Southern France

We arrived in Southern France about a day ago. It is amazingly peaceful and relaxing, especially because we have family to stay with and to house us in their 1790 farm house.



Arriving was almost a disaster. We were supposed to take the 8:45 train to arrive at 12:20, to be promptly whisked away for a concert once we arrived. We went the day before to get the tickets and they were sold out! Looking at buses and other options, nothing got in for several hours later.

After consulting with our Aunt we were told to just get on board the train and assume they would not throw us out and buy the ticket on board. Or at least would not throw us out while the train was moving! Unfortunatly, there was someone checking tickets at the platform, so we had to sneak by him. But then we got spooked because everyone had assigned seats and there did not seem to be any place to go. losing our nerve, we asked a conductor if we needed tickets and he either did not understand us or told us we could get on. So we decided to do that. then some other employee wanted our tickets and we said that the first guy said we could get on without them, which seemed to work. We eventually found empty seats and rode all the way to france without anyone even checking our tickets. In France (3 hours into a 3 and 20 minute trip) someone finally asked for tickets and we had to buy tickets, but only for the France part of the trip. In any case, we got there without a problem.

The concert (which we did not end up leaving for until after 2) was amazing. It is part of a 60 year old music festival held in a Pyrennes mountain village. The concerts (we went to two) were held in two different AMAZING churches, one almost 1000 years old.

Not too much else has happened. Just some farmers markets, which are lots of fun. I believe there were more people at the market then lived in the village. This is a land where they take food seriously.

This may be the last post. Internet is hard to come by in rural france and we head back pretty soon. We may be able to squeeze in one more update once we are in paris in a couple of days.

Josh