Some pictures!

Avignon:

We went out for dinner at Flunch, and Mom couldn't stop laughing at the name, nor at the size of her tea...

Carcassonne:

Mom and Dad outside Carcassonne, which is a walled city, and so totally cool

Baux-de-Provence:

This was a totally cool place we just stumbled upon. We had so much fun exploring the ruins of the castle, which was the originating point for the Princes of Monaco before they moved to Monaco. 

We also visited a winery, Mas de la Dame, which Vincent Van Gogh painted, but that wasn't why we visited...

Florence:

We stayed in a little town just outside of Florence at the nicest hotel. It was up on top of a hill, and we had a beautiful view from all of our windows. The bathroom was HUGE and I even had my own double bed, even if it was just a pull out one. No more trundle bed for me! We had supper at the cutest little local Italian restaurant which we found out later, was known for their t-bone steaks. And quite the steaks they were. They were huge (we saw the people at the table next to us eating them), and eaten very very rare. At 35 euros, everyone seemed to share them. They all thought we were crazy for ordering pasta!

The next day, we went into Florence, and just loved our time there. I loved the markets and the art everywhere!

Rome:

From Florence, we continued on down to Rome. It was a cool drive with lots of villages perched on tops hills. We stayed in Tivoli, about a 45 minute bus ride outside of Rome. It wasn't a bad hotel... the breakfast in the morning consisted of prepacked pastries and coffee. It left Mom and I very hungry by about 10am. The neatest part about Rome was all the ruins just everywhere. And if it wasn't a ruin, it was a fountain, or a statue.

It was so neat. There was almost too much to take in all at once!

Pisa:

What more do I need to say? We saw the tower and really, that's all there is to see

Cinque Terre:

This was easily the most beautiful part of our trip. We walked, 9km between five villages on a trail up and down the side of mountains, next to the Mediterranean. Mom and Dad walked most of it, but the walk almost killed Dad, so Mom stopped with him to take him back to the train to recover. I walked one part by myself, which was suppose to take 1h 10m, but I did it in 40 minutes, and I'm still feeling it today! It was beautiful!

And now, here we are, back in the Provence area for a few days. It's lovely here, and we have a very nice apparetment style hotel, but it's definitely not Italy!

Cinque Terre

I know its been a while since I last posted. Internet has been a little hard to find here in Italy, but we ve been loving Italy just the same. It s so beautiful!! We ve covered Florence, Rome, Pisa and today Cinque Terre, which has to be the most beautiful place I have ever been!!! We did a 12km hike, or well I did, Dad was done after the first few hours, and Mom had to take care of him (men...). It was a lot of up hill and down hill, but with beautiful views of the Mediterranean and the little coastal villages. Just gorgeous. I kept tellimg Mom I wanted to live there. The only problem... I dont speak Italian. So I guess thats my next challenge.

Well, its late, and we re tired after our long walk today in the sunshine! Im just a little burnt, but the nice tan should be worth it! We move on tomorrow, and thats all I can say. Its top secret, even from us at the moment ; )

PS Dad is fine now...

Avignon, Baux de Provence, Nice

We saw a lot today, had several run-ins with parking lots and traffic jams within them -- too many cars and too few spots, happened upon a very cool Medieval ruin of a town and castle, and dipped our hands in the Mediterranean. In a nut shell, that was our day. Mom and I (and I'm sure Dad too) are both very tired, and so that's what you'll get for today, but the Baux de Provence was definitely the highlight of the day! Maybe pictures soon!

Agen, Carcassonne and Avignon

So, here Mom and I sit in the bathroom of our very teeny tiny hotel room -- it was the only place we could find a plug in for the computer. And, well, since we're trying to find hotel rooms for tomorrow night, a conference in the bathroom it is.

Today, we started off in Agen, got everything packed up, ran back to grab my computer after we realized it would be almost impossible to book hotels without it, and left. We headed down to Carcassonne, which is the only walled city left in Europe. It was soooo cool! As we walked through the front gates, we noticed that the streets were all lined with little shops selling souvenir type things and little restaurants and sandwich shops. After a visit to a very disgusting bathroom, we sat down for a panini before heading out to see the castle. We walked along the cobbled roads, past houses which real people are still living in. The castle was really neat. It's been around since the 12th century (Mom is now looking up information about the castle to make sure we get it right...), but people have been living at the site of Carcassonne since 70 BC!! It's crazy to think that people settling there way back then, just because it was on the trade route, had such an influence in creating the current city of Carcassonne (which, of course, spills over the walls of the walled part of the city).

Mom: It's a perfectly restored medieval town and was in it's zenith in the 12th century, but restored in the 19th. It was pretty cool anyway.

After a good look around we headed off to Avignon, where we have stopped for the night. On the ride there we saw our first glimpses of the Mediterranean way off in the distance. We drove past fields upon fields of grape vines just re-sprouting for the spring. We watched the design and the colour of the houses change. We finally arrived in Avignon at about 7pm and promptly got lost finding our hotel. The real problem being that they didn't give the actual name of the street. Mom spotted some teeny tiny signs (which seem to go with our teeny tiny room) on the side of the road and I translated them and we finally found the hotel. Pendant our search for the hotel we passed a place that looked like somewhere we might find food. We dumped our bags in the room and went and found it. We had dinner at Flunch and it was quite an experience -- a French version of American eating. We all had Coq au vin and picked our own sides and salades. It was interesting.
And now, here we are. Sitting in the bathroom using the computer, figuring out where we'll sleep tomorrow : )

PS: Gramma and Grampa, the jelly beans have been great! I am enjoying greatly in the car as we go, thinking of you guys!

Mom and Dad made it!

I went and found them in the Toulouse airport. Their plane from Paris had been a bit delayed, but really it was nothing compared to what it sounds like it could have been with all the ash from the volcano cancelling all international flights (http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/04/15/iceland-ash-airlines.html). It was so lucky they arrived when they did! And, they are here! I can hardly believe it!

au revoir les assistants Agenais

A couple of weeks ago we had a multicultural potluck to say good-bye to all the Agen assistants. It was a great time and I thought now that everyone is heading off on their own ways, I would post some of the pictures

 

Parce-ce qu'il y a une grève (Because there is a strike)

Today I was suppose to go to Albi with a friend. I left my appartement at 6:50 to make the walk to the train station. The sun was just starting to come up. As I walked it became lighter and lighter.

When I got the train station, I couldn't find our train on the board. Really, there weren't many trains on the board except for those going to Toulouse or Bordeaux and even those were crazily delayed. When Denise got there, we tried to figure it out on our own, but eventually had to ask someone. I asked some man behind a counter, and he looked at me like I was crazy and told me there were no trains going to Albi today because of the strike. Ugh.

We left the station trying to figure out what to do. Just as we were about to leave, we saw Karoline (another assistant) who was leaving today. We stopped and talked with her and found out her train was stilling leaving, it was just delayed. We decided to wait with her until her train came. By that point it was about 8 am. We left the train station and headed back into town.

We found some flowers outside of the cathedral and stopped to take some pictures. It was really pretty with the sun just coming up and no one on the roads.

After that, we were cold, so we decided to head back to our places and meet up again this afternoon as it was suppose to get really really warm.

However, I needed to be out of my apartment by 11 or so because someone was coming to take a look at it. Around 10 I called up Elizabeth and she said it was cool if I hung with them for a while. While I was over there, they decided to head out to La Haille, which has clothes and shoes for a fairly decent price. I walked with them and we took some fun pictures as we walked:

Chloe (parte 1)

Chloe (parte 2)

Julia

Kara and me

Kara, Julia and me being silly (unfortunately my 6m arms just weren't long enough)

Some Cheese

Playing around in La Haille

A nice dress/shirt Kara "found"

After our fun little adventure, we returned to our homes for lunch. Unfortunately, I had to be out of my apartment again at 2 because the first showing got changed, after it was suppose to have happened, to 2. So I met up with Denise at 1:45, and we sat in the park, waiting for the Hamilton's to join to us to head a cafe. And finalement, il fait tres tres tres beau! It ended up being about 27 degrees. We just lapped up the sun. And when we got down town to the cafe, we soaked it up some more

The gang at the cafe in Place Laitiers

And of course, there had to be some fun...

After we were done, Denise and I headed out to walk around Agen a bit. It was so sunny that we couldn't justify going home to sit inside

The Pont Canal

After our walk we went and found some ice cream and ate it in a park.
I returned home only to discover that I was more than a little sunburnt (necklace lines and all), but after a beautiful day in the sun, who can complain. And, at any rate, it will beat tomorrow's packing by all means!