July 29, 2012

Well I have officially decided my absolute least favorite thing about France: coverage of the Olympics. We have one tv channel in our villa and the French apparently only like Judo, Handball, Table Tennis, Cycling, Fencing and Air Pistol shooting. I'm sorry, what the hell? If I have to watch one more judo fight or 30 more minutes of men cycling down a curved road I will punch a baby. All I want to do is watching Volleyball, Gymnastics, Swimming, and Track. Is that too much to ask? I am just bursting with American pride here in France and I'm dying every time our team is cut short to watch France lose at another event. I get it, I'm in France, so there's bound to be French coverage but STILL America is winning everything so wouldn't you rather watch who is best? Ok, rant over, back to normal blogging.
Two days ago, we went to the city of Arles to see some Roman architecture and see the city. I actually ended up getting lost while taking pictures on my own and had a mini panic attack. I was thinking. "ok, I don't speak the language, I literally have no idea where I am or how to get home... so... I'll just stand here and hope someone comes back for me." Luckily, about 10 minutes later a few people from my group somehow walked by. So I'm still here and alive. Anyway, the coliseum we saw was amazing and the city was quite charming.
The next day we went into Uzes to the morning market which was ridiculous. The city was filled to capacity with booths of fresh fruit, veggies, clothes, anything you can think of. We spent a few hours walking around and I bought some fresh Paella which is this batch of delicious rice, muscles and crawfish. Then, I walked into a coffee and tea shop to bring some good French coffee home and ran into my first full on conversation with someone who spoke absolutely no English. It's so funny to try and get your point across by only knowing the words for coffee, please, yes, no, and thank you. Somehow she understood I wanted espresso and that I wanted a bag of the best they had. I also smelled literally every loose leaf tea they had and picked the mint rose. It is stupid delicious. It all ended up being much cheaper than I thought and I left the store in a sweat from being so nervous and tense over the language barrier. But it ended well and I'm bringing home some fantastic treats.
That's enough for now, here's some pictures!

July 27, 2012

Our villa owner, Amanda, threw us a block party last night to welcome us to the neighborhood. There was tons of food, wine, dancing music, and people young and old from the town of St. Maximin. We had such a good time meeting people and dancing the night away. In other news, its sweltering every day and there's something about the French sun that tans my body better than in the US. So with that, i am well pleased.

July 25, 2012

The past few days have been filled with swimming, tanning, swimming and then visiting the Mediterranean for more swimming and tanning. Needless to say, there's not much to report on besides the fact that there MUST be something different about the French sun because I'm getting pretty bronzed. We got to go into town yesterday for a bit for some ice cream and to explore. So here are a few from Usez and the beach.

July 23, 2012

We have arrived in the south of France! And boy, is it lovely. We left Honfluer which was rainy and cold and have come to Usez where it is 95 and sunny. The villa we are staying in is twice the size of our old one and we also have a huge pool. Needless to say, we're not mad about our new digs. Mine and Breegan's bedroom is what the villa owner, Amanda, calls the "princess room." When I walked up to the top level after we got assigned rooms, I freaked. The whole bedroom is which distressed wood with a canopy bed, two closets and our own balcony. Dream living? I think so. I don't really know how we got so lucky, so I'm just drinking it all in. The boys live a few houses down from us and their view is phenomenal. We watched the sunset and went around town to explore which is where some of these pictures are from. The villa owner, Amanda, is a 60 year old New Zealander who acts like she is 20-- but in the best way. She knows everyone is town (literally) and is throwing us a block party on Thursday to meet them all. Cats are everywhere and they all die for our attention. So of course I had to give two of them a photo shoot.
As for the next two weeks we will be kayaking through the aquaducts, running with the bulls, visiting some Roman architecture, and possibly riding horses through the vineyard. On our off days at the villa, we are pretty much at the pool all hours of the day. So cheers to sunshine and the south of France.