August in France

Since Paris, we've been enjoying a typical French August, kind of. Most French that can, use August for vacation. Since we spent most of July traveling, our vacation has been spent in our apartment.  There has been a lot of working, Netflix, Petanques with people from Church, eating, sleeping, etc.

One experience really helped me understand August in France. We opened a checking account at a french bank and have had some trouble with our debit card. After holding on the phone with the bank for 20 minutes, I decided I would need to just go in person. I get there and find that there is a long line.  20-30 minutes later, I am helped. I am told that there was a problem with the address they had for my account but since it will take 24 hours to update, I would need to come back to have them send me a new card. I tell the man that I don't have a car and have to take the metro to get here. I let him know that I tried calling but never go through and I'd rather not have to come back.  He says "what can I say, its August....I'm here by myself.  The bank usually has a handful of people ready to help, this guy was here solo. France in August.

August did bring us to Gentry's birthday. I wanted to keep the plan a surprise but as we got close to the day, Gentry let me know she was just a tiiiiiny bit worried that I just may not plan exactly what she wants to do. At this point Gentry is at the end of the project she has been working on for her old company and I think she was really needing this birthday to be right.

Luckily I already had the perfect plan so nothing had to be changed. I let her know the secret plan a couple days in advanced just to put her mind at ease :). A quick train ride to Aix En Provence for sushi and a movie. For us, doesn't get much better than that (actually, there may be better out there....change sushi into sushi, a salami sandwich, and gummy worms, and change a movie into seinfeld). We had great weather and enjoyed a simple day together away from the big city.

Going back to what we have been up to, I should mention that I have already decided that if its ever possible, I will build or most likely hire someone to build, a petanque court in my back yard. Below is a link to a YouTube video clip of a world championship in case you want to get a taste for the game. Its pretty much like washers/horse shoes/shuffle board but with heavy metal balls and one little ball. Point of the game is for your balls to be the closest to the little ball after all balls have been thrown.

http://youtu.be/1xTMadGhQPw


A crazy busy July and a very slow August had us pondering on our move to France as a whole.   After a day spent in the apartment working and only with each other, we wondered why we were needing to be in France if that was all we were doing. I've never really felt homesick before but August brought some of that. Although we have our times of missing our friends and family and missing things from the states, we are still very happy with our decision to come. In the end, we are ready for things to pick up again in France. Once September hits, the church will be back in usual super active mode. We are excited to see how we are going to get involved and how God will use us.  Its been a good reminder to live today for God and not worry about the future. "We are here, how can we let God use us today in France?" That is the thought I try to go back to after I let myself day dream about the future which in my day dreams is always in the US. But I don't know that to be true yet.

Anyway, we are excited for the fall. For Gentry, it looks like a few opportunities will be available to get involved. The church is going to have kids at the church after school every Friday for Art, English, Homework....all things that Gentry will be able to help with even with limited french.

As for me, I'm not terribly artistic or as good with little kids but in searching where I should focus my efforts, today brought some encouragement in something I was thinking I could do.  Alex told me that he and Romain (you'll meet them soon) had been talking about how its been really nice to have someone planning activities and setting up opportunities for the teens at the church to get together.  I really enjoyed doing Young Life while in Dallas and found myself immediately pushing to make things happen with the teens here. I think YL had a bigger impact on me than I thought and some of that has come with me to France. All I know is that I started meeting the teens at the church and right away wanted to start to get to know them in hopes that knowing them might give a chance for God to be revealed to them more or differently in some way during my time here. So what Alex told me was very encouraging.

Today was one of those activities. Unfortunately, a lot of the teens ended up not being able to go, but 3 of us still made it happen. Turns out that commitments from high schoolers in France to these types of get togethers are about as reliable as they are from high schoolers in Dallas. Gentry couldn't go either because of a ankle tweak that occurred while she was dominating our Insanity workout dvds.

So Alex, Romain and myself headed to the Calanques outside of Marseille. The Calanques are "creeks" south of Marseille that formed between the rocky coastline. There are 20 or so of these and the area is preserved as a nation park type area. Since its so protected, you can't really drive straight to it (not that we have a car anyway).  So a metro ride, to a bus and an hour hike, we made it to this:

Romain (right) Alex (left) on our way to a Calanque.

Our first stop. Water was pretty freezing.

Hiking from one calanque to the next. Looked back and had a good view:

Our last stop took us a little off the beaten path. No rocky beach or a bunch of people around. Where we left our stuff was about 25ft above the water on the rocks.

You can't see it in the picture but while we were swimming, we found this opening in the rocks. It was about 6 feet wide and two feet above the water. What I expected to just be a little indentation in the rock turned out to be a cave. Once you pass through the opening it opens up into a big dome with the top 15 feet above the water about 40 feet across.  The water was still super clear and the light coming in from outside the entryway light-up the water to be even more blue. Makes me want to buy a water proof go-pro camera just to go back to that spot.

So I thought I should use paint to help you imagine. Below is a view as we are approaching the cave from the sea.:

After shaming Gentry with this 1 minute of Paint skills, I thought maybe google images might have a better picture. Turns out google had a picture from inside the exact cave we found.

The thing to do at these calanques besides sail you boat and be fancy, is jump of cliffs into the water. We did a little of this at each stop with this last stop being the biggest. Since I've only seen people doing this illegally at Johnson's Shut-Ins and never got to participate, I was happy to join this time around. Don't worry, I didn't ignore the rules, its allowed here.

One night, Gentry and I realized our entertainment options were pretty minimal at our apartment. We have since order the game Settlers of Catan. This is a big move that will hopefully lead to a lot of fun nights educating our friends here on how to best place their settlements and when is the best time to use a monopoly card.

I never know how to end these things....

Paris

So after the disappointing cheese cake and becoming lord of Catan a few times on the train ride from Switzerland to Paris, we arrived in the correct Paris train station.  I'm a few generations out of style with my Galaxy SII and the phone started to really have some issues. The issue were simple. It would turn off and on and off and on and off and on. That's it. I only mention this because my phone had a map of how to get from the train station to our apartment.  So no big deal, I remember the general direction on how to get there and the street we are looking for. I'm sure we can just ask someone.  So we ask someone and they point us to the right way. As we look right and left for the next street, we are losing hope. Oh, and I should mention that we have about 10 minutes to get to the apartment to meet someone to let us in. The owner of the apartment (who lives in LA) contracts some company to meet tenants and if we don't make it in time, we have to pay an extra 140 dollars to get them to meet us again.
Soooo after walking for 10 minutes feeling like we aren't getting any closer and only with 10 minutes left to meet, a nice girl noticing our confusion as we were huddled around a map asked if we needed help.  She pointed us how to get to our place and sure enough, it was the opposite direction from what the first guy told us.

So we made it to the apartment just in time and were let in without having to pay any extra.  But all I kept thinking about was "why do people answer questions when they don't actually know the answer?!?!"  This wasn't the first time this had happened. We ask for directions, they point one way, and then find out its wrong. Even as I write this, I can't understand it.  I guess they have a good laugh about it after. Or maybe they are just bad with directions and pretend they aren't. Whatever it is, I don't get it.

We stayed in a typical one bedroom apartment.  We had a bed, futon, fridge, TV, sink. It also had some bonus features. Like the fact that one foot from the sink is the shower which is one foot away from the only door which is two feet from the toilet.  So ya, the kitchen and the bathroom were one and the same.  No longer would I have to worry about how my stew was doing while taking a shower.  No longer would I have to get out of the shower to open the front door. Pretty sweet setup.

First day was spent visiting Versaille. One of the Louis kings of France decided he didn't want to be in the capital and built the most extravagant palace ever.  Below is what I found most interesting:

Now 5-8 more people know what a kings toilet looked like in the 17th/18th century.  This was actually a "travel" toilet. Pretty convenient.

We didn't get a picture of it unfortunately but there was a desk in the palace that was a newer addition to the tour.  We learned that a lot of the palace furniture was sold or taken after the king was chopped and so now France is trying to track them all down from private collectors and museums.  They recently got some important desk back to the palace and it only cost them 10 million Euros (14 million dollars).

Let me go back to how we got into the palace.  We got to the palace and found a massive line to get in.  We sat in it for probably 30 minutes before deciding we needed to find another option. I don't remember how we found it (i think it was part of our search for a bathroom) but turns out there was a second ticket office that no one was in line for.  The office also sold guided tours. So we bought 3 tickets for the next tour and skipped the line.  Skipping lines has become one of my favorite things to do I think.

Here is the hall of mirrors in Versaille:

Here is a typical crowd while we went through the palace:

http://youtu.be/Otm4RusESNU


I know my Mom is probably ashamed of how little I just wrote about Versaille. She can go look for more reflection on our visit at Gentrys facebook.

The next day we went to the Louvre museum. It wasn't far from our apartment so we walked. We happened to take the Pont Des Artes which is one lock bridge.  First time on one of those. It was cool I guess.

So then we went to the Louvre and saw a bunch of famous old stuff.  This was a little underwhelming

http://youtu.be/WJ_yQ02xwsM

This post was going to include events from our time after getting back to normal life in Marseille but I have been writing this while watching Fringe on Netflix and have been writing about a word a minute. So Paris is all we get for this post. Probably good to keep this shorter.

Gentry and I are still searching for a TV show to fill the whole that Lost left.  Fringe is written by the same people but its not measuring up. Soon enough we'll just watch Lost again. I'm ok with it.

I guess I should also document my advancement in becoming more French. Got a hair cut and asked to become more french. Here was the result:

Time to get off this couch now.

Mike

Italy, Switzerland and almost Paris

Turned out Spain really did go very well. I didn't realize how smooth everything went until we experienced things not going exactly as planned.  Having said that, we still had most everything go just as planned which leads me to feel awful for anyone who tries to travel Europe without either being extremely flexible or very prepared.

A few days after getting back from Barcelona, we packed up for a 6 day trip to Italy. This one was going to be a doozy. Two nights in Rome, two nights in Florence, and one night in Cinque Terra.

The fun started when we got on the train from Marseille to Nice and realized we forgot the Eurail Passes. These passes paired with the specific reservations for each train were our way to ride the train. Thelma did an awesome job and got reservations for just about every individual train we would take during our trip and was mailed a few booklets with all the tickets.  Although these tickets looked just like normal train tickets, most needed to be used WITH a Eurail pass.  The train from Marseille to Nice was no problem, no one checked our tickets. Nice to Ventimiglia, same thing.  Train from Ventimiglia to Milan it happened. Guy asked for our Eurail passes and we had to tell them we left them in Marseille. He told us we would have to talk to someone in Milan and straighten it out.  Wellllll we got to Milan twenty minutes late and our next train was leaving in five minutes.

The camp was divided on what to do next. We ended up rushing to one of the train staff members outside of our next train helping people board and showed him our tickets. I asked him in a mix of spanish, english, and french if we were ok to get on with our tickets.  He said yes right away. I repeated the fact that we did not have our Eurail passes and asked again if we were ok to get on. He again said we were ok. At that point, my conscience was clean and we pressed on. We got on the train and noticed that some of the tickets said "reservation" only and in another section said "only valid with Eurail pass" while other tickets said "ticket + reservation" and didn't mention anything about a Eurail pass.  We figured these were just as good as tickets and showing a Eurail pass would not be necessary.  We flipped through our Italy train tickets and noticed that all but our last two trains back to France said "ticket+reservation". We were pretty happy to see this because the other options going through my head up to that point weren't too fun.  I could only play so many hours of Settlers of Catan on my phone so the thought of me taking the train back to get the passes didn't sound great.

The rule follower of our group and my marriage (I wont name names) thought we should still talk to someone at the train station in Florence and make sure we were good to go.  We showed him our tickets, explain the situation, he said it was fine.  So that brought some additional excitement to the twelve hour, five train travel day from Marseille to Rome.

Sorry for all those words and no pictures. Me in 20 years is going to want to remember that fun.
So in Rome we got a hotel that would help us soak in the Italian culture....Best Western.  It actually wasn't anything like a Best Western in the states and felt very much like a typical European hotel.

Our first day in Rome took us to the Coliseum.  Again thanks the Thelmas great planning, we already had tickets to get in. Unfortunately, these tickets had to be picked up using a voucher and sure enough, there was a line to do that.  Turns out Rome had a bad storm the night before we got there and messed up stuff everywhere including whatever helped get tickets out for the Coliseum.  So after an our waiting in line to get a ticket, we start walking towards the Coliseum and are approached by a vendor selling tour guides in the Coliseum and the ruins next door.  He tells us about the 3 hours line to get in even if you have a ticket and says his group is leaving in 5 minutes.  It will only cost us about 100 dollars.  I'm thinking, "is 3 hours in line worth saving this 100 dollars"? It isn't really much of a thought because at that point I'm willing to pay lots more to avoid waiting in line.  I mean, if I'm not in middle school (or high school....or college) about to ride Mr. Freeze at Six Flags, then I'm not waiting in line.

I'm sure Gentry could sense my weakness and said that she didn't believe the guy and she didn't think we would have to wait in line like he said we would.  I still can't believe I did this but I told the guy to take a hike (obviously I'm not that cool, I asked told him nicely we weren't interested) and we rolled the dice.  We got up to the Coliseum and noticed a biiiiig line. We went ahead and just walked up next to the line, showed our tickets, and walked right in. I was kind of pissed when we got in when I thought about that the guy straight lying to us. I knew that the position he was in was prone to saying whatever it took to make the sale but it still made me mad. Not sure why....but it did.

Since everyone has seen pictures of the Coliseum, I'll just show two.  It was pretty crazy how big it was for the time it was built.
Next day we went to the Vatican. Thelmas prep work once again got us past the 2-3 hour line of people wrapped around the city wall waiting on tickets and right in.

We weren't allowed to take pictures of the Sistine Chapel ceiling so the one above will have to do.

After the museum in the Vatican we saw St. Peters Basilica. The panoramic picture below shows a line of people wrapping around the square waiting to get in the church sooooo I have not actually seen inside the largest church in the world. Thelma has though and enjoyed it. That was good enough for me at the time.  Gentry and I enjoyed a cold soda during the hot day and felt it was time very well spent.  

Thelma and Gentry both bought some hats to help block the sun. The hats also ensured that anyone looking at us would be completely certain we were tourists. While Thelma was in the church, I got to enjoy one of the hats.

After Rome we came back up to Florence for two nights. We stayed at a great B&B that was around 100 meters from the Duomo (big church in Florence). And yes, I just used meters.  

Florence came with a lot of museums and art. I wont pretend its my favorite but Gentry and Thelma really enjoyed it.  

Around the corner, here is the Duomo:

Now for the highlight of the trip to Italy. I think all three of us agreed Cinque Terra was our favorite part. 

We didn't think this as we pulled up to Cinque Terra on a little local train.  It was cloudy, cold, and our plans to take it easy on the beach weren't looking great. 

Our spirits changed quickly when we got to the apartment in Cinque Terra.  After walking around a little confused and enjoying all the stairs of the town with our luggage, we found it. It was worth the effort. I'll let the pictures do the talking. 

The panoramic pic is right outside our apt. 

Cinque Terra is actually five towns along this coast line. We took the train to a different town to check out the beach.  It wasnt' 'the best weather still but I had to get it. It felt great, it was relaxing, and the waves were huge (huge for someone who has spent no time swimming in the ocean).

After the beach, we went into our town, got a pizza, some olives, some wine, and enjoyed dinner on the balcony in our apt.  

We had till around 11am the next day to enjoy the town. Gentry and I took the path from our apt about 200 meters around the coast and found this sweet rocky beach.  I included a picture of just me only to show the path we took. I could sit and look at the water a lot longer than sculptures or paintings ha.

Panoramic makes the wave look a little strange.

It was hard to leave Cinqueterra. Gentry and I agreed we needed to come back.  Most of the train ride back was along the coast. Beach after beach after beach. The water was awesome at each one. So we figured out we wouldn't need to go quite as far if we wanted to come back to that water. 

During our train ride back, we actually had one almost big hiccup. One of our train switches came in Genova Italy.  We had about 50 minutes before our next train. We took our time getting something to each and walking over to the big board to check on our next train. We noticed a train going to our correct destination and leaving at the correct time but we noticed the train number was different. That didn't really sit well with me. We got in line to talk to "Information". The woman helping me breaks the news that we are not at the correct train station in Genova. Turns out, we got off one stop too early as we did not know there were two Genova stops.  At this point we have 20 minutes until our train leaves so I ask what can be done. She tells me if I hurry, we can take a cab to the other station. I ask a clarifying question and before I can finish it she points and almost yells for me to get moving. So we did just that. Our cab driver said we had a chance of making it. 15 minutes later, we are driving, I don't see a train station, and I'm getting a little worried. After the driver pulls a less than legal traffic move, we get there and run. We get on the train just in time.  So that was a fun lesson.

I can't believe I just wrote this much and only covered Italy.  I only have my terrible memory for these kind of things motivating me to do this. If only there was a place where people could easily post pictures and comments while on the go and all of it would be saved and available at any time in the future.  One day maybe. (that was a joke)

So after Italy, a few days of work and rest in Marseille, we left for Switzerland. We would spend three nights there and then two nights in Paris.  From Paris we would see Thelma off and back to the states.

We got to Interlaken, Switzerland around 12:05am. This was about 30 minutes late.  The owner of our hotel in Murren switzerland (where we were staying) email Thelma some directions on how to get from Interlaken to Murren.  She seemed confident that we would have no issues getting there despite our train scheduled to arrive so late.   

So we get off the train in Interlaken, know we are probably too late for the bus we thought we'd take, and are getting a little worried. I find a cap driver and tell him we need to get to Murren.  I tell ask him how much it would cost for him to take us.  I find it odd that instead of answering the question, he turns to the other cab and starts talking with him (they are speaking German so I have no clue what is being said).

He gets out of the cab and tells me about taking a train to Lauterbrunnen. So I ask if maybe we can walk from there to Murren. He looks at me for a second and then says "you don't walk to Murren, you....". He then acts out a climber throwing ice picks and climbing up a mountain. Needless to say, the idea of walking to Murren from Lauterbrunnen was about as possible as......(insert something impossible here).  

Long story short, we ended up begging one of the only open hotels in Interlaken to let three people share a two person room. Since the room cost $260 dollars a night, there was no chance we were paying for two rooms. I have too much Fredy Griffith in me to allow that to happen. I'm sure I could have found a comfy spot on the street somewhere. 

The next day we found out just how stupid my question was about walking to Murren.  Turns out Murren is over 3200 feet higher elevation than interlaken.  It took a train, then a cable car, then another train to finally get to Murren.  

In my mind, I was thinking about all the kind words I'd have with the woman at the hotel that was "helping" us get to the hotel from the train station.  Of course when I got there, she ended up being the nicest person ever and her only fault was not knowing just how ignorant first time visitors could be. After she explained the info she sent to us, it made more sense. Anyway, I was big talk and said nothing to her but sorry and thank you.  She didn't charge us for the missed night anyway. 

The first day in Murren, it rained literally the entire day.  Here are some pics of the town and the view (leaving out the cloudy pics):

Below is a train car that takes you up the mountain from Murren to Allmendhubel. Our first day happened to be the same day as a local festival.  We got up to Allmenduhbel and found a band, a bunch of older locals in their local outfits and local food vendors.  Local food turned out to be exactly what we had for dinner the night before. Sausage/brats, raclette cheese with potatos, and beer. Seems that is most of what is eaten here.

Here was our traditional swiss meal. You can't see the sausage and spatzl that I ordered. If you're wondering, the pot is filled with melted cheese. And yes, that is a rotisserie chicken.

We ended up eating half of our meals in Murren at a Chinese restaurant. We did this partially because everything was so expensive everywhere else and partially because it was good.  

We were really happy the weather eventually cleared up while we were there so we could see everything that was surrounding us. It didn't take long looking around for you to spot a huge waterfall somewhere in the distance. They were everywhere.

On our last day, we spent most of our time in Lauterbrunnen to check out some waterfalls and be a little closer to our train station to get to Paris.

Here is one of the bigger ones that falls right there in town.

****Thanks again to Thelma for making all this possible for us!****

I don't have the blogging stamina to continue. The last part of our trip to Paris will come another time.  

I'll end with the last piece of dessert I ever buy at a train station. For some reason, multiple comments had been made by each of us about wanting some cheesecake. It was pretty random so when I happened to walk by a store in the Basel train station that sold it and looked legitimate enough, I had to get some. Since Thelma and Gentry weren't with me when I bought it, I didn't tell them what it was and told them it was a surprise for after our dinner on the train.  After we ate, I revealed the piece of cheesecake and all its glory.  Then we tasted it.  Below is a picture of how it looked just before we threw it away and you know it had to be really bad for me to throw all that away.

As always, thank you for not judging me to harshly for my poor grammar and spelling.

Mike