Provence, France: Day 1

Hello all! Scott and I just got back from an amazing 5 days and nights in the Provence region of France. Provence is in the extreme SE part of France along the Mediterranean coast.

Our trip started off by leaving our home here in Caversham, England at 9am, and taking a series of train rides and Underground trains to get to Stansted airport in extreme north east London. The trains took longer than our flight of 1h40m! I found this amusing. We found that for the airline we were were flying, Ryanair, each individual flight had a seperate counter to check in at. A bit confusing at first since there seemed to be at least 30 Ryanair ticket counters with various size lines at them and only little bitty signs with different flight numbers displayed above them. Crazy. But we figured it out.

As some of you know, the West family has been good friends with the Casasola family for many many years. Hugette's daughter is Michele, and Michele and Phillipe Casasola have 2 children Marie (25) and Jean Baptiste (23). Hugette lives in the nearby village of Rognes. The Casasola family was kind enough to let Scott and I stay in their guest house just outside of Le Pue-Sainte-Reparade, which is near Aix-en-Provence for 3 days and nights. The Casasolas live in the country in a beautiful old 150-200 year old peach colored farmhouse with light blue shutters, spanish tile, and lots of nice flat open land and old trees surrounding their compound. Michelle picked us up from the airport in Marseille and we drove inland for about and hour to get to their house. The roads began to get smaller and smaller as we neared their place, and we started passing vinyards, olive trees, and fields of drying sunflowers just before we turned onto the yet smaller road to get to their house. We entered their estate through a short walled drive which was roofed with old timbers and exposed lichen covered spanish tiles. A set of large iron gates let us into their backyard where we parked the car just outside of their large new garage. (Phillipe is an avid wine collector and it was under this new garage where he had his wine cellar. I think he said he currently has over 500 bottles, and keeps a spreadsheet to keep track of the best dates to drink each bottle!) Their house is decorated in the traditional Provence style with lots of old wood, beautiful brightly colored fabrics, rust colored tile floors, and the occasional basket hanging from the low ceilings. You must stoop through the small timber topped doorways leading from room to room. The ceiling was all exposed wooden beams and the entire place is simply gorgeous! We spent most of our time there chatting and eating outside under a large old tree (with its resident owl) at a wooden table whose metal chairs were all painted different bright colors. There is an saltwater swimming pool just outside the backdoor, and a grill built into the side of the guesthouse nearby. Vines had started to creep across the backside of the new addition to the house from the older part which they had already claimed. There were 2 dogs and le chat (the cat) Max who helped keep our stay entertaining.

The first evening we were there, all 7 of us ate dinner together outside. As I don't speak French, I had an impossible time following the conversation, but strangely enough, by the end of our 5 days in France, I'd found that I was able to understand quite a bit of what was being said and could even tell when the topic of conversation had been changed! I could even speak very simple sentences to Scott in French! Hugette, Michele, Marie, and JB all spoke some English, but most of the time we were with them all French was spoken exclusively. Scott said that he even started dreaming in French the second night we were there! As most of you know, Scott speaks French very well. He's my official translator. I think I'll keep him around for future trips to France. ; )

Anyway, back to dinner the first night. We were eating chicken, and I had observed that everyone else was eating their drumsticks with a knife and fork -continental style. So I thought I would follow suit and do the same. Meanwhile everyone else is engaged in conversation and speaking French and I have no idea what is being said so I'm off in my own little world concentrating trying to cut my chicken from the bone and finding that it's actually a really hard thing to do. When all of a sudden my drumstick flips up into the air and shoots of to the left of me and lands on the ground! I swear it all happened in slow motion. I quickly looked up and NO ONE ELSE SAW IT! But of course, being me, I started laughing uncontrollably and in the split second I was debating whether to leave it there on the ground until I could pick it up quietly at the end of the meal, or draw attention to what I had just done and pick up the chicken leg and set it next to my plate, one of the dogs decided for me and swooped in and grabbed the chicken leg and trotted off into the darkness with it!! By this time I think I had confused everone at the table with my sudden outburst of laughter and was trying not to draw further attention to myself, so I quickly composed myself and said something like "I'm sorry, um, nevermind." since I was too embarassed to admit what had happened and felt I could still save face. Then as if I was being punished for trying to hide my folly, the dog with my chicken leg still in its mouth came trotting back up to within 10 feet of the table and started crunching loudly on it!! It was all I could do to keep a cringe off of my face. Phillipe looked over at the dog for a few seconds and I could tell he was thinking "What has he found?" and I could also tell he was debating whether or not to get up and take whatever the dog had found away from it, or just shoo him off. While I was on the opposite side of the table torn between trying to silently will everyone to just ignore the dog, and running the thought that "dogs shouldn't have chicken bones because they choke on them" through my mind, wondering if I needed to get up and save this stupid dog's life and embarass myself in the process. Finally, in what felt like 5 long miserable hours later of me listening for the dog to start wheezing, the dog stopped its crunching. Whew. I was safe. They never knew... of course now they probably will now. : )

More to come, but I must stop writing for now.