october 2.  2012

tuesday-day 23 of our adventure-

dang, we are enjoying our schedule-less life!  we slept in late, got ready, and figured out we would go to the zoo and aquarium in montpellier, an hour away.  except!-we were about out of gas.  two things that are an unpredictable occurrences here in france.  gas stations, and water closets(potty’s).  one never knows when they’ll find one.  we find and pull into a gas station that’s only automatic payment, and it won’t take my cards.  we called both banks to let them know we would be out of the country, and they love shutting them off when they feel like it.  so i’m stranded, can’t call anyone because i don’t have a french sim card, and also, no signal.  we had seen one other gas station up the road, so we decided to try that one with about 16 miles left of gas in our tank, and thankfully, there was a person there who not only took cash, the sweet older woman filled the car for me.  so nice!  by then an hour had gone by, so we decided to stay more local, and try and visit the chateau de cassan a second time since, but once again, they were closed.  we walked around the lovely vineyards and area, went to the grocery store again!, and headed home for dinner.

i did get out by myself for the first time in over three weeks, and walked and walked and walked up, down, and all around our little village on the hill.  it’s beautiful.

-a little about france-they love their time off, not working more than needed.  sundays-closed.  most everything closes at 5:00pm if it is open.  lunch is from 12:00-2:00.  school is closed every wednesday.  in the fall, some things are only open on weekends.  they take off five weeks a year, usually at least the month of august.  smart.  we work too much in america, and the easiness of technology has only made things crazier and busier.  why don’t we slow down?

p.s.-don’t you love when you get to have a picture all together, and your eyes are closed, and your daughter’s braces looks like she has black teeth?

oct. 1.  2012

monday-day 22 of our adventure-

we got our monday things done…sleeping in, laundry, cleaning kitchen, grocery shopping, math…we drove to a couple places to check out…a vineyard and castle, but we were too late, they were closed(5pm).  we grabbed some fresh bread, yummy yummy cheese that we lucked out just picking off the shelf-tastes yummier than cream cheese, lettuce and tuna wraps, and jumped in the car and drove to narbonne national park and ate our picnic watching the sun set.  it has a long walking trail all over the mountain-we just walked up a ways to a high point.  it was lovely.  driving home we enjoyed the gigantic yellow moon rising in the night.  beautiful.

sept. 30.  2012

sunday-day 21 of our adventure-

what happens when you don’t get up early and get to church with your kids?  you back into a thousand year old wall.  yep.  scratched up the back bumper, broke the light cover a bit.  hoping i’ll get a french shrug for it, and not a huge charge.  if you look at all the cars here, they are all scratched up.  ours fits in now!

lazy morning, get going, went to sete to walk around on this beautiful day.  it’s sunday though, which means shops and restaurants are closed, so we had a hard time finding food.  we finally found a market, got some bread, cheese, chips and salsa, and sat along the canal with all the boats parked.  it was beautiful…until an interesting couple came and sat on the bench next to us.  their daughter stood next to us watching us eat, and then her dad came over and signed if we would cut him some bread.   i normally don’t mind sharing, but i felt really uncomfortable and invaded on.  we drove to the top of a hill, and walked around a beautiful cemetery that looked out onto the ocean.  beautiful afternoon.  headed home and relaxed, because touring the beautiful french countryside for a few hours can be exhausting.  kidding of course.

a little about sete…as a place of human settlement, it has very ancient origins and the first human settlements here date to the bronze age (1100-800 B.C.).

our beautiful village, magalas-