Lou Ann's EuroBlog

"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land."
- G.K. Chesterton

Yes ... I'm home.

Okay, okay. I know ... I haven't updated for TOO LONG. Sorry! Some of you are hounding me to get this final post up. I wasn't near a computer for the last few days of my trip, and since I've been home I've been working on adjusting my body clock. Besides ... some of you were telling me that I was online TOO much while in Europe. (You know who you are!) So I'm going to type at this piece-meal, inbetween things and hopefully finish it up soon. I'm also visiting a friend who recently had a military move to Leavenworth, KS (weekend of August 5-8), so while she and her husband are busy, I'm going to do some typing.

SOOOoooo ... I'll start with the pictures. Some of you (different people than those who were hounding me about posting for the last time or those of you who were hounding me about being online too much in Europe) are hounding me about seeing some pictures to preview. So ... here's the link. These are just a few of the over 2000 pictures that I'm trying to look through. Be more patient with me!! :-)

I'm not going to do some long, dragged out, day-by-day accounting of the last few days of my trip. Here's the end, in a nut-shell. The last day I wrote about was Sunday, 7/24. On Monday it was rainy, and Bente and Søren were getting ready to take a trip for their holiday, but they asked me to stay until Tuesday because they didn't want me to spend another night in a hotel. So, I had a very relaxed day ... reading, typing, sitting around doing nothing ... it was quite nice. On Tuesday it was a BEAUTIFUL day, weather-wise. I drove around some of the smaller islands south of Zealand (near where Bente had taken me on Sunday ... near Bogø). I saw white chalk cliffs on the far coast of the island of Møn. I enjoyed more coastal countryside.

On Wednesday I had some time in the morning to drive a little bit more (more countryside) and then made it to the airport for my flight to Paris. I won't even get into it, but my experience at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris that day wasn't any better than any of the other times. I made it to the hotel that I had stayed in previously, very close to the airport. It had originally been my plan to take a subway train into downtown Paris on Thursday (an inbetween day) and I decided that I was too tired of being a tourist to do that, so I sat around the hotel for the extra day (and had my final French crepe at a nearby creperie) and read my book, Centennial.

I flew out on Friday. Again, I won't go into the details. But Charles de Gaulle airport was a lousy experience every time I was there, and that final day was no different. Ugh!! I was finally back on U.S. soil on Friday evening, July 29. My friend Amy drove me home from the airport, and I began the process of re-socializing myself with Americans immediately. :-)

So ... of course, I have several random thoughts to share with you in this final post. The first is that I would seriously re-think the decision to travel alone to foreign countries where English is not the main language. With someone else, it would have been much easier to laugh at some of the more frustrating things ... I don't think that I would have taken myself so seriously. And, the extrovert in me was very weary with the conversations in English that took place only for utility purposes ("Your hotel room is 463." Or, "Yes, we have dielsel gasoline here." Etc.) It was sure good to get home!!

Exit. Something that I forgot to mention when I was in London that amused me. When you travel to a foreign country, one of the first words that becomes easy to learn is the word for "Exit". I mean, you have to exit the plane and the airport and so on. And the signs all say "exit" in whatever language. So, in France, you look for "Sortie", and in Denmark you look for "Udgang". But, in England, where I was expecting the signs to say "Exit" (right??), they all said "Way out". Really!! It was almost weird. It made me laugh!!

Humor. Another funny thing that I forgot to mention had to do with the sister of my friend Bente. Remember, her name is Alis, and she took us on that tour of the school where she and her husband work, and then on a tour of the local windmill on Bogø. Well, while we were looking at the grounds near the windmill, we startled a huge rabbit. I mean HUGE. The thing was rather close to us, and went hopping off VERY quickly. I was startled by how big it was, and said something like, "I don't think that we have rabbits so big in the U.S." to which Alis replied by turning around with a very dead pan expression and said, "Interesting ... I thought that EVERYTHING was bigger in the United States!" It really cracked me up because it's difficult to joke around in a language that isn't your first language, and I had heard very little humor over the past month, and she hadn't missed a beat. She really was only half joking, as it seems that, at least in Denmark, most people feel like Americans think that everything about America is bigger and better than anywhere in the rest of the world.

Food. I totally forgot to mention to you when I was talking about the yummy foods in France ... MERENGUE!! Like what you might find on the top of a lemon merengue pie. But you can buy a piece of very stiff merengue ... and it's like eating pure sugar ... but not sticky/yucky like cotton candy ... MUCH better than that!! MMMMmmmmm......

Wind. Have you seen the commercial for an airline that has recently added Chicago as a new destination? The people all come up to the counter to check in or out or whatever ... and every single customer has wildly windblown hair that they seem to be unaware of. That is exactly how I felt the ENTIRE time I was in Denmark. Except that I was wildly AWARE of my hair being blown all over the place. As beautiful as Denmark is, they certainly have a LOT of WIND!!!

Scooters. The employees at the Copenhagen airport often use foot propelled scooters (you know, they are like silver skateboards, but have a handle bar that extends upward) to get around the airport (which is a medium sized airport) ... I even saw scooters attached to vendor's carts. It was kind of weird.

Buildings. Confusing at first ... in the United States, we usually start counting floors in a building from the ground level being the first floor, and the next floor up being the second floor, etc. Well, in Europe, the ground level is the "ground floor", and the next floor up is the "first floor". It took me a short while of standing in a hotel looking dumbfounded to figure this out. The funny part is that the numbering often works the U.S. way, thus you might be in room #304 in a hotel, and find that room #304 requires you to get off at floor 2 on the elevator. Go figure!!

Reading. It's been wonderful reading a book so much about the culture and history of the United States (Centennial by James Michener) while travelling in foreign countries. I really DO love being an American and all that my citizenship stands for. Michener does such a wonderful job of representing the heart of America. And I read from that book (which chronicles, via historical fiction, the history of the western plains on the Eastern slope of the Rockies in Colorado) every day (I'm a slow reader, and a book with over 1000 pages will certainly take me more than a month to read!!) while I was in Europe. In a way, it was like coming home to the U.S. every single day ... it gave me something culturally familiar to rest in while I was experiencing so many things that were so culturally unfamiliar. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me ... but that's really what it felt like reading that book while I was in Europe!

Since I've been home, I've done various trivial things. I've spent some time at the pool trying to even out my tan. I've seen three movies (Batman Begins, March of the Penguins, and Dukes of Hazzard). I've had lunch/dinner with several friends. I've had a dentist appointment (yuck!!) And, not so trivial, I flew to Kansas City for the weekend to visit some friends who just moved there (military move) from DC around the same time I left for Europe. We even went to see the Oakland A's play the Kansas City Royals. Such fun!!

You may be wondering about my next trip. Who knows! Somewhere down the line, I'd like to see the Four Corners area, the Navajo Reservation (thanks to my love of Tony Hillerman novels), and the Grand Canyon. That could take a whole summer, don't you think? :-)

"What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road."
- William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways

I don't know if some of you are like me and look at the time-stamps on the blogs that you read. It just occurred to me that if you look at the stamp on my blog entries, you are probably wondering why sometimes I'm typing in the middle of the night, or during the best hours of the day when I should be enjoying the trip. Well, my settings with the blog host (Blogger) use an East Coast (U.S.) time stamp. So, if it says that I posted at 1:00 a.m., it really means that I was typing at 7:00 a.m. ... or if it says that I posted at 2:00 in the afternoon, it really means that I was up at 8:00 in the evening typing. Another thing that you might find helpful when navigating a blog like this is that if you click on "Link to this item" at the end of any one of the posts, it will give you a page that has ONLY that particular post on it. If you decide (for some strange reason) to print from this blog, but only want to print one chapter or something at a time, then you can click "Link to this item" for that chapter and print just that one particular chapter.

Another comment, related to time, is that I had no idea before I came here that everywhere I went they'd be using the 24 hour clock. Now, for those of you who are military-minded folks, that's no big deal. But I've found myself walking around subtracting 12 all the time. It's actually not been very easy to get used to. Even the digital clocks in the hotels are on the 24 hour clock. And hours posted in the stores (which often open or close at times that they wouldn't in the States) are given like this: Open 11:30 to 14:30 and 18:30 to 22:00. Just picture me standing in front of a store or a restaurant, pondering. The people must think that I'm crazy!!

My final random thought for this post (I think). I am rather intrigued by the system used for public parking in the countries where I've driven. They don't have any such thing as parking meters like we imagine in the U.S. I have always been annoyed by parking meters in the U.S., and avoid using them if I can. Well, they certainly have paid parking in the larger (and some of the smaller) European cities and towns. The lots/spaces that are paid are quite obvious, with signs all over the place. You park your car and are given a few minutes "grace period". You find a ticket-machine (there are usually machines all over the area where you want to park), pay for the time that you want to park, and the machine prints out a ticket stamped with the time that you are to be leaving the space. You go back to your car, and put that ticket in an obvious place on your dashboard, and you're done. In fact, there were a couple of times that I missed the fact that the lot/space was only paid during certain hours of the day. For example, in Orange, I parked in a lot at about 6:30 a.m., and didn't notice that it was only paid after 8:00. I paid for two hours, and the ticket came out and said "10:00". Funny enough, a U.S. parking meter would just eat your money and laugh at you! Well ... I think that all U.S. municipalities that feel the need to charge for parking ought to use this system. I think it's brilliant! (And, as I tell my students often enough when sharing opinions with them ... "they" never ask ME what I think about these things, so they never get to hear my brilliant ideas!!) :-)

Day Twenty-six (7/21/05) - Tornby to Odense
There are some places that I have encountered in my travels over the years to which I long to return. Skagen, Denmark (pronounced "Skane") is one of them. As I believe I mentioned a few chapters ago, I was in Denmark during the summer of 1984. I have great memories of that trip, the beautiful Danish country-side, and a short visit to the "Top of Denmark", a town called Skagen. Over the past 20+ years, I have thought often of that visit. So, for this day during this trip, my goal was to spend some time in Skagen.

So, when I awoke to pouring-down rain, you can imagine that I was a bit put-off. But, since the weather on this entire European tour has been mostly gorgeous, I decided that I really could not be upset about a day of rain. Besides ... I have a GREAT rain jacket (that I purchased for use in Alaska two years ago, where I ended up not needing it too often), and really ... how can a little bit of rain hurt a person?

I wasn't too far from Skagen, and along the way I found many (MANY) hotels that would have been perfect for the previous evening. Oh, well ... live and learn. :-) I also found a wonderful bakery on the main road through Skagen, and discovered that Danish breads are almost as wonderful as French breads. Yummmmm!!! :-)

I walked around the main town of Skagen for a short while ... it's a lot more touristy than I remembered. But, then again, there's a good chance that we didn't get to the main part of the town when I was here in 1984. We stayed with local families in their homes, and the trip to the shore at Skagen is actually a couple of kilometers from the actual town. Anyway, I found the tourist office and got a good map of the area with some recommendations from the young man who worked there. I then found a restaurant with free (!!) internet, and checked my e-mail. Then, because I didn't feel right using their internet without buying anything, I sat outside and had a delicious cup of cappachino.

From there I drove out to what's called Grenen. You need to have a mental picture of the geography of northern Denmark. You can see a bigger picture on this map. Skagen is on a very narrow finger that points north. Grenen is a couple of kilometers down that road at the very end of the land. On the west (your left) is the North Sea and on the east (your right) the Baltic Sea. (They are called Skagerrak and Kattegat, respectively.) The seas each flow toward each other. At Grenen, you watch the waves on your right and left moving toward each other and meeting in the middle, right in front of you. Here's an aerial photo that I found online that does justice to this idea.

When you arrive in Grenen, there is a parking area and visitor's center/restaurant. Then you can choose to take a shuttle (a tractor pulling a bus-like thing) or walk the rest of the 1.5 km (across the beach) to the actual northmost point. It had stopped raining, and I chose to walk along the beach. There were about a gazillion other people there (it was about 11:30 a.m.), so it wasn't very private ... but it was a nice stroll down the beach. Don't get this image of a warm, sunny white sand beach like you can find in Sarasota. The beach is definitely sand, and is definitely the kind of stuff that you'd want to put a blanket out on. Except for the fact that the wind is so strong that you almost have to wear glasses or sunglasses. And except for the fact that the temps really don't really get past 65 degrees on a really warm July day. So, there were no sun bathers. Just people who wanted to walk to the top of the world (or, at least the top of Denmark).

So I did the obligatory walk, waited in line for everyone who was taking pictures, took my own pictures, and walked back down toward the lighthouse. I found a nice place to sit and think about life in general for a short time while watching the water and the ships and the little kids playing in the waves. It's interesting ... water acts the same everywhere ... it evaporates into the sky and falls as rain ... it sits in big reservoirs such as the oceans, seas, and lakes ... and the waves roll onto the shores with a little bit of foam at the edge ... and it looks the same on a sandy beach in Denmark as it does on a sandy beach in Kitty Hawk, NC or in Bandon Beach on the Oregon Coast. And it always seems to have a calming effect on me. Anyone else want to join me in that sentiment?

A weird thing happened while I was standing at the northmost point in Grenen, waiting for my turn to get to the front of the line. Two fighter planes came roaring overhead, very low. Fighter planes. Like you hope not to see flying low over the Pentagon or something that you'd imagine seeing in a movie like Top Gun (unless, of course, you're in the Air Force and you see these planes all the time and can identify each machine by name and model number). They took a close turn around the point and flew up above the clouds, and by their huge sound we could hear them flying back again from the same direction that they started. It was strange. Not only was I totally surprised that what I expected to be a quiet visit to a remote part of nature was interrupted by sounds from home ... but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why fighter planes would be flying over Skagen, Denmark. I was a bit concerned (what with recent world events and all), but left it at that. The next day, while talking with my friend in Ringsted and her husband, I told them about the incident. Her husband said that planes like that have specialized cameras and photograph the coast quite often, as it changes as the seas knock up against it. For mapping purposes. Hmmm....

Well, after I was satisfied that I had seen Skagen and Grenen again and had been to the top of Denmark and had remembered the things that I wanted to remember from my 1984 trip to the same place, I headed back for my car and drove South again. This time I was going to do the East Coast, but decided to stick to the bigger highways (a week really is not enough time to see an entire country if you're staying on the back roads!) rather than the Marguerite Route like I had done the day before.

I got back to the city of Odense by about dinner time. On my drive through Odense two days before I got a map of the city and someone had marked the internet places for me, so I typed for an hour, found a pizza place that had DELICIOUS (and VERY inexpensive) pizza, and then typed for another hour.

I have to mention that the internet place that I used in Odense was the gaming kind of place that I had discovered here and there while I was on my Alaska trip. When you are looking for internet places while you're travelling, there are all sorts of different venues. Some are restaurants with a computer or two in the corner or a room with five or ten down in the basement. In Villereal (France), the internet place was in a room above the tourist office (BRILLIANT!!). Some are four or five computers in the corner of a copy/FAX place or some other business. But, in some places, you'll find these gaming rooms. They're huge. I think that this one in Odense must have had sixty computers or more. They were set up mainly for people who play games online. Groups of mostly kids (teens through twenties, although some younger and some older) and mostly male (I didn't see any girls playing games) will each sit at their own computers and play these games against each other through the internet ... and will call out to each other and yell and scream and cheer, etc. It's loud and it's weird. This place also had music going. It reminds me of an article that I blogged about a few months ago.

Well, I found a lovely hotel right there in the heart of Odense ... called the City Hotel Odense ... and enjoyed a beautiful room there.

Day Twenty-seven (7/22/05) - Odense to Ringsted
I enjoyed a wonderful buffet breakfast there at the hotel and left around 8:00 or so. I drove across that very long but beautiful toll-bridge that I crossed a couple of days before. This time, the weather was beautiful, so I had a chance to stop and take some pictures of the bridge before I drove it. Interestingly enough, I found out later that this bridge is secured like the one that we crossed when we went over the Yukon River in Alaska. Since that Yukon River crossing (along the Dalton Highway) is the only one for many many (hundreds?) of miles, the bridge also houses the crossing for the Alaska Pipeline. So you can imagine that it's secure. You are not allowed to stop your vehicle for any reason. There are cameras and security hidden in places that you can't imagine. And, I understand that this bridge in Denmark is the same way. You get on the bridge and keep driving until you are off the bridge. That's that. Anyway ... it's a pretty bridge, and was interesting to drive, except that it was VERY windy!!

The bridge put me back on the main island in the eastern part of Denmark (the island called Zealand), which is the same island that Copenhagen is on. I took some more country roads and drove up to the town of Helsingør. Now, you may think that the name "Helingør" sounds a bit familiar. Like Elsinore? Yup ... you got it. Elsinore (in Danish, "Helsingør") is the setting for Shakespeare's Hamlet. There, you can tour the Kronberg Slot ("slot" is the Danish word for "castle"). All of the guidebooks make some play on the idea of walking around and contemplating whether to be or not to be. LOL!! As it turns out, the character Hamlet is based on a mythical character, Amleth, who lived many centuries before the Kronberg Slot was built in Helsingør. (More on the story that Hamlet is based upon.) But, many tourists (like yours truly) bring their precious financial support to Helsingør based on this inaccuracy, and the city won't ever complain. :-) Anyway ... the castle itself is beautiful, and I only walked the outer parts of the grounds, as I wasn't really interested in an inside tour. And, no, I did NOT ever, in any way, shape or form, at any point, contemplate whether to be or not to be. I just took pictures. :-)

After getting my fill of the castle at Helsingør, I turned around and drove toward the town of Ringsted, which is about 45 minutes west of Copenhagen (considered a suburb, but not very suburban!) Another of my online photographer friends, Bente, lives there, and has invited me to spend a few days with she and her husband. I called Bente's cell phone from a rest stop, got directions to her home, and made my way out there.

Bente and Søren live on a street that has only three homes and a farm at the end. They are surrounded by wheat fields. You can't even tell that there's a street there from the "main" road (which isn't too big itself). The home is lovely ... a 1925-ish old farm house that they're remodeling. They are putting in new floors, walling, windows, doors, cabinets, tiling, everything! They've got a beautiful porch looking out onto her beautiful gardens and some of the fields nearby. She also has decided that, since moving from the suburbs into a more rural area, that she is going to have a vegetable garden. It's a great garden, and she's growing all sorts of fun things like potatoes, radish, dill, parsley, pumpkins, sweet peas, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. We've eaten well!!

That first night with Bente and Søren, we just sat around and talked, had dinner, and talked some more. Their English is very good. And, I am very impressed that, to be polite, they speak to each other in English when I'm around, even if they're not talking about anything that has anything to do with me.

Before heading off to bed, I did some laundry (yay!!) and typed a bit on this blog (all of the entries that say "Ringsted" were typed at Bente's home) which has been very helpful, and has kept me away from those often-strange internet places.

Day Twenty-Eight (7/23/05) - Ringsted (and Copenhagen)
These days with Bente have been nice and lazy days. We are seeing some sights ... but not at any sort of rushed pace. That's really very nice, as I'd been questiong my sanity at spending such a long time being a tourist in Europe.

This morning, we got up and had a late breakfast, and at about 10:00 got in the car for our adventure. We were going to go straight to the train station, but Bente turned into a parking lot that didn't look much like a train station parking lot. It was the school where she works with very young children (ages 6 to 10). The Danish system of education seems to be very different from that in the United States, if you look at the very little that I'm understanding of it. I don't know if it's better or worse than the one we use in the U.S., it's just different. Anyway, we couldn't get into the school, being a Saturday, so we peeked into windows of several of the classrooms. The building looked relatively new, and was very wide open. Many of the walls, even those facing outside, were glass from floor to ceiling (reminds me of my own classroom). It was a school ... with individual desks and chairs and manipulatives and other educational supplies sitting around. I was very glad that Bente decided to stop there ... I always find it interesting learning about how other schools educate their children ... and in a foreign country, it gives me much to think about.

Well, after looking into quite a few classrooms and work areas, and talking a lot about education, we got back in the car and drove to the train station. I think that it was like a small commuter train that connects to the subway system. I think. :-) It's nice not having to understand any of this because I'm with someone who does! :-) Anyway ... it's easier to take the train into Copenhagen because parking is difficult, and you're not going to drive your car around downtown anyway.

The first thing we visited in Copenhagen was the Rosenborg Castle. This is one of three castles scattered around the country belonging to the current monarch of Denmark, Queen Marguerite. She is 65 years old, and has been on the throne since 1972. In the castle, we saw the royal treasure, which includes many historical weapons, expensive home decorations (like vases, etc.) and the crown jewels. There are jewels there that you see Marguerite wearing in some of her formal photographs. That was rather interesting! We also did a tour of the castle and saw all of the important rooms and many, many pictures of previous Danish monarchs. Denmark is one of the oldest nations, so the history of their monarchy covers hundreds and hundreds of years.

After seeing Rosenborg, we walked down to Nyhavn, which is the harbor ("havn") that you see pictured when you look at pictures of Copenhagen. Like this one. In fact, the name Copenhagen in Danish is actually "København", and many of the coastal towns and cities in this country end in "-havn". Anyway, Nyhavn is actually a very touristy area ... lots of restaurants and shops and photo-spots ... and city-cruise origins. Bente took me on an hour-long tourist cruise of the harbors and canals of Copenhagen. It was wonderful!! I found it fascinating! I can't really give you one thing or another that impressed me, other than I enjoy learning about a city that I'm visiting, and this cruise did a fabulous job!

After wandering Nyhavn just a little bit, we continued walking around the city a little bit. We evenutally made our way to a tall, round tower (you can see it here ... the Danes call it "The Round Tower". LOL!!) Anyway, inside there is a ramp that goes round and round and takes you to the top of the tower (a few stairs at the end, but nothing like St. Paul's in London). At the top, you can go outside and get a 360 view of the city. It's beautiful! Of course, I took lots of pictures of the skyline. It was a lot of fun!

From there, we realized it was later than we thought, so we hopped back on the train again and came straight home. We ate dinner, watched a bit of a movie ("Dennis the Menace" happened to be on the television (the one with Walter Mattheau as Mr. Wilson) ... interestingly, the Danish subtitles use the name Henrik for Dennis and change Wilson to Olsen.) I typed a bit more and went to bed.

I'll apologize here for this post being soooo long ... but I wanted to catch up with myself here, while the internet access is free. I tend to be the first one out of bed in the morning, so it's a nice time for me to type and keep up with my e-mail and blog posts. Thanks to those of you who keep up with the reading of these novels. :-)

Day Twenty-nine (7/24/05) - Ringsted (and Bogø and Falster islands)
Today was the kind of thing that I LOVE when I'm travelling. I had a day that was completely UN-tourist-y, yet completely immersed in the true culture of the place that I'm visiting. It was fabulous!!

Again, we got up and had a lazy late start (enjoyable!) Apparently, Bente's family knows that she will be late for most things, so when she says that she'll be at their homes by, say, 11:00 that she'll really not be there until after 12:00 or so. They call it "Bente time". Anyway ... we were going to be visiting Bente's sister (and family) and father. Both live on the island of Bogø, about a 45 minute drive south of here. If you're a map person, look at a map of Denmark and find Copenhagen (to the extreme east (your right)) and notice that it's on an island called Zealand (in Danish, Sjælland). South of Zealand are three large islands, from west to east, Lolland, Falster, and Møn. There is a little island between Falster and Møn that you can see if you look closely. That's Bogø. (Another interesting tidbit ... the "g" in the word Bogø is silent. Try saying that word!!)

On the way to Bogø, we stopped at a very photographic manor house. These wealthy manor homes are scattered around the rural areas of Denmark, and apparently the owners run large farms and own much of the surrounding land. Many are private. This one, in Bregentved, happened to open their gardens and grounds to visitors on Sundays and Wednesdays. We walked around a lovely pond with lily pads and took some pictures. Søren is also a photographer, and each of the three of us has a Canon digital camera and had a blast taking pictures of the landscape and of each other taking pictures of the landscape.

Well, we went to visit Bente's sister, Alis, first. Alis and her husband Lars both work at a school on Bogø. Bogø is a rather rural community. They have a lovely home ... and quite enough space for their three children (ages 4 to 15). The school is walking distance to their home, and Alis wanted to show me where they work. Alis is a classroom teacher, and teaches a large age range of kids, and it sounds like she teaches a wide variety of subjects as well. Lars is what we would call a guidance counsellor for the older kids.

This time, Alis had the keys to the school buildings and the codes to any of the rooms that were key-coded for security. There were actually two schools (across the street from each other) that she showed me. I am trying very hard to understand the education system here in Denmark, but it is so different from that in the United States, that I'm almost having to throw out what I know about education systems and start from scratch. I guess that the kids go to a "kindergarden" type of school at ages 5 and 6. Then they have a "basic" school from about ages 7 through 16. It can be nine or ten years, depending on what they want to do next, which will be either a general secondary school (three years) or a technical (vocational?) school. I'm not sure if I got that all down right, but I've found a couple of websites, and I'm going to continue reading about it (again ... this will all help with my work with our International Baccalaureate stuff at Jefferson).

Both schools are boarding schools. The government pays the tuition for the students. The first school we walked through was almost like a finishing school. The kids are in their last year of the "basic" school, and deciding what they are going to do in the following year. So, all of the kids are the same age (about 16). There were the normal school things, classrooms and desks and materials and science labs, etc. Alis told me that, for the most part, the teachers change classrooms and the kids stay in the same place all day. They recently sent their 15 year old daughter to school in New Hampshire for a few months to improve her English, and she was shoked to see that she had to walk around the school to her classes every 45 minutes! :-)

The other school, across the street, was for a wider range of basic school aged kids. Not the real little ones, but the ones that were from like 11 to 15 or something like that. This building was VERY new. I loved the way it was set up. It looked like what we would call "team areas". They don't have a team set-up for their classes, so the kids aren't quite in self-contained areas. But I could totally see a building like that being used for such a thing. If you're familiar with our building at Jefferson, picture the Turbo Tiger area, with doors closing the area in. Then imagine a lounge area in the middle with the 5 or so classrooms surrounding it. In the lounge there are chairs and tables and arm chairs and all ... so that kids can do group work or take tests or whatever you want to use the large group area for. There were several of these large group areas throughout the building. It was great!! I was VERY appreciative to Alis (and Bente!) for taking the time and energy to show me their school. I certainly learned a lot, and have piqued my interest in learning more about how other countries structure their education systems.

(Bente - please send me an e-mail to correct any of this that I might be getting wrong about the schooling in Denmark! Thanks!!)

Walking home from the school, we had to walk past an old windmill. Now you may imagine an old fashioned style windmill. In fact, this is a picture of the very one. They have removed the arms on the outside, so it looks a little strange (although not as strange as you would think ... it's still very obviously a windmill!) They want to try to restore the windmill to working condition. Alis happens to have access to the keys to the inside of the mill, so we were able to go in and climb up and see the insides of the mill.

Now, if my description of the whole "I can't believe I'm not going to be able to get a copy of the new Harry Potter book on July 16"-debacle hasn't convinced you that I'm a bit flakey, try this one. I am NOT a country girl. I have no clue as to how things in rural areas work. I never actually considered the meaning of the word "mill". Honestly!! It never occurred to me to wonder what purpose a thing spinning in the wind might serve. I also never connected windmills to mills driven by water. I just always saw them as pretty and old buildings. Duh!! :-)

Inside this mill, we got to see where all the wheels worked and the grinding apparatus to process the things like the flour. I guess that the farmers in the area would bring their wheat to this building, and it would be ground down to flour, and then it would drop through a chute and be lowered through a hole in the floor at that level into a wagon or other container waiting below to carry it away. Yeah, I buy my flour at the grocery store. I've never contemplated how it's processed. I know that it's different now, but flour has been a staple food item for hundreds of years. I guess this is how it used to be done!

Obviously, I was fascinated by the workings and basic machinery inside the mill. Everything was terribly dusty, and the stairs (I think that we climbed at least three flights of steps or ladders) were very steep, very narrow, and mostly rather worn. It was tricky ... but totally worth every minute of the visit!!

Back at Alis' home, she showed me the kids' rooms. They are a very artistic family, and the kids (and adults!) have paintings and other artwork posted creatively around, as well as works in progress (the 8 year old daughter has a canvas on an easel for an oil painting that she is about to begin!) Lots of books and lots of learning things ... you can tell it's the home of educators!

While we were at Alis' house, Alis and Bente's father stopped by. We were supposed to be at his home a couple of hours ago for lunch. :-) So, we got in the car and drove over to her father's house. He made traditional Danish meatballs for us (they're called Frikadeller). Bente tells me that every Dane has his or her own way of making Frikadeller, so it will always be different when you have them. Often they are served with a brown sauce, but we had them without the sauce. We ate them like sandwiches ... on brown bread with butter and cucumbers. It sounds weird, but was DELICIOUS!! I had several helpings!! :-)

After lunch, the four of us (including Bente's father, Henrik, and his Canon digital camera) got in the car again and went down to the local ferry terminal. Not too many years ago, the only way to get from island to island in Denmark was to take ferries. The bridges are relatively new things. Many of the ferries still run, and are often used by people living on the islands to do things like shopping, etc. Bogø only has one small store, so when you need to do a big shopping trip you can drive on the highway over the bridge or take the ferry. The ferry deposits you directly in front of the main street of a town where there is a much larger grocery store, so it's often more convenient to do your shopping that way.

Anyway, we got on the ferry. The ride to the next island (Falster) was only about 10 minutes. I don't recall ever using a car to ride a ferry, so that was fun. The ferry let us off in the town of Stubbekøbing (I'm including some of the fun place names for you on purpose...) From Stubbekøbing we drove a little bit along the east coast of Falster, stopping to take pictures of the landscape and some of the homes (there were homes with straw walls!!) here and there. We had some ice cream (of course!). And we also stopped for a hike through a small wooded area that has bronze-age burial mounds still very visible (about 72 mounds in all!) We walked around that park for a while, and then got back into the car to take Bente's father back to his home on Bogø (it was too late for the ferry to return us, so we took the bridge on the highway).

Driving the countryside was a lot of fun ... it's a gorgeous landscape, like I think I've mentioned. I could just sit and look at the fields and the flowers for hours and hours.

Well, we got home and I decided to take advantage of their huge tub (not a hot tub or a jet-thing, but a very, very large tub) and took a very hot bath and relaxed for quite a while. Then we had a late dinner. Bente and Søren had visited the United States for the first time ever in March to see Søren's brother who lives in Florida. We have talked quite a bit about the cultural things that we each find interesting about the other's country. One of the things that Bente really liked to eat in the United States was ... pancakes! (This made me think of my three nephews, who could eat a stack of pancakes each without thinking twice! I think that they go to the local Friendlies for breakfast once a week (their traditional Sunday outing) and the kids feast on pancakes! Anyway ... Bente told me that Danish pancakes are different than American pancakes. They are thinner. Almost as thin as French crepes. And they are eaten in a similar way to crepes. You spread a topping on them (jam or sugar or something) and fold them up and eat them with your hands. We also had a nice discussion about eating American pancakes (or French toast) slathered with butter and swimming in hot maple syrup. (Is your stomach growling yet??) :-) Anyway ... we enjoyed our pancake dinner, and then I went to bed exhausted! What a great day!!

Before I close this post, a few more random thoughts. First of all: I'm caught up!! It's early Monday morning, and the pancake dinner I just described was last night (Sunday). Yay!! I'm not sure if I'll have more than one more chance to type while I'm away, so I wanted to get as much typed up as possible. That's why I allowed the post to get so loooonnnggg. Thanks for staying with me!

Secondly, let me give you a picture of my next few days. Bente and her husband are leaving for their own holiday tomorrow (Tuesday), but didn't like the idea of my staying in a hotel tonight if I didn't have to, so they have graciously asked me to spend the night tonight with them again. We won't do any touring around today, although I may do some driving around on my own this afternoon if the weather is nice. Tomorrow (Tuesday), I will leave Ringsted and drive some more (I have a mind to see more of the little islands around here). On Wednesday, I return the car and fly to Paris. Wednesday and Thursday I have a room at the same hotel outside Charles de Gaulle airport where I've stayed a couple of times in the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure what I'll do with Thursday, which is my inbetween day. I was thinking of taking the train from the airport into Paris (which would involve taking the airport shuttle from the hotel to the airport, then change to the commuter train, and then to the subway train ... spend a couple of hours in the city ... and then reverse the process ... all leaving enough time for myself to get ready to fly back to the states on Friday). I'm not sure if I have the energy or desire to squeeze one more thing into my trip, and may just spend the day Thursday in and around the hotel. There is a little village within walking distance, and they have some restaurants and a park and so on. It's supposed to rain Thursday, too, so I have no idea what I'll decide, but I'm definitely leaning toward "low-key"!! Friday, as I said, I'll be flying out, Charles de Gaulle to Iceland to Baltimore. With the time change, I'll be home on Friday evening.

Not sure when you'll hear from me next. It might very well be this weekend. As previously, if you don't hear from me and/or are concerned, look here for a comment from my mom, as she's the one I'll be in touch with if I think you might want some information about changed plans.

Otherwise, let me close with this. The Danish say goodbye with the word "Hej". It is pronounced "hi". As in the same way that we say the word that we greet people with at the beginning of a conversation. Talk about being confusing for someone who speaks English!

So ... HEJ!!! :-)

"The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing."
- Daniel J. Boorstin

Some random notes. First of all, the keyboards on the computers in London and Denmark are also different than those used in the United States, but not as much as in France. The basic letters of the alphabet are all in the same places, but the other characters, punctuation, etc., are in different spots. There are different symbols, like £ and € (obviously), as well as things like æ and ø and å (capitalized look like Æ and Ø and Å). There are some characters that I use for the html code that are in totally different spots, too ... and all of this makes typing just a bit slower than it would be at home.....

Secondly, any links in this post to images are NOT my photos. I have not yet downloaded any photos from my camera, and won't do so until after returning back to the U.S. Then we can talk about when you'll see them. ;-)

Thirdly, will someone please tell me why I chose three countries in Europe that happen to use three different currencies!!?? I thought that was why they went to the Euro! So that there weren't all of these countries using different currencies. Yet, England is still on the pound (£), and Denmark is still using their kroner (which is only abbreviated with "kr.") So ... France being on the Euro (€), I've now got coins and paper from three different financial markets. Why!!??

Day Twenty-five (7/20/05) - Tønder to Tornby
The car rental place in Copenhagen had given me a map of Demark that is fabulous. It doesn't have every single road, but any road that might possibly be of interest to me is included. As I was looking at that map, I noticed some routes marked with little green dots beside the roads. Looks a lot like the way that AAA marks "scenic routes" on their maps. Sure enough, after some closer looks at the map key, there is something called the Marguerite Route. (Marguerite is the current queen of Denmark.) Apparently, they chose the most aesthetically pleasing roads in Denmark, as well as taking a person past some of the main attractions in Denmark (castles, historic sites, Legoland, etc.) Well, much of the coastal areas of Denmark are marked as part of the Marguerite Route, and almost all these roads are off the main highways, so I decided to give these roads a try.

I started from Tønder at the southern part of the West Coast and decided to work my way north. I followed the signs (they look like flowers) that told me where to turn (with the help of the markings on the map). I passed by some wonderful countryside!! I also saw some fabulous coastal areas. It's nothing like the West Coast of the U.S. ... there are no haystacks or gorgeous rock formations or anything. But pretty beaches, and interesting sand dunes and seaside landscape. North of the villate of Esbjerg there are four huge statues of men ... called Man Meets the Sea. Weird statues ... and huge. But worth a look. The churches in the little villages are also very pretty. So, I've been taking lots of pictures. :-)

Another interesting thing worth pointing out is that Denmark is way ahead of the curve on many environmentally conscious things. The entire country, big cities as well as the rural areas, uses modern windmills for much of the power requirements. No ... don't picture the old fashioned windmills that you'd see in Holland (they have a few of those here ... and they're mainly just pretty landmarks). Take a look at this picture. These windmills are EVERYWHERE. You can't look across the countryside without seeing many of them. They are quite elegant and classy-looking, if you ask me. Another thing that I want to talk about in our International Baccalaureate discussions at work next year.

I made the mistake of not being able to find a nice sandwich shop for lunch and thought it would be a good idea to stop at the local McDonald's. The prices were outrageous, and the food didn't look too good. So, all I got was a McFlurry and a soda. Forget about McD's when you're at home or abroad. If you're in doubt about that previous statement, watch the movie "Super-size Me". That will convince you for sure!!

After having put many hours in on the road that day, I decided to find a hotel and call it a night. Now, you probably know that I've been doing "road trips" for a few years now. On my first road trip, I didn't make a single hotel reservation. I was able to walk into a place every single evening and find accommodations. Not to say that I didn't find hotels without vacancies ... but that there was always another place nearby that DID have one. On my second major road trip, to Alaska, we made reservations for some of the places, just to be sure, because Alaska has some very small and isolated towns, and it's always better to be safe than sorry. But, it wasn't everywhere ... just the smallest and most isolated towns. Again, never had a problem where we didn't have reservations. And ... on this trip, after driving around France and never having trouble finding a hotel, and finding a hotel easily in Tønder, I wasn't worried about this evening. I guess I should have been. I tried several places in the city where I was after dinner, and didn't find anything. Either the places were super expensive or were full. So I drove to several nearby towns. Again ... too pricey or no vacancies. For two hours I looked for a hotel. I have not ever been so concerned that I wouldn't find a place to stay. I have not ever been so worried that I'd have to sleep in my car. Oh, no ... I will NOT sleep in my car. If I had to drive all night, I'd do so ... but sleep in my car by myself in a strange place ... NO! But, FINALLY, I found a "room". It was like a B&B without the breakfast. It was very inexpensive, and was relatively clean and neat and was ... well, a room. It worked, and I slept and got clean and was ready for the next day.

Interestingly enough, the house where the "room" was happened to be next to train tracks, and since there was a road there, I could hear a bell ringing before a train came through, warning the cars coming that the security arms were coming down. (And, the bells on the gates were always much louder than the train coming by!!) Now, you may not think that this sounds ideal ... but I was actually fascinated by the whole situation. My room faced the tracks, and the final train for the day went past about 11:30 (and the next morning the trains started again about 4:30). This place (Tornby) is VERY rural. And trains were going by VERY often. The trains were always little tiny trains ... three cars including the engine. And sometimes there weren't more than one or two people on the entire train. The thing that really surprised me was that I realized after several had gone by was that there was a little platform on one side of the road. And people would park their cars or bikes near the platform and get on/off the train. It wasn't a regular stop or a station, but it was like flagging the train to stop for you if you needed it for commuting purposes. I thought this was very interesting, and watched as many of the trains go by as I possibly could (does this make me a nerd?)

Another thing that I want to make note of is that CSI (Las Vegas) seems to be a VERY popular television show here in Europe. A lot of the television that they watch consists of American shows with French/Danish voiced over or with subtitles. But CSI seems to be everywhere. So, I watched an episode of CSI before going to bed that night.

Okay ... enough for this evening. I'll write more tomorrow for sure! G'night!! :-)

"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind."
- Seneca

Okay, so last night I sat in an internet cafe for quite a while, typing about the remainder of my time in London. All day long I had been driving the countryside of Denmark, and with the radio on, even. But all of the talking was in Danish, and of course, I don't speak or understand Danish. So I had no idea until this morning that there had been another "incident" in London yesterday morning. I don't know if you were wondering why I didn't mention it, but that's why. It's so strange (providential?) that I arrived in London (according to my original plan) about four days after the original 7/7 bombings, and then left again about four days before the most recent "incident".

Well ... on with my story...

Day Twenty-three (7/18/05) - London to Paris
Just typing that heading makes me shudder!! Transporting myself to/from Paris to anywhere has turned out to be quite the difficult task. Ugh!! Here's an idea of that day for me.

I woke up early and finished all of the last minute packing stuff. I was to leave too early to have breakfast at the hotel, but no problem, right ... I could find food at the rail station. So ... at 6:30 I stood out on the curb trying to hail a cab. Now, I had decided that taking the Tube to Waterloo station (reversing the trip that I made getting from Waterloo TO the hotel which was rather difficult!) would not be the best choice, so I wanted to take a cab. And, the previous day the concierge had talked me out of calling a cab ahead of time. He said that it would be a LOT more expensive than just hailing one of the black cabs, and that they come down that street all the time because of all of the hotels. Also, understand that I had made a point of getting rid of all of my pounds (down to only a few pence) the previous day so that I wouldn't have to change pounds to euros, losing money over and over again at the exchange places. SOOOooo ... I needed a cab that takes credit cards. They exist ... I saw them all over the city on my wanderings. Of course, of the four and a half cabs that came by the hotel in the half hour that I was standing there, only the very last one accepted credit. I was on the verge of going into the hotel to ask the concierge to call that other cab for me. But, no dice ... I got the cab, and got to Waterloo in a very short matter of time.

Arriving at the Waterloo station, I passed by a few food places because I wanted to check in first. But the check-in for the Eurostar at Waterloo happens to be combined with security and customs, and then there was only one very small food place near my platform, so I had a croissant and some coffee. That was breakfast. (Can you say HUNGRY!!) I also had a "Go Lean" bar with me, and ate that to keep me from being too hungry throughout the trip.

The Eurostar portion of the trip was entirely uneventful ... the train left on time and arrived in Paris Gare du Nord on time. I knew that I needed the Paris RER train to the airport, and found that very easily. Paris is an hour ahead of London, so it was mid-afternoon by the time I got on the RER train. I got to the airport by about 2:00, and found the place to stand and wait for the airport shuttles. (Remember that I was doing all of this dragging around a very heavy suitcase, and this time had two carry-on bags.) I waited for the hotel shuttle (I already had hotel reservations.) I waited. And I waited. I figured that I must have just missed the previous shuttle, as I remembered that they run every half hour. So I decided that I would exercize patience. But at about 3:00, I finally called the hotel. They reminded me (I ought to have known) that their shuttle only runs in the morning and evening, and wouldn't be running again until 5:30 that evening. No way I was waiting that late.

So ... I went to the cabs nearby, but they looked at me like I was insane when I asked if they took credit cards (still hadn't gotten any Euros because I knew I was headed to Denmark, and Denmark is not on the Euro). Okay ... so off to look for a cash machine. No cash machine in the train section of the airport. Nope. Go to your right, and walk about 10 minutes to the next terminal. (Heavy suitcase!!) So, walk I did. I found the cash machine. The only cash machine at that terminal. "Out of Order" (in French, of course). I burst into tears. (I'm not usually one for a lot of crying ... but this whole travelling around Paris thing is really getting to me!! So I finally realized that I could get cash from the exchange desk using my credit card. I got enough for the cab, for dinner, and for another cab back to the airport in the morning.

Took the cab to the hotel. I decided to walk to the little village near the hotel strip to ship some of the stuff I had been carrying home. I planned to eat dinner after my visit to the post office. The gal who waited on me at the Post Office, by the way, looked almost exactly like Amy Tyra! Amy, by the way, speaks French. It was fun, as I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't actually having a conversation with Amy ... yet she looked SO much like her!!

Well ... I had intended to have dinner at the village after the visit to the post office. Unfortunately, it was 5:00, and all of the restaurants in the village open at 6:00. I was too tired to wait around, so I went to the hotel again, and tried to find food. No, there are no delivery places. Delivery? What is that, exactly? Ugh!! There were two vending machines at the hotel that had food that could be heated in the hotel microwave. Both machines stole my money and didn't deliver the food that I could SEE in the machine. Forget it! The vending machine DID deliver a chocolate waffle, and I had that for dinner (remember ... little breakfast, and no lunch. UGH!!) and went to bed early. What a day!!

Day Twenty-four (7/19/05) - Paris to Tønder, Denmark
I got up early that morning, really early. My flight was at 7:15, and I wanted to be rather early because it was an international flight. So I asked the hotel to call me a cab for 4:30. Now, the airport is literally about 2km away from the hotel. The day before, the cab fare from the airport to the hotel was about 7€. This morning, though, it turned out to be almost 20€!! I couldn't believe it! When I questioned the cab driver, he told me that it was because (1) it was night time, and there was a government-imposed night-time fee, and (2) I had a big bag. Yeah, right. UGH!!

As it turns out, the Air France check-in counters don't open until about 5:45, international flights or not. So I should have slept in and taken the hotel shuttle and saved myself the hassle. Well ... I got a good portion of my book ready anyway. (Oh - and no breakfast at the airport again ... there are no restaurants at that part of the Charles de Gaulle airport. What do they expect travellers to do for food!?)

Again, my flight to Copenhagen was without incident. I sat next to a young couple, and he was working on a Su Doku puzzle (in ink!!), so we talked about that a little bit, but otherwise, I read my book.

As soon as I got into the Copenhagen airport, I knew it would be much easier than Paris or London. The airport was very easy to navigate. I found my luggage easily, there was no stopping at customs (another thing that strikes me as weird!), and found the rental car place easily. The gal at the rental place was very nice. AND ... she gave me a free upgrade.

Well ... I had to laugh because my "free upgrade" gave me a really ugly car. It looks like a box, and is big, and very difficult for me to park in these teeny-weeny little European parking spaces. AND ... it's red. Bright red. LOL!! I have to laugh every time I look at it.

My original intent had been to spend that first half-day in Copenhagen, and then the following day to drive out to the rural areas and explore. But, as soon as I hit the rental car, I realized that I had absolutely no desire to do yet another BIG city a third day in a row, so I hit the expressway and decided to drive for as long as I had the energy. It was raining and cold, besides, so I didn't feel like I was wasting the time.

As it turns out, maps of Denmark are like maps of Rhode Island. They fill the whole page, and make the place look a lot bigger than it really is. I was at the west coast (the far coast) of Denmark within a few hours and only put 350km on the car.

Do you have a picture in your mind of the geography of Denmark? It's a peninsula, sticking north up from Europe (touching Germany to the South). To the east of the peninsula there are several big islands and a LOT of small islands. Copenhagen is on the biggest island (Zealand) and to get to the main peninsula you drive over a couple of bridges. One of those bridges is 18km (about 12 miles) long and is a newly engineered feat ... the "pride of Denmark" ... built only about 6 years ago. It is beautiful ... about half of it is a suspension bridge, and the rest is ... well, I don't know enough about bridges to be able to tell you. AND ... if you are from New York and think that $7 to cross the Verizano bridge is expensive, try 200kr (at 6 kroner on the dollar) to cross this bridge. I was absolutely sticker-shocked!! Especially knowing that I would certainly have to cross that bridge again!!

I stopped during the day in a town called Odense for lunch. It happens to be the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen (author of fairy tales) and it just happens to be the 200th anniversary of his birthday. So ... everything in the city is really decorated for him!!

Anyway ... I got to the west coast, and found a lovely little motel in Tønder (near the German border). The room was big and pretty and had a gorgeous little porch with outdoor chairs and a little table outside. You'd better believe that I found dinner and ate quickly, and got to the hotel to sit outside (it had stopped raining) and read and enjoy the lovely evening!

I'll save the country-side of Denmark for the next post. I'll probably post once a day for the next couple of days, seeing as I am staying with a friend for a few days, and have free access to the internet here.

Hope you're all well!! I'll be home in about a week!! :-)

"Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe."
- Anatole France

My mom is the BEST!! She's like an information hound! (That's why she's a librarian!) All you have to do is hint that you need some information on whatever random topic that you're interested in and she finds it for you, post haste! (That "post haste" thing is a thing that my mom says all the time...) Anyway ... she sent me an e-mail this morning (or yesterday?) about Paddington. Here is a link to his biography. Short story is that he was born in Lima, Peru, and was raised there. But he was sent to London by his aunt (he was an orphan) and arrived at Paddington Station, and was found there. Cute, huh? Apparently, I never really cared for the Paddington stories when I was little (Mom remembers things like that!) Well, when there were fun things to read like "The Boxcar Children", who would get into Paddington Bear?? ;-)

Now that you know more than you ever wanted to know about me ... I will try to finish telling you about my time in London here so that I can get on to Denmark while I'm still in Denmark! :-)

Day Twenty (7/15/05) - London
I had some "errands" to run this day, so of course, I got up early with the intention of getting the boring stuff done so that I could get going on the fun stuff. As it turns out, most places where you do boring stuff in London don't open until 10:00, so I ended up sitting at (you guessed it) Starbucks sitting around across from the railway ticket office reading my Michener novel and doing some Su Doku puzzles while waiting. (Excuses, excuses...)

Finally, I got to the Rail Europe office. Now, I originally (a couple of days before) went to the railway ticket office at Victoria station to ask about train tickets from London to Dover and from Calais to Paris (my original plan had been to do a train/ferry/train thing back to Paris). But the guy at Victoria station told me that they don't have any info about that type of rail ticket. He is the one who gave me the address to the Rail Europe office. He told me that they would be able to help me no problems. I feel like I was running all over London with this same question, and really, no one ever did help me answer it. At the Rail Europe office, they don't sell any tickets for rail travel within London. Duh! But they could sell me a ticket for Calais to Paris if I wanted. They also showed me the price of the Eurostar from London to Paris, which I thought would be outrageous based on my experience from the previous week. Well, it was VERY reasonable, which leads me to believe that the man at the ticket office in Bergerac who sold me the original Eurostar ticket was just being mean. I guess. Anyway ... I figured that since the cost of just the ticket from Calais to Paris would have been more than one-third of the ticket on the Eurostar, I'd just do the Eurostar through the Channel Tunnel again. Bottom line: I saved ££ and travel time. Bonus on both ends.

I sort of feel like Friday (day 20) was a wasted day. I didn't do hardly anything interesting until the evening. From the Rail Europe office, I went to Covent Garden again and did some more street shopping (Jackie - I bought a couple more scarves ... the smaller, silkier ones ... I LOVE them!!) and then made my way to the Tate Modern museum (across the river). It was lunchtime so I had lunch in the museum cafe before starting to "do" the museum.

Now, I like modern art, or so I thought. I mean, I have a working knowledge of art from the past 100 years, and like some of the more abstract artists such as Jackson Pollack. There's a magnificent Pollack prominently placed in one of the main hallways at the Albright-Knox art museum in Buffalo, and I really like it. Another thing to point out is that the Tate Modern doesn't hide the fact that they have an unorthodox arrangement of their works. They arrange their works by chosen themes rather than by artist and/or time period. Great! So I took the map of the museum, circled the rooms with the names of themes that I thought I'd be interested in and went at them.

Wow ... I went through almost the entire museum and I'm not sure that I enjoyed more than two or three pieces in the whole place!! The stuff was for the most part too abstract for me. Even the pieces by Picasso and some of the other impressionists were from their weirder works (except that they have Monet's "Waterlilies" ... lacking a perspective point and horizon ... I love it!) Anyway ... at the end of the visit, I left wishing I had gone to the Tate Britain or the British Museum instead ... but as I really only made time for one museum, now I know. Wasn't quite my speed! I must be getting old!! :-)

Well ... I had to run home and change my clothes and make myself look relatively neat and clean because I had a ticket to see a show that evening. There were LOTS of shows playing in London while I was there. LOTS. Many that I haven't seen, and some that I have seen. Chicago starring Brooke Shields (I just can't imagine her as Roxy Hart!!), The Lion King (I'm wanting to see that ... but not this time!), Saturday Night Fever, and so on. I could honestly list 10 or 15 shows that I probably ought to have gotten a ticket for. But no ... I had to go with a show that I've seen several times already. Les Miserables. At the Queen's Theater.

Before I went to the show, I treated myself to a nice dinner at a restaurant very close to the theater. It was an Italian place, and I went all out. Started with a nice chianti, had some foccacia bread with oil for an appetizer, linguine with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes, a chocolate tart, and a cappachino to finish. YUMMM!!! It was fabulous!!

As I was going in the door to the theater, I recognized one of the women from the trip to the Cotswolds the previous day (one of the teachers). Funny! We were practically standing in line next to each other. She had gotten her ticket at the last minute, and got a GREAT seat on the floor in one of the first few rows. My seat was in the second balcony in the front row. (When I worked at the theater box office in Buffalo I learned that usually front row balcony seats are fabulous seats!)

Okay, okay, the show. It was FABULOUS!! I am very familiar with that show (maybe not so familiar as Nancy is ... but I feel like I know it pretty well). I was SO impressed. I came prepared with lots of tissues ... and used them almost from the beginning (I seem to be a weep-fest lately) ... it was SO good. I don't know if you all know the story or not, but if you don't it's fabulous!! Although the setting is the French Revolution, I kept seeing compassion upon compassion upon compassion. Well ... except the whole Javert story line ... he's totally obsessive ... but it's a wonderful story! The actor who played Valjean was probably the best tenor I've ever heard in person! His range was great, but the most impressive thing were his dynamics. Amazing!! All of the actors were fabulous, the set included a rotating stage that was used very effectively, and everything was just wonderful!!! Absolutely one of the best shows I've ever seen!!

After the show, I decided to take a taxi home rather than walking to/from Tube stations after dark. I don't think that I've ever hailed a taxi before, and apparently I don't know how to do so because I waved at the only two or three taxis I saw with their light on and that were empty, and they drove right by me. Ugh!! I waited and walked a bit for about a half hour before hopping on the double decker bus that would put me closer to home. That was an adventure in and of itself. It seems like the evening crowd that rides the city busses are quite a bit rowdier. This one was a relatively 20-something crowd, and certain people who had never met other certain people started arguments about stupid things, and got rather loud. They even started telling-off the man who stands at the back door of the bus to check tickets and tells people to sit down. They called him a racist and it went downhill from there. Ugh!! I got to Victoria without being yelled at by anyone I do or don't know ... easily found a cab, and got back to my hotel without further incident. All in all, a GREAT evening!! :-)

Day Twenty-One (7/16/05) - London
I allowed myself to sleep in that morning, after the late night at the theater (yeah, 7:00 is WAY sleeping in for me!!), but made sure that I was at the bookstore about 15 minutes before they opened so that I could purchase my BRITISH copy of the new Harry Potter book.

Funny story that some of you have already heard (more than once!). When they announced that Harry Potter, book 6, would be released on July 16, I was SO disappointed. I always order the book ahead of time so that it's delivered on the day that it comes out and I can start reading right away. But, I was disappointed because I wasn't going to be home to take the delivery, and I'd have to wait to read it. Are you laughing at me yet? Darn that I'm going to be in LONDON on the day it comes out. DUH, ME!! Not only is JKRowling British, but they have a different version in England because they use different idiomatic language for the Brits than for us Yankees.

So, not only did I get my copy of the Harry Potter book on the day it came out, but I also got the British version, for comparison. Actually, there was no line at the bookstore (how unlike the States!) and the woman who worked there saw me waiting, and unlocked the door for me (and locked it again behind me) and made the sale (I also bought a few more Su Doku books ... to use in my classroom ... really!!) How nice of her!!

Now, Kate, you'll be disappointed to know this, but I've decided not to start the Harry Potter book yet. In fact, I'm seeing people all over reading it ... on the Tube, in restaurants, on trains, in the airports, etc., etc. But, there are a couple of things that led me to this decision. First of all, I am reading a fabulous James Michener novel, Centennial. I'm loving it!! But, if you know Michener, his books are over a thousand pages long. And, if you know me, I read VERY slowly. I actually started this Michener book twice ... once in the summer of 2003, and put it down when the school year started, and just picked it up again at the end of this school year and decided to read it from the beginning again to get into it. So ... since I'm almost half-way through, I didn't want a repeat performance, so I want to keep working on the Michener. Secondly, the Harry Potter book is bigger and is hard-covered, and I like to carry a smaller book onto the Tube and the trains and planes with me. Harry Potter was just too bulky to slip in and out of my backpack and so on. SOOOOoooo ... I have no opinion on the newest HP book, and won't have for awhile. I'm in the middle of Michener's gold rush years (the book Centennial is set in Colorado), and it's getting really exciting!! :-)

Now, London has a deal that is similar to Washington's TourMobile. It's called The Original London Tour Bus. They have red double decker busses that do four different loop tours of the city, and you buy an all-day pass, and can get on and off at many different stops around the city, and then hop back on any other bus that comes along. I probably ought to have done this the first day I was in London to give myself an idea of the city ... but better late than never (I was so into riding the London eye that day!)

I hopped on the bus at Victoria and sat on the top. The tour bus tops are open air (unlike the double decker city busses). I sat through (without getting off) all of West London (including Westminster), and saw things like Margaret Thatcher's house, Sean Connery's house, and MI-6. LOL!! It's always interesting listening to the tour guides talk about the city.

I actually got off of the bus at St. Paul's cathedral. Someone (I don't remember who, but thank you to whoever you are!) told me that St. Paul's is one of the best sites in London. It's a gorgeous church! I walked around downstairs for a little while. Then I climbed. And climbed. And climbed!

The first set of stairs takes you to a loft sort of thing around the inside of the dome, where you can look down on the Nave. It is a fabulous view from there!! Then, you climb some more and you are outside, and can walk around the outside of the dome and get a great, 360 view of the city. THEN, you walk some more ... the steps get narrower and narrower (I can't imagine anyone who is more than a couple of inches wider than I am fitting through the last doorway) to the top of the dome, and you get a spectacular bird's eye view of London. It was a gorgeous day (the weather in London was gorgeous the ENTIRE time I was there!!), and I took LOTS of pictures!! You could see the London Eye, many of the galleries and museums, the Tower Bridge, Big Ben and Parliament, etc. It was fabulous ... and well-worth the climb (530 steps in all!!) and the sore legs the next day. :-)

After climbing back down, I had lunch in the basement of the church. Now, you know what they have in the basements of old European churches? Well, I'll give you a hint. The cafe is called the "Crypt Cafe". LOL!! I ate my salad near someone named the Honorable Sir William Ponsonby who died in 1815 (on June 18) at the battle of Waterloo. LOL(??)

Getting back on the tour bus, it was absolutely PACKED (go figure ... I decided to ride it on a Saturday ... another reason I should have done it Tuesday instead!!) But I enjoyed seeing some of the East London sites ... and got off again to see the Tower Bridge and some of the things nearby. Now, FYI ... some people picture the bridge with the two towers and the suspension cables as "London Bridge", but that is incorrect. The real London Bridge is the next bridge west. It's a plain bridge and doesn't look any different than the 14th Street bridge in DC. It's in that nursery rhyme because the original London Bridge (the one that had real live tudor row houses lining both sides) burned a long time ago and was replaced with this modern bridge. Anyway ... the bridge that you picture when you think of London is called the Tower Bridge. It's relatively new, in London terms, at only a hundred or so years old. And, it's a draw bridge, and I saw it open a couple of times to allow larger ships to pass.

The Tower of London is on the other side of the bridge, but the tour of that place is VERY long, so I just looked at it from the outside (Mom wanted me to see the crown jewels, but I didn't ... sorry!) I was much more interested in what's on the other side of the Tower Bridge. Do you remember that last fall I blogged about the New London City Hall? Well, if not, take a quick look at the picture that I posted there. The new city hall is truly new, built in 2002, and the architecture is fabulous. Since I love photography, I have been looking forward to photographing this building. Not sure if I got any good shots, but I gave it quite a tremendous try!!

I ended up back on the bus, and got off again at Trafalgar Square, walked around a bit, took some more pictures, and got back on the bus and headed back to Victoria.

And thus ends Saturday in London.

Day Twenty-Two (7/17/05) - London
A friend recommended that I visit a church that she attended while living in London for two years a while back (thanks, Lauren!) Holy Trinity Brompton. So ... I looked up the church, and it was only a few Tube stops from Westminster near my hotel. I called and got the service times, and headed out there. Of course, I was rather early for the time of the service that I had chosen (I never know how long to give myself on the subway!), so I took a walk. The church just happens to be across the street and down about 5 minutes from Harrod's department store. The store wasn't open yet, but I got a good look at the building, which is quite ornate from the outside. Interesting.

The church itself is Anglican, but rather evangelical. The vicar's name is Sandy Millar, who was preaching his last sermon as vicar of that congregation before being moved to a bigger and more prominent congregation downtown. The current associate vicar, Nicky Gumble, will be taking his place as of August. I mention these names because it turns out that Nicky Gumble is the man who started the Alpha Course. Interesting!! Anyway ... his sermon was taken from Psalm 34:8,9, but was rather about change and saying good-bye. "Change is here to stay" was his quotable quote! :-)

After church I went to try to catch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (obviously not high on my priority list), but only got to see the guard marching with the band down Birdcage Walk toward the palace. The crowds were more than I wanted to fight.

I tried to find a take-out sandwhich on the way home, but apparently everything edible is closed on Sundays in London, so I ended up at the local corner store buying their refridgerated sandwhich. Ugh!! Anyway ... I spent the majority of the afternoon packing and getting ready for the train in the morning.

But ... I headed out of the hotel and back toward the new City Hall building to re-examine an exibit that I stumbled upon while there the previous day. You must check out this link: Earth from the Air. It was an outdoor photography exibit, with photos taken from helicopters of different parts of the earth with an eco-message theme. The images are tremendous and the message came through loud and clear. I wish I had more time to spend at that exibit. But I will certainly be back to the website to explore. Maybe some stuff for our new International Baccalaureate program that we're adopting at school...

Anyway ... the reason to go back toward the East side of town was that I had a ticket to see The Tempest at the New Globe Theater. Remember that the original Shakespeare's Globe Theater no longer exists. But they have constructed a near-replica, and show plays there in the same spirit as they would have been presented at the original Globe. Now, when I bought the ticket earlier in the week, I thought it would be fun to stand (there are three levels, the bottom being the "commoners'" area where you stand on the ground to watch ... the others are tiered balconies where you could sit.) Well, standing through a two-hour play with NO intermission ... the day after I climbed 530 steps at St. Paul's (up and down again!!) was a dumb idea on my part. I actually had to leave at one point to go outside and sit down. But, I got to see most of the play. It was very well done. I have to confess that I have never been very good at interpreting Shakespeare without reading a written synopsis (which I did not do before, during or after the play), so a lot of it didn't make sense to me. I'll need to go back and do that at some point before I get back. But the actors were great fun, and interacted with the audience, and at the end did a traditional dance (which they apparently did after all of Shakespeare's plays at the Globe back then!) Another fun evening!

Well ... that's it for London chronology. Just a couple of quick comments on the driving and I'll let you go. :-) Remember that the U.K. uses the left-hand side of the road instead of the right like most of the rest of the world. The cars are built backward with the driver on the right hand side of the car, too. When I was looking at visiting London, Colin e-mailed me and said that it wouldn't be too tough to get used to driving on the other side of the road. But, the thing that really convinced me not to even try was that the stick shift is backwards with the left hand. NO WAY!! I could never get used to that. Good thing I didn't try. I had trouble crossing the street even!! I kept looking the wrong way. I can't even tell you how many times I almost got hit, and was most certainly beeped at!! The most embarrassing thing about that is that at most of the major cross walks, it says "Look Right-------->>" (arrows and everything) right on the street in big white letters. Then, when you get halfway across the street, it says, "<<---------Look Left", again, arrows and everything. I'd look right, and then feel like I was doing something wrong, and so I'd look left, and then step out, and in the meantime, a car or bus would come along and beep at me. I never did get it right. So ... it's a good thing that I didn't try to drive, or I would have been on the wrong side of the street WAY too often!! Ugh!!

Another interesting tidbit ... when you are walking on the sidewalk, or up a flight of stairs or down a hallway or something, instead of moving to the right, you are expected to move to the left. If you move to the right, you usually bump into people. In fact, the escalators and staircases and walkways that are marked for a certain direction are always on your left, just like the streets. I found that to be fascinating (and also a bit confusing).

Interestingly enough ... at the intersections where there were traffic lights, I noticed that when you had a red light, it would blink yellow for a moment (with the red still lit) before changing to green (to give you a warning). It's the same way in Denmark, and it's wonderful to know exactly when the light is going to change!!

Well ... unless I think of something else later, that will be London for you! In my next chapter, I'll talk about another frustrating time passing through the Paris train systems, getting to Denmark, and maybe even my first day or two in Denmark. It's really pretty here!

Until then....

"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Not sure if that character ("ø") in the title is going to happen on your English computer screens, but here's to trying. That little "o" with the line through it is in the title of almost everything here in Denmark ... ah, but I get ahead of myself. Where was I? Oh, yes ... the Cotswolds... :-)

Day Nineteen (7/14/05) - London, the Cotswolds, and Oxford
Now, I had such a good experience with that walking tour the other day, and just knew that I wanted to do more walking tours with that company. And ... it had been my intention all along to spend a day in Oxford. Now, the city of London offers busses and trains to Oxford so that you can spend a day if you'd like. The walking tour company offered a full day tour of the Cotswolds and Oxford for only a few pounds more than the round trip city bus would have cost (and that without the tour guide!) So, I decided to spend the day with the Original London Walking Tour folks. It's really a great set up that they have because you don't have to make a reservation or anything. Apparantly they have enough business on a regular basis, that they know they'll make money if they just publish the meeting time and place.

So ... I met the tour guide at the Paddington Rail Station at 10:00 a.m. Interestingly, at the Paddington Station, they have a whole store with just Paddington Bear stuff. Maybe that's the place where he was created? (In the Paddington neighborhood?) Hmmm ... who would know things like that? (MOM??) Another interesting thing ... when you do one of the original London walking tours, the brochure tells you exactly where to stand to find the tour guide ... but you'd think that in London, what with so many people and all that it would still be difficult to find the person. Well, the guide will stand in the exact place published and wave a brochure, and you walk around bewildered with an identical brochure and the group just kind of draws you in. It seems to always work!

The cost of the tour included a rail ticket to Oxford and a private coach bus from Oxford to the Cotswolds and back again. The Cotswolds are a small group of rural towns near Oxford. All of the buildings there are built of stone that lasts (very very old buildings) and have thatched roofs and are absolutely gorgeous. Even the ones that were originally built as servants' quarters are beautiful buildings today. Some of the homes that the tour guide pointed out were worth about £800K (keep in mind that one dollar is worth about £1.80)! Here is a website that I found about the Cotswolds. It's not their official website, but it has a good explanation.

Well ... from Paddington station to Oxford, on the train, I sat with a very interesting woman, only a few years older than I. She's from Atlanta, born and raised. She was in elementary school when they began to integrate the schools and was one of two white students sent to an all black school. She had some very interesting stories to tell about her experiences. She was in London with her husband and teenage daughter, who both thought that 10:00 was WAYYY too early to be up and at a train station for any kind of sight-seeing, so she was on her own. LOL!!

From the train we got on the bus and made a 20-minute trip from Oxford to our first of two Cotswold stops, Minster Lovell (that's the name of the town). When we got to Minster Lovell, it was about noon, and the tour guide asked that we observe the two minutes of silence that all of England was observing at that time (Carrie asked about that in a comment a few days ago). It was rather moving ... being in the London area and all. I can't imagine if I was actually in the city proper for that time of silence.

Besides the gorgeous old stone homes in Minster Lovell, there was a rather ancient site of a church and castle. I was glad that I took the tour because the tourguide had an interesting story about the family that lived in the castle. That's the kind of stuff that I wouldn't be able to discover for myself.

From Minster Lovell, we were back on the bus and headed for the town of Burford. Frankly, Burford was pretty, but mostly shops and restaurants. We only stayed about an hour, and that was about long enough for lunch. So ... enough about Burford.

We got back on the coach and headed back to Oxford. Oxford is a very unique university. We did a very long, but very interesting walking tour, and only saw the tip of the ice berg. Oxford is made up of 39 separate colleges, and you can only belong to one of them (if I understood the explanation correctly). There are a few events that the University does/holds as a whole, but other than that, you attend classes with other students in your college. But there also don't seem to be many classes, again, if I understood correctly, the students mostly work in small groups or one-on-one with "tutors" and do reading and research and write papers and then take big ole tests at the end of the terms. Apparantly there are certain mile-stone tests that you are only allowed to take once, and if you fail, you fail to graduate ... no second chances.

We also saw the place where the Rhodes scholars work, and talked a bit about them. The tour guide even pointed out the window to the room where Bill Clinton didn't inhale. ;-)

Regardless of the school aspects of Oxford, the architecture was wonderful. The day was gorgeous. And I had a wonderful time walking around and hearing the guide (Richard) tell stories from long ago in Oxford and about some famous (and some infamous) students who attended there. And ... of course, some coffee ice cream made it the perfect day! :-)

Now, what I haven't mentioned, is that there were several teachers in the group. It was amusing. There was a middle school science teacher from Florida. There was a middle school English teacher from Colorado. There was an elementary teacher from Toronto. There was a group of three women who are principals at schools in Southern California. Well ... we all easily found each other, and had quite a bit of "shop talk". It was actually fun (believe it or not) talking with teachers from other parts of the US (and Canada). We compared policies and procedures and opinions ... yeah, sounds boring, but it was actually good for making me contemplate what goes on at Arlington (in a very good way!!) Well ... on the train on the way back to London, I sat with one of the California principals and her husband. She just retired. She was telling me about teaching in California and some of the requirements that they have there (to be certified to teach in California, you have to have a certificate that says that you can teach students who are not proficient in English). She also told me about about some volunteer work that she and her husband have been doing with the Iditarod. They go to Alaska every year and work with packing the sleds and with a Iditarod teacher program and do some other things as well. She had some wonderful stories of Alaska ... memories of a trip long ago.... ;-) Anyway ... she tried to talk me into joining them next March in Palmer (where the race starts), and exchanged e-mail addresses with me so that we could talk more later. It was fun!

Anyway ... we got back to London well after 7:00 ... I went to the internet place I was using in London and typed for a while. On the way home from the internet place, I stopped for Indian food. That was one of the things that I was looking forward to doing in London. I mean, other than India itself, what better place to get Indian food, seeing as India was a colony of England and there is still a lot of Indian influence all over London ... it's very prevalent. Well, I had curry lamb (I love curry and I love lamb ... the perfect meal!!) Yum!!

Now, I said that I would comment a bit on some cultural things. I'll take time here for one. Let's talk about British talk. Now, I'm sure that you can imagine or at least recognize a British accent. (Although, I must admit that I have trouble distinguishing a British accent from an Australian accent...) I have to say that I actually had more trouble understanding the English spoken in England by the Brits than I did the English spoken, albeit broken English, in France by the French. Maybe it's because my ear was lazier in England or something. But I almost always had to ask people to repeat themselves. I began to get frustrated with myself, in fact.

There is another interesting linguistic thing that I actually noticed while reading the Harry Potter books. Often, a British person will use a question at the end of a statment, almost like a verification of what they've just said, don't they? (Like that.) They don't do it every single time, do they? But they do it sometimes, don't they? I've over done it here, haven't I? But that's how it sounds, doesn't it? I realized that it's rhetorical, and I had to stop myself from answering people outright when they did that. In fact, Colin's daughter Hazel did it a lot while we were having dinner. It was very interesting. For some reason, by the way, that conversation with Colin, his wife, and their daughter reminded me SO MUCH of a show that my mom watches called "As Time Goes By" ... a British sit-com in syndication, starring Judy Dench. The conversations with her husband and her two daughters sound so much like the conversations that we had at dinner that night, it was really fun!

Okay ... my krøners are running out here, so I'll have to finish London at a later date. :-) By the way ... I'm starting to be starved for a movie theater. E-mail me if you want to try to catch a movie with me sometime the week between 7/30 and 8/4 ... I've got quite a long list of movies that I want to see. I'm looking for movie buddies!! :-)

Until then, have a wonderful week!!

"Travel is the most private of pleasures. There is no greater bore than the travel bore. We do not in the least want to hear what he has seen in Hong-Kong."
-Vita Sackville-West

Haha!! Fun quote, huh? I still must admit that I am truly surprised that some of you actually read these things that I type when I travel. :-)

Anyway - in case you missed it, I updated just last evening, and now again this afternoon ... so you may have to scroll down and catch the previous chapter before reading this one. I happened to find an internet place that was actually open on a Sunday (not much is around here ... I've even had trouble finding places to EAT!), and happened to find an extra hour to type. So ... here goes.

Day Eighteen (7/13/05) - London
I got up early that morning and was out taking a lovely morning walk (from about 6:00 to 7:30) around Westminster. It was much nicer to look at the Abby and Big Ben and Parliament without so many people around. After breakfast at the hotel, I did some more wandering ... found a travel guide for Denmark that is much better than the ones that I found in the States and has a Danish phrases section (which doesn't exist in the other travel guides I was looking at).

While at the bookstore I made a potentially dangerous discovery. (Kate - warning ... if you click on the upcoming link, I deny all attempts by you to blame me for your future addictions!!) There is this thing that has taken all of England by storm. (Maybe it's taken the U.S. by storm, too, and I just didn't know about it...) Anyway ... it's called Su Doku. Have you heard about it? Take a minute and look at the official Su Doku website. These aren't math puzzles ... they happen to use numbers, but could as easily use letters or symbols. It has more to do with logic and reasoning than with math. Anyway ... I saw one of the many books sitting on the counter at the bookstore and leafed through it and bought it. Since then, I have seen lots (LOTS!!) of people working on Su Doku puzzles. They're in the newspaper here every day. They come in books like crossword puzzles. The guy behind me in line at the bookstore was buying THREE books for his wife. I thought I would buy one book to play with, and maybe to use in my classroom. DANGER! I have had to discipline myself to put the book down!!!

Anyway ... I went back to the internet place when they opened and, voila ... they had my notebook, right where I left it the previous evening (whew!!) It made me feel MUCH better.

After some more wandering around I met Jackie at about noon. Now, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about ... Jackie is not infamous! :-) You see, mostly the people who read my main blog are Kate's friends. Some of them I've met, and some of them I haven't met. But, since she has a link to my blog near the top of hers (as does her husband), many of her friends click over to read mine. Jackie is one of those people ... and happens to be one who I haven't met yet. (They're also the people who tend to comment the most ... why don't the rest of you comment??) :-D Anyway ... Jackie and her husband were living in Chicago until about 4 weeks ago, when he took a voluntary job transfer to London. They put all of their furniture, etc., into storage, had most of the rest shipped, grabbed their backpacks, and moved on over here. I have been trying to convince Jackie to start a "London Blog" (uh huh, Jackie!!), and in the course of our commenting back and forth about that, we ended up deciding to meet up here. So ... we arranged to find each other outside a particular Tube station (and had to change those plans due to the interruption in services due to the bombings). We found each other rather easily, we shopped at the outdoor markets at Covent Gardens for awhile, and then had a delicious lunch at a Thai place. We chatted for quite awhile ... and I can't speak for Jackie, but I had a great time! I'm so glad that we met up!! Yay, Jackie!!

One thing that I have to tell you about from that lunch. After we had ordered and were waiting for our meals, I noticed that the woman was using an actual dumb waiter to get the food from the kitchen which was obviously in the basement. I don't think that I have ever seen a dumb waiter being used!! Then, a couple of days later, I saw the same thing again in a different restaurant. It must be that because so many of the buildings around here are so very narrow (old city), the kitchens are all in the basements, and it's easier than coming up and down flights of stairs with food. You think?

Anyway - another person whose name you may not recognize is Colin. He is one of the photographers on that photography website that I participate in. He is one of the photographers online with whom I interact most frequently. Here's the link to his portfolio online. Well, Colin lives just outside of London (within the Metro area), and I was asking him about visiting London and some of the things that I was planning to do. We decided to meet up ... and that turned into an invitation to have dinner at his home with he and his wife (and his adult daughter who lives with them got home late from work while I was there).

I took the Tube for about 45 minutes or so, and Colin picked me up at the Tube station. He lives not but a 5 or 10 minute drive from the station. He and his wife are the most wonderful people. They have a lovely backyard (remember those English gardens I told you about?) ... and we sat outside for quite a while getting to know each other. Then they fed me as if I'd never eaten before, and we had dessert and kept talking. I finally decided that it would be good to get back to the hotel before dark (so that I wouldn't have to walk from the Tube to the hotel (only two blocks ... but still) in the dark). Colin actually offered to drive me to the hotel, but I didn't really think that it would be necessary. Anyway ... it was such a neat experience ... to spend some time in a British home with people who were born and bred in Britain, talking about everyday things and common interests. We had a great time!!

Well, I made it back to the hotel in one piece. (Although it was a little bit weird that there was next to no one on the Underground trains all the way back ... I can't decide if I like the trains empty or packed. There never seems to be an inbetween.)

I'll save telling you about Thursday in the Cotswolds and Oxford for my next chapter ... I would actually like to ramble a bit about some interesting cultural differences that I'm discovering on a regular basis.

First of all, the coins. Now, I have always complained when they've tried to push one-dollar coins at us. I always thought it was silly. Well, now after spending two weeks in France using the Euro and one week in London using the pound, I have changed my mind quite a bit. Both the Euro and the Pound start their paper money at the denomination of 5. There are both one Euro and two Euro coins as well as one pound and two pound coins. Brilliant!! I enjoy using these coins, and find it to be much more conventient. Strange, isn't it ... especially for someone who practically ignores the change in her wallet at home (I have a couple of big jars that I pour it all into!)

Well ... the screen is flashing at me that I have only about three minutes left. So I need to be off for now. Take care, everyone!

Cheerio! :-)

"All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope."
- Sir Winston Churchill

Hey, y'all! This time I will actually be talking about the place where I currently am visiting. Maybe I'll even catch up with myself as of TODAY!! :-)

Before I get going ... I just checked my e-mail, and saw an e-mail from one of my photographer friends with a link to a new picture that he has posted. It's of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and it's a gorgeous shot. If you want to have a look, here's the link. Enjoy!

Now ... on with my passage from Paris to London and beyond...

Day Sixteen (7/11/05) - Paris to London
I won't go into everything that happened that day. You read most of it in Chapter 7. I'll pick up where I left off.

I know that Mom has been waiting anxiously to hear about crossing the English Channel through the Channel Tunnel. First of all, I won't refer to it as the "Chunnel" because I read somewhere that the Brits and the French don't really like or use that nickname. In fact, I have not heard it called that at all while in Europe. For those of you who don't know much about it ... the Channel Tunnel is a tunnel underneath the English Channel, connecting Calais, France to Dover, England. It was opened in 1994. If you want, you can read more about it.

To tell you the truth ... it was no different to ride the train through the Channel Tunnel than it is to ride an underground segment of a subway system. The EuroStar train leaves out of Paris Gare du Nord, has one or two stops on the way (including Calais), then you spend about 20 minutes underground (going through the Channel Tunnel), and my train didn't even stop in Dover, but had one more stop before coming to London's Waterloo station. Sorry ... nothing exciting to report, except that I spent about three hours on the train mostly reading my book.

Here's where the adventure picks up again. Remember the heavy suitcase. Well, I assumed (when I start assuming things ... that's when you ought to be concerned!!) that since Waterloo station in London is both a regular train station AND an "Underground" or "Tube" station (London's subway system is called either "Underground" or "The Tube"), it would be easy for me to get to the Tube stop that is two blocks from my hotel and walk to the hotel (my suitcase has wheels after all!)

Well, me oh my! First of all, the Tube is NOT air conditioned, and London is having hotter and more humid weather than is normal, even for July. Secondly, if you're in Washington, DC, you can assume that, unless otherwise notified, there are escalators or elevators to every single change of level that you have to make. Not so here in the London Underground. There are very many stations with very many levels and very many different "lines" of the system that run at different depths below ground. You may have to go up and down and up again and down again, sometimes on stairs, and sometimes on an escalator just to get to the next track to change trains. AND ... the Waterloo train station is in a completely different part of the building than the Underground station. WHEW!! By the time I had lugged my suitcase up and down and up and down and then some more, and got to my hotel, I was EXHAUSTED!!!!

Now, you may be wondering about the choices of my destinations. Here's the deal on all of that. I think that I've already said that the whole impetus for this trip was when Danny (my colleague who arranged the gite) asked if I wanted to join them in the Southwest of France. I have already been to Europe, a few times, in my life. But each time was a "canned" tour ... a day or two in this city, a day or two in that city, on and off tour busses, etc. I have said that the next time I go to Europe, I would have a much LESS planned trip, and would not really try to *do* any one place in a day or two. So, the plane fares were cheaper if I came into France several days early ... and I decided to spend that extra time (before the gite) doing a France roadtrip. I also decided to spend a couple extra weeks in Europe (after the gite). I have never been to London (as long as you don't count a lay-over at Heathrow airport a few years ago), so I decided that London is a "can't-miss", and decided to spend a week here. I have been to Denmark before ... but it was in 1984, and I just remember that I thought it was absolutely beautiful and couldn't wait to go back. Thus ... France, London, and Denmark.

Anyway ... my hotel is in the city of Westminster (which is really IN London ... just farther West than the city center). I'm only a short walk from Westminster Abby, Tate Britain, Parliament, etc.

Since I arrived that day mid-afternoon, I decided not to try to get any "sightseeing" done. I did a little bit of hunting for camera shops (I had a problem with one of my lenses in France ... okay, I dropped my favorite lens down a flight of stone steps in that cliff city, Rocamadour, and watched it bounce down the steps and then watched the two individual pieces continue to bounce down the steps!!), but have decided that the prices on electronics in Europe is SO much higher than in the U.S. that I will wait until I get home to replace the lens. (sigh...)

One of the camera shops took me up a street that goes right past the New Scotland Yard ... so I am only a short walk from there. When you see Scotland Yard on TV now, talking about the bombings, you can remember that it's rather close to where my hotel is. :-)

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped for dinner at a small chinese place called "Chopstix" and had a chicken w/ blackbean sauce. Then I found the internet place where I am right now, and finished Chapter 7. Then I wandered back to my hotel, and spent the rest of the evening going through London sightseeing brochures to give myself an idea of what I want to do while I'm here. (This is cool: one of the brochures that I looked at listed the prices by "adult, child (under 12), and super-adult (over 65)". Super-adult!! What a great classification!!) :-D

I used the hotel sitting room to look at the brochures because my room is VERY small ... basically a twin bed a closet and a sink, with little space around any of those even for my suitcase, much less movement. Anyway ... the hotel concierge had on a local TV station that happened to be playing a show that had taken a poll of their viewers and went through the top ten viewer favorite British actors. I realized that a LOT of my favorite actors are British. They forgot to put Pierce Brosnan on the list, but I'm quite sure that was an oversight. They also forgot to put Patrick Stewart on the list ... another oversight. But they DID have Daniel Day Lewis, Kenneth Branagh, Alec Guiness (I LOVE the movie "On the River Kwai"!!) and ... top favorite actor was Anthony Hopkins! He's definitely one of my favorites. They also had Sean Connery, who is one of those actors whose movies I will see ONLY because he's in it and for no other justifiable reason. Too bad that they're going to be doing the top ten favorite British actresses next week (I'll be gone by then), as I'm SURE that Judy Dench will be on that list ... and she's one of my favorite actresses!!

Oh - and ... get this ... I have discovered that there are Starbucks in London!!! :-) Now, I promise that I haven't been to Starbucks EVERY day ... nope, I didn't go on Tuesday. :-) But, I am rather certain that I won't get any Starbucks when I'm in Denmark next week ... and I am not getting nearly enough calcium because I can't really find soy milk anywhere ... so I feel completely justified!! :-D

Day Seventeen (7/12/05) - London
Now, for those of you who have never travelled to Europe, I'm not sure that you know that sometimes the hotels don't have the traditional bathroom in the hotel room. You share a bathroom/shower in the hallway. Those hotels are often much more cost-effective. And some hotels have some rooms with private bath and some not. Well, as London is VERY expensive, I decided to get a hotel room that shares a bathroom and shower. It's a small hotel, and most of the rooms have private bath/shower ... so I'm not sharing with very many people (in fact, a few of the nights I think that I was the only one). It's quite amusing, though, to try to remember to bring everything that I'm going to need for my shower with me. I invariably forget the soap or the washcloth or something. Well, I won't go into detail, but my first morning shower at that hotel was quite a debacle. I just ended up laughing and laughing. Oh, well ... live and learn. I haven't had any more problems since!! :-)

The hotel also has a full breakfast. Not the "continental" deal ... but the real McCoy! Croissant, hot eggs, cereal, toast, tea or coffee, etc. And it's all served to you, restaurant-style. Quite nice! I've had breakfast there every morning so far!

Now ... the Underground (a.k.a. the Tube) ... like I said, it's not air conditioned and its got quite a combination of stairs and escalators. After driving in France where they don't have road signs with North, East, South or West marked on them ... it's funny that all of the different colored Tube lines differentiate their tracks by "Northbound" or "Southbound", etc. I have a great sense of direction (unless traffic circles are involved), so I haven't had any trouble figuring it out ... but that's a bit different than in Washington. Anyway ... because of the bombings in three of the Underground passages, there are, of course, closures and delays. Often quite significant delays. So ... you just have to decide to amend your plans when you are trying to get somewhere. I have found that I also have to plan for extra time in the system when I need to be somewhere via the Tube. Not a problem. They also have quite a good bit of security down there, as well as police walking around and announcements about unattended baggage on a regular basis.

That morning, I took the Tube down to the river and found the London Eye. Now, if you haven't been to London recently, you may not even be aware of what the London Eye is. If not, please make sure that you click here and take a look at the pictures. Basically, it's like a glorified ferris wheel. It's called an "observation tower" or something like that. It moves VERY slowly, and one ride around takes 30 minutes. (And that's all you get.) The cars are little glass capsules. When you're at the top you get a truly 360 view of the city. I saw a photo of a London Eye capsule in the portfolio of one of my photographer friends, and read about it, and decided that I couldn't wait to ride it. And it was FABULOUS!! Since I was one of the first people there (morning-person-itis strikes again!), there were only about 5 people in the capsule with me, and one was a London-native and he basically gave us a tour-guide's overview of the city. The views were great, and the ride was so smooth that you didn't even realize that you were moving.

When I got off the Eye, I was sitting at the bottom when a lady with an American accent was talking with a group of kids (10-year-olds) and was giving them teacher-ese. I started laughing and she turned and said something to me, and we started talking and it turns out that the group is from the DC area. It's a group of 5th graders in a Student Ambassador program, and the kids and teachers are from all over the DC/Baltimore area. In fact, one of the gals lives and teaches in Woodbridge. Small world, huh?

The Eye is right on the river bank, so I spent quite some time wandering up and down that part of the river, taking pictures (very close to Parliament and Big Ben).

One of the brochures that I found was for something called the Original London Walks. Well ... I am SO glad that I stumbled upon this brochure. I love walking tours of cities/towns that I don't know ... and they have loads of walks around all different parts of London, and based on many different themes. That afternoon, I chose to do a walk around "Old Westminster". It was an exceptional tour. The tourguide was very knowledgeable and was quite dramatic. He did all sorts of quotes and impressions of folks like Winston Churchill. It was great fun. He even sang for us the song that goes along with the Westminster Chimes ... sound familiar, Linda? :-) He said that the tune (you know it) was taken from Handel's Messiah. I just found, online, that it was taken from a phrase in "I know that my Redeemer Liveth", but I don't remember anything that sounds like that...

I did some more wandering around the city, staking out some places that I want to visit later in the week. I ended up too far from the hotel to walk back, and I saw a city bus that would take me close ... so I rode one of those double decker red busses on the top level. Such fun! :-)

That evening I ate fish and chips at a restaurant in Victoria called The Shakespeare. I stopped at the internet place again and typed on the blog for awhile, and then forgot my notebook there. OH NO!! When I got back to the hotel and realized it, there was only 5 minutes until the place was to close and it would have been a 10 minute walk. EVERYTHING is in that notebook/journal. Detailed notes about what I've done every day and about the pictures that I've taken, as well as addresses and phone numbers and plans for what I want to see ... and pictures of my nephews. (Obviously, I got the notebook back ... but I was panicked!!) All I could think was that someone would be cleaning up the shop at the end of the day and see the notebook and throw it out. EEEEEKKKK!!! I worry too much!!

Okay - I suppose that I won't catch up with myself like I had hoped. But you have enough to read this time to keep you busy. Next time I'll talk about some more wanderings around Westminster, lunch with Jackie, and dinner with a photographer and his family. I might even get into mentioning some of the things that are just a little bit different, culturally, that make it very interesting to be here....

Oh - and, the internet place is closed on Sunday and I might not find another one, and Monday and Tuesday are going to be mostly travel days, so you may not hear from me for a few. Don't be worried!! :-D

Cheerio, until then!

"The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.
- Ronald Reagan

I won't type nearly so much today, but will still not be caught up with myself. :-)

So ... if you skipped the quote at the top of this post, please go back and read it... Then, go on and read the post (which will go back to my original style of posting, chronologically).

Day Fifteen (7/10/05) - Caen to Paris
Just in case I didn't say this previously, on Saturday (day 14 - 7/9/05), I spent the better part of the day driving from our gite near Villereal to Caen, near the D-Day beaches in Normandy.

Seeing the beaches at Normandy, and especially seeing the American cemetery there has always been something that I've wanted to do, but never quite believed that it would actually happen. But today was that day... It's interesting, when "people" (in general) heard that I was going to visit Europe on a relaxed schedule, they had many, many recommendations of places that I just *had* to see. I don't have time to see everything that I know I'd love. I've been trying to limit what I see so that I can actually enjoy it. BUT ... this was one place that kept coming up ... and it was one place that I really wanted to prioritize.

I left the hotel as soon as I had had their continental breakfast. The car was already packed. I know that the beaches tend to be packed with Europeans on holiday ... especially on weekend days in July ... so I wanted to beat the crowds. My original intention was to drive to the farthest north beach (Utah), and make my way back down toward Caen (where there is a fabulous visitor's center) and then on to Paris. But, alas, again my plans changed based on wrong turns. I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing, and did the turn off for the beaches at the southern end rather than wait for the later turn. I am now convinced that this was providencial. I never did get to Utah beach...

I had stopped at the visitor's center in Caen the day before to see if they had any information for self-guided tours (with every intention of going back again the next day). I spent a very brief time looking at some maps and descriptions of the battles, but could not stay, as I began weeping (uncontrollably) as soon as the weight of the whole thing hit me. But ... I did take in enough of the big picture to remind myself that the D-Day beaches are NOT only about America (how typically egocentric of an American!) ... but that British and Canadian forces also participated in the invasion, and also had great losses of life on their sides as well. I realized that I wouldn't have time to do the entire area justice (should have planned a few days there!) ... so I decided to just concentrate on the U.S. beaches (Utah and Omaha) and the cemetery. Again ... too much planned ... it should have been a few days!!

After I turned off toward the water, I found the road that leads northbound along the shore, and followed it. The entire area is dedicated to remembering the invasion and the events of June 6, 1944. There are numerous towns there that were affected by the German occupation of France ... and the whole area is a lot larger than I ever realized. It was almost surreal ... driving past walls that were obviously more than 61 years old, and that had holes in them. The buildings and these walls are a lot like what you see in the movies that remember that event. Again ... surreal!!

(Side note ... at one point I drove past a home set far back on its property, the front yard fenced in, and a donkey looking up at me. I couldn't resist stopping to take some pictures. I didn't realize that the donkey would get up and come toward me. He was a wonderful subject. But ... he must have wanted me to feed him (do many tourists drive by, stop and feed him?) Well ... I took pictures, petted him a bit, and went to get back in my car. That's when the noise started. Oh, no!! I can't even tell you how LOUD his braying was. He must have been furious that I was leaving or something. I was afraid that he was going to come through the fence. Actually, I was afraid that he was going to wake up the entire town, and that his owners were going to come out and yell at me in French!!!)

Anyway ... the first town I hit had signs for Omaha Beach (which I drove past), and immediately signs for the cemetery. So, I decided to do the cemetery first and come back for the beach, and then to drive north to Utah Beach, and be back in Caen by noon.

The cemetery is amazing. If you are an American, you MUST make plans, at some point in your life to make a pilgrimage to see the American Cemetery and the D-Day beaches. I can't describe for you using words the profoud effect this visit had on me. If I didn't already have my train tickets for the following day, I would have rearranged my whole trip to stay longer.

It was a Sunday morning, and I was at the cemetery as the grounds opened for visitors, and was thus alone there for 10 or 15 minutes. As I came into the cemetery area from the entrance, there is a huge memorial that overlooks the graves. There is some sort of speaker system at the memorial that began the nine o'clock chimes, and then played several recognizable Christian hymns. Then, I walked through the paths that lead through the graves. There are beautiful flowers and rose bushes and gorgeous trees planted everywhere. And when they say that the cemetery overlooks Omaha Beach ... they mean that the cemetery truly does overlook Omaha Beach. The peacefulness of the place was such a stark contrast to the reports of the hideousness of the day. Again, I found myself weeping uncontrollably. I stopped at several points to read the names. They were mostly enlisted, mostly male. They came from just about every state in the U.S. It really hit me that some of these boys were coming from farms in Kansas or the coasts of Oregon or the Bronx to defend this land so far away from home at such great risk. The first group of soldiers that landed on the beach had almost 100% killed. Scattered throughout the cemetery are also headstones that read something to the effect of "Unknown". Again ... I can't put it into words how moving an experience this was for me. You must plan to visit there someday yourself!! (FYI, the French Government gave the United States the land for that cemetery, as well as several others scattered throughout the country. So, for a short time, I was on U.S. soil.)

When I had finally worn myself out emotionally at the cemetery (and when the tour busses started unloading, and people not speaking English starting running and skipping and laughing through the grounds), I decided to head on over to the beach (obvious to me at that point that it was not too far away).

I easily found the road that leads down to the beach. They said in the travel guides that the beaches have not really been commercialized, but that locals use the beach for typical beach holidays. True. In fact, the signs that point out certain D-Day spots along the beach are inconspicuous, and you really have to look for them. But I found a few and was thoroughly caught up in reading them and following the information around the area. There is a pebble ridge that helped the American soldiers that finally did make it past the German bullets. Even to me, who understands absolutely nothing of war tactics, it was obvious that a soldier who could reach this pebble ridge could more easily dodge the bullets flying at him.

I walked all the way down to the water (low tide) and stood in it for awhile up to my ankles. It was a cool, windy, foggy day, so you could not even begin to see across the channel to England. As I looked down the beach there were two large "things" sitting there that were obviously out of place. It turns out that these were large objects created by the American engineers (who played a major role in the battle) for reasons that I can't remember. (Sorry ... I bought a book to read about it later!) Anyway ... as you climb up the hill at the back of the beach toward a memorial marker at the top (no real path, you just climb through the brush), there are many (MANY) places where you can see the entrances to the German bunkers and where they had their anti-tank artillery. It was fascinating to me. There was even a diagram of the underground tunnels ... and I was tempted to climb down into one ... except that the entrance was SO narrow that I knew that I'd get all scratched up and probably ruin the clothes I had on (and I didn't bring very many with me).

Again ... being at Omaha beach, even with my limited knowledge of D-Day, was very profound and emotional for me. I have a renewed interest in learning more about WWII and what it means for its impact on life in the U.S. even today. Let me tell you this: WWII was SO significant for so many parts of Europe ... especially in the destruction of their historical sites ... that it is intimately connected with any learning that you do about any of the places that you visit ... and this has been especially true in London, which I'm sure that I'll tell you about when I get to describing that part of my trip.

I spent so much time there, that I ended up just driving back to Caen without going to Utah (which apparantly has much less in the way of visible remnants of the war), because it would have added another couple of hours. Well ... the visitor center in Caen is more of a museum. I should have spent several hours there, but only really visited the gift shop, and bought a couple of books to read and catch myself up on the history of the place. The visitor center itself is truly a monument to D-Day and to its significance in the history of the entire world. Again ... make this a must-see for yourself someday. If you're like me, and want to learn more about D-Day and the beaches at Normandy, this might be a good place to start (or just google it!)

Okay ... well, I promised that this one wouldn't be so long, so I will close here, and pick up with the Eurostar train ride through the Channel Tunnel (Mom really wants to hear about this ... but it will be a let-down), and my adventures in London.

Cheerio!! :-)

"If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well enough to travel."
- Sir Vivian Fuchs
Okay ... back to the chronological order. I'm going to go back to describing for you the week at the gite in the Southwest of France. Quiet countryside (which is what I need to focus on after a day of walking around London...)....

I'll start by talking a bit more about the food/drink there. First of all, I must be ashamed to admit that I did NOT partake in many of the local specialties. The one thing that I wanted to try was a truffle. Now ... you probably knew this, but it was news to me that truffles are NOT chocolate-covered-yumminess. Nope. They are things that grow in the ground and taste like things that grow in the ground. Yet they're considered to be delicacies, and are supposedly VERY expensive, especially when you buy them somewhere other than the Southwest of France. Interesting. Doina and I were going to search out a truffle omlette ... but we didn't stumble upon anything and didn't do too much searching. Another local delicacy that I didn't try was the prunes. Nope ... I had no need to try prunes. Enough said.

There are a few things that I DID try, though. Let me tell you about them. First of all, as did Jenny and Alyssa, I became addicted to crepes. Now ... Jenny and Alyssa were usually "good", and got sugar or honey crepes or something not so waistline threatening as my CHOCOLATE crepes. Even though the chocolate ones were usually made with Nutella (chocolate yuck in a jar?), they were still addictive. We were at so many street markets and went by so many pastery shops that I often had two or more in one day. But ... the last day (this past Friday), we hadn't yet had crepes (we actually turned the word "crepe" into a verb, and you can only imagine where that led...), and since there was no market that day, and we had dinner at home, Alyssa and I looked at each other after dinner and said, "Oh my! Our last day here and we didn't have any crepes!" So, along with Danny, we sought out a creperie in town. It turned out to be a sit-down restaurant, and the crepes were about twice as expensive as the ones we had been getting at the market. BUT ....... I got a "crepe au chocolat chaud et chantilly", which apparantly means hot fudge INSIDE the crepe and little snowballs of whipped cream on top. They then sprinkled chocolate powdery something all over the entire dish, and it was TO DIE FOR!!!!! I should have skipped ALL of the earlier crepes during the week and just had that one. MMMMMmmmmmm...........

Some other things that I tasted were escargot (in spite of my love of shellfish, I have never had escargot, and the ones we got at the street market were wonderful!), local lamb (a favorite of mine), pate (which I have always enjoyed) and even some cheese (I'm not normally a cheese-eater, but the cheese was mild and delicious with the fabulous bread!!) Of course, I've already mentioned the WONDERFUL coffee-flavored ice cream!!! I discovered a French dessert called Liegeois. It's coffee-flavored ice cream with coffe and chocolate sauce and whipped cream and ........ YUM!!!!! :-) I need to learn how to make some of that liegois!!!!!

I also enjoyed quite a bit of the local Bergerac Rouge (their red wine), and even found a vinyard from whom I hope to order from in the future (if I can figure out the customs stuff on it). Also, Danny introduced me to a drink that is made of white wine and cassis (red currant liquor). They served it to us in champaign glasses, and it was quite a treat. :-)

Now ... on with not-so-culinary descriptions. :-D I have mentioned the markets. They're like nothing I've ever experienced before, really. The closest thing that I can think of is that they're like "A taste of DC/Buffalo/Chicago", etc., but with many, many more things to offer. Or like the farmer's market that they have in Old Town Alexandria on Saturday mornings (which I've only been to once ... maybe a habit that I need to start up, though!)

Picture this. All of these little villages and most of the major cities have "squares" ... in fact, in the smaller towns and villages, there is only one main square. (Like in Villareal.) Somewhere, Danny found a list of all of the surrounding towns and their market days. There is literally a market in some town somewhere nearby every single day of the week. The first one we went to was in a town called Issigeac, which everyone called "Issy" for short. Not only is the main square packed with vendors, but they spill into the side streets as well. There are food vendors (breads, spices, meats, crepes, fruit & vegetables ... you name it!) There are clothing vendors (some with specialties, like scarves or hats, etc.) There are lots of miscellaneous vendors ... some are ethnically focused, like a booth that was at most of the markets that sold aboriginal items, like didgeridoos (a long bamboo pipe that is played as a musical instrument) and boomerangs, etc. There were wine vendors and basket vendors and quilt vendors (!!) and pottery vendors and leather vendors and wood vendors and lots of other sorts of things that aren't even coming to mind right now. Now, if you know me, I'm not very fond of shopping. I don't spend much time at malls, and don't really shop unless there's something specific that I need to buy. Then it's in, and out ... done. But for these markets, I loved to watch the people. They were SO much fun ... so packed and full on interesting characters. I swear that some people do all of their grocery shopping at the markets. Well, we went to a market every single day except Friday. What a blast!!

There was another type of market that I need to mention. It is definitely more like the "Taste of..." markets that you may have been to. We found two ... one in a town called Salles on Wednesday evening and one in Issy on Thursday evening. They were like dinner markets. The vendors would surround the main square with all of their tables ... and then there would be long picnic-type tables set in the center of the square. You could buy manageable portions of all sorts of foods for reasonable prices, and sample enough stuff to make meals for yourself. One night I had raw oysters and then some duck (canard) sausage. The next night I had escargot and then some pork chops. (Of course, both nights I had Bergerac Rouge and chocolate crepes as well!) The first of the two dinner markets was the best ... we ended up sitting with a couple who didn't speak any English, but did their best to have a conversation with us. Danny and Doina speak French, so we were chatting and translating and laughing and pointing and gesturing ... it was loads of fun!!

I also want to mention some of the towns that we visited. We typically went to a market in the morning, and then visited a town or two or three in the afternoons/evenings. First of all, every single village, no matter how small, had at least one cathedral. And, typically, the cathedral was the tallest building in the town (except sometimes if there was a chateax). Also, there were several of the "Beax Villages" in the area. They really were pretty. There were also many villages that were "bastides" (including Villereal). A bastide is a town that, at one point, was fortified. The walls of the bastide were usually intact and easy to spot. The walled towns all looked different, and were fun to explore. And, there were several "chateax", which I came to learn means "castle". Often times a chateax was surrouded by a town, and sometimes also a bastide. Some of our favorite towns to visit were: Monflanquin (a beaux village and a bastide), Monpazier (ditto), Biron (with a gorgeous chateax and also a bastide ... on our tour of the chateax, we saw BATS in one of the rooms!!) and Rocamadour (which is built on the side of a cliff, has a chateaux, and you have to park at the bottom and climb these streets to get to a gorgeous cathedral... it was rather amazing!)

Now, some other miscellaneous descriptions of individual events that I thought might be noteworthy. You will be really reading some random thoughts here ... very stream of conscious.....

First of all ... I had the opportunity to do my laundry that week, twice. It was wonderful to have clean clothes, as I haven't packed many (and still feel like I brought too much every time I lift the suitcase!) The thing to point out is that there was a washing machine at the gite, but no dryer. I don't think that I've ever used a clothes line outside to dry clothes. It was cool. :-)

On the first day that I arrived, I asked for someone to show me the main points of the village (I drove the road that goes around the village to get to the gite). At first, Doina was going to ride in my car with me, and point out things like the grocery, the phone, the post office, the ATM, etc. ... but when Danny heard that I wanted to go to town, she decided that, since she was "restless", we ought to walk. Doina was going to have nothing to do with that. So, Danny and Andrea and I walked to town. Yes, town is only 2 km from the gite. Yes, 2 km is not too terrible a distance to walk ... it's like 1.2 miles. I often walk 5 miles or more for exercize. But that afternoon it was BLAZING hot, and most of the walking is in the middle of paved roads ... rural, yes (that is to say, empty of much traffic), but paved with BLACK pitch! HOT!! By the time we got to the town (which, by the way, is at the top of a hill), I was exhausted. And then there was the walk back. Whew!! I teased Danny about that silly idea (to walk instead of drive to town on the hottest afternoon!) all the rest of the week!

Here's another interesting note. Take a look at a map of the world, noting the latitude of France, England, etc. compared to the United States. In fact, when I came to Europe a little over two weeks ago, I honestly thought that France was in line with, say, South Carolina. I packed clothes for that idea (lots of sleeveless tops, etc.) and never thought twice about it. Now ... when I got to France, I was going to bed early because I try to do that when I'm doing a lot of driving. But I was finding it weird that it was still light rather late ... like 10:00. I kept thinking it was neon lights outside the hotels or something, and would shut my eyes and MAKE myself go to sleep. But Danny told me that France is approximately as far north as Maine, and that's why it was light so late. I actually argued with her, and told her that no way is that possible. Her answer was scientific (having to do with the continental plates and vegetation, etc. that are only found on the coasts of Maine and France, yadda yadda), and I just looked and sure enough ... France and Maine ... sister regions!! Thus, in England, where I am now, it's very light out ... even after 8:00 or 9:00 in the evening. Really, truly fascinating!! Can't wait to get to Denmark ... even farther north!!

In many of the rural areas of France, the flowers are amazing. Yes, there are wild flowers, but those aren't the ones I'm talking about. I'm talking about potted plants and window boxes. Everyone has them, they are ALWAYS elaborate and in huge quantities, and it's just wonderful to walk around looking at all of the gorgeous flowers!! I took LOTS of pictures of them!! :-) Also - there are MANY, MANY, MANY fields of sunflowers. The way they're always pointing at the sun is wonderful ... and they're just so beautiful to look at, especially when grown in large fields like that!

Another thing that occurred to me was that every morning I woke to a cacophony of bird calls. Not just roosters (although, they were cockadoodledoing at the first hint of early dawn every morning), but lots and lots and lots of birds. It was actually a bit too loud. Much better than waking to the sounds of I-95!! ;-)

There was a swimming pool at the gite. It was really pretty ... set away from the main buildings by a bit, and had lots of lounge chairs, an umbrella, and crystal clear water. Interestingly ... there are French laws governing swimming pools in yards. They have the normal fence law. They also have a law about a security system that works like this: there is a monitor on the side of the pool. It monitors the movement in the water. You have to disarm the monitor when you want to swim. If you get in and then out, and don't re-arm the monitor, it will do so by itself after a little while. If you disarm, get in, and then float for a while, not making any waves, it will re-arm itself, and then when you try to get out, and make waves, it will squawk like someone has fallen in or something. I think it's brilliant ... and hope it saves the lives of little kids that get out of their parents' watchful eyes here and there!

One day, we had a very interesting conversation with Marcus (the owner of the gite). Remember that he's British. When he and Danny were e-mailing several months ago, and working out a deal, she mentioned that her neice would be with us, and asked if we could have a cot for her. He said, "no problem", and that was that. No one thought of it again. When we got to the gite, there was a baby's crib in the upstairs hallway, but since we all weren't there at the same time, it was mostly not necessary for Andrea to need a separate bed. But there was one night when it was ... and Danny reminded Marcus that she didn't have a cot. He told her that it was in the upstairs hallway ... but that he thought maybe Andrea was too tall for a cot (she's 6 feet tall). We all laughed. Brits use the word "cot" for "crib", and "fold out bed" for what we would call a "cot". Hahaha!! He asked us to verify this in case another American asks for a "cot" in the future! :-)

We spent a little bit of time in Bergerac. It's a bigger city than any of the others we went to together. It was not, contrary to popular belief, the home of Cyrano, of the large nosed fame. But, since so many people associate Bergerac with Cyrano de Bergerac, they have several statues of him throughout the town. Quite amusing, I must say!! :-)

One of Danny's favorite things to point out was the pigeonaries (spelling??). They were these little buildings that you found occasionally throughout the countryside. I have trouble describing them to you, but found a picture here. They have a really funny premise. You build these buildings, and leave them empty. They are perfect for pigeons. Pigeons then come and live in them in great numbers. You then take all of the pigeons and use them for food. I kept thinking of the movie line, "If you build it, they will come..." ... but I added, "and then we will eat them." LOL!!

Another interesting cultural difference. Picture a construction zone on a local road where they have one lane shut down, and the two directions of traffic have to take turns going through the one available lane. In France, they don't have workers at either end with "slow/stop" signs to let you know when to go. They have little, portable traffic lights that show you red/green to know when it's your turn to go. Fewer man-hours to pay? Interesting......

The London bombings happened while we were in the Southwest of France, as you know. We were in a small town (Eymet) for the market and for lunch. After lunch, we were looking at the little local shops for postcards. The shopkeeper was talking about it (in French) with the couple in line in front of Danny and I, and she asked him about it, and then translated for me. We were all horrified. There happened to be a reporter wandering the square, looking for people to interview. When he found out that Danny speaks French, he interviewed her for the local television news ... asked her all sorts of things about the bombings and if she thought they might be related to the Olympics, etc., etc. It was interesting watching Danny be interviewed in French for French television! It was also interesting being in a foreign country when this happened, and being with this particular group of people for the inevitable after-discussions ... as well as depending on Danny and Doina for the translations of the news reports.

That same afternoon, I had a chance to go to the internet cafe in Villereal. Danny and Doina told me that they would meet me in town later, and that they'd come to get me when they were done with their errands. So ... I'm sitting in this 2nd floor room typing. There were a few other people there and the room was deadly quiet except for the keyboards. Then, all of a sudden, I hear (from the street below), "Lou Ann, are you still up there??!!" Sure enough, Danny and Doina are standing in the street bellowing at me (not wanting to come through the office and up the stairs). So there I was ... leaning out the window and calling back at them. We had an entire conversation, and when I came back in the room, everyone else was looking at me funny. I apologized (in English), and they all kind of looked away. Hmmm... did I disturb them? ;-)

Another little mental picture to paint for you. On our final afternoon (Friday), Alyssa had made a 4:00 pedicure appointment in town. She wanted to meet us at the local restaurant, where we were having Kir (the wine/cassis). Danny told me to go find Alyssa (who had given me directions to the little shop, on a road off of the main square). There was a little old man sitting on a bench a few store fronts before I got to the shop. He was waiting for his wife to come out of a different shop. He asked (in VERY broken English) what I was looking for, and I made a "manicure" sign with my fingers. He got all excited and told me that he would show me. He grabbed his wife, and started walking up and down other streets, pointing and gesturing. He took me several blocks away from where I knew I needed to be ... but he was SO excited to be able to help me that I couldn't feel right stopping him!! So, I bade him goodbye (there was no such shop (or any shop) near where he took me), waited until he was way out of sight, and then went back to where I knew that Alyssa was. She was quite perplexed as to what had taken me so long. LOL, again!! :-D

Well ... that's that! The best of the week at the gite. I know ... a long post ... but now I can get on with D-Day beaches and then on to London. I might even catch up with myself (wanna make a bet that I don't!?) Haha!!

Until next time ... cheerio!! :-D

"London IS open for business!"
- Andy Trotter, Scotland Yard
Okay ... I know that I said that I wouldn't be online again for a few days, and I really didn't think that finding internet would be a possibility. BUT ... I MUST tell you about WHY I am online right now. In fact ... I am going to break my chronology quite a bit to tell you about it.

In the next chapter, I will get back to the week that I spent in Villereal at the gite with my colleagues. I will also tell you about spending Sunday morning at the D-Day beaches in Normandy and seeing the American Cemetery there. Quite a tremendous experience, by the way.

Anyway, I'll tell you a little bit about today ... today is the day that I have been dreading (yes, actually dreading) for the past two weeks. Ask Danny ... she'll verify that I have been a bit anxious about it. The main cause of my anxiety has been the thought of driving again near Charles de Gaulle airport (Paris metro), returning the rental car (which I scratched in a parking lot in Mittelbergheim ... remember Mittelbergheim?), finding the RER train (a Paris area train ... in a different terminal at Charles de Gaulle), getting on the Eurostar train (from Paris to London through the Channel Tunnel under the English Channel), changing trains at the London Waterloo station and again at Oxford Circus, and finding my hotel (on foot) two blocks from the London Pimlico station. And, NO, not everyone here speaks English.

SO ... I arrived in Paris yesterday from Caen. I managed to find my hotel without getting lost or annoying too many other drivers with my slow driving while reading signs. (I was very proud of myself.) I dug up a map of the airport area (it's considered a town in and of itself), and got back in my car and drove TO the terminal where the car rentals are to be returned, just so that I knew I could find it in the morning. I also wanted to check their hours, but there was a sign on the doorway saying that they were closed and giving a phone number to call. I copied the phone number, got back in the car, and managed to get VERY lost trying to navigate back from the airport to the hotel. BUT ... this didn't bother me too, too much, as I will not have to make that particular trek again for a very, very long time, if ever.

When I got back to the hotel, I called the rental car company (the number posted on the door), and they told me that the office in question would be open at 8:00 in the morning. I planned to be there exactly at eight.

So ... I did a few other re-organizing things last night and went to bed early. I had breakfast at the hotel at 6:30, made reservations there for the other three nights that I'll be in Paris this month (sans rental car!), and was out the door by about 7:00. I again found the rental car return without taking any wrong turns (I hope to never again drive in Paris!!!) But ... there was no one in the office. I waited 15 minutes and called the number again (from my cell phone ... can you say "expensive"??) and the woman said that someone would be there in 5 minutes. Twenty minutes later I called again, and as she was saying, "You mean she's not there yet??", the other woman got there. We took a look at the scratch on the side of the car, took a look at my rental agreement, and decided that the insurance (which I decided to purchase because Geico doesn't cover me overseas) would easily cover the damage ... no cost to me ... not even a deductible! BUT ... I forgot to fill the tank (it was 3/4 full!!) and she charged me 44€ for that!! That's like 55 U.S. dollars! UGH!!

Anyway ... it took me about ten minutes to figure out the map of the elevator ("lift") to get from the car rental area to the airport shuttle bus area. It took me about 15 minutes to walk there (remember ... heavy suitcase). On the bus, my suitcase rolled over (around a turn) onto a woman's leg ... I was MORTIFIED!! I figured that she didn't speak English ... I apologized profusely and she looked startled, but nodded. At the end of that ride, I apologized again and I must have looked horrified because she patted me on the shoulder and smiled and said that it really was okay.

Well, once I got inside the airport terminal where the trains run, it was very difficult to find the right place to go to buy the ticket. (Remember ... very heavy suitcase.) I finally found it, and bought the ticket. Found the right platform, but the escalator was not working, so I had to LUG the very heavy suitcase down a long flight of stairs. The platform (as are many public areas) is NOT non-smoking and a 20-year-old-looking flight attendant was waiting for a train and chain smoking and dumping her ashes on the platform not too far from where I had already sat down.

Got on the train okay, and a nice man made room for me next to the door and told me that from the airport to Gare du Nord is not a long ride. Good ... because I'm not only concerned about dragging my very heavy suitcase, but I am also concerned about turning my back on it.

Okay ... so I get to Gare du Nord. This has to be THE most confusing place on the face of the earth!! Editorial Note: This post is being finished in London, as I ran out of time before my train left Gare du Nord. I tried standing in the first line that I found that said "tickets" (hoping to exchange my 3:20 p.m. ticket for an earlier train, if possible). After a 10 minute wait (or so), the man says that they don't do Eurostar (for the Channel Tunnel) tickets in that line (I really don't know how I could have known that). I wasn't in a hurry because I knew that it was only about 10:30, and if I had to wait until 3:20, I'd wait until 3:20. But it was the lugging the suitcase around not knowing where I was supposed to go that was getting to me, I guess. The man pointed me to an escalator and told me that Eurostar was upstairs. So, I went to the next level (not knowing that there was a third level), and stood in a line near where there was a sign for Eurostar. After waiting in that line, and watching all but one of the ticket windows have signs that said "English spoken", the one window without "English" opened up for me, and I had to take it (so said the guy in line behind me). So, I get to the counter and THREE people (THREE!!) waited on me trying to answer that *simple* question ... "Can I exchange this ticket for an earlier train at no cost." Well, after much debate about what I was truly asking, it was decided to tell me that there was only 1st class tickets left on the 1:04 p.m. train. That's it. Okay, "no, I'm not interested". "Should we cancel your order, then?" "Did I order something?" UGH!! So, I asked where check-in for the EuroStar is, and they pointed me upstairs. (A third level!!)

So ... this time I found an elevator upstairs... and tried to find the door into the office that is OBVIOUSLY (now) the EuroStar ticket office. This was a much nicer-looking place than the rest of the station. For some reason, I was on the verge of tears (I honestly can't figure out why), and when I was called on at the front of the line, and explained to the woman that I don't speak French, (and she said, "that's fine", in very clear English), the tears came. I tried to hold it back while I asked my question (I thought I'd try again to exchange the ticket), and she kept looking at me funny. Yeah, because there was a big old alligator tear running down my cheek! I apologized, and explained that I was tired. She said, "Of course there is a seat on the 1:04 p.m. train, I'm not sure why they told you there wasn't." And she exchanged the ticket. Then she asked me to wait for a minute and disappeared through a door behind the counter.

I saw that she had already printed the ticket. It was sitting right there. I couldn't figure out where she had gone. Then it occurred to me ... she was giving me a minute to wipe my face and eyes, etc. So I did. Got myself cleaned up, and waited for her to come back.

When she came back, she gave me the new ticket, a big smile, and a little card that she explained was an "invitation" to the EuroStar club "lounge", where I could sit and rest, get a drink and some food. Now, I always travel budget, or close to it. Club lounges are NOT in my repertoire. You could just see the compassion for me on her face. I was so absolutely, completely grateful!! I thanked her about 15 times ... and wish I had gotten her name. Maybe I'll try to find her again when I am in Paris at the end of the month, as I'll be going through Gare du Nord again, once or twice at least.

SOOOooo ... this lounge was FABULOUS!! Totally classy ... and wonderful. There were snacks and drinks (at no cost!!), free internet access, and clean bathrooms with extra amenities (like hand lotion). It was fabulous!! There were lots of big huge comfy chairs with swinging little arm-tables on the right (where I did some journaling), and I got online to type the first part of this post. They give you a 20-minute signal before your train is to leave, and let you board without waiting in line like everyone else on the train. Such pampering!! God's grace and mercy....

I was going to stop at that part of the story, but I'll write a little more just to give you the feel of the day (more so), since I have some more time left on my £1,50 internet hour. :-)

Once I got to the car of the train that was for me, I lugged my suitcase up the three big steps to get on, and stowed the luggage, and then realized that my seat was at the complete other end of the car. WAAAYYY far away. Well, I didn't really want to be so far from my luggage, so I got it out again, and decided to lug it down the too-narrow aisle. Some very, very nice 70-something British lady decided that it was too heavy for me to carry by myself, and she actually helped me carry the suitcase the entire length of the car (88 seats in 22 rows). I started to protest, but she insisted, and wouldn't put it down. God's grace and mercy ... more times today than I could count.

I won't say much more about London until after I've finished typing about France, which I will do hopefully tomorrow or Thursday (don't think I'll get to it on Wednesday).

Just these last few thoughts ... and maybe a couple of mental pictures for you. When I was waiting for the RER train (the Paris train from the airport to Gare du Nord ... on the platform with the chain-smoking flight attendant), there were several camouflage-wearing military-looking men with machine guns and other assorted weapons on them walking back and forth around the platforms. Interesting.

There were also these camouflaged/weaponed men wandering both train stations, quite obviously. And, ON the train (the RER), there were armed police that walked up and down the cars while the train was moving. But, there wasn't any visible military/police on the EuroStar or on the Underground trains that I took to my hotel in London. But, at the London Underground station where I first transferred from the EuroStar to the Tube, there were police with some sort of sniffing-dogs (were they hounds of some sort? I don't know...) I truly do feel safe here ... and plan to ride the Tube and the busses, including the double decker ones while I'm here.

Oh - and Mom answered my question and sent me pictures. The birds in Hunawihr, France WERE storks. Fascinating!! :-)

Cheerio!

"The rewards of the journey far outweigh the risk of leaving the harbor."
- Unknown

Well, I was wrong about not being online again for a few days. Here I am!! :-) It was my intention to spend the whole day today driving from Villereal to Caen ... but it seems that I WAY over-estimated the driving time, and I arrived in Caen early afternoon. So ... I stumbled upon an internet cafe and will spend some more time typing to you about my week in Villereal. AND ... I have a computer with the U.S. English keyboard option, so you don't even have to imagine me cussing under my breath every time I mix up the a and the q or the z and the w. :-D

So ... back to Villereal. The most important ingredient in the time spent there is the mix of personalities ... and there are certainly some personalities. Some of you know some of the people who were there, but none of you knows all of them, so please bear with me as I introduce you to some spectacular people.

First of all ... our fearless leader ... Danny. Danny (and all of the other teachers with me) is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher (at our school, we call this HILT). Danny's mother was French and her father was Colombian, and she lived for a while in Colombia growing up and has spent MUCH time in France as well. She grew up speaking French, Spanish and English and speaks all three without an accent. It was her idea to find a property in France and to rent it and split the rooms on a weekly basis. She did the research on the gite, interacted with the owners, and made all of the reservations with them accordingly.

Next we have Doina (I mentioned her yesterday). Doina is Romanian and fluently speaks Romanian, Hungarian, French and English (and I don't know what else!) She told me that she has even translated books from English to Romanian!! She moved from Romania to the United States at the age of 49!! She just (JUST) retired from teaching at Jefferson (ESL), and in August is going to move to California (Palo Alto) to be with her daughter and grandchildren. She's very excited!!

Jenny is also an ESL teacher. She grew up as a "missionary kid" (her parents were missionaries) in South Africa. She speaks Spanish, Portuguese and English. Jenny has a friend, Alyssa, who is a college student at GWU and a student in international relations. Alyssa is doing a summer internship at the US Embassy in Iceland and Jenny met her on her way to France and brought her along for our week in the Southwest. Alyssa, by the way, is also fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Andrea is Danny's neice. She is a physics major at UNC Greensboro and spent the Spring semester in Russia (can't remember the city ... Andrea are you out there? Will you tell us the name of your city??) studying Russian (she's already fluent in Spanish, so decided to study Russian in college ... she says that Chinese will be her next conquest). After classes were over two months ago, she shipped home the cold-weather clothing and took a small suitcase and a back-pack and spent two months wandering around Europe. Turkey, Greece, Italy, etc. Her final destination before heading home was Southwest France and her Aunt Danny.

Danny's aunt and uncle were there as well ... but did "their own thing" most days, so I didn't really get to know them (except for some long late-evening discussions with her uncle about the probability involved in the Monty Hall problem ... if you have time, read it ... it's a lot of fun!!)

Also, the owners of Fonguillères play into the picture. Their names are Susan and Marcus Smith. We only interacted with them a couple of times, but they were quite interesting ... deciding to pack up their two young children and move from a London suburb to the countryside of France ... to give up their careers to buy a run-down property to fix up and rent to vacationers (and fix it up they did ... it's a fabulous place!!)

FYI ... Danny, Doina, and Danny's aunt and uncle arrived a week before I did and stayed the whole two weeks. Andrea arrived the Thursday before I did and only stayed through Monday evening. I arrived Saturday afternoon and stayed the second week. Jenny and Alyssa arrived Monday morning. So, there was only one day on which we were all there (Monday).

Well, moving along, I think that I'll move on to the topic of food and drink (as you know if you're reading the comments, has already been a requested topic!) We were literally a 2 km walk from the village (although sometimes I drove instead of walking). There was a small market (called "8 a Huit") right in the main square in the village, and a larger grocery store between the village and home. So, we got some of our main staples from the grocery store or 8 a Huit.

A quick, fun note for those of you familiar with the French language. The word "huit" means 8, right? That's what I've learned in the past few weeks. SOOOooo ... I assume that a grocery store called "eight to eight" (translated) must be OPEN from eight o'clock a.m. to eight o'clock p.m. Now, I know that the grocery stores are usually closed on Sundays in France ... and some even on Mondays. But I believe that it was Tuesday that I decided to be at the doors of "8 a Huit" at exactly 8:00 when they opened because I was running low on my breakfast staples. Well ... they do NOT open at 8:00 a.m. They open at 8:30 a.m. I didn't even ask about the closing time. Duh! :-) Well, it's a good thing that it was only a two km drive ... I drove back home, cut up some melon I had purchased the previous day, ate it, and drove back (with Doina in tow) to be there when they opened at 8:30. LOL!! Go figure!!

Kate has requested that I talk about the bread, and so I will do so! :-) The bread here is TO DIE FOR!!!! Kate ... it would be worth the trip just to eat the bread. It's easy to get wonderful (fresh!) breads at the grocery store (lots of different kinds ... baguettes, wheat baguettes, wheat/nut/raisin breads, etc.), but even better to get the freshest breads at the morning markets (I'll talk about those later) that we went to most days. BUT ... the MOST to-die-for bread that I've EVER had in my entire life was made by a little old man (Jenny says that he looks exactly like Billy Crystal in The Princess Bride) in a small shop about 1 km from Fonguillères on a little non-marked rural-rural-rural road. I want you to imagine this. There's this little road tucked away through some corn fields and a small stretch of foresty stuff. You wouldn't notice the road unless someone who does know about the road pointed it out to you and said, "There's a road there." And you'd have to do a double-take because you'd really not be sure that it really IS a road. Got it? Anyway ... you drive down that road and on the left, just past the HUGE wood-pile on the right (that's EXACTLY how the directions were given to us!) you have to turn because there is no sign. Just a house. With a building of some sort attached. And a parking area for approximately 3 cars. Picture it!! Dark and tucked away. Now, you have to go during the hours of 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. That's it. That's the only time they're "open". And only Monday through Friday. I have started calling him "the bread man", and everyone at Fonguillères knew what I was talking about, so I'll refer to him like that here, too. Anyway ... the first time that we were actually in the vicinity during the "open" hours was Thursday, so we stopped by there on our way to one of the cities that we visited. The goal was to purchase bread for our lunches and then to find some meat in the city and make sandwhiches for ourselves. So ... Danny drives past the wood pile and voila ... there are about 15 cars stuffed into the 3-car parking area and spilling out into the street, etc. The directions to the bread man also mentioned that he's quite "famous" in the area. I guess so. The line was out the door. There are about 6 different loaves that he makes, and when he's out, he's out. They are not wrapped or anything. You ask for "un baguette" or whatever, and they hand you a baguette, and while you're paying the 0,72€ for said baguette, it is burning your hand because he MUST have JUST taken it out of the oven. Amazing!! SOOOOOooooo ... I got in the car with everyone else (not all of whom bought loaves of bread ... I don't understand some people!!) and on the 25 minute drive to our destination, I ate what was supposed to be my lunch. It just smelled SO good, and was so warm in my hands ... how could I have NOT eaten it right then and there?? Anyway ... the bread man of Villereal is TO DIE FOR!! I went back the next day, and they were out of baguettes (I waited too long), but they had some other loaves, and I bought a couple (one for me ... one for a wine & cheese thing we were to do that evening). YUMMMMM!!!! Kate ... you MUST try the bread man in Villereal some day!! :-)

Well, it seems that I've written a novel. I will write more about our week at the gite next time ... which really WILL be a few days from now, as I don't at all possibly imagine that I'll have two minutes inbetween things to be finding internet places until at the very first possible moment on Monday ... but it may be Tuesday or Wednesday. In the meantime ... imagine the bread man and his hot bread and the aromas coming from that little, out of the way place. And smile..... :-)

"Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it."
- Eudora Welty

I have a few minutes at the internet place on our last day here in Villereal before I am to meet my colleagues, so I'll type a little bit for you. As I said in my last post, I will next be telling you about our week in the countryside of the Southwest of France. I will be writing a bit differently, though, about this part of the trip, as I've been in the same place the entire week, and want to give you impressions of the place rather than a chronological walk-through of my day-to-day as I've been doing.

Let me first tell you about where I am. Take a look at this map of France. Look at the Southwest region (lower left corner of the map). Find the cities of Agen, and a little farther north, Bergerac. If you were to draw a straight line from Agen to Bergerac, our place is just a little closer to Bergerac than it is to Agen. If you are already familiar with the area, we're in the Dordogne River Valley, very close to the border with the area around the Lot River. More specifically, about 2 km west (and a bit north) of Villereal. Got it?

Now, Agen is a small city, but a city nonetheless. I spent the evening of July 1st there. It took about an hour to drive to Villereal, and then little country roads (which work very differently than country roads in the U.S.) I wasn't sure I'd find it ... but the directions in the brochure were very good and I made it without getting lost this time!! It seems that, at least in the countryside of France, there are no street addresses. It does not seem like the rural delivery route system in the U.S. either. The roads are numbered (just like their major highways), but the houses (which are usually very far apart, just like the rural areas of the U.S.) have names. Kind of like estate names. So, the name of the place where we're staying is Fonguillères. The names are on teeny-tiny little signs, hidden in the growth at the sides of the road. Luckily, I was watching the odometer on the car and the sign happened at exactly the right time according to their directions.

If you'd like to see the website promoting Fonguillères, take a look! Click around their site ... the pictures don't do it justice, though. It's simply gorgeous!! The owners are British, and live directly on the property. They purchased the property which was very run down. It included 16 acres of land. There is the barn, which they have re-done to be their own home and it's fabulous!! There is a garage that looks more like a 150-year-old car-port made out of wood and easily holds 4 cars with LOTS of space around each. The larger rental building, called La Maison on the website, has four bedrooms and a huge kitchen and living area. And the Petite Fonguillères is immediately next to La Maison, and has one bedroom, a kitchen and a sitting area. All in all, the rentals sleep 10 people in five separate bedrooms. All the buildings, the main house, garage, La Maison and Petite Fonguillères face a central stone drive area. The buildings (except for the garage) are made of stone, in the same style as much of the rural buildings in France. My room is in La Maison, upstairs, looking out toward the street ... although, the street is hidden by trees, and even if it weren't, it is so dead that there aren't enough cars there to bother me.

The entire area is FULL of flowers and gardens and more flowers and more gardens. I can't even describe to you how beautiful all of these flowers are. They seem to be mostly wild flowers (remember ... I'm not a flower person!) ... and one of the gals I'm here with describes the style as "English Gardens". Whatever. They're beautiful. The swimming pool is gated, and up on a little hill behind the garage area. The remainder of the 16 acres are leased to farmers. I'm not sure what is farmed there, but know that some of the land is used for hay, as we saw all sorts of bales.


When I first arrived, Doina (one of the other teachers here with me ... I'll introduce them all to you in an upcoming post) gave me a tour of La Maison. Interestingly, she explained to me about "French air conditioning" which apparantly works like this: there are not screens on the windows, but big wooden shutters. During the mid-day and afternoon/evening, when it gets hot out, the shutters are all closed and the lights all turned off in the home. At night, when it starts to get cool, you open everything up (wide open ... nothing between you and the out-of-doors!!) and overnight let the cool air in. Because the buildings are made of stone, and because you trap the cool air in with the shutters, the inside doesn't get hot at ALL in the afternoons or evenings. Interestingly enough ... it works GREAT!! (Well, it works great if you remember to shut the shutters ... and as I'm typing this, I realize that I forgot to shut my shutters and it's 4:00 and sunny out. Oh, well.) That sort of airconditioning really saves on the electric bills, that's for sure! And, you can manipulate lights and food and all to minimize (or eliminate) bugs from the scene.

So ... do you have an impression of Fonguillères? Are you ready to visit here? Upcoming posts will have more about Villereal, about the cities, chateaux, bastides (look it up!) and villages in the area, as well as more about food and drink and, most importantly, the friends that are here with me. We're having a blast. I will probably not be online again for another couple of days.

Au revoir!

"French people spend a lifetime leisurely combing their country, documenting yesterdays, carving out a private world where warmth and comfort are integrated in their own way. Without fail, a passion for France and a love of family and one another guide them."
- Betty Lou Phillips, French by Design

First of all, before I start on anything else ... I am fine and will continue to be fine. Thank you for the e-mails, though ... I will NEVER complain about getting e-mail, especially when they're coming from people who are reminding me that they're praying for me. We heard about the attacks in London this morning, and as I type this, I am going back and forth between blogger and cnn.com. My intention is to keep my travel plans the same, even though they include a week in London. I'll let you know as soon as I can if I change my mind. If you don't hear from me, check the comments here ... like before, if I can't find an internet place and want to get you some information, I'll have my mother leave a comment.

Now ... on to more travel-blogging...

Day Six (7/1/05) - Orange to Agen
Since Orange is a relatively more manageable city than Strasbourg or Colmar, I searched out an internet cafe the evening before, found the place and got the hours of operation, and decided to be there when they opened at 8:30 in the morning.

In my internet place searchings, I decided that Orange would be a good place to take some photos ... and that is best done in early morning light ... and I am at best an early morning person. SOOOoo ... I got up about 6:00 (which is technically late for me, even on vacation) and made a point to be up and about and walking the city center in time for the breakfast hour. I enjoyed walking the town with my camera and taking shots of architecture and "French" things. I am developing an appreciation for pictures of European doors and windows, etc. I am adding to my stash daily! :-)

After having a pastry and a cappachino at a couple of sidewalk places, I was at the internet place (a copy/FAX shop) when they opened, and made my first check of e-mail and update of the EuroBlog since leaving the States. I spent about two hours there before deciding that I needed to hit the road again.

Of course, it didn't take me long to get lost ... again. (Imagine a sigh of frustration here!) I was looking for another of the Frommers Guide's drives ... through the Rhone River Valley along a gorge similar to Skyline Drive or Letchworth State Park (for those of you from upstate New York). I couldn't find the sign for the road at the town at the South end of the drive, and ended up in the town at the North end of the drive. BUT ... in the process, I ended up driving a bunch of mountain roads (I love that) and spent a lot of time being the only car around for miles and miles. I got some gorgeous views of scenery and enjoyed some traffic-free driving time. The roads in that part reminded me a little of driving in Nevada near my uncle's house in Carson City ... high and somewhat arid (but not quite so arid as NV).

I finally got myself on the right road for the gorges tour. I found a little roadside stand for lunch and had tandoori chicken kabobs (and, of course, some ice cream). The gorges were beautiful ... but not too different than Letchworth or Skyline ... worth the time spent driving the road, but when it was over, it was time to be over.

I got back on the toll roads ... again annoyed at the expense ... and spent the rest of the day driving and paying tolls. I had originally wanted to stay in Toulouse that evening ... but decided that Agen was (1) a smaller town, thus easier to navigate, and (2) closer to my goal for the next day, even if only by an hour. The "easier to navigate" part totally won out over the extra hour driving part, as I felt more than awake enough to drive the extra time.

I'm not sure when my next post will be ... who knows, it may very well be tomorrow. But, more than likely it will be a few days and will be after I've arrived in London. Like I said ... if you aren't sure what's going on with me and aren't seeing new posts, check the comments and I'll have my mother leave you information there. (Thanks, Mom!)

Regardless, the next post will be the first about our week in the gite in the countryside of Southwest France. If you're bored, look up places like Rocamadour and Monflanquin and so on. It's been a blast!! And, I promise, I will eventually catch up with myself.

Au revoir! Bonne journée!

Bon jour!!

Sorry - I have no quote for you today. I forgot to bring the cool book with all of the inspiring travel quotes to the internet place. I'm sitting in a wonderful internet place in the 2nd floor above the tourist office in the small town just 1.5 km from the gite where we're staying. But ... I'm getting ahead of myself .......

First of all ... a message for Kate, referring to the comments from a couple of days ago. When I told Danny about my adventures in driving around the Paris metro area, and what you said (and my response) about being brought to tears, Danny said: "Tell Kate that I decided a few days ago that: 'There's no crying in France!!'" I told her that you would totally appreciate that movie quote since you're so into baseball. So ... new rule: "There's no crying in France!!"

Again, I won't catch up with myself today. Funky keyboard ... only one hour left before the shop closes for afternoon siesta ... and so on and so on ... I expect to get all caught up when I hit London next week as there is a 24/7 internet cafe across from the tube station near my hotel. :-)

Day Five (6/30/05) - Colmar to Orange
This day really was mostly about driving. (It has to happen at some point!) Thus, this may turn into more of a running stream of consciousness random writing.

I thought it was amusing that there was a restaurant across from my hotel that was called "The Buffalo Grill". I didn't stop in, because if they had "Buffalo Wings" on the menu, you know I would have kicked in my wing-arrogance and you would have heard all about it. I took a picture of the place, and ... don't ya' know ... I saw several more "Buffalo Grill"'s around the country. Must be a chain. Ugh!!

The thing that I quickly discovered about France that day is that they are more in love with their TOLL ROADS than is New York State. I know you're thinking, "How can that be!!?? New York tolls are the worst ANYWHERE!!" Well ... they've definitely got competition. I spent more than 25€ (that symbol means "Euro" ... I'll probably get into typing about Euros one of these days...) just on tolls. That doesn't include gasoline or food. Whew!! BUT ... for all of those Euros that I spent on tolls, the roads (equivalent to our interstates) were fabulous and extremely well kept up. The speed limit was usually 130km/h. That's about 80mph in American terms. The traffic moved well, and the roads were planned well, as they were always wider (more lanes) when there was more congestion. But I'm not so sure that I got my money's worth...

Along the way, I decided that if I was making good time, I'd stop at two of the "Beax Villages" that were close to the highway. The first, Pesmes, didn't seem to be worth it. But at least it broke up the driving for the day. The second, I stopped at for lunch. It's called Perouges. I found a sandwich shop on the outskirts of town. I could tell that the menu had a long list of sandwiches, and the man running the shop (who spoke a little English) and his friend (a little old Frenchman who seemed to be there for no reason other than to gab) were the only people there. So, instead of having him define the whole menu for me, I explained to him that I don't really like cheese, but other than that, I would trust him to make for me the sandwich of his choice. He seemed delighted with that opportunity, and went to work making me a sandwich with "canard" ... which turned out to be a sort of pate made from duck (the French word for "duck" is "canard") on a baguette and was really good!!

I ended up spending some time wandering the village, and it was gorgeous. I know that these "Beax Villages" seem to be hit or miss. But the ones that are truly "Beax" make it SO worth hitting all that I can find so that I don't mind so much the ones that are not so "Beax".

Now ... here's another interesting little quirk. In 2000, I was with a short-term missions group that went to Holland for a couple of weeks. In the Shipol Airport I stumbled upon a wonderful drink (I don't tend to do a lot of soda...) that I haven't been able to find in the States. It's made by Schweppes, and is just called "Lemon". It tastes like a carbonated lemonaide. Delicious!! I started looking for it when I arrived here ... and finally found it in the expressway rest stops. YUM!!! If anyone knows where to find this stuff in the States, PLEASE let me know!!!

Now, I have been staying in hotels from two local French chains that have very inexpensive hotels that are clean and neat. But I haven't been able to get the TV's to work. No big loss ... I just like the background noise, and tend to watch the news when I can. I figured that they were pay-TV's, and I wasn't about to pay to watch French TV. No way!! Well, that night in Orange, I figured out that French TV's turn ON by pressing the channel buttons (or channel up/down) and turn OFF by pressing the power button. I found a BBC news station (the only thing in English) and watched international news for the first time in 5 days. (Interestingly enough, the first channel that the TV hit when I figured out how to turn it on was 7th Heaven, which is one of my favorite shows. It was weird to hear it dubbed in French!!)

Well, au revoir for now! :-)

"...the French have a word, dèpaysement, which, translated into English is 'the feeling of not being assaulted by the familiarity of things, a change in surroundings where there is no immediate point of reference.' A French journalist once said that 'Americans don't travel to be dèpaysès, but to find a home away from home."
John Vincour, former Paris bureau chief for The New York Times

I'll bet that some of you haven't even seen that I had a previous chapter typed before I got to this one. Internet access two days in a row ... will wonders never cease!! SO ... if you didn't read chapter one (chronicling the flight over and the wonders of driving in the Paris metro area), scroll down and do that first. Oh - and please leave me comments ... they keep me sane.

Before you get too excited, this entry will be a bit short for a few reasons. First of all, I'm on my way to meet my colleagues at our gite (rental place) a few km away, and want to be on my way. Secondly, this internet place doesn't have the alternate keyboard. The letters that are different are: a, z, q, m, w, and all of the numbers and symbols (even the periods, commas and parentheses ... which I use quite a bit). SOOOooo ... typing is SLOOOWWWWW. Therefore, I will try to finish one more day ... and will still not be caught up with myself. (Maybe will try to get back to this same place a few more times before leaving the Southwest.)

Day Four (6/29/05) - Strasbourg to Colmar
Althought it was my favorite day so far, it was another day of wrong turns. Negotiating the road system has truly been the most difficult task to achieve while on this trip so far. How many of you have driven in Europe before? I'd love to get comments from you all as to your experiences!!

Anyway, besides being a day of wrong turns, it was also a day of some of the most beautiful countryside and small villages that I have ever seen in my life. Again, as the previous day, around every turn you could see small villages on the hillsides with their tall church steeples and castles for protection. I kept stopping to take pictures. There wasn't enough traffic to be bothered by my frequent stops, so it turned into a lazy day of Sunday driving. :-)

While I was planning this trip, the colleague who arranged for our stay at the gite told me about a "list" of 146 villages in France that are registered as the 146 most beautiful villages in France. I did some internet reading on these places, and they sounded wonderful. Small villages that are well kept up, and preserve a certain quality of other-time-liness. So, for each of the regions that I plan to visit, I have marked on my map locations of some of these villages and hoped to visit some of them.

I also read in the Frommer's France about four specific driving tours that were especially nice in France. There is one in the Vosges mountains near Alsace that I wanted to try. Three of the 146 villages were between my hotel in Strasbourg and the beginning of the driving tour through the Vosges. So, I thought I'd spend my morning exploring the villages and my afternoon doing the Vosges drive.

The first village, Mittelbergheim, was breathtaking. (You may be scratching your head wondering about the German-sounding name ... and many of the place names in Alsace sound more German than French ... as Alsace is on the border and over the years has been conquered and re-conquered over and over again. I think that the people there still don't know if they're French or German. ;-))

The main road through the village was steep, but short (only about 1 or 2 km), and I found a nice parking place at the bottom of the hill and walked back up to explore. It was still early so there weren't a lot of people around. It looked like something out of a storybook of fairy tales. I don't know how else to describe it other than to tell you that you have to wait to see my pictures! I could have spent another couple of days exploring that village ... and found that to be the case in each of the rest of the villages that I visited that day.

It rained on and off throughout the next few hours ... but inbetween the rain there was sunshine. And it never rained hard enough or long enough to deter me from what I was doing.

In starting at Mittelbergheim, I found myself on a different "driving tour" along a route "de vin" ... a number of Alsatian villages that are leaders in wine-production. The villages themselves were fascinating, and although Mittelbergheim remains my favorite ... they were each almost as wonderful.

I stopped in another of the "146" to have lunch - a village called Hunswihr. I found another nice little place that was out of the way, where I sat at a table on the lawn and ate quiche Lorraine (get it? Quiche Lorraine in Alsace Lorraine? LOL!!! Again, the owner of the small restaurant spoke no English, but attempted to chat with me anyhow. It was delicious and relaxing.

An interesting note about Hunswihr. There are these huge birds that seem to be inhabitants of Hunswihr. And they built HUGE (I mean HUGE) nests on the tops of the houses. I think that they might be storks. Mom - would you please kick the librarian-y side of your personality into high gear and send me a website that has images of storks, and possibly information about areas to which they are native? Thanks!!

I'll make a brief mention of the other of the "146" that I saw that day. It was called Riquewihr. It was the least impressive of the villages that I've seen, ane probably the one you are most likely to read about. It was like going to "Germany" at Epcot Center. A total American tourist trap. Full of American tourist groups, tourbus parking lots, and many, many touristy souvenir shops. Not my kind of place!! BUT ... Lisa will be happy to hear this: they had the BEST coffee flavored ice cream (my favorite flavor, for those of you who didn't know that) I've ever tasted in my life!!!

By the time I finished with the three of the "146" beax villages, it was later in the afternoon than I had anticipated (and, in the meantime I had made many wrong turns!!) I decided to at least start the "Route des Cretes" through the Vosges, and finally made my way to the first village along the route. After some real mountain driving to get there, I discovered that the road to the next town was closed for construction, and that the detour took me right back where I started from. Oh, well. I'll save the Vosges for a future trip.

I decided to call it a day and find a hotel. I ended up in the city of Colmar, which, according to the maps would have only taken an hour to get to from Strasbourg if I had stayed with the superhighways. Quite good use of a day if I must say so myself. THIS is true "road tripping"!! :-)

Okay ... the keyboard is killing me, and I want to make it to the next town to meet my colleauges. Look forward to the next chapter, taking me to places like Orange and Agen.

Au revoir!!

"Every land has its own special rhythm, and unless the traveler takes the time to learn the rhythm, he or she will remain an outsider there always."
- Juliette De Baircli Levy, English writer, b. 1937

Bon jour!!

First of all, I have to apologize that it's been SO long since you've heard from me (y'all know that at home I'm online practically 24/7, so it's weird to go from Saturday afternoon to Friday morning without a single keystroke!!) I have been sticking to the small towns and not the big cities (as my mom mentioned in her comment ... thanks, Mom!) so public internet access has been difficult to find (not that I've been searching very hard!!)

I won't type forEVER on this entry ... as I'm paying by the half-hour and am also paying for parking (that's what you get when you visit a bigger city!!) Also - this is truly WEIRD, but makes a LOT of sense: the keyboard in France is different than the keyboard in the US. The letter keys are in different places. There's a button I found at the bottom of the screen to change to a U.S. (Anglais) keyboard, but the keys are still marked with the different letters. SOOOooo, I'm only hitting the correct letters if I don't look. I don't usually look a lot ... but it's definitely WEIRD!! :-)

Anyway ... I will start telling you about my journey day by day, and if I don't catch up with myself today (in Orange, France, near Avignon), I will type from that point that I left off when I next find a public internet place. So ... on with the journey......

Day One (6/26/05) - leaving Lorton, VA for BWI and the air...
I made it a priority to attend church in the morning, mostly because I wanted to see "everyone" one last time. The extrovert in me is a little wary of spending most of a month alone ... especially when I know I won't have much internet access or telephone access or conversation even with English-speaking people. So ... I got my fix at Immanuel for the early service and then Morning Song (my adult Sunday School class). I also had my anticipated final trip to Starbucks for the upcoming four or five weeks. (sigh...)

Anyone who travels knows that travel is always an adventure. That's why I don't tend to plan as much as people think would be appropriate for my personality type. :-) Part of the adventure of travel is that things never go quite as "planned". Another part of the adventure of travel is that you meet very interesting people. My adventure truly began while waiting in line at the check-in counter for Iceland Air at BWI. A 60-something man came up and stood in line behind me and began a conversation. I have no problem chatting with strangers in line, so I went along with the small talk. "Where are you travelling?" "For what purpose?", etc. He was on his way to Helsinki. His purpose? "To find a wife." He then went on to let me know, in no uncertain terms, that he would be willing to change his travel plans to accompany me if that would be okay with me. Um ... "No, thank you." How else was I to say it? What a riot!! Anyway ... he was on my flight, but I really didn't see him again after getting through that line.

That's about all on "Day One" ... waiting in the gate area, sleeping on the plane, airplane food in the middle of the night, etc......

Day Two (6/27/05) - Airborne through Paris, France
We landed late in Reykjavik, Iceland (had left BWI about an hour late). I literally had to RUN (like O.J.) through customs and to the next gate (in the next terminal). Sorry, Nancy - Iceland was rainy and the airport far from civilization, so I have nothing to tell you about the place!! I must add that, as we were approaching Iceland, I woke up to a gorgeous sunrise on the horizon. Flying over the ocean is like flying over land, by the way ... you mostly see the clouds below you. But the sunrise from the plane window was fabulous!! Another note about flying Iceland Air ... most of the inhabitants of Iceland are of Nordic descent (the Vikings populated Iceland many years ago). Most (no, ALL) of the flight attendants looked like clones (no joke!!) It was interesting to me, leaving Washington where the diversity is so rich, to be on a plane where all of the employees and many of the travellers looked so much alike. Reading about the Nordic descent of the Icelanders and seeing that they all looked so Scandinavian reminded me why the U.S. is referred to as the "Melting Pot". I love being American!!

When I landed at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, I found my way through the ENORMOUS airport (I'll need to take some pictures ... it looks very futuristic inside ... and the moving walkways go up and down levels without becoming steps. Talk aobut having to HOLD ON!!!) I found my baggage easily. And then, to my surprise, when I went to the customs desk, they were not even interested in talking with me. No stamp in my passport, no conversation, no questions, no nothing!! I hope that I didn't do anything wrong. I guess I'll find out when I try to leave for the U.K. next week.

Anyway ... I also found my way to the rental car place. The gal there tried to explain to me how to get to my hotel (which is about 2km from the airport). The maps I have made no sense to me, and her directions left me confused as well. But ... how hard can it be, right? Hah!!

A note about the rental car: First of all, when she brought me the car, she left it in a parking spot, from which I had to put it in reverse and pull out. I have owned three stick-shift automobiles in my day, so I can't imagine why it was difficult ... but I could NOT figure out how to put the car in reverse. It made sense to me that there might be a "button". But where? I actually had to get out the manual to read it!!! Found the lever on the stick itself (duh!), put the car in reverse, and got it out of the spot. Another thing about the car is that the turn signals don't make ANY sound inside the car while they're on. I usually use my ears to remind myself that the blinker is on, or that I need to put the blinker on ... but no, I have to actually LOOK at the dashboard to let myself know that I've signaled my turn or not. Finally, you should have seen me at my first gas station. This is my normal procedure to get gas: get out of the car with a credit card. Lock the car. Open the gas tank. Get gas. Well, I tried that procedure here, and found that I couldn't get the gas tank open. It was completely locked. It finally occurred to me that I had to unlock the car to unlock the gas tank. DUH, again!! How funny it is when we aren't used to our surroundings!!

Anyway, I was lost before I left the airport complex. The road signage here is SO VERY DIFFERENT than in the U.S. that I just could NOT get myself oriented. In fact, it took me over a half hour to get from the rental car place to my hotel (literally about a mile away). I had several maps, as well as the directions from the gal at the rental place, but to no avail. Traffic circles reign triumphant here (they seem to have one at every major and minor intersection ... even in the countryside), and the roadsigns NEVER (I mean NEVER EVER) say "north" or "south" or "east" or "west". I usually pride myself on being good at finding my way around a place, and have a good sense of direction. But when you go around a traffic circle, and then there's no sign to tell you which way (NSEW?) that you're going, forget it!! I have also found that they don't really use street names on the signs at these traffic circles, but the names of the next town. If the town isn't on your map, you can forget it. Whew!!!

Finally (FINALLY) found the hotel. I went through a huge deal with my cell phone (about a month ago I purchased a new cell phone, with specific technology to work in Europe, for safety purposes) and it didn't work. After several public phone telephone calls to Cingular (which, by the way, was difficult because the only numbers I had for Cingular were 1-800-*** numbers, which don't work from overseas), I finally got that whole mess figured out. It was amazing to me when I had someone at a Cingular store in Manassas who refused to help me because he said that no such non-1-800 number exists!! "Sorry, mam. Can't help you. It's not my fault." Aarrrggghhh!!

Then came the groceries debacle. I asked the woman at the concierge desk at the hotel for a food market or grocery store or something. She said that they don't have such things. (Come on!) Finally, a woman standing in line behind me indicated that she knew of a very small food market, and was willing to let me follow her as she drove past it. WONDERFUL!! She took me through several traffic circles, a few one-way streets, and in five minutes we were at the grocery. She kept going. I found what I wanted (I have decided that I will try to eat simple breakfasts and dinners, fruit and vegetables, etc. from local markets ... and have bigger mid-day meals, as is the custom here). I paid for it (almost over-paid for it, as I didn't understand how to read the screen on the cash register ... but the clerk was honest, and handed back most of my Euros). Then, I tried to leave. Ugh! Another half-hour back to the hotel. Lost again! Since I merely stumbled upon the hotel in the first place, and merely stumbled upon it again, I don't know if I could find it from the airport or from the grocery again if I tried real hard. I'm surprised I didn't end up in Germany for all of the driving around I did trying to look for the place.

I have since come to appreciate traffic circles here ... for one main reason. They are MUCH better for the confused driver than illegal U-turns or sitting at the side of the road, pondering. The indecisive driver can literally drive around in circles until a decision is made. Picture me, in my little European hatchback, driving in circles, with a confused look on my face. LOL!! Such fun!!

While I was on my grocery stop, I found a "tourist" office, and found a woman who speaks a little English. She was wonderfully gracious. She talked to me for quite a while and gave me maps and information about getting from the airport into the city of Paris (I would compare the distance to that of Dulles to downtown DC). She talked about the trains, and apologized but was certain to inform me that she did NOT think that a woman alone should travel the train from Charles de Gaulle to downtown Paris after dark. She needn't have apologized ... I was happy for the advice. In a few weeks, I have an extra day in Paris, and was thinking about taking the train into the city. I'll make sure to be back at my hotel long before the sun goes down!!

Well ... back at my hotel that evening, and after a few weeks of sleepless nights at home (anticipating the end of the school year and this trip) and not much sleep on the airplanes, I fell asleep at 8:00 p.m. and didn't wake until 8:00 the next morning!! What a gift!!!

Day three (6/28/05) - Paris to Strasbourg
This day continued along the pattern of ... it's VERY difficult for me to drive in this country. (And, by the way ... I'm finding myself glad that I am not planning to drive in the U.K.!!) I just wanted to get OUT of the Paris metro area. There are LOTS of interstate-type roads in that place, and I had studied and studied the maps I have, and knew exactly which roads I needed to look for in order to get to the road I wanted. My ultimate goal was Alsace/Lorraine, via the city of Nancy, using the national road N4. I could SEE N4 on a map. I could see all of the super-highways I needed to take to get to N4. But ... on one of the beltway-type roads (as in, large circle around the city), I took the wrong direction (because, of course, there wasn't an "east" or "west" in the signage, and I didn't know the names of the smaller sub-urbs to know which way to take). I thought I had gotten on the right way ... and it took over a half hour to even realize that I was headed the wrong way. Then, to get off and back on again in the opposite direction was difficult ... and getting back on in the opposite direction put me in major mid-morning traffic!! Whew!! It was lunch time before I got to anything that resembled country-side, but found the going quite easy for the next several hours.

The French country-side is FABULOUS!! There are small villages around every bend, and over most of the hillsides when you look across the horizon. The thing that I find to be most special is that there is always a tall steeple in the middle of every village, and you can almost always see a steeple somewhere in the distance from wherever it is that you are driving. What a fabulous reminder of God's omnipresence!! :-)

I stopped at a little restaurant ("Auberge Saint Christophe") along the roadway. There were tables outside, and that's why I stopped, but the man who runs the restaurant wouldn't let me sit out there because he said it was too loud (with all of the trucks going by). I didn't want to argue with him (he didn't speak any English), so I sat inside. When he found out I was from the U.S., he made it clear to me that he had been to the U.S. once ... for the Olympics in Los Angeles where he won four medals for swimming. Cool!! He was wonderful ... and kept trying to talk to me. He even pointed to my Michener novel (Centennial) and gave me a thumbs up ... he must like Michener!! :-) I don't usually know what I'm ordering here, but since I'll eat just about anything served to me, I ended up with a mayonnaise salad, some kind of meat (still don't know what it was), and strawberry crepes. They were good. :-)

By the way - Tammy, your "magic word" is coming in VERY handy. "C'est bon." and "C'est beax." and "C'est..." everything!! Thanks so much for that pointer!! Between that, and "Je ne peaux pas parley Francais." (Spelling?), I find that people are more than happy to meet me more than halfway!! Thanks!!!!!!!

I stopped in the city of Nancy, thinking it was a small city (if I've never heard of it, it must be a small city. Bad logic!!) It was horrible trying to find downtown and the visitor's center, but got very valuable maps, information, about the Alsace-Lorraine region. I ended up driving from Nancy to Strasbourg (only got lost a few more times) and was at a hotel by about 8:30 or so. (Paris to Strasbourg should be a 5-hour trip ... I left at 9:00 that morning!!)

Well ... I am running up a small fortune in public internet access fees, and am almost out of my time on the car. I'll save my adventures in Alsace the next time I type. Let me just preview it by saying that it is a most beautiful place, and a place that deserves more than the day and a half that I gave it. It will certainly be a return vacation for me someday!!!!

Au revoir for now!!

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."
- Saint Augustine

Just a quick note to let you know that the next time I post here will hopefully be from France. Some small internet cafe somewhere. Hopefully with a croissant and a cappacino nearby. :-)

In the meantime, let me give you a quick refresher on blog comments. First of all ... please leave me comments. I don't want to be lonely over there, travelling quite often by myself, in a couple of countries where no one speaks English (it's my own fault that I don't speak French or Danish!) But, please make sure to leave me comments. Yes, they are publicly viewable (if you have something super-private to say to me, just send an e-mail). No, you don't have to be a member of "blogger" to comment (but it would help if you remember to sign your comment). In fact, you could even get little comment-conversations going. Wouldn't that be fun? And, when I'm online, I'll reply to your comments with more comments. See how the whole comment thing can snowball.

Okay, then - I'll try to post (even if it's real short) when I've arrived (scheduled for Monday afternoon) so that no one has to worry (you know who you are!!) Have a great July back here in the States!!

"A traveller without knowledge is a bird without wings."
- Sa'di, Gulistan (1258)

I've just started a book that I really like already. Early in the introduction, the author has this quote by James Pope-Hennessy: "if one is to get best value out of places visited, some skeletal knowledge of their history is necessary. ..... Sight-seeing is by no means the only object of a journey, but it is as unintelligent as it is lazy not to equip ourselves to understand the sights we see."

Now, many of you know me as ultra-type-A and probably have no problem imagining that I like to plan a lot before I go on a trip. In fact, most of my planning involves reading about the places I'll be visiting and learning as much about them as I can before I go ... keeping in mind that the truly invaluable things I'll learn will happen while I'm actually AT the place. That way, when I get to wherever, my new learnings will have context. (It's all about context, right?) Believe it or not ... once I arrive at my destination (and, often times, like when I road trip, the journey IS the destination) I usually don't have something set in my mind as far as what to do ... I'm rather "go with the flow" about it. My philosophy is always that if I am as well-versed about my tourist options before I arrive at the place, I'll have lots of things to choose from once I'm there. (And I make as few reservations as possible when I'm travelling in the United States!)

Therefore, I just want to point out that these several weeks (months?) before leaving for Europe have been and continue to be full of reading and learning about the places I'll be visiting. In fact, I'm having trouble focusing on important things like airplane reservations and train schedules and rental cars ... because I'm busy reading about the caves at Lascaux, or trying to find out about the island on which Copenhagen sits. It will definitely all come together ... but I wanted to give you a bit of a shade of what I'm doing at this point.

Twelve days and counting!!

Hey - I know that no one but ME has looked at this blog yet (I believe so anyway), but I want this link to be here before I leave so that other folks can follow along. The sister of a friend of mine is going to be biking across the country this summer. She's going with an organization called Bike and Build. The bikers stop every so often and build a home for a poor family. Cool, huh!?

Check out her blog!!