Work and Fun

Every year, for a few years now, the church hosts 150 or so bicyclists that are a part of "L'Ardeshoise" which is like a mini tour de france race that last 4 days through the central mountains of France. There are usually somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 participants each year so I guess people really like to ride bikes in France. I feel like I could probably still smoke most of them in a wheelie contest though.

So we left Thursday (7/19) evening for a 3.5 hour drive to the camp. The next morning was spent cleaning and making 150 beds.  Riders started getting in around 3:00 and would trickle in for the next 6 hours.
The crazy part about all this was the meal we served them.  These riders pay about $40 and get a dinner, a room, and breakfast.
Here was dinner:

-Start off with some baguette, taboule, and some rose wine.
-Then you have the main course of some beef in a really good sauce, green beans, and pasta. With the main course comes some read wine.
-Next is a some salad and more bread
-Next is a cheese plate with 5 options. And obviously more bread
-Finally, some desert. Chocolate covered ice cream.

I waited tables at fine establishments like Copper Creek and Cypress Street in Abilene TX and never once worked as hard as I did that night. We had 14 people in all helping with the cooking and serving. All in all, it went very well and the riders were very nice and thankful. From the comments made, sounded like the church was a big step up from the last place the riders were at.
I think our group of 14 was at least half American so a lot of riders would stop me and ask why there were so many Americans and what we were doing here.

Here is a picture of the camp. The church bought this place a little over ten years ago. Back in the day, it was a retreat/vacation destination the french government owned for their postal workers. Political stuff happened in France and the country stopped spending so much on their employees so they got rid of the property. No one wanted it in got purchased by another group, they took terrible care of it, wanted to get rid of it, so the church got a great deal for it. The church had to work on it for a few years to get it summer camp ready.

The camp is about 5000 feet above sea level so its a big cooler than Marseille which I was pretty pumped about. I ended up actually using my blanket while here.

This was the main dining hall that had probably 75% of the cyclists.

Gentry and her choppin skills.

The church soccer team had its last game this week.  The FCA type league they are in ends their season with a mini round robin tourny.  Our team did make it the match to see who would get 3rd place.....as I write this I realize that I'm not sure if we won or not. Our game ended before the final whistle when a little brewhaha happened between a guy on our team and a guy on his. The guy on our team ended that ordeal by walking away with the game ball and punting it 50 yards over the fence.  Pretty classy move.

All was made well pretty quickly as the league setup some post game snacks for us. Pretty typical options.

-Bread
-Couple different cheeses
-Some saucisson (picture below just to make sure everyone knows what this is)

-and some coke

That was it. No Gatorades, Bananas, Orange Slices, or even Capri Suns. I wasn't complaining.


Yesterday we had the pleasure of having a couple great friends from across the pond join us for a night during their summer euro trip. David and Jade Wilkins spent a half day with us on their way to Italy from Spain. Marseille was the perfect halfway point and we were pumped it worked out for them to come.

They got into Marseille at 2:30 on Thursday and were heading out the next morning so Gentry and I offered our limited Marseille experience.

First thing we did was go to View Port and take the ferry to Chateau D'If.  We got on the correct ferry but did notice that the ferry only stops at the old prison up until about 5:00pm. We were on the 6:10 ride and so we cruised right by the little island and were a little confused thinking we may have been wrong all along on where Chateau D'If really was. Anyway, we got a couple pictures of it on the way by and the boat instead stopped at a slightly bigger island.

We walked around the island for about 45 minutes and headed back to get some dinner. Here are some pics from that eventful 45 minutes of tourism. About as much as Gentry and I can handle at once. Which is funny because Gentry's mom is about to be here for 4 weeks where we will do more touristy things in that time then I have the rest of my life combined ha.  Its going to be some real tourism. I'm pretty excited and pretty scared.

On our way out of vieux port


Some old church


Marseille from the sea



Chateau D'if (see the movie Count of Monte Cristo)


Gentry creeped and got a picture of Dave and Jade

As you can see, I'm the only veteran selfie taker

The island had some beaches. Below is a calanque on the island.

Potential Choco Sandal marketing material I think

Got D'if one more time in this one the way back

On the boat ride back, we asked the people across from us for a good restaurant close by. After about 5 minutes of some hard thinking, they pointed us to an Italian place that was really good. I think Dave and Jade liked it too.  The only bad part of the dinner was that we had an accordion player, two guitar players, and a hat salesman come right in front of the restaurant. Each separately. They would play for a few minutes, then come around asking for money. If one of them would have played the theme to The Godfather, I would have given them something.....but they didn't.

 Hoping for more visitors like Dave and Jade. So ya, buy a plane ticket and enjoy the spare bunkbeds we have in the apartment.

Two pretty great weekends. I am writing this as we prepare to have 4 people stay with us for a week during "CEM ete". Its a pretty big week for the church where they have a retreat type week that is meant to be a glimpse of what their year long missionary training program is all about. The church is expecting 50+ people and they stuff these people in every spare bed/couch/cot available among the church members. Its going to be a tight fit at our place but should be a good time.

I have to go help Gentry finish up some Taboule so I will end this post and of course, not proof read any of it.  So....sorry for the grammar and spelling.

Quick Update

Just drank some Cherry Coke. Pretty good.
Going to the bathroom now.
In 15-25 minutes, I'll be Lord Of Catan.
Have a good day.
Mike

Week 2 and 3 in France

With our first normal and free weekend in Marseille, Gentry and I did a little bit of City exploring.  A short metro ride down town got us back to Vieux Port where we would go to Notre Dame De La Garde. Its at the highest point in Marseille and there has been something built there since 1200 something. Some people choose to walk but since it is the highest point in the city, Gentry and I chose to take the bus.

 

 

 

The church end up being the only real touristy thing Gentry and I could handle in a day. Pretty lucky Gentry isn't a go go go tourist that has to see it all.  Instead, she was ok with walking around down town and getting some food. My type of site seeing. Before heading back we stopped by an art store and got some supplies which gentry immediately used to make this master piece:

 

 

 

 

The next day was our 1 year anniversary. We were going to do our anniversary in two parts. Nice dinner outting today and try for some kind of short trip next weekend. Since we are on the coast, we wanted to try and get some good sea food. We ended up at this place that made us feel like we were in Uptown in Dallas. Luckily the food was pretty awesome. First time to eat octopus. Pretty close texture to gummy worms so I loved it.

 

 

 

After dinner, a quick walk around the "Prado" which is the main touristy beach in Marseille. For some reason, the people of Marseille have decided they are ok with leaving their trash everywhere. The city is really pretty dirty everywhere we go. It was pertty unfortunate when walking around the water and seeing all the trash. Living my entire life far from the ocean though, I will always like looking out at the water from just about anyway....trash or no trash.

 

 







During the week, I got to participate in my first of, hopefully many, soccer games. The church has a team that is in a league kind of like FCA. Each team is from some church and before the game, the two teams circled up for a quick message and a prayer. Made me realize I was going to have to make sure and not get too rough on the field as I have a tendency to do in soccer. I ended the game with no fouls called against me, no goals, and no stamina.  The team had only one 1 game in the past 2 years so I felt no pressure. We ended up losing 3-2 which I think is a win for this team.

Saturday 6/14 Gentry and I went to the train station and hopped on a bus for a 45 min ride to Aix En Provence. The town felt very touristy but not in a bad way.

Gentry and I had a great sushi lunch that ended up being pretty expensive so we decided we would assemble our own dinner. We foudn the grocery story and got the essentials to take back to the roof top patio at our hotel.
The essentials included:

-Baguette
-Brie
-Mix of olives
-Bottle of local Rose wine
-Some salami like meat (Cecina)
-Some fresh cherrys
-Bar of dark chocolate

The hotel hooked it up with a food tray with dishes that helped out. My body was not very happy with me about an hour after the meal but during was pretty fantastic.

We finished off our anniversary trip night with what we did so often in Dallas.....we went to a movie.  Luckily Aix had a movie theater that liked to keep the artistic integrity of the movie by showing it in its original language.  We didn't have a lot of options but the new Tom Crews movie did the trick.  As you know, I have great movie taste.

Next day we walked around the city and happened on a market where I was lucky to be out of Euros otherwise i'm not sure how much i would have bought. Especially from the table below filled with every time of salted cured meat imaginable. Instead of buying it, the next best thing was to snapchat it.

 

After lunch we were picked up for a wine tour that took us to two local wineries.  Knowing nothing about how wine is made, it was actually interesting. Don't worry, I am not going to explain any of the process on here. I still have no palete of wine.  France had their first world cup game that day so I made sure to show my support.

 

 

 

The past week also brought a couple changes to our apartment setup.  I'm not sure I've ever been so excited about a furniture purchase.  Before this week, we had about a 1x3 foot counter space in the kitchen. That counter space was also about a foot too short for people the height of gentry and I (which is not far from average).  Gentry spotted the perfect item to bring us back to a more spoiled level of counter space and height while also supplying me with my work desk. 

What is now my work desk was a part of the counter.  Really wish we had a before and after picture in the kitchen for this but we didn't think of it.  I'll let you guys try to imagine the improvements.

The piece of art on the wall is a new addition as well. Gentry just finished it this morning and got it up just in time for the picture.

Like I said, never been too excited about furniture (other than comfortable couches) or counters but something about this gets be happen every time I walk in our kitchen.  I think I just really pined for more space to prep my cheese and meat.

Lastly, I need to mention that Gentry had no part in the layout/design of this blog.  She wouldn't want anyone to think she would be ok with any part of how this blog looks. I'm perfectly ok with it. 

This blog felt long but you know.....its all about the memories.....so I gotta capture it and make sure we remember it.

Mike

Week 1 in France

We left Dallas at 7am on Thursday and got to Marseille around 4pm on Friday.  All planes, shuttles, cabs, and trains were on time.  The only thing that went wrong on the trip was my body.  Without going into too many details on what exactly was wrong with my body, I'll say that it greatly affected my ability to sit comfortably.  I can't think of too many other times in my life when it could be worst timing for that to go wrong then when I am traveling from Dallas to Marseille. The first night we stayed in our apartment in Marseille was the most painful and worst night of sleep in my life.  I had seen a doctor here that evening and he prescribed an antibiotic and basically said, "take this, if it doesn't get better or the pain is too bad, go to the ER."  The next morning, I went to the ER. Just in case you are thinking I might be typing this from a hospital bed or might still have an iv hooked up, the surgery went fine and I was actually up and about the next morning. As I was waiting to get my anesthesia, I heard 3 songs playing over the hospital PA.  1. Cranberries-Zombies 2. a song by Muse 3. Queen - Somebody to Love I thought it was funny to hear those and nothing french while I was waiting. Anyway, surgery went fine. After a top notch breakfast of a juice box, piece of bread, and a croissant with chocolate in the middle from the hospital (see below) I walked to church on sunday morning and was only a few minutes late to class.

And if you are thinking to yourself, "I bet that ipad is playing some nerdy fantasy movie", you are correct. Lord of the Rings - Two Towers. Below is a picture of the front door into our apt building, a picture along our walk to the church, and then a picture of the front of a church (right side of the church used to be an auto shop).

 

 

 We have no car but are a 10 minute walk from the church, the metro, the hospital, and 5 different bakeries. All of a sudden, Gentry is thinking we need bread and cheese after every meal....I'm ok with it. Here is a very quick and hopefully not too dizzying video tour of our apt.

Our first sunday morning at Chapelle de Fuvaue went well. The church has 3 interns right now from ACU that speak very little France so Gentry is not alone in her struggle with communication.  The church gave Gentry and the 3 wildcats some headphones that had a translator on the other end so they weren't completely lost during the service. It was pretty strange having a normal working day with our same jobs that we had in Dallas. There were some times I forgot we were in France. Being here makes me feel like its just wrong to work 8 hours a day ha....am I too young to be thinking about retirement? One weeknight Gentry and I went to Vieux Port which is the old port in downtown Marseille. We got some ice cream (gelato) that was maybe the best i've ever had and enjoyed the night.

This weekend will be our first real chance to get out and explorer and should make our next post a lot less boring. Some quick things I already miss: -Garbage disposal -Counter space -Outlets that aren't european -My pillow Other than that, we got more than everything we need.  In a few weeks, the only thing i'll be missing is air conditioning.  One thing i will not be missing are fans because we will have about 8 of them in our apartment. I wrote this post a pretty fast so get over any spelling or gramatical errors. I'm sure there are many. Since this is going out to close friends and family only, I can say, we miss you and hope all is well. Mike