Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
It's true that the French don't eat on the run like Americans do, but I've noticed more and more stalls that offer crepes or panini to go.
Just down the street from us in rue Mouffetarde were two popular crepe-to-go stands.
When we arrived in Paris, after four hours on the train, we stopped and shared a panini mid-afternoon. We knew we needed to eat something before our 8 or 9 p.m. dinner.
It was delicious, in spite of the pained look on my face.
As our trip continued, we realized that most days we were too full to eat a three-course meal for lunch and dinner.
So on the last evening of our trip, our bellies still too full from our large lunch, we decided to share a crepe rather than to go out for another big dinner.
The crepe, or technically a galette since it's a savory crepe, had ground beef and mushrooms, plus cheese and lettuce.
Earl waited in line for it while I traipsed back to the hotel. And we shared our last meal in France, for that trip.
Have you ever eaten street food in France?
Of course, I prefer a lovely three-course meal, but sometimes, a smaller meal is just as fulfilling.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs too so you can get your fix of France dreams.
I'm a fervent football fan, and the NFL draft takes place this week.
That's where professional teams choose college players to join their teams.
Last fall, the NFL made the viewing public a promise, via a series of public service commercials. The NFL joined with NoMore.org, vowing "to say NO MORE to domestic violence and sexual assault."
The public service announcements were prompted by the behavior of players like Ray Rice, who was videotaped knocking out his fiance in an elevator, and Adrian Peterson, who was accused of child abuse after he whipped his child with a switch.
And now, as the draft begins, we wait to see if the NFL supports the No More program, along with these players and former players who stepped up to say there's no excuse for domestic violence or sexual assault. Treating family members or women with violence is not a normal part of growing up, something that drunk athletes should be allowed to do.
And we'll know pretty quickly into the draft whether the NFL stands by its principles because the number-one ranked draft pick is Jameis Winston, quarterback for Florida State University for two years and Heisman Trophy winner in the 2013 season.
Winston was accused of raping a drunk female FSU student in December 2012. The case wasn't vigorously investigated until November 2013 when the press found out about it.
The prosecutor determined not to go forward with charges, even though Winston's DNA was found when the woman underwent rape testing.
It just so happens that a Florida team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, have the first-round draft pick this year, and the prediction is that they'll choose Winston.
But whether he's picked first or in a later round, the NFL will have turned its back on the faux public service announcements by drafting a man who already has a murky past with rape.
The NFL could change the announcements to "No More... unless he's a really good football player."
But Winston wasn't found guilty of rape, so the teams can't hold that against him, right?
Well, they can feign ignorance if they want. But the evidence is strong, whether or not the state of Florida was willing to prosecute.
In an extensive New York Times article, Walt Bogdanich breaks down the timeline of the rape and how it was investigated by both the police and the university. The article, "A Star Player Accused, and a Flawed Rape Investigation" points out that the 19-year-old rape victim called a friend within hours of the rape. The friend called 911 to report it (Bogdanich).
This wasn't a woman who saw a football star rise to fame who hoped to get in on some fame or money. She didn't know the man who raped her in December 2012, and Winston wasn't the starting quarterback at that point.
Part of the article is chilling:
After partially blacking out, the woman said, she found herself in an apartment with a man on top of her, sexually assaulting her. She said she tried unsuccessfully to push him away, but he pinned down her arms. Meanwhile, according to her account, another man walked in and told her assailant to stop. He did not. Instead, she said, he carried her into the bathroom, locked the door and continued his assault. (Bogdanich)
Those same roommates admitted that they taped part of the sexual assault, but later erased it.
Pretty strong evidence, huh? I've heard commentators on ESPN say things like, "We all make mistakes when we're young." Rape is outside those parameters of boys will be boys. It's not okay. Ever.
And drafting Jameis Winston means that the NFL was just giving lip service to their vows of No More.
Well, only this time, they may argue, cause he's a really good football player.
If you love football, like I do, then urge your team to skip drafting Winston and send a message that no means no, whether she's drunk, whether she's dressed provocatively, whether she admits she had sex with her boyfriend earlier... You can't rape her and now you face the consequences. No More.
So I showed up at a court on Monday morning, and by lunch time, I'd been seated on a jury and the trial had begun.
It soon became apparent that the trial was not a matter of life and death. It dealt with drugs.
But within a few minutes of opening arguments, I got a sneaking suspicion that the government was trying the wrong guy.
The man on trial was 29, worked two jobs, and had a baby just a few months old. He had been arrested for having cocaine at his house.
How did the government know? A drug dealer for 13 years who had been arrested for having more than 1 kilo of cocaine, weed, thousands of dollars in money, and assault weapons, include a grenade launcher, had turned informant for the government.
That informant, who made my skin crawl, went to the defendant's house where his cousin, a drug dealer for five years, had come with a kilo of cocaine. He split the kilo into two and gave half of it to the informant. A tape from the informant included the defendant's voice to prove that he was there.
Three drug dealers had made deals with the government and testified against the defendant. This was the defendant's first time taking part in a drug deal.
When his wife got on the stand across from the jury, her feet didn't touch the ground. I immediately felt empathy for her, because that happens to me too. As a matter of fact, sitting in the jury box, my feet didn't reach the floor.
The government did such a shoddy job on this case. In addition to relying on drug dealers as their main witnesses, they didn't find any cocaine paraphernalia in the defendant's house.
The informant said there was a blender covered with coke. He said there was a scale. The cousin drug dealer said they used latex gloves to handle the cocaine. The search warrant turned up no scale, no blender, no gloves, no baggies even.
I held onto the idea that the cousin brought the cocaine to the defendant's house. The cousin was staying up in the loft of the house. And I believed that the cousin could have brought the cocaine without the defendant's knowledge.
I held onto the belief that the defendant was not guilty.
I wouldn't go by the testimony of the three drug dealers who were still not on trial or in jail and who were making deals with the government. One of the drug dealers is now working for Rite Rug. Can you imagine having him in to clean your carpets? Another drug dealer is a subcontractor doing dry wall. Again, can you imagine wanting to have him in your house?
These guys were dealing with $38,000 worth of cocaine every week or so then selling it to distributors who sold it in smaller bags.
The defendant, the government said, allowed his cousin to use his house to store the cocaine. This was the first time.
When we went to the jury room, I was the lone hold out. I needed the physical evidence.
Then we requested the audio tape that the informant made when he went to buy the cocaine. (Although he didn't actually buy it because they just gave it to him and he would pay them for it later after he sold it.)
In the courtroom, the audio tape was just crackly and blaring.
In the jury room, we could hear the voices more clearly.
And we heard the defendant, and his voice was right next to the other men as the cocaine transaction happened. He had to have been there, to have been part of it.
I imagined his poor wife, her feet not reaching the floor in that big witness chair.
In the courtroom, I didn't look at either of them, but I couldn't avoid her wails as the verdict was read. She would be raising her child alone.
I had to remind myself that the defendant was the one who put his wife in this position. He shouldn't have allowed the cocaine in his house.
He now faces a 5-year mandatory sentence. He's an immigrant, so he'll probably be deported after he does his prison sentence.
And the drug dealers who testified against him?
They're still free. They might be in to clean your rugs.
I stood shoulder to shoulder with my right hand raised, repeating words as my mind raced with questions
Wait a minute! This can't be happening already. No one asked me, well, anything. My husband's a reporter. My background is in journalism. They can't really want me on this jury.
Afterwards, it turns out that nearly everyone standing there with their hands up felt the same way.
I showed up that morning with my laptop and a book to read. I expected lots of down time to get some writing and reading done. But, after watching a video about the seriousness of jury duty, we all were motioned into the courtroom and we were questioned as a group about our interaction with the law and law enforcement. I had to raise my hand and admit that I'd been in a courtroom with my middle child last fall, but apparently that didn't prevent me from serving either.
The judge asked questions. Both lawyers asked questions. No one got to the nitty gritty of our feelings about drugs or drug offenders or lawyers.
The sheer truth is that I ended up sitting in a padded jury seat in the front row of the jury box because of my jury number, which was 32. There were probably 60 of us there, and only 13 would be chosen as the 12 jurors and an alternate. The odds seemed in my favor to be sent home.
But after the juries let a few people go for upcoming doctor visits or bad backs or childcare issues, they called me to move to a seat in the jury box.
And a few minutes later. I was stuck there for the next three days.
I wasn't opposed to serving on a jury, but it was the final week before my students' final papers were due. I needed to go through so many last minute details.
Plus I was supposed to have a book signing on Tuesday that I had to bail out of because of jury duty.
The trial ended today, but I'm still too wrung out to write about it. I'll post tomorrow about the emotional rigors of jury duty.
I will say that I had never noticed how much respect the court gives the jury. I didn't realize that everyone stood until the jury came in, even the judge.
Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
There is something magical about the evening in Paris.
Earl and I didn't do a lot of touristy things in Paris during our last visit, but we made it a point to head down to the Louvre and the Seine as the sun was setting.
Luckily for me, my little iPhone caught some lovely pictures.
Here's the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, which is just across the street from the Louvre pyramid.
I know that I posted a picture of the Louvre pyramid on Facebook, but I'm not sure if I posted it on my blog, so here's how it looked as the clouds gathered and the sun began to set that evening.
And we also have an evening shot of the Eiffel Tower in the distance with a tiny sickle of the moon above it. The photo may not show it, but Venus nestled close by to the moon too. A gorgeous sky that night.
This picture must have definitely been taken during the blue hour.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs to see how others are Dreaming of France too.
Where do you come down on the idea of exercising when you're sick?
If I feel myself coming down with something, I force myself to exercise, thinking that it will help fend it off.
Since I exercise most days, I hate to miss.
Monday night, I was so sick that exercise of any kind was not an option, but my fever broke around 4 a.m. and I felt so much better immediately.
So when my friend Sheila texted to ask if I wanted to go on a walk, I did. We walked about two and a half miles and we didn't go very fast. We stopped at Starbucks, and I had some peppermint added to my mocha to help clear out my sinuses.
We decided that walking, which gets the lymph system going, was a good idea while sick.
Last night, on my way home from teaching, I convinced my husband to meet me at a nearby bar for a hot toddy.
When I asked for it, the young bar tender looked at me blankly. "What's in it?" he asked.
I said, "brandy, honey, lemon."
He stopped me and said they didn't have brandy.
"I'll look it up," I told the bar tender. So I searched on my phone and came up with a recipe.
Whiskey, honey, lemon, ginger. "And can you make it hot?" I asked him. He seemed stumped again, but then said he would add some hot water to it to make it hot.
And, it did the job. Before I even had a sip, I breathed it in through my mouth and felt the whiskey and ginger making a difference.
My sinuses were clear all the way home, but unfortunately it didn't last.
So after another sleepless night of coughing and sneezing and sniffling, I waited until 6 a.m. to text Sheila. We walked more than three miles this morning, again at a slow pace and with coffee.
Luckily, I was able to find a sub for three of my classes so I can have a calm morning, but I still have to teach this afternoon and again this evening.
Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I'm home sick today, but I have to drag myself into work this evening. I hope that I'll just be able to relax and read, but I might force myself to grade papers instead. I hadn't heard anything about this book, but it's kind of intriguing. It skips back and forth between the narrator's childhood with a mom who is, apparently, in the CIA, and her current life with suspicions about her husband cheating. It's called Monday's Lie by Jamie Mason.
Here's the intro:
It's funny what you remember about terrible things. The scattered shards were far more beautiful than the crystal lamp they'd been an hour before. The clearest night sky had nothing on the flicker and shine strewn across the black canvas bag that lay at the foot of the stairs. The industrious back-and-forth of the man's shadow tricked the shimmer into life with his every pass.
Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
A French town just isn't complete without a carousel. I think the French must have a lot more carousels per capita than we do in the United States. What does that say about the French? About us?
This one was in Aix en Provence, aptly named the Carrousel Paul Cezanne since Cezanne had a studio in Aix and painted many scenes of the nearby mountain Mont Ste. Victoire.
Note the gorgeous blue sky behind the carousel and the intense red and gold on the carousel. There's even a second story that kids can go up to.
We saw another carousel in Marseille when we spent the day there.
I wonder how big a town has to be to have a carousel. Maybe I should be asking how small it has to be so that it doesn't have a carousel.
Hope everyone is having a splendid spring.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs so you can share you love for France.
Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it. Studies have shown that anticipating vacation can be as fulfilling as the vacation itself.
As I was anticipating vacation a few weeks ago, Expedia helped me remember each step. I have an Expedia app on my phone. I made plane and hotel reservations through Expedia, so when I wanted to see my vacation plans, all I had to do was click on the app.
As you can see from the screenshot, one click on the app and I could see my flight schedule, the hotel where we would stay in Aix en Provence and the day we picked up our rental car. I could click on each even for more detailed information.
And this screenshot includes the information about our Paris hotel too.
Each time I thought about our trip, I could glance at the app and the anticipation would sore again.
I wouldn't say that the anticipation was better than the trip, but it sure was nice to know that my vacation was on its way.
How bout you? Do you enjoy the anticipation as much as the vacation?
Please leave a comment below and visit each other's blog to see what everyone else if dreaming.
Wednesday morning, as I ran through the dark streets, I felt like I hit my stride again after a couple of weeks without running.
I didn't run while I was in France. Of course, we walked a lot. But we ate more.
In spite of that, when we returned from vacation, my weight hadn't changed at all. I didn't gain a pound eating those delicious, rich meals in France.
Even when I ate things like this black forest cake in Paris.
After a week at home though and some minimal running, my weight had climbed up two pounds.
I blame the muffins.
On Saturday, I found a recipe for blueberry yogurt muffins, like the kind they now serve at Starbucks. They were so delicious. I want to give you the recipe, like the person who is addicted to something and wants others to enjoy their pleasure/pain, but I urge you not to bake and eat these muffins.
The recipe is on Taste of Home website.
The recipe calls for vanilla yogurt, but I just used plain Greek yogurt, and they were plenty sweet. I also doubled the recipe to bake 12 rather than six. That might have been my downfall, but there were four of us home this weekend and I didn't think that six would be enough.
So, I ate three muffins...
Then on Sunday, I decided to make my children real Croque Monsieur sandwiches, like the kind I ate in France one day for lunch.
I thought it was just a glorified ham and cheese sandwich. Little did I realize that the recipe called for a bechamel sauce along with the ham and cheese. Those turned out quite well too.
And after a week of enjoying cafe creme or cafe au lait, as it is called in different areas of France, when I returned home I eased my way back into mochas.
So all of these things added up to a 2-pound weight gain and I want to avoid the slippery slope.
That's why Wednesday morning when rolled out of bed, later than I planned, I knew I needed to get back to running longer distances.
And I did. I ran five miles, faster than my winter runs, and I felt pretty phenomenal afterward. I hope that I can continue running long distances and indulge in some fabulous food without overdoing it.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
Yesterday I downloaded The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes. Luckily for me, she's a popular author who sets many of her stories in France. I was surprised that this one is a historical novel set during World War I, which disappointed me, I'd rather have a modern setting, but I'll still read it.
Here's the intro.:
I was dreaming of food. Crisp baguettes, the flesh of the bread a virginal white, still steaming from the oven, and ripe cheese, its borders creeping toward the edge of the plate. Grapes and plums, stacked high in bowls, dusky and fragrant, their scent filling the air. I was about to reach out and take one, when my sister stopped me. "Get off," I murmured. "I'm hungry." "Sophie. Wake up." I could taste that cheese. I was going to have a mouthful of Reblochon, smear it on a hunk of that warm bread, then pop a grape into my mouth. I could already taste the intense sweetness, smell the rich aroma.
She wakes up to find the Germans at the house searching for a pig the family is allegedly hiding.
I hope it's good. Can't wait to see what everyone else is reading.
Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Obviously, food is a huge draw to France.
In France, I eat a lot of things that I might not at home. American foie gras? I don't think so. I'm not even likely to eat lamb or duck when I'm in the United States, but those are my go-to meals when I'm in France.
But my all time favorite thing to eat when I'm in France is salad with goat cheese.
Usually, the salads have little pieces of toast with rounds of goat cheese on them. If I'm careful in my bite calculations, I can have a bit of toast and goat cheese with each bite of salad.
This salad had three separate kinds of goat cheese and I forgot to take a picture until I had eaten half of it.
This salad in Marseille had wedges of deep-fried goat cheese.
Luckily, I found goat cheese salads pretty much everywhere we went.
How bout you? Is there something that you look forward to eating in France?
Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs to share more about your love for France.
Kisses are so confusing in France.
Of course, if you're a tourist and you're visiting France without knowing anyone, you may never have to figure out the French kiss. But if you have friends, you're going to have to kiss cheeks at some point.
On this, my 11th trip to France, I am just as confused as I ever was.
We landed in Paris and zipped down to Aix en Provence on the TGV, the very fast train. A blogging friend, Delana, picked us up at the train station. Exchanging kisses with her and her French boyfriend, we started on the left side then the right side.
It felt a little off to me, but I figured I'd forgotten how to do cheek kisses since the last time we were there.
Each time we met with Patrick and Delana, we'd exchange two cheek kisses beginning on the left side.
So imagine my surprise when we got off the train in Paris and my friend Michel was waiting. He gave three kisses, but beginning on the right side.
Since Aix is in the south of France, I figured maybe they had picked up on Italian customs of kissing on the left side first. They start on the opposite side in Italy.
My confusion only grew when we met with blogging friend Linda and her French husband Maurice. Linda and I just hugged; we're both American. But Maurice kissed my cheeks and announced, "Four times" so at least I knew how many kisses were expected.
How's an American traveler supposed to keep track? Two kisses, three kisses, four kisses? Left side or right side?
I've decided to be a passive kisser and just follow the lead of whoever begins the kissing. It's much easier than trying to figure it out, bumping noses or kissing air when the kisses don't continue.
Hope your life if filled with kisses today!
While enjoying the good life in France, I was also on alert for things which would seem strange to us as Americans. I found one as I passed a McDonalds at Les Halle's, an underground shopping mall connected to a Metro stop.
There I saw a display for macaroons at McDonalds. I paused for a moment to take a photo and to wonder who would eat McDonalds macaroons when so many wonderful patisserie shops were available.
Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it
Tonight, we watched the sunset on our vacation. We fly home in the morning.
We've had a lovely visit soaking up the culture along with eating and drinking our way through cities.
I lucked onto a lovely photo as the evening fell near the Louvre.
The clouds look dramatic and the pyramid at the Louvre is lovely lit up.
And then, while we waited for the Eiffel Tower to sparkle, I knelt down and took a shot through the pillars of the bridge. Which bridge, you may ask? I never could keep them straight. The one near the Obelisk.
You can see a sliver of the moon at the top of the photo. Venus was shining just above it too.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I have cameras full of more photos I can use for Dreaming of France and some interesting stories to tell too. I hope you'll come back and join me.
Please visit each other's blogs and leave a comment below.
We are so fortunate to have friends who live in France. Nearly every trip, we manage to connect with them. Often, we visit them in Nantes. This time, I asked if they'd meet us in Paris.
They had to rearrange their schedules, because they were on their way to visit family in Nancy, France, but they stayed in Paris on Friday to meet us.
Michel (the husband) met us at the train station, where we hung out for half an hour because one of his daughters was catching a train to Switzerland. We got to spend a bit of time with Isabelle who had stayed with us in Ohio before.
With Michel and Danuta, we went for a walk on Isle aux Cynges. I'd read about it on Facebook and it looked lovely, but you can probably just look at the pictures and skip the actual walk. It was just a stroll on a manmade island, but it was a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower.
The island, in the middle of the Seine, begins at the French version of the Statue of Liberty.
I thought this was kind of a cool shot. It looks like she is just standing at the end of the bridge along with the other people. Truthfully, she's in the river.
Here's Earl and me with Michel and Danuta, our friends who live in Nantes. As you can see, the walk ends with a lovely backdrop of the Eiffel Tower. It was cold here in Paris, so Danuta wrapped me in her wool scarf to help me stay warm.
We also got to catch up with Henri, a boy who stayed with us in Ohio when he was 15. He's a lawyer now for the minister of defense in France and had about 15 minutes to meet us before rushing off to spend time with a friend. Nice to see him again.
We had dinner with our friends and two of their children at a "typical" brasserie near Gare St. Lazare.
I'll just show you a picture of the ceiling and you can picture the rest. I feel safe in guessing this was a Belle Epoque-style brasserie.
Off to buy some gifts today and to explore more of Paris
There are some funny things about travelling in another country. People do things differently.
One of those things here in France is that we turn in our key every time we leave the hotel. The key is no card that you slide at the hotel door. Instead, it's a metal key with a big, heavy fob on the end.
We might leave the hotel and be back half an hour later, but each time we hand in our key and say, "Bonjour, merci."
And the desk clerk responds, "Merci, au revoir" or "Bonne journee."
We might be gone the entire day and come back with a "bon soir" before asking for our room key, "Deux cent trois."
Or maybe we go outside, find a market, end up buying something and come right back to the room where we have to ask for the key again.
I've always been resistant to staying in a bed and breakfast because I feel like the owners are too closely connected to our comings and goings, and the same is similar here in France.
That doesn't keep me from wanting to come here and visit, of course. It's just a quirky thing that people might not know about.
Another strange thing I've run into the past two days, are signs in the bathroom that warn people not to put anything in the toilet, including toilet paper. That, of course, can be uncomfortable.
I saw that sign in Aix en Provence at the studio of Paul Cezanne. I also saw that sign when we traveled to Marseille today. Earl said the sign made sense at Cezanne's studio since it is on a septic tank, but in Marseille, near the port, it had to use a decent sewer system.
We're definitely learning a lot here, and I'll throw in a few pictures that aren't about hotel keys or bathroom habits.
We visited Marseille today. The train station perches above the city. That's me posing.
Doesn't Earl look French with his scarf? We had lunch at this restaurant -- goat-cheese salad, penne and roquefort pasta, dessert of chocolate cake with English cream, followed by tea for Earl and coffee for me.
I was kind of nervous about travelling to Marseille. It was a place we'd never been and I heard a lot about crime in Marseille, but after we had been there walking around for awhile, we felt confident enough to take the metro five stops out of the old port section of the city. The metro was clean, swift and safe.
We only ran into trouble when we were in a government building and went out the wrong exit, twice. A guard ended up following us to make sure we didn't break any more rules.
Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Today we set off to explore France, in spite of the persistent rain. According to the weather, we would have a two-hour window without rain. But the weather was wrong. Nevertheless, we visited Isle sur la Sorgue, about an hour away from Aix en Provence. Isle sur la Sorgue has a market on Sundays, and has many antiques shops every day.
We aren't in the market for antiques, or the lovely food products, but we still enjoyed strolling through the streets of the town. La Sorgue is a river that comes from a source so deep that no one knows what the source is, according to our friend Delana who played tour guide today.
The river is a striking green color, and it isn't even Saint Patrick's Day yet.
The long grasses in the river reminded me of mermaids for some reason.
The town has many canals, directing the rushing green water through gates. Sometimes the water gushes, sometimes it calmly flows.
And that's where Earl and I spent the day, as we pose here in front of a canal, which is mostly hidden by our umbrella.
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