Motocycle touring

Hello everyone, I hope spring is treating you well. Summer is right around the corner and I'm so happy to have everything green and warm, even if it is all a little damp.

On Saturday, Laurent and I went on a motorcycle trip through French Basque country. His
friend Romain organized the outing and there were five motorcycles all together. The idea was to go to the top of a particular mountain on the French-Spanish border. The roads twisted and turned through the mountains and hills spotted with picturesque (read: touristy) Basque villages. Despite the beauty of our surroundings, we couldn't help but worry about one of the members of our group who was particularly daring, which translates to 'particularly dangerous' when on a motorcycle. Every time we stopped, the guys would 'jokingly' tell him he took a turn a little too fast, or passed when he really didn't have enough time, or tell him 'hey man, the road's not a race track!' The day went on like this, we ate a nice pic-nic by a mountain stream and met plenty of other motorcyclists who wanted to chat about their bikes, their experiences, this or that. It was fun!

The five riders Saint Jean Pied de Port

Our pic-nic area at lunch time

A dam with graffitti that reads "we've reintroduced beavers (into the wild)"


Then, five minutes from the summit, BANG!

Julien, the daredevil, passed a car too fast on a curve, hit a rock, and continued in a straight line where he should have curved with the road! He was so far ahead of the rest of us no one saw him fall except the car he passed. When Laurent and I got to the scene, we saw our buddies waving their arms indicating that we should pull over. When we stopped, there were several men with a rope pulling a motorcylce out of the ravine. I didn't understand what was going on, I thought it was someone we didn't know and we were helping out an unlucky stranger. But no, it was our friend who had skidded across the the scenic viewpoint and over the edge! He and his motorcyle only fell about six feet before getting stuck in the mud. He was extremely lucky- he walked away with some scrapes and a broken toe.

Pulling Julien out of his predicament.



Looking up from where the motorcyle and rider landed


The unfortunate state of the bike; post crash


Coasting down the mountain


He was shaken up, as were the rest of us, but we had to do something about the motorcycle. Even with all the damage, they were able to put it into neutral and he rode back down the mountain to the nearest town. Julien's brother-in-law came with a trailer to load up the bike.

Apparently this guy had bought this motorcycle one month earlier after wrecking his last one, and it was his third time falling after having his liscense for only a year! Some people never learn!

After this exitement, we went home, never making it to our destination, just five kilometers past the crash sight. But you just don't leave a man behind!

Spring's a commin!

This winter has been rather long and rainy and I am really, really ready to venture back into the world! There have been a few distracting activities to help me get through this difficult time of the year.
For example, we once again went to the mountains last week. This time, I was not plagued with constant pain and 'inexplicable' falling because I opted NOT to lock my feet into a deathboard (snowboard)! I've decided I've been brave enough for one winter and that I'll pick it back up next year. Fortunately for me, we have a friend who has a chalet in one of the ski resorts, so that served as my home base as the others hit the slopes. The temperature was hovering somewhere in the high 60s. I don't know how the snow was still still around but it was beautiful. So, I wandered around and took some pictures and made a snowman and sat down in a pile of snow and read in the sun until about noon. Then, I ate with Laurent and the friend we were visiting before heading out again. This time I went with them and they dropped me off at the high altitude café. This may sound ordinary, but when I say 'dropped me off,' I mean that they hopped on their snowboards and our friend Jeffrey carried me down the mountain piggy-back style as the other skiers thought they were halucinating. It was awesome! It was like being the passenger on a motorcycle but probably less stable. Jeffrey had absolutely no problem with the extra 140 pounds on his back, and on the contrary, I only made him go MUCH faster. Once at the café, I sat in the sun with out my coat and my sleeves rolled up and ended up getting a sunburn.

A few weeks ago, 'The Tempest' blew through and knocked down whole forests, cut electricity for millions of people (we were lucky and got it back after 36 hours while others went with out for more than a week), and even worse, disonnected the internet for several days. Things are back to normal now for us whose livelihoods do not depend on the exploitation of pine forests.

The following weekend, we went to Toulouse where Laurent's sister and I visited museums while Laurent and his brother-in-law went to some motorcycle-climbing-over-obstacle show. I feel like I got the better deal out of it, but I suppose that's just a matter of opinion. We also helped cut down a tree that had crashed into another tree during the wind storm the previous weekend. This ended in an enormous bonfire! This episode was followed up the next week at Laurent's mom's house as we cut and burned the two damaged trees in her yard.

Last night, we had this same friend Jeffrey over with the intention of having dinner and then going bowling just down the street. We prepared a chocolate mouse to be eaten after bowling, and then devoured a delicious meal of macaroni and cheese and duck. It was a wonderful combinatin of cultures. After we had finished, we headed out to the bowling alley where they informed us that the bowling section of the establishment had been closed since September. Oops... So, we had to find something else to do. We decided to walk downtown to play some pool. Once at the smoke free establishment, aka the bar, the only pool table was being monopolized by a group of Englishmen. Between me, Jeffrey (whose father is Canadian and speaks fluent English), and Laurent, we logically sent Laurent over to politely ask the English gentlemen if we could have our turn. They were amicable and seemed as if they were going to comply. However, at the end of their game they racked up the balls and started once again. So this time, I went over to see what was going on. Turns out they were playing a tie breaker game and then the table would be ours. Fair enough. We played one long and horrifically bad game of pool, and then we decided to leave, the bar was getting too crowded anyway! The mousse au chocolat was very yummy and properly chilled by the time we completed the long walk home! Yum!

Yesterday I babysat all day. Today, Laurent and I will be visiting his grandparents in Biarritz and we will be eating dinner with his mother. It is sunny and about 55 degrees. Whew! That's about as up to the minute as I can get!

Winter Wonderland

It finally snowed here! This is actually really unexpected and all the residents are talking about how many years it's been, as well as how terrified they are to drive their cars through on inch of snow.

Snowboarding!

Take a good look at this picture... This is what I did this weekend! Granted, it wasn't EXACTLY like this picture. Imagine less of a jump and more of a flat-on-the-back lightning-fast ground slam, or sometimes the ultra classic flat-on-the-face 90° freefall. But other than our varied choices of popular snowboarder moves, I looked just like the dude in this picture, really. And today I look more like this:

So, yes; I had a snowboarding adventure in which I was incabale of breaking, turning, or staying upright. This isn't at all unusal for beginners, however what is unusual is when someone takes you litterally to the top of a mountain on a course labeled for experienced skiers only (translation: red) and then askes you to descend. I got off the ski lift and looked around and realized that it was several MILES to get back to the lodge. Most people take about 10-15 minutes to go down this slope. After a long, long two hours later, I was finished for the day and in a lot of pain. Fortunately, this pain is located mainly in the knees, ankles, wrists, thighs, calves, arms, back, and shoulders. However, this has not discouraged me from wanting try again some day soon, preferably on the GREEN beginners slope, which is more of a hill rather than a whole flipping mountain!

Sanksgeeving

This week saw thanksgiving come and go. I must say that I had a very lovely time with some friends up in Bordeaux. We were at an American friend's apartment with about twenty people. Of this group, I think only 4 were American, but hey, celebration knows no nationality! Everyone brought a dish which made for a rather untraditional Thanksgiving dinner. I brought mashed potatoes, which were apparently 'super bon' (hooray), and instead of a Turkey Chenoa, the American hostess had three chickens, there was stuffing, provided by an American couple, and then there was eggplant parmasean, a quiche, Indian lentil soup, spiced Indian yogurt, stir fry, and probably other things that generally don't accompany this particular holiday, but were still very delicious!

I would say the definite highlight of the evening was when we went around the room and made everyone say what they were thankful for in English. All but one person managed to do so in English, and while some were more gramatically correct than others, it was really interesting to hear everyone's version of 'thankful.' Laurent gave thanks to my family for letting me move to France with him! The night eventually ended with karoke to 80's French songs, and while I didn't recognize a single one, they eventually did play the Saved by the Bell theme song so everyone was appeased.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Spain is a crazy place

My birthday has come and gone, and it was a lovely celebration in Toulouse with Laurent's mom, sister, and aunt. We had three birthdays to celebrate at once so it was a very compact weekend! We went and saw the city as well as spent an afternoon in the country at a house we rented out to fit everybody.

This weekend, Laurent, his Dad and I went on a little visit to Spain. We ate at a restaurant unlike any I'd ever seen! The tables were set up like a cafeteria and the food was served family style. However, the really unusual aspect was that they had eight ENORMOUS barrels of wine built into the walls with a tap. You turn on the faucet from where the wine shoots out like a fountain, finally landing in a bucket about four feet from the wall. Then, you catch the stream of wine with your glass and fill your cup. This was an 'all you can drink' concept. Laurent's dad ended up plastered which left him grabbing at Laurent's step mom a little more than we would have liked to have seen, but in the end it was entertaining! After that, with Laurent at the wheel, we continued our tour of San Sebastian by visiting the port and then the shops downtown. By this time, everyone had returned to normal, which was a relief.

Today is a terrible day weatherwise, but that's probably good because I have to prepare some lessons for my students who will be coming tomorrow!

I heart computer geeks

This week, I got more tutoring students! One of Laurent's co-workers has a son who apparently is terrible at English, so he agreed to send the boy to me to see if I could fix him. He came over on Tuesday for an hour and a half and it went rather well. He and his parents seemed pretty happy. The next day I get a phone call from a mom with a daughter who is also terrible at English, saying that I had been recomended by the other mom. Turns out, the mom of the first student is a hairdresser and spent all the next day gabbing about her awesome new English tutor! Yay! So, this morning I had my first session with this girl. Hopefully I'll be getting some more phone calls when school is back in session in another week.

Right now, I'm in Pau being an innocent bystander to a Lan Party in Pau. For those who are not familiar with a Lan Party, it is where a bunch of people (in this case about 500) who love computers and the accompanying games drag their computers to a giant room where they exchange ideas and above all try to kill eachother in their little vitual worlds. I have no real interest in this weekend-long event, so I brought two books and hopefully it will stop raining long enough for me to take a walk downtown tomorrow!