My France Adventure Begins

 On June 6, 2011 I started my month-long trip to France.

on June 6th when I flew from Boston Logan airport to Toulouse, France, arriving the next morning.

It has been a glorious trip!  Many adventures.  Diverse experiences.  Mishaps with shoes & feet, despite my attention to them -- or maybe because of it!  Wonderful food.  Beautiful scenery.  Great art.

I took over 500 photographs.  That stuns me, I don't usually take so many pics.  But  my subjects were Paris Rive Gauche; Marie Antoinette's garden at Versaille; Paris Disney (so familiar and yet so not); Carcassonne.  Collioure.  The small villages of Soreze, Durfort, Mirepoix, Montalieu.  Toulouse.  I was inspired by the beauty and the colors and the doors and iron grilles on the windows!  I even took photos of great haircuts for my stylist, who said she would like to go to Paris to see fabulous hair styles!

I took this blank book and made it into my most trusty guide!  

Here I added tabs for each leg of the trip, a list of art supplies, maps, my itinerary, notes to myself.
As this was an art trip, I treated my book as an art project that informed! I fell in love with washi tape and used it to add velum sheets and scrapbook paper!

I left blank pages to write what I did each day and hold ephemera.

My flight from Boston to Toulouse, France connected through London Heathrow Airport.  I was one of the lucky ones to be given a full body search.  You notice I don't say lucky in quotes?  I actually was lucky.  The woman who searched me was more like a masseuse and after the long overnight flight it felt amazingly good. 

 
The bus from Blagnac Airport to Matabiau Rail Station,
Toulouse

I arrive at the airport in Toulouse, collect my luggage, purchase a bus ticket and walk out to torrential rains!
Really, it was raining chiens et chats!
From here I get to the train station, walk to the bus station, buy a ticket to Revel and am on my way.  Planes & Trains & Automobiles.  Anna & Susan pick me up in Revel, introduce me to the joys of Intermarche, a Target-like store made most fascinating because everything is in French.  I fall in love with yogurt in glass containers, which later hold my colored pens and paintbrushes. Next it's Durfort, where the art workshop will delight me for a week. The other 6 participants arrive over the next hour or so, all as water logged as I, we settle into our rooms, ready for the art to begin, and the rain to stop?

The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost . . .

and Found!

When we last saw our heroine, she was agonizing about shoes and secretly worrying about not knowing French.  As it turned out, she had to deal with both issues and neither kept her from having a fabulous time!

I just finished Rachel Friedman's wonderful book, The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost, about discovering herself through travel.  It touched me in so many ways.  I've been to Ireland.  My trip to Australia was emotionally life-saving.  I studied South American cultures as an undergraduate and could pronounce the place names while reading.  Her book has inspired me finally to write about how I spent the month of June in France.

What did I learn in France?
*I want to be an artist when I grow up.
*The French are wonderfully polite people, it helps to know what is important and act accordingly.
*Most French people DO NOT speak English.  After all, why should they?  But if you use the magical phrases:  "Je ne parle pas Francais," followed by "Parlez-vous Anglais?" they will try to muddle through with you!
*Coca Cola in France tastes better than any Coke I have tasted in this country for 30 years (or whenever they decided to use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar).  I drank a lot of it!
*Sometimes you just have to ignore fashion and wear the Reeboks.

We leave our heroine searching frantically for her camera.  When found, the posts on France will have lots of beautiful, colorful images!

Walk a Mile in My Other Shoes

I'm taking another two mile walk, and more photos, as I test out a different pair of shoes.

 They are pretty also.

The other pair did not work --  sore feet and blisters.

Will these work for my trip?

They are the most comfortable "pretty" shoes I have ever tried on.

We'll see at the end of the walk.

 I had company.

And blue skies and sun!

 It's fun to walk with my husband.

He notices different things, like this pretty blue jay feather.

 Ah the Honeysuckle -- lovely scent, sadly invasive!

 On my beach walk I turned left at the end of our lane.

For this walk we turned right towards coffee and donuts.

 A peaceful & pretty cemetery.

 Our family has kind of adopted Azubah.

We say hello to her whenever we pass this way.

 

Such a pretty headstone.

 Weeping Willows were very traditional on New England headstones of the 19th century.

For more info on Cape Cod headstones, click here

 

A different rendition of the weeping willow.

At first glance it looked like angel wings.

(I probably need new glasses)

 

What would a New England country road be without a white picket fence . . . 

. . . or a pretty chuch and steeple?

 

My shoes and I arrived at our destination.

My husband did too, and bought the coffee, oj and donuts!

 

The General Store

Summer mornings, these benches will be full of locals solving the world's political problems before going to work.  Later they will be full of summer visitors eating donuts or ice cream and thinking this must be heaven!

An old fashion general store

They sell the most wonderful Beach Plum Jam,

and will make up a care package for your kids when they go away to college and are feeling a bit homesick!

The link may or may not be working, but I've put it in just in case.

Upstairs

 You're looking down at the first floor . . .

 Through this cool vent in the floor/ceiling!

Back to our walk

 

This gate really doesn't go anywhere, but I love how formal it looks.

 

And back to my garden.

6 hours later, I am still wearing my Naot sandals.

They are going with me on the trip!

Now if only I could stop obsessing about the clothes I plan to take.

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

 Come along with me as I take a long walk with lots of photos!

 

They're pretty.

Are they comfortable enough for my trip next month, where I will be walking many miles?

 

I headed out my back door, down a country lane to see. . .

 

. . . both whether the shoes would work, and the pretty scenery.

 

Grape Hyacinth by a stone wall.

 

up close

 

Ferns just sprouting.

 

The road towards the beach.

 

A fern faerie circle.

 

Ferns in the sun, bursting open.

 

Across the road where we used to summer.

 

This would make a lovely cranberry bog, if any cranberries were planted!

 

Cute cottages near the beach.

 

a close-up of a quanzon cherry in flower.

 

Finally, my shoes and I arrive at the beach.

The storms last winter took out so much of the parking lot it has been closed to cars.

But the beach is as beautiful as ever!

 The creek guarantees there is always water, even at low tide.

It's loads of fun to ride a raft or rubber boat out as the tide recedes or in when the water almost covers these rocks!

This looks so peaceful doesn't it?

We were having wind advisories and the wind was whipping around pretty fiercely!

 

I headed down the beach testing my ATS

(all terrain shoes/sandals).

 

I have no idea what a Skate looks like, 

but this is what they leave behind.

 Another beach

With the other parking lot washed out, will people discover this one?

 Another beach

Back on the road home

 They may be evergreen, but they too put out new growth/pinecones in the Spring.

Almost home

My favorite foot covering.

And I'm gonna have to find a different pair of sandals for the trip.

*sigh*