We have been cruising along, living the dream! Until the last 2 weeks. We have now experienced both a speeding ticket & an emergency room visit. Both experiences turned out fine, & probably, in the long run, were a way of slowing us down (literally!). Les loves the French roads! They are in such good repair, & it's easy to really enjoy skimming along on them. He's a very good driver, really, but until now hasn't paid too much attendtion to the spe...

Hi Everybody. Hope you all had a good 4th of July! Le Foot: Friday, July 4, 20014 We almost forgot it was July 4th, since obviously it's not a holiday here. Too bad, we had some silly costumes we could have used for watching the quarter finals of the World Cup. France's "les Bleus" were playing Germany Friday night, July 4. After 2 unsuccessful attempts at locating a good venue to watch the match, we found a perfect place. But alas, the French team lost. As we ...

Salut, tout le monde! We have arrived in our other world! Les & I left Charleston, our normal world, on June 7, to head for a week in Chicago with family & friends. (For recent photos of our families, see "A Wild Week in Chicago, June '14".) We left Chicago on Monday, June 16, & arrived in Paris on Tuesday to discover that the French rail system is on strike. Everybody who had a paid reservation was shifted to the ONE & ONLY train leaving the ai...

Hello Everybody! Happy End of Summer. Week 10, and Boo-hoo!, our final full week in Languedoc came & went. We spent it tying up the loose ends: visiting places we'd been before & wanted to revisit, & doing one last art exposition. Here are the highlights: Charles Trenet in Narbonne We love Narbonne--it's an old Roman city (in fact the Via Domitia runs right through the center of town) with many museums & the lovely markets (inside & outside...

Here we are, Week 9--one more week to go before "Re-entry"! Can't believe it! We've just finished a lovely week, full of new experiences & old friends. Can't beat it! Thursday, August 15 was "La Fete de La Vierge", a holy day that's also a national holiday, & serves as the official reminder that summer is almost over in France. Although this holiday floats with the date, it is very similar to Labor Day weekend for the States, where families gather for ba...