Tale of two castles

We went on a picnic to Pic Saint Loup which is a mountain not to far from us. The view was stunning. If you look at the top photo you'll see an ancient castle on the very right (hard to see) and another on the very left. So you have two old castles with this valley between them.

This is the castle on the right (I know it's a lousy photo but the sun wasn't cooperating with me.)

And this is the castle on the left. Were they friendly with each other? Did they have some Carl Lewis type guy who would run messages back and forth? Maybe they were enemies. That would be awkward. Maybe there was some romance that suffered the distance of that valley. You could write a hundred different stories about these two castles. I would love to know the history.
Anyway it was a beautiful day and a great picnic.

Trip home (you had to be there.)

This is a shot from the plane window. Photographs taken from the windows of jumbo jets are kind of like funny stories you tell and nobody laughs. After an awkward silence you say "well, I guess you had to be there." This shot is probably no exception, but I was on my way home on a flight from Montpellier to Paris and the beautiful Alps loomed in the distance. I was euphoric as I snapped photo after photo. This picture does little justice of what I saw out that window but try to imagine. . . . .ok, I guess you had to be there.

Going home

We are heading back to the States tomorrow for our first trip back in six months. I wanted to leave you with another art shot before I left. I doubt I will be able to post for the next two weeks so I will get back to work when I return.

Sunk Boat

This boats story is almost told. We found it walking along the shore on New Years day. Like the photograph, I had to stare at it that day to discern its outline. Once it presented itself to me I had to ponder it's history. Was it just a fishing boat used by a local man to pull in fish for his supper and perhaps the market. Was it forgotten after his death. Why was it never moved or disposed of. Perhaps it had a more colorful past. Maybe it shuttled some refugees up from Spain during Franco's repressive regime. I don't have the answers. I guess the beginning of a new year and the ending of the last one has made me reflective. Reflection was about all that was left of this old boat.

A cheval! A cheval! My kingdom for a cheval!

Why the long face? There are these whites horses along the road in our town. I stopped with my camera and they came right over to me. We had a pleasant chat.

Christmas Eve

Joyeux Noel everyone. Last night was Christmas eve and we took a walk into town after our traditional fish dinner which my wife did an excellent job on. I brought my camera and tried to do some night shots. This morning (Christmas day) we walked down to church and on the way back we found a market that was open we bought some peppers and clementines and then we found a bakery that was open and we bought a couple of croissants, a baguette and a little buche de noel. It's a traditional Christmas cake shaped like a yule log. It's a beautiful morning here. Merry Christmas everyone.

Palavas Les Flots

The tower at Palavas. this is the next town (about 8 minutes) from us. We were walking during the day and went for a ride to the top. It revolves one turn per hour (I think.) The lower level is a bar and the upper level is a restaurant . I want to go there for the novelty of it. The locals curl their nose at the cuisine but say the view is worth it. I want to go for dinner some time.

Roofing in France

There are a lot of carpenters in my family. This one is for them. I have been intrigued with the tile roofs since I got here so when they were roofing on the lot next to my house I had to take advantage. They don't seem to leak and they're very sturdy.

Annoying Habits

I collect things. I have to bring something back from all my vacations. When I was first married it was little statues. I brought back tiki statues from Hawaii , Inca statues from Mexico etc. etc. I had them on my shelf in my den. My wife is not a big fan of bric-a-brac but she tolerated this character flaw. One day I realized I had too many statues when I was trying get the dust off them ("they're your statues, you dust them.") So I shifted to baseball caps. This too became cumbersome by the sheer volume of it. ("you have so many damn hats there's no place to hang my coat.") When I came to France I realized that before I started down any path I had better think it through. What I came up with is town stickers. Every town we went to has these coat of arms town stickers. They're actually post cards but the coat of arms peals off. This is great. I can scan them and post them before my pictures in my blog and even if we visit 500 towns in two years I can bring them home in a Kleenex box. Problem solved!

The beach

On the drive home from Mauguio we swung by the beach. The wind was whipping and the skies whispered rain. This was an angry Mediterranean sea, but beautiful none the less.

Mauguio

We went on a road trip to a little town called Mauguio. All the towns in the South of France are quaint and this town is no exception. This town carries a bull theme because of the big bullfighting arena which is there (go figure). There is a different type of bull fighting in south France that is more conducive to the bull because he gets to stay alive in the end. The matadors who are dressed in white, go running by the bulls and try to grab (hook) rings that are on the bulls horns. Of course this causes the bull some anxiety and he gives chase. The object is to get the rings off the horns and make it to the perimeter of the arena and scale over a wall before you feel the business end of the bull. I spoke to a guy at work that used to do this and he drew out schematics of the arena and the exact angle the bull should be at in order for a successful ring hook-age and horn avoidance.
It was pretty interesting.

Neighbor's House

It was around 6pm and I was grilling on my back patio. The west sky was beautiful. The steaks were sizzling and the red wine was delicious. I felt like playing with my camera.

PARIS!

We went to Paris. What a great burg.
You can rent a little sailboat for the pond.
We stumbled onto a street market on the back streets.

The ever present security.
I took this shot so I could say this line "I ate the last mango in Paris." My apologies to Jimmy Buffet.

And the Louvre. .Jam packed with some of the finest art in the world.

Eiffel Tower

We went to the Eiffel Tower and I went to the top. . had to. ..Once anyway. It was a beautiful day. I took a couple shots of the entire tower but then I thought everyone in the world knows what the Eiffel Tower looks like so I tried to get some different angles and perspectives. I hope you enjoy.
This guy shot me right after I took this picture. He only winged my shoulder and I managed to duck into the crowd. . . . . . . I'm kidding. . . . We actually became friends and he left his machine gun with my wife and we went up the tower together. . . . . .I'm kidding again.
The mighty Arc.
Gustave Eiffel himself (he's the one on the bottom.)

A view from the top. I held my camera out as far as I could.

I'm attracted to shiny objects so I loved these telescopes they had all over the tower.

The Champs-Elysees

This couple cracked me up. My Wife and I were taking turns photographing each other standing in front of the Arc de Triomphe. I noticed my Wife laughing while taking my picture. When I went to get my camera back from her she told me this couple was hamming it up behind me while she was taking my picture. I figured they must want to be photographed so I turned my camera on them and they started posing. I was laughing, My wife was laughing and even the woman on the bench in the background was laughing. It was a good moment.



We walked down the Champs Elysee from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre. What a street!

The trip home

This is typical of the views you see from the train window. I wish I knew the history of this castle.


This was sitting in the train station in Paris. The trains were clean and fast. Paris to Montpellier in 3 hours.

And then the lights went out.

Ok, we went to Paris. We had a great time and I took a lot of pictures.
I will post them. But when we came back we had problems. We came home from work on a Friday night, I opened the mailbox and there was a slip in there. It was a from the electric company and it was marked up like a lazy student’s test paper. I had a feeling it was not a good sign. The power was out. This is what happened. Our real estate agent did her job and faxed a contract to EDF (Électricité de France.) They lost the fax, apparently. We have been living off the previous tenant’s electricity. They found this out and cut our power. This pissess EDF off because they realize they just got screwed out of 3 months of power money. Ok , this is Friday. We call a colleague for help and he jumps in to help us. EDF says Wednesday of the next week. We had many people call to fix this but Wednesday was carved in stone and Wednesday it would be. We lasted 5 days with no power.
The EDF guy showed up today (Wednesday). . ..he walked over to the little white box on the curb outside my street and inserted his key and opened the door and threw a switch. Wa-la we had power. Five days we took cold showers and sat around candles at night. We were being punished for their fault.
Good things that happened: Everybody at work tried to help us. They felt bad for us and generally had bad things to say about EDF. . ..it’s a monopoly.
A guy at work took all our freezer food and put it in his freezer.
The same guy insisted we come over for dinner and we did and had great time with him and his wife and two kids.
We got three months of free french electricity.
I made my my first French joke .. . EDF stands for Electricity Doesn’t Freakinwork.
It got a few laughs at work. La vie a belle (life is good.)

Sète Photo Three

So ends our day trip to Sète. A quaint little French fishing village on the coast of the Mediterranean sea.

Sète Photo Two

Clash of cultures:
This was a sign outside a restaurant. To the average European it is a colorful advertisement which promises great seafood from a reputable 'fisherman' character.

I thought. . . ."Village People?"

Sète Photo One

We went to the seaside city of Sète. It's about 40 minutes from us down the coast. It was a nice little fishing village and a fun place to take photo's.