Well, I went to Paris this weekend. The Tour de France was great. It’s really hard to have a full appreciation for how fast they ride until you realize you can’t easily take a picture cause they fly by so quickly. Paris was fun. We enjoyed some of the sights. Went to the Eiffel Tower of course (we walked there from the hotel). Took some pictures.
The Tour took all of a day and we weren’t even there 3 full days, so it was tough to see much. Went out at night and enjoyed the night scene there. There weren’t a lot of locals around because most people take vacations this time of year, but we met people from all over. Air conditioning is a truly wonderful thing. I slept better the two nights last weekend than I have in months. The hotel we got had great AC. It was a fabulous hotel (we had a suite) in downtown Paris, about a block from Champ Elysees (where the Tour finishes with 10 laps). So we got to see Lance pass by again and again, I got a picture of him waving on his final lap. I plan on being there next year for his record breaking 6th consecutive victory!!
A friend of mine came to visit me this weekend. Matt has been living in
Germany for almost 3 years and is about to move to Atlanta. He took the
train and rode his bike down to visit me. I showed him around Grenoble
some. On Friday I took him up to Annecy and we then went to Lake Leman
on the Swiss border. On Saturday we went to Marseille. It’s a very
interesting and diverse city. The ocean was beautiful, the sunset was
gorgeous. We did a little swimming, walked the coast, and saw a bit of
downtown.
We went to a nice restaurant, and got charged the ‘tourist tax’. We
were going to order from the menu but the waiter suggested the fish of
the day. These had been caught that morning, and we got to pick the
fish (still on ice). It looked great, and was a ton of food. We didn’t
ask how much it was, but even the most expensive menu item was about
$40. Well, ours was about $100 per plate! We knew we should have asked
about the price first, and I won’t make that mistake again. We got free
drinks, and the meal was great, but we still felt ripped off.
It was a great weekend overall. It's nice to have so much so close.
The plan for next weekend is to go to Paris to see the final stage of the
Tour de France.
I'm starting to feel a touch of that first (or second not really sure) dip in the "w" of cultural adjustment. My french teacher told me that I was one of only two people that she teaches that showed a strong positive attitude. I guess I must not be very far down in the dip coampared to other people! :-)
I have 3 visitors coming over the next few months, and I'm looking forward to their company. I suppose I had better finish getting my apartment in order. I'm not here that much, and the little bit I am I am sleeping or about to. The only other big thing I need to do is get my kitchen cabinets installed. I haven't really been looking forward to hammering out those details in french, but I suppose I'll bite the bullet this weekend (unless something better comes up).
This weekend I'll probably be joining some friends in going to see the first Alps stage of the Tour de France. Today Lance is in second place overall, and members of the US postal team hold the top 8 spots!! There's still a long way to go...
I've been making more friends at work. Just being an american here is a huge ice breaker, so it makes it easy to start conversations with people anywhere. Normally they're pretty interested in knowing about me and where I come from (most of them quickly realize I'm not french but aren't sure where I am from). In general the french people I talk to don't hide their extreme dislike for Bush, but easily draw a distinction between americans and the american government. Perhaps this is because right now there are strikes almost every day against the french government!
The weather for the past week and a half has been perfect, and nice and cool in the evenings. It started warming up a little again yesterday, but the evenings are still cool. Some people are saying that we have already seen the worst of the summer heat. I hope that's true, but I won't believe it until September!