France pants

What the shit is this? Gondola jousting thats what. So things have settled down enough that we don't have to think about our recent roomate suicide so much, and i can write a little about our trip to france 2 weeks ago. The family came by and picked up the rest of his stuff, and told ana that he had been depressed since he was eight years old. He had never lived away from home, which is common in Spain where a ton of people stay with their family until they are about 30. Him getting his own place was the psychiatrists idea to help him fell better. But thats enough of that, we went to southern France to visit Chris and Bre, and Miles the dog.



They are doing well and have alot of the same problems we do in Spain (except one: chris makes more money than me and becky combined, oh the humanity). Also they are enjoying the opportunity to travel as much as possible. But it was good to just speak to people effortlessly in our own first language without thinking alot. Plus who the fuck can understand French, the pronunciation of Montpellier was something like Mo-Pe-Yay. Overrall i found France pretty pleasant and green. And I did not personally witness any of the famous rudeness. Just like I didn't find germans to be cold, robotic, and controlling. At first the atmosphere was reminiscent of a hot bowl of soup when we landed in Lyon. But the humidity toned down a bit for the next few days in Montepellier and although warm enough it was at least cooler than Madrid.

Most of the pics are form Saint Giulhem le Desert, aka St. Bill. This turned out to be a great little medieval town in the mountains. The biggest difference between this and several medieval Spanish towns we've been to is that this one had loads of flowers and other greenery incorporated into its twisty alleyways. I don't recall Saint Bill having that urine smell of old cities. It was also overlooked by a ruined fortress. We ended the day with an awesome swimming hole in the river, of the EXACT perfect coolness that you desire at the end of a hot day, and a BBQ at one of C&B's friend's houses. I was incredibly jealous of his garden, I can't tell you how much I miss having a garden. Ok, i'll tell you.....alot.

The following day we had the stellar idea of going to the beach. The wind just was not on the same game plan and kept pelting us with stinging sand until we finally gave up and left. Eventually we made our way back to a sheltered cove with an entourage of Canadian and French people, friends and friends of friends of chris and bre. The thing that sticks in my mind from this outing was a conversation about words that people hate. Becky really hates the word "panties". I just thought it was the word for female underwear. But this other guy also hated "panties", in fact this word was almost as cringeworthy as "lover" to him. Personally I really hate "precious", and "darling", but I kept this information to myself, lest we start down a slippery slope of erasing half of the English language. It occurs to me that all four of these words could be used in a single sentence that would have offended all of us. What words really bother you?

Oh, lest I forget...the beach town Sete has canals. And In the canals, gondola jousting. This was not quite as cool as a demolition derby with cold PBR in hand (because they don't have PBR and nothign ever catches fire or explodes), but I wished we had a couple idle hours to watch. They even have shaded bleachers. Next time. Sand fell out of my pockets for days afterward.