Our Juicy Life

Such an exciting small world...

So, I wanted to do some spring reading and of course I wanted to read about France. I have read "a year in provence" but it was 10 years ago, so I figured I'd read it again. I went to Amazon.com and looked it up, Amazon.com also gave me some recommendations based on my "a year in provence" order...one of them was "French by Heart", by Rebecca Ramsey. It sounded really good, so I ordered it. The books came last week and I started on "A year in provence" and Bruce started with "french by heart". He said it was really good. Today I was looking at my comments and noticed a new one from a blog called Wonders Never Cease, so I went to that blog and started to read the latest post. I was about a backyard garden (not in the ground but above ground) thanks to their golden retriever tanner. Tanner looked so much like Dashell, it was scary....but many goldens look alike. I then read a bit further down and it said "when we lived in france"....so I went back to the bio and who is this blog by.....Rebecca Ramsey....yes, yes..the women who wrote "France by Heart", the book that is on my husband's nightstand right now.

I had to email Rebecca and tell her what a small world it is. Go and get her book, it's a really good read, even if you are not moving to france like us....you'll still get a feel of what it would be like. Thanks for visiting Rebecca, your book is making us so excited for our sabbatical in france!

Frustration!

I always hear of the problems with getting things done in France...the paperwork, the time, the patience you need, etc...but I'm here to say that it's bad here in America too.

Couple examples.  We had to update the deed for our house.  It was bought in my name and we needed to add Bruce to it.  I spent time on the Los Angeles County Clerks website getting all the paperwork that I needed (to save time).  So,  I went down to the County Clerks office which is by the Los Angeles International Airport.  Drove around for 15-20 minutes just to find a parking spot and finally reached the 6th floor.  The line was huge.  After waiting in line for about 45 minutes I was finally called.  I showed the lovely friendly helpful woman (NOT)  the filled out paperwork and of course it was wrong.  First I needed to add all this additional wording about the parcel of land our house was on.  I had to get that from another computer down the hall.  So I went and did that, got back in line and waited.  10 minutes later I was called again.  That part is complete but now you need to get it notarized.  OK, that's easy, where is the notary.  "we don't have a notary on site".  What!  Are you kidding!  This is the Los Angeles County Clerks office and they don't have a notary!  She said the closest was about 5 miles away, but she didn't know the  name of it so we had to just drive around looking for one.  So off we went.  We saw a sign for notary, pulled over, parked and went in.  Only to find out that the business didn't get their notary renewed so they couldn't do it  - so take your sign down!!!  We drove a bit further,  saw a sign, pulled over and went in.  "our notary called in sick today"...this was getting ridiculous!  We finally found another place that notarized the document.  Back we went to the County Clerk, this time Bruce waited in the car, so we wouldn't have to spend forever looking for a parking place.  The line wasn't too bad, I only had to wait 20 minutes.  Finally they accepted the document.  That was easy, not!

We are going to open a french bank account now so that we can buy a large amount of euros and transfer them to our account, there is talk that the dollar might go to 2.00 against the euro this summer.  In order to open a french bank account we need to send a copy of our marriage license.  I don't know where that is, in fact I don't think we even requested a copy.  So I again had to go on the county clerks website and I noticed that you could order it on-line.  Great!  So I filled out the paperwork, sent in a check and waited...and waited...and waited.  30 days later I got all my information sent back to me in the mail, with a letter telling me that I needed to send in 2 copies of the request for a copy of the marriage license (it doesn't tell you that on the website though).  Argh!!!!  30 days of waiting and I get nothing.  So we had to go BACK to the County Clerks office because I wasn't going to wait another 30 days for the license.  This morning we went down there.  I ran up, left Bruce in the car and was sure that I had everything in order.  I had the check that I sent them originally and in front of the guy I just changed the date and initialed it (like you do at the bank, post office, grocery store, etc...) but NO, can't do that at the county clerks office.  I had to write out a new check and void the first.  I said to the guy "you guys sure don't make things easy"...and his response was "nope, we don't".

I finally have a copy of our marriage license and our deed was updated, so hopefully I will never have to go back to the 6th floor known as hell.  Many people rant about the france being so slow with documents and all and I'm sure they are, but it's bad here too.

OK - I feel better.

New friends far away

In September we went to the Aveyron region of France for 3 weeks. We had never been there before, didn't know anyone, but figured we'd check out this remote beautiful region. We stayed in a gite called Le Roucan, owned by Nala & Neerva. It was amazing and very rural. When we arrived with our bikes Nala said to us "my neighbor down the lane owns one of the lightest bikes in the world". Sure, Bruce said....right...in the middle of nowhere a guy has the lightest bike. Nala promised to introduce us to him.

The next morning Nala is tapping on our door telling us he spoke with Jacques, who is the man who has the lightest bike. Jacques will take you on a bike ride today...now....get ready! WHAT? So back down the road we went. The place we were staying was the last house on a very long road (about 1 mile up), it was at the end of the road. Jacques place was the 2nd house on the road, called Feniryols. So, we drive down to his beautiful french home with our bikes. Jacques is about 60 and fit as anything. He kisses us 3 times and was so warm and welcoming. He immediately took us into his "bike room" and there it was....his bike....and Bruce was amazed. It weighs 4,257 kg. That's nothing! His bike is worth probably 15K - 20K. Seriously, we were shocked. We weren't in Paris or Toulouse or Nice...we were in the middle of nowhere, in rural france and here we are with this man who loves bikes as much as us. FATE.

We went on many rides with Jacques and his girlfriend Fabian and our new friends Fabrice & Anke. We instantly made a connection with all of them. It felt so comfortable...like home. Jacques invited us to his home for dinner one night. Which I hear is very very unusual. Most french people who have only known for 2 week don't invite you to their home for dinner. We were honored. Our dinner included Jacques, his daughter (who was visiting for the weekend from Pau) and our host Nala (unfortuantely his wife Neerva was out of town). We had duck, fois gras, amazing wine, great conversation, etc...it was a truly magical night that ended at 2 am. We knew that we had met people who would be friends for life.

We spoke with Jacques today on the phone. It was great to hear his voice and we can't wait to see him. But we heard some sad news. Fabrice and Anke have separated and are getting divorced. They have 2 beautiful girls, but sometimes that's not enough to keep a marriage together. It was sad to hear that, boy you really see people differently when they are out of their home. Jacques told me that Anke wants to move back to Germany (where she was born and all her family is) and that made me sad too. Anke and I really hit it off. I am very athletic and love to bike, run, swim, etc...and she is exactly the same. I was so looking forward to having a good friend there. I am trying to reach her now to see what her plans are. I hope she'll be around some of time we are there, but who knows.

We are still so excited about our sabbatical, but it's strange how much can change in 6 months. We know that we still have very good friends waiting for us to return, but it's different somehow. When I was there the landscape and the lifestyle, it all seemed so dreamlike to me, but when you look at it you realize that people are the same all over the world, be it in a big city in America or in the rural countryside of France.

Book Rentals Cars - check!

We booked our rental cars - yes CARS for our sabbatical in France. Why are we booking 2 cars you ask? It's going to be a crazy couple of days when we first arrive. Remember, we are taking the Queen Mary II from New York to Southampton, England. It's the only way we can get there without having to put Dashell the Golden Retriever in the belly of the plane. So, instead of arriving in France, we arrive in England.

Now comes the tricky part. We will be arriving in Southampton England and we will have our luggage, 2 bikes in their plastic carriers and 3 dogs. I found out that you can not rent a car in England and return it in France - it has to be returned in England Great! And because of 911, the largest car we can rent is this Renault Scenic (above). Do you think everything is going to fit? Keep your fingers crossed.

Here's our plan. We'll pick up the rental car and see if we can get everything in. If we can, great. We will then drive 2 hours to Folkestone, England where we will take Le Shuttle (the part of The Eurostar that your car goes on - you stay in the car during the trip) and we will go under the channel to Calais, France (about a 30 minute ride). We will have a hotel booked in Calais (next on the to do list) and Bruce will drop me, the dogs, our bikes and the luggage off. He'll then turnaround and take the car back to Dover, England. Why Dover and not Folkestone? Well...the Le Shuttle doesn't accept "walk-on" passengers, only people in their cars. And the regular Eurostar leaves from London (too far away). So, he has to take the ferry from Dover to Calais. Dover is only about 15 minutes by taxi from Folkestone. AHHHHH! So, that takes car of the car from England...we'll have it for 24 hours, we just need to get all of us & our belongings to France and then we'll take it back (well, bruce will take it back). If we find that we can't fit all our belongings in the car, the we move to Plan B, we will either rent 2 cars or Bruce will take the luggage and bikes to France and I'll stay in a hotel in England and then he'll come back and get me and the dogs. I hope we don't move to Plan B.

Then we'll rent the same car (if we find out that all our stuff won't fit in the one we rent in England - we'll get a bigger one in France) and we'll drive from Calais to our new home (about 9 hours). So, we plan on staying the night in Calais and then leaving the next day for our home. It's going to be tricky and probably a bit stressful, but we travel really well together and the nice thing is that we are not here for a 2 week vacation, so we can take our time getting over and getting to the house. We will be keeping the French rental car for about 2 weeks, hopefully enough time to find another car to buy. Something that runs, is cheap and can just get us around, nothing fancy. We'll buy it and then sell it before we leave in September 09.

So, that's the plan, at least the plan now. Who knows what will happen when we get there. But that's the exciting part, that's the adventure. Stay tuned.

A Warm Welcome

                   

This is Bruce when we were in France in 2006.  We went to Provence (stayed in Lourmarin for 10 days) and then went over to the Dordogne (stayed in a 200 year old restored bread oven for another 10 days) just north of Riberac.  It was an amazing trip.  This is Bruce in Perigoux, with our daily baguette.

Travis, who is taking over teaching our classes for us when we leave in September has been in over to the studio the last couple weeks to meet all the kids and parents.  He's been welcomed with open arms and it just makes me smile.  Our customers are great!  They know that we love France and that we really want to take this sabbatical and have been nothing but supportive and positive.  The kids are amazing...they are so open and flexible and have been great, they love Travis already.  Travis looks like Bruce's brother, which helps, but he's also a great teacher, artist and is very personable and friendly with everyone.  We need that...we want to make sure that everyone is taken care of when we are gone.

               

This is a view from our bread oven in the Dordogne.  We fell in love with that area...also called the Perigord.  There are 4 regions (the black, purple, white and green).  We probably would have moved there, but it gets really really cold during the winter.  It's more west and north from where we are renting the house, but hopefully we'll take a weekend trip to see the owners of our bread oven Chris & Mike.

                  

Our first 10 days were spent in Provence...in the village of Lourmarin.  Where Peter Mayle wrote "A year in provence".  It was so beautiful.  We biked everywhere and had a wonderful time.  The only bummer was that is was in March and "les mistrals" were blowing.  These are the spring winds...not warm santa ana winds like we get in Southern California, these were cold, strong blowing winds.  There were some days I thought I was going to get blown off my bike. 

We had our appointment with the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles to get our long stay visa, but had to cancel it because Bruce noticed that his Visa expired in November - oops!  He went to the post office to get it renewed and he should get it in 4 weeks.  Then we'll reschedule our appointment with the Consulate.  We had to get tons of paperwork ready for our appointment.  Marriage license, 3 copies of passport, 3 copies of application, letter stating we have health insurance, copies of our bank statements, copies of our tax return (since we own our own business), letter from us stating that we will not work in France, etc...According to the person I spoke with if all our paperwork is in order we'll get our long stay visa that day.  I hope it goes smoothly.  Will keep you posted.

The dogs have a vet appointment tomorrow for their rabies blood test - titer test.  It must be done 30 days after the rabies shot and it has to be sent to an approved university (university of Kansas) to be processes and then the results need to be sent back and I need to send these over to Cunard Cruise line by May 1st.  I need to send them paperwork to show the dogs are micro chipped, then rabies shots and then the titer blood test (needs to be negative).  All this has to be done in order and at certain times or we won't be able to get them into England.

We have started to clean out our closets and get rid of stuff.  We are not pack rats by any means, but man there are things I don't even remember that I have.  How sad!  I packed up 2 bags full of clothes and shoes and gave them to a woman who lives down the block, she's a single mother, her daughter is 11 and her mom lives with her, they have garage sales a lot and I know that money is tight, so I hope that she can either use the stuff that I gave her or sell them.  I makes me feel good to help her out, she's a good lady just trying to survive in Los Angeles, not easy.

We only have April & May left for our after-school classes and then June-July-August for our 1/2 day camps.  Then we'll spend the first 2 weeks of September with Travis and then we'll take off for our cross country road trip and then leave NYC for England on October 4th.  It will be here before we know it and we are so excited.  I can't tell you how excited we are.

We are lucky we have such great customers, who are supportive of our sabbatical and will still continue to send their kids to our studio.  I know they will be pleased with Travis and his passion for art and kids.  It's the most important thing, to make sure that our customers are taken care of.  We wouldn't be able to leave if we thought that  the studio would suffer...we know it's in good hands.

France...here we come!!!

               

How beautiful is this house?  We loved it from the moment we saw it on the internet.  We knew this would be the house we would live in for 1 year.  It's called Les Costes  and it's in the Aveyron region, our favorite region of France.  It's located about 1 hour northeast of Toulouse.

We sent an email out today to all our customers.  It's official.  We are taking a 1 year sabbatical in France...1 year in this lovely home.  We have been working on our plan for about 5 months, but I haven't been able to post anything because some of our clients read my blog and I wasn't ready to tell them yet.  But now we have a person who will be taking over the teaching of the classes.  This was the hardest part...finding someone to fill Bruce's shoes.  Everyone loves Bruce and I will say that he is amazing with the kids and is casual, relaxed, patient, fun, cool and a great artist.  We have a friend, Travis, who we have known for 15 years.  He's Bruce's long lost soul brother.  Same personality, same gift with kids, an artist, surfer, cyclist, etc...we wanted him, wanted him so bad...well, he accepted our offer to take over the studio for 1 year.  That happened last week.  So now I can talk about it.  Now it's official.

So...we leave the end of September.  We are going to rent out our home here in LA for 1 year.  We will sell the car (it's an SUV and when we come back we don't need an SUV).  We will rent a car and drive across the US to New York.  We will stop and see friends in Ketchum, Idaho and Boulder, Colorado and see my family in Michigan and then drive on to NYC.  We'll have all the dogs with us too.  We leave on October 4th on the Queen Mary II, from NYC to Southampton, England.  6 days on the ocean.  The boat has 1 level that is a state-of-the-art kennel facility, it's the only way we could travel with the dogs, as I would NEVER fly with them in the cargo area of the plane.  We'll arrive in England, rent a car and drive to France.  Then we'll go to our new home and live a new life for a year.

Bruce will spend part of the day painting and drawing and I'm looking into cooking classes and pottery workshops.  We'll bike with our friends Jacques & Fabiana and Fabrice & Anka.  We'll hang out in the cafe, drink great coffee, great wine and eat great food.  We'll travel and see more of France and I'll take Bruce to Italy.  Most of all we will re-charge our batteries.  We are both a bit burned out right now.  We have been teaching art at our studio for 9 years and the longest break we have had was 3 weeks (and that was in September).  Teachers have the summers off and professors have sabbaticals for a reason.

I'll keep you posted as the time comes closer.  We have loads to do:  rent the house, sell the car, get the studio turned over, get the dogs ready to enter England (loads to do there), get our long-stay VISA's, etc...
We are both so excited and so ready for our new life.  I'll keep this blog going while we are there, so you can hear about all our adventures in France.

Stay tuned...

Tour of California

                

We are leaving after class today for Palo Alto...just south of San Francisco.  Tomorrow starts the first day of the Tour of California a 9 day ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles...not the 21 day Tour de France, but all the pro's will be there and it's a big deal here in California.  Our good friend Rebecca is the women's 24 hour mountain bike WORLD champion  and she's being flown up there to follow the tour from beginning to end and she'll do many photo shoots and signings...so she'll have VIP passes for us, etc...we'll be back on Tuesday.   We'll do 2 long rides - one tomorrow in Palo Alto and the other on Monday in Santa Rosa.  We are so excited to get away for a long weekend.

The Aveyron Region

We left the Rousillon region and headed north to the Aveyron region.  This region is north east of Toulouse and is one of the most remote regions in france.  The landscape was so different from where we were and we instantly fell in love.  It took us about 2 hours to get there and once we did we knew we definitely stepped up in terms of beauty, the landscape is like a dream.  Best of all, the Aude valley has...no WIND!  The picture above is our beautiful restored 13th century barn on the property of Nala and Neerva McEvoy.  The hamlet is called Finnerols and it's in the middle of the countryside, the road is 1 mile long and has about 6 houses along it, ours is the very last one on the top of the hill.  This area is in the gorges de l'aveyron, surrounded by the Aveyron river and huge limestone cliffs.

Tonight we went to dinner in Najac a beautiful village about 15 minutes away.  The first thing we see when we get out of the car is this little frenchie.  Just sitting outside of the restaurant.  He was so cute we just had to get a picture of him.  The grey-tiled houses of this beautiful village tail out westwards in a single street along a narrow spur that connects the valley side to the castle hill.  It's a long walk up to the 12th century chateau, but worth it.  We ate dinner at L'Salamandre and had our best dinner yet with the full complement of aperitif, wine, entrees, plats and desert.  The creme brulee was the best we have ever had.  Before we left we had a great conversation with the owner who fled Paris with his family to settle in Najac.  He told us that the restaurant he worked at in Paris would go through 10 kilos of coffee in a day, almost 1500 coffee's.  He and his wife and daughter (17) work in the restaurant and they live upstairs.  They are closed November - February!  Not a bad life. 

We got out for a nice ride through the beautiful landscape and discovered that the roads - at least nearby - go two ways - UP & DOWN.  We are going to burn off every croissant we eat!  We road from the barn house to the villages of Lunac _ Lescure - Laoul and back around.  After some lunch with drove to Villefranche de Rourgue, a beautiful small city on the Aveyron right.  We made dinner in tonight, pasta with Jambon, peas and goat cheese.  Along with it we had a delicious 3 euro Chateau Chateloup Bordeaux and for dessert a cafe eclair. 

The next day our host - Nala (Patrick) took us down the road to his friend Jacques house.  Jacques is 60 something and a huge cyclist.  He actually has an arsenal of bikes, two of which are very close to being lightest in the world - we were in the middle of nowhere and here is this man, living in our hamlet, in a 13th century home and he has tons of bikes...expensive bikes!  It was mind blowing.  He offered to take us on a 30 mile ride along the rive viaur and we road and talked most of the way.  He would become a great friend.  We had dinner at his home with 4 other people and went on many other rides with him.  Our original itinerary was to spend 1 week here and then head back to Spain and spend 1 week in Girona.  Well, after 3 days here we have decided to extend our trip here and not spend 1 week in Girona.  We have found the area we love...we don't want to leave.

The next day we packed the bikes in the car and drove northwest to Cajarc, in the Tarn (the department next to us), we had a great ride along the river tarn and cliffs to the beau village of St. Cirq Lapopie (above).  The ride was mostly flat but the few hills made the 26 mile ride feel like 46.  This village was so pretty.  We had lunch here and I visited a potter who told me that she is open April - September and spends October - March throwing, bisquing and glazing.  Not a bad gig!  We stopped in Villefranche and got some croissants and had sandwiches at the Cafe des Arcades.  They have the best jambon and brie sandwiches for only 3 euros. 

Today was a rest day for us.  Our legs are killing us from all the hills!  We woke to more sunny skies - we have had the most beautiful weather here and no wind!  I didn't have a converter that worked here, so I had not been drying my hair....I needed to dry my hair!  So we ventured to the Hyper U, which is a sort of mini target/walmart/grocery store.  It sure lived up to it's name, it was 10 am and it was quite hyper.  It was a Wednesday, so children were not in school (they don't go to school on Wednesday).  I found my hairdryer and it was our first investment in relocation...a french hairdryer!  This afternoon we decided to check our emails.  We were told that the library in Najac had internet access, so we headed over there..only to find that they are only open Saturday from 10:30 - 12:30 - so french!  Alas, no news is good news.

Here's Bruce in front of the biblioteque....of course it's not open.

Today we were tourists.  We drove to Cordes sur Ciel (above) to explore a bit and found a studio of a couple who make etchings.  The wife makes the plates and the husband prints them.  L'homme etais tres sympa (the man was really nice).  We bought two small etchings.  We had pizza for lunch at a lovely restaurant.  We then went to Villefrance to the Thursday market - it's huge and there is everything you could imagine - food, spices, veggies, fruit, clothing, toys, pottery, leather goods, etc....a bit overwhelming.  We picked up some fromage, fruit, rose and honey.  Then we drove south to Albi and visited the Musee de Toulouse-Lautrec.  Albi was hot and as always the musee was tiring, so we drove back stopping for some cafe and rose before returning home.

Tonight we stayed in and I made lamb for dinner.  Our friend Jacques stopped by to show us his sprained ankle.  We had a great time talking with him and Nala even came over for a chat.  We had some vin rouge de Gaillac s'apelle Marquis d'orial 2003......so good.

Today we went to visit a village called St. Antonin Noble Val (what a great name).  We have discovered our favorite village as of yet.  Just the right size with a nice mix of people, it is really pretty and friendly...it could be the one!

St. Antonin Noble Val sits on the river's north bank beneath the beetling white cliffs of the Roc d'Anglars, where it developed in the ninth century around an abbey said to house the remains of the evangelizing St.  Antonin.  The picture above was taken in the place de la Halle, the main square in the ville.  The building in this picture is the Maison des Consuls, the town's finest building, whose origins go back to 1125.  This picture below is about 1/2 mile outside of the village...

Bruce is obsessed with these hay circles.  They are everywhere.  Today we went on a long, hot and hungry 50 mile tour de Jacques through the Aveyron gorge with friends Anka and Fabrice and Jacques girlfriend Fabiene, with Jacques in tow in the car due to his sprained ankle.  There were lots and lots of hills and not enough food, it's made us very tired towards the end, although you only have to look around to appreciate the suffering.  We finally made it back to the car and had sandwiches and ice cream in Cordes as our legs stiffened up.   We went to dinner in Najac at a restaurant called Belle Rive, which was below the chateau  Bruce had real Roquefort cheese...quite blue and very furry, but packing a big taste.  Another world from the blue cheese at home.   We have tried many things new on this trip.  Rose, aperitif, duck, lamb, fois gras, pate, Roquefort all new tastes.

Our neighbors

Last night we were invited to a soiree a' chez Jacques.  It was tres intereseant.  It was Bruce and I, Jacques, his daughter, Nala and their friend Francious.  We enjoyed a great dinner with soup d'Averyon, salad with fois gras, confit de canard, potatoes, cheese and great wine.  It was difficult to follow the conversations, always at least two at once, but fun to try.  Our french is getting really good but when a debate explodes we get a bit lost.  We stayed until almost 1 in the morning and ended only because I was falling asleep at the table.

This is a view from our restored barn.  I could never get tired of this view.  We leave today....we are both very sad.

Left takes you to the motorway....and home.  Right takes you to paradise.....which way should we go?????? 

As we crossed the border into spain, we say au revior to france in search of a place for the night.  We are heading to Barcelona and on to home.    We took our last ride yesterday from our favorite village and hopefully new home soon, St Antonin Noble Val, where  picked up a ring that was handmade for me.  It was hard to say goodbye, we stopped at Anke and Fabrice's home and later at Jacques.  We made some great friends on this trip and the Aveyron and around could be the best place we've yet been.  We packed up and said goodbye to Nala and we both had to choke back the tears.

We will be back....sooner than later!

3 weeks in France

This is what we saw when we got off the plane in Paris.  Bruce just had to shoot this, even though we have been to france 3 times before...  We are back from our 3 weeks in france and all I can say is it was life changing.  I'm going to do this blog in groups.  This first blog will be the first 5 days.  We flew from LA to Paris and Paris to Barcelona Spain.  We chose Barcelona because our first stop was in a little village called Maury, just west of Perpignan which is just over the Spanish border into France in the Midi Pyrenees region and the department of the pyrneese orientals.  The flights were cheaper (much cheaper) than flying to Toulouse, france and the car rental was much cheaper too and the drive is about the same.  We left at 3:00 pm on Sunday the 2nd of September (my 44th birthday) and arrived in Barcelona at 4:00 pm on Monday...what happened to my birthday???  Bruce said we were celebrating my birthday for 3 weeks in france...I like that idea.  We then had to get the bikes (we took our bikes with us) and luggage (just 1 piece for the both of us) and then our rental car and then had to head north to the french border.  We arrived into our little town at 8:00 pm Monday night, starving!  We rented a village house and the management company met us there with the keys and then we headed down to the center of the village for some food.  We were beat - completely exhausted.  We came home and fell asleep at about 9:30, but woke up at 2:00 am (france is 9 hours ahead of us here in Los Angeles).  We read for a bit and fell back asleep at about 4:30 am and woke around 7:30 am.  Where are we?  What day is it?  What time is it? 

Ah, we are in the village of Maury france in the Pyrenees oriental department and they have a market every morning, up in the town center right by the patisserie.  So I grabbed the basket and headed up to get some coffee, croissants and fruit.  The basics, just get us by this morning until we go to the Intermarche (the big grocery store).  We are staying in our village house for 5 days so we need breakfast, lunch and dinners.  Today was a rest day (no biking) since we were so tired and a bit confused.  We walked around our tiny village for a bit (it was very small) and then went grocery shopping and then went for dinner that night.  I was so tired I couldn't cook.  We had a great dinner with some wonderful wine and met really nice people.  Time to start speaking french - nobody spoke english here or if they did we would ask them to speak french and they loved that.

our 2nd day we decided to go for a bike ride.  We picked a village about 15 miles away called Tauteval (above), it would be about 30 miles round trip..perfect.  We looked on the map and chose very small roads so there wasn't much traffic.  Found out that these roads were probably the original roads, I wouldn't call them roads, they were just 1 lane paths, but they were paved.  They were also right in the middle of all the vineyards.  It was so beautiful, riding with all the grapes...no traffic, just beautiful french countryside.  We went to a village called Tauteval, home of the Tauteval man, at 450,000 years old, said to be the oldest European.  This area had a constant history from approximately 1 million years ago....crazy!    The ride there was wonderful but the ride back was so hard.  We are in the Pyrenees mountains in a valley and the wind (le vent) is horrible...the worst wind I have ever biked in.  It took us twice as long to get back.  Everyone says that it is windy all the time here...why didn't the people we rented our village house from tell us that!!!!!

Decided to take a bit of a road trip today (only 1 hour away) to visit the medieval city of Carcasonne.  We strolled the busy but pleasant streets and walked through the medieval castle (above) which despite the tourist trappings and accompanying tourists, was quite amazing.  We tried to imagine daily life in this storybook medieval village.  I made dinner tonight and we are settling into a better rhythm, helped along by a bottle of Chateau de Blanes 2003, Cotes du Roussillon, the local region.  Still having trouble sleeping, so we stopped off at the pharmacist and they gave us these little sleeping pills.  I would take 1/4 and bruce 1/2 and boy did it help us.  Our 4th day we awoke at 8am...we both slept through the night - yes!   Tonight we have reservations for dinner at a restaurant where everyone sits at one long table.

Dinner was a success, Bruce was seated at the head of the long table and we enjoyed a true french meal from start to finish.  A bottle of the proprietors own label, tartine breast of duck with potatoes and veggies and amazing calamari in a pesto sauce.  We had chocolate cake and profiteroles for dessert.  We were stuffed and high on food.  The highlight was the two British couples we dined with.  Des & Phil, Brenda & Pip provided a great conversation.  Dogs, french, America, lady di, the princes were all topics of discussion, along with much laughter.  It was truly an experience to dine together by chance.  The owners were gracious and warm and the husband seemed to get a kick out of our conversation.  Their dog came in for a visit (of course) and then let himself out of the door, much to everyone's amusement.  Bruce ordered some local aperitif, "Maury hor d'age" some local wine that simply tasted like eating wine.  We bought two bottles for later and staggered up the narrow path under a starry sky to La Maison. 

This is the front of someone village house - looks like a postcard!  Maury has grown on us and we have come to appreciate the local terrior and it's offerings (we picked up some local chevre from the tiny store in town and it was pure heaven on a fresh baguette, which cost 66 cents).   We don't really LOVE this area...we like it but don't love it.  Very arid and very very windy.  We leave tomorrow for Najac, which is in the Aveyron region, just northeast of Toulouse.  We'll spend 15 days up there.  Our trip is starting to unfold slowly, growing better each day as we relax into it and the underlying tensions of daily life in busy los angeles fade away.  It really is the life!

   

We're done!

Our summer camps are done!  Yesterday we finished camp #12.  In June I remember saying to Bruce, 12 camps, oh my.  Then in July we said only 6 more camps and then in mid-August only 3 and then last Tuesday only 4 more days...it went quite fast.  We had a great summer with all the kids that came to our camps.  144 kids came through the studio this summer, regulars who come to classes, regulars who come to camps every year and some new kids.  I enjoy camps, but it sure puts a wrench in my other life.  I haven't thrown any pottery since June.  I haven't road as many mile on my bike and I come home so tired.  I really like our fall-spring schedule of after-school classes.  I am a morning person, but would prefer to focus that energy on my passions (pottery & biking).  During our fall/spring schedule we don't have to be at work until 3:00 and only work until 5:30 - 6:00.  We do work all Saturday but then have Sunday & Monday off.  I'm ready to get back to that schedule.  BUT...enough about work.  Because I am officially on vacation!  So why am I up at 7:30 am working on the computer? 

Yesterday I ran about 8 million errands and realized that I hate running errands.  Traffic here in Los Angeles is horrible.  I tried to take side streets from here to there and although I didn't sit in traffic (this isn't on a highway...it's just on a street) it was still a pain.  We leave tomorrow for France.  3 glorious weeks in France.  ah....I'm feeling relaxed just thinking about it.  We just bought a new camera a couple days ago.  It's a Canon powershot SD850.  I LOVE IT.  Took the picture above while walking Dashell.  I just love this door it so reminds me of Europe, not Los Angeles.   

I took this one on the walk too.  It has an image stabilizer and takes really great pictures and it's easy to use.  It's also super tiny, great for throwing in the pocket of my bike jersey.

On my errands today I stopped by to see our friend Andrea and her dogs Burdock and Woof.  The are also golden retrievers and Burdock and Dashell are great friends.  Andrea is a very talented designer.  She makes a line of handbags (I have 2) and now she's making ceramic jewelry.  Her work is very unique and so cool.  She gave me this lovely pendant necklace.

Check out her website at Bite Down Bags, she makes amazing things:  bags (all animal free), earrings, cuff links, rings, necklaces.  All one-of-a-kind and so beautiful.  She is so talented it makes my head spin!

I also received this in the mail last week, it's a beautiful anklet from one of my best friends Laurey.  I was so surprised and touched it made me cry.  This anklet has a little boston terrier on it (for our little Daisy that we just lost) and she told me that she made it into an anklet because she was small and down by my feet.  I have worn it everyday since I got it and I just love it.  It's probably the most touching gift I have ever received...but that's Laurey, she's a beautiful person.

We have to take the furry kids up to their vacation ranch today.  The place we take them is amazing, it's called Alpha Pet Lodging.  Last year when we went to France we took Dashell their and he loved it.  Antje is the owner and she is a trainer and a vet tech and a dog lover!  Her place is small, she has a guest house that has 4 rooms inside and by rooms I mean rooms, not kennels.  Dashell stayed in the spongebob squarepants room (so fitting for him).  They have their own bed (not on the floor...a real bed), their own dog door that goes out to their private run and the front of the room has floor to ceiling bars, so all the dogs can look into the "living room" and see each other.  She only takes 4 families of dogs at a time, so there is tons of individual attention.  The dogs also have playtime 2 times a day in a very large arena.  Dashell loved it last year and I felt very comfortable leaving him there.  This time we are taking Dashell, Stella and Augie.  We normally would have someone stay at our house with Augie and Daisy.  But since we don't have Daisy anymore we thought that all the dogs would rather be together and having someone watch 3 dogs is asking A LOT!  I'm not worried about Stella or Dashell, but I must say I'm a bit worried about Augie.  He's 14, deaf and have never stayed any place besides our home.  I'm sure he'll be fine...the other 2 dogs look after him and he'll have new smells to investigate and Antje will take great care of him.  She doesn't take dogs on a Sunday, so we have to take them up today.  It will be very strange having a dog free house until we leave tomorrow.

I won't be blogging while I'm in France.  We are not taking the computer.  I need to free myself from this thing, it just sucks you in.  I don't want to think about work or be tempted to do any work.  But we will take loads of pictures and I know I'll have many stories to share with you.  I also can't wait to speak french everyday for 3 weeks!

A bientot