morning; thankfully it melted with the defroster, as we didn’t have an ice scraper! It was 7am, the house was locked and the keys were left for Madame Collette. We sat it the car watching the ice melt away to reveal the now familiar view of Bonnieux across the valley. I knew I would miss the view, and as we drove away from Lacoste we had already started making a list of things we would miss about living here.

The drive to Barcelona was uneventful and much less stressful than our original trip over two months ago – how can it really have been that long?! We had carefully printed out directions to get to our hotel, and found it without too much trouble. The room wasn’t ready, so we left the car in the hotel garage and headed out to find some lunch. We had tossed around the idea of going to the Hard Rock Café, and with the realization that we wouldn’t be tourists much longer we set out for this world-wide tourist attraction.

As we walked along I suddenly realized I felt short – or, more specifically, that everyone else was really tall! It was my first realization of how much I had gotten used to France… and all the short French people : ) At the restaurant I could actually understand other peoples conversations, and while it was nice to be able to talk to the waitress I missed the sound of French voices. I constantly said “Bonjour” and “Merci” and then felt very silly – what was this American doing speaking French to Spaniards, especially when I actually know way more Spanish than French? For the first time in all my travels, I felt more attached to the country I was leaving behind than to home I was heading towards.

Monument to Christopher Columbus - he is
pointing to America. Maybe he is telling us something...

Along the sea

 One place I really wanted to see in Barcelona that we missed before was the Picasso museum. It doesn’t house hardly any of his famous Cubist works, but is filled with his early (and mush more traditional) paintings as well as later works, including pottery. It was a very nice museum, and it also included a temporary exhibit comparing the works of Picasso and Degas, which was quite interesting.

We had brought food from Lacoste for supper (although I managed to leave the peanut butter behind – oops) and so walked back across the city to our hotel, where we watched a good game of soccer on TV before heading to bed for a good night’s rest before tomorrow’s travels.

The Dentelles, Mt. Ventoux, and Gorges de la Nesque

The day was cloudy, but no rain; the wind wasn’t blowing in Lacoste but we soon founds it whipping the car as we motored north. We had decided to hike around the Dentelles de Montmirail first; these interesting mountains are just to the west of Mt. Ventoux. I thought their name had something to do with teeth, but it actually means lace. Half way through our drive I realized that I had forgotten the hiking book that described the walk; we didn’t have a hiking map of the area, which put us in a bit of a hard spot. We decided to continue on our way and see what we could find.

Unfortunately, the first thing we found was that the road through the Dentelles was “route barre”. The deviation signs lead down roads too small to be on my driving map, and we were soon forced to head back to the main road and try a different approach. We drove around to the east and tried again, but that road turned private after a while instead of reconnecting with our original road like I’d hoped. The next road was more fruitful; a sign for mountain climbers lead us to a trail heading straight up to the base of some of the rocks. We decided to not take our packed lunch with us but to just go on a short hike.

For a short hike we picked a good one; we came out right at a pass between two bits of “lace.” But the wind! It was gusting strong enough to knock you over! We climbed up to the narrow gap (which was probably exacerbating the wind issue) in fits and starts as the wind would practically send us flying off the mountain and then stop altogether for a few seconds. When it is windy in France, it is windier than anywhere else I’ve been! Going down was even harder than coming up; we had to alternate crab-walking and clinging to the rock with quick dashes in the lulls.

I am sitting down and still actively holding on to the rock!

We’d worked up quite an appetite, so our next stop was at an overlook where we sat in our car (out of the wind!) and ate our lunch looking back over a lovely view the Dentelles and the valleys below, with the clouds whipping across the sky above. We could see that the top of Mt. Ventoux (ventoux, by the way, means “windy”) was still in the clouds, but having come this far we decided to go see what we could see anyway.

Looking back at the Dentelles

The road wound up the ridge of the mountain, and we did pass a few bikers (Mt. Ventoux is part of the Tour de France and a very popular bike ride, although I’m not sure I’d make it). But as we reached the edge of the cloud we also reached the end of the road for us; it was closed for cars to the top till May. Oh well!

A little disappointed, we decided to add another stop to our day: the gorges de la Nesque. Located in the valley to the south of the mountain, the gorge was not really on the way home but we decided to cut across and pretend it was : ) The color on the trees, while fading, was lovely, and the road and tunnels made for a very scenic drive. We’d ended up driving much more today than we’d expected, so we made one last stop to hike a short trail to another Chapelle St-Michele. It was located at under an overhang at the river’s edge, straight down the gorge wall from where we’d parked. But our legs were glad for a stretch!

Alan overlooking the gorge

Is that an angel? Nope, just Alan... lol : )

The sun started to set as we reached the car again, and the whole way home the sky amazed us with a fiery show of colors. I couldn’t get enough of it, and we had to stop a couple of times for photos. By the time we reached Lacoste it was dark, and we hurried home to finish packing our bags in preparation for tomorrow’s early morning departure.

Mt. Ventoux (still in the clouds)

Photos just don't do it justice...

Stuck inside

The rain washed away all hope of sticking with our plan for today. We had hoped to drive to the top of Mt. Ventoux, the lovely mountain to the north that rises up out of the plane with its bald limestone top. But we could hardly see Bonnieux let alone the mountain, and so spent the day inside, packing, tidying, and getting ready to leave. Leave! It was not a happy thought. We had to get out at least a little, so we drove to Bonnieux for some bread, taking a road we hadn’t been on before to cheer us a little. Starting a fire in the fireplace cheered us a little more, and we planned to go to Mt. Ventoux tomorrow, rain or no.

Photos come down and the clouds come up

We spent the morning taking down the show, saddened to be taking nice prints out of nice frames but there was really nothing else to do. The mistral wind was blowing, but we got the photos back to the house, where we sorted through the ones we wanted to keep and the ones to throw away. Alan had talked to some other students about doing some trading, so he bartered two of the small matted photos for a few pieces from two of the printmaking majors. I’m excited to get home and find them some wall space : )

The clouds were rolling in, and the wind was blowing really hard, but in the afternoon we decided to take one last walk though the valley anyway. Alan never did walk to Bonnieux, so we took that path almost to the town, and then branched off to the south to walk some roads neither of us had been on yet. It seems no matter how much I walk there is always somewhere new to go around here! But the wind was tiring, and we were glad to get home.

Odd vine holders

A walk and a farewell dinner

The Forest of the Cedars, which we went to once before, seemed like a good starting point for today’s walk. We were surprised by the number of cars in the little lot at the top; it was more tourists, or locals, than we has seen in a while! After passing a group of hikers and three serious looking runners (they had to be like training for cross country or something) the people quickly gave way to the secluded trails we have become accustom to around here. We chose a path that lead over the other side of the Luberon, down into a valley, and then back up through the valley bottom. The weather was beautiful, the path was nice, and all was going well till we came to a ten-foot high rock wall which the path definitely said to go up. Lets just say it was a good thing we hadn’t picked this particular trail when Mom and Dad were here! The rock did have toeholds and some handholds, but it was wet and slippery with the extremely heavy dew that seems to happen so often. I went up first, with Alan holding on to me in case I should slip, but I made it too the top with muddy jeans and hands being the only casualties of the climb. Alan made it up just fine as well, and we contemplated circling the spot on our map just in case we should ever come back someday and walk the same trail… but then again I don’t think we are going to forget that rock!

Tonight, the Café de Sade was hosting the SCAD farewell dinner; with Vernissage being over, the quarter here in Lacoste is finished as well. Guests were invited, so I joined in with the few other parents who had come to see the show. I happened to be talking with Shea right next to the buffet table when the first course came out; she is non-dairy vegetarian and knew that the quiche didn’t have any meat, so we grabbed our slices and some bread and headed for a table inside. What we didn’t know was that that was the only vegetarian dish of the night, except for some au gratin potatoes, which she couldn’t eat and I wasn’t sure were worth eating. The tart de pomme (apple tart) for dessert did not fill us up, but while the food was a disappointment it was fun to get to know more of Alan’s classmates. Hopefully we will be able to stay in touch, at least with the ones in Savannah.

Vernissage

I found myself caught up in Alan’s whirlwind of last minute to-dos, which was heightened by the fact that while the show didn’t open till 3pm his professor had already bought two photos and SCAD was thinking about buying two others (they only ended up getting one, however). But another large print had to be made as another person wanted a same size print as one that had already sold, and Alan hurried to make three more slightly smaller prints of the sold photos, which later also sold. Whew! Here is a glimps of all the photos he had in the Vernissage show:

Hanging the show

Hanging your own show is hard enough; hanging a 50-person student show gets even more difficult. Alan and the rest of the students spent most of the day working on getting all the artwork up; Alan ended up with one photo in the metals and jewelry room because they ran out of space in the landscape room. Everyone is excited for tomorrow. I hope it goes well!

Alan's are the two big ones and the two on the right.

I went a walk around the village in the afternoon – it’s hard to start saying goodbye but our days our getting shorter! We will fly home one week from today. I almost think I will wake up on our first day home and feel this was all one very long and detailed dream…

Mt. Ventoux has snow! We hope to go to the top next week.

The fight of the ninja dust-bunnies

I officially strongly dislike framing. Well, I supposed I should amend that to say “dirty glass and dust in a frame which means that it takes you a million tries to get it to look good.” I spent yesterday cleaning all the glass and frames for Alan (we mentioned the “frame lottery” before, and the frames have just been sitting in a cave since their last use – yuck) after he broke a piece of glass. Then today, part way through our pile of 14 frames, I broke a piece of glass from one of the new frames. I swear I was just picking it up... sigh. Thank goodness we were not the only ones with glass issues and SCAD was doing another glass run to Mr. Bricolage! While it was nice to have the house to spread out in, it is so dusty in here that it took forever to get the glass clean, as the moment you turned away more dust would settle! But finally everything was finished, and I have to say it looks really good! I hope everything sells… or at least a few of them. They say that every time they have this final show it is really hit or miss how much sells, so we don’t have any expectations. If we were at home there are a couple I would secretly hope don’t sell because I want to hang them up in our apartment! But unfortunately our luggage is not going to accommodate framed artwork.

The students were supposed to start hanging the undergraduate work at 4:30pm, but for some reason it got pushed back till tomorrow. So Alan and Michelle, the other grad student, went ahead and hung their work after dinner. They have a little gallery all to themselves called the Blue Gallery (it has a lovely blue door, and shutters). Alan’s work takes up the two smaller walls and Michelle has the third longer wall. I think I like Alan’s photos even more hanging up! Art is funny like that – presentation can change how much I like or don’t like it quite a bit. I hope some of the people who come like it as much as I do :)

Goodbye to Mom and Dad

We got up and left at 7:30am to take my parents to the Marseille airport.  We actually got stuck in traffic for the first time since our arrival; but luckily it only took us about 15 minutes extra, with the hold up due only to heavy morning rush hour. It was sad to say good-bye, and the house felt very empty we returned to Lacoste.

Alan and I would both like to thank my parents, without whom we would not have been able to come here to France. I hope that they had as good a time as we had.

Mom, thanks for the bread every morning, buying us treats whenever we wanted something yummy, for talking to everyone in French and arranging everything even though it’s not your favorite thing to do, and packing all the picnic lunches we couldn’t have done without.

Dad, thanks for bringing an extra lens for us to use, and for always letting Alan borrow your camera equipment, for driving us around, washing the dishes every night, and never giving up on retelling your favorite jokes : )

Love you both, glad you made it home safe and sound. We miss you!

Menerbes, Mr. Bricolage, and French bread

Tomorrow my parent’s fly home; can it really be that time already?! Dad wanted to go for a walk around Ménerbes that we’d done before, so we set out, noting how different things looked than the last time we’d been. The olives continue to ripen on the trees; I really want to see them harvested, but haven’t so far. Well, we did see one old man picking the lone olive tree just below our house across from the Marie (the town hall) – he was sitting on the stone wall beneath it and filling his bucket; he told Mom that he walk going to make olive oil with them. Most of the olives still seemed green to me, but maybe it doesn’t matter for oil?

I found this just growing by the road.
I wanted to take it home and eat it!

Life is beautiful. Yes, yes it is.

After walking all the way around the hill we returned to Ménerbes proper, only to find the route barre (road closed)! Tourist season is over, and all the towns seem to be hurrying to get things fixed up before winter comes. Of course, here in Lacoste it has taken them the whole time we’ve been here to pave and paint a little parking terrace with six spots… and all the roads in the center of Ménerbes are torn up! We had thought that since we were walking, it wouldn’t be a problem; however, the road we came down was completely filled with a backhoe, leaving no room even for walking on either side. Not wanting to walk all the way back the way we came, we tried a few roads till we found one that lead us back around, through the construction (but only torn-up roads and no machines) to our car.

Another machine on one of the still intact streets.

The afternoon found us once again visiting Mr. Bricolage; Alan had a few frames that need glass, so Dad got to see his favorite store once more. We then made a quick run to the grocery store; and, since it is Monday and the épicerie in town is closed, we had to get bread too. French bread… now that is one thing I will miss, although it is sometimes quite the ordeal to get! Lacoste only has a bakery in the tourist season because Pierre Cardin, who owns the chateau, bought out the bakery but then only has it open in the summer months when it is most profitable. Since the French buy bread every morning, the little épicerie (grocery store, although really it is just the only little shop it town that carries odds and ends of everything from fresh eggs to Sudoku books) sells bread, which it gets fresh each morning from a bakery. They’ve used three different bakeries since we’ve been here, and the second one was our favorite, although the croissants from this last one might be the best.

The traditional baguette is not our favorite, as it goes stale before you can say you want a slice, and so we stick to the “special” breads: cereal, complet, and compagne. Every bakery has these breads, but they are very general terms, as each baker’s version is very different, with a few basic similarities; cereal breads have seeds, like poppy, sesame, and sunflower, complet is whole wheat, and compagne is a heavy white (compagne means “country”). Cereal is our favorite. Nut bread is another one we try sometimes, as Mom had a really good loaf when they were in Viason-la-Romain, but we haven’t found as good a one down here. They are made with walnuts and walnut flour, and seem to come out a little dry more often than not. We go through about two loaves a day, and so every morning Mom trots down to the bakery to stand in line with the locals and pick us up some more bread; if we’ve been good, she might even bring us a croissant! So on days when the store is closed, we are always happy to be near another bakery or grocery store to get our fill of this French tradition.

A nut bread and a cereal bread.

In the afternoon, Mom and Dad worked on packing. The rain finally looked like it was really going to come down around four o’clock, so Mom and I hurried out for one last walk. Another dog adopted us as we walked through the valley, and Mom was worried he was going to come all the way home with us! Luckily he stopped when we got to the edge of the village, and hopefully found his way home.