Mini vacances

Tomorrow morning Pascal, Juan, the boys, and I are leaving for Biscarosse. I tried to find/make a map of where it is in France, but it proved to be much more challenging than I expected because Pendleton (my laptop) does not have a program like Paint for PC's, as far as I can tell. If you look, though, on a map of France, you will see that Bordeaux is almost in the southwest corner. Biscarosse is just a little southwest of Bordeaux. For reference, the Moulin is about halfway in between Tours and Angers in the western half of France (farther north, but not past Paris). We're going to be staying with Pascal's sister, and (supposedly) we're going to spend lots of time at the beach and visiting things in the area. I've heard it's beautiful there and I realized a few days ago that I will be, in fact, visiting the old province of Aquitaine!! Of which Bordeaux was the capital, so I read.

I've been kind of out of it all day today because of some excitement last night. Mona (Pascal's black lab) and her friend Tosca (a yellow lab, maybe) were having a sleepover in the dining room of the Moulin, which is just adjacent to my room. At 3:15 this morning they started barking.....as there were guests sleeping in the room directly above them, I had to actually do something about it. I let them go outside for a little while since that seemed to be what they wanted. After that, I couldn't go back to sleep for an hour and a half (a 'hous-hav', as Pascal says) because my allergies flaired up. Apparently I'm allergic to dogs? They did the same thing again right before 8 this morning. They seemed to think it was cute, but I was not amused. Because of all this I've been really congested and tired all day. Bleh. I hope Pascal's sister doesn't have any dogs, but I'm bringing my Triaminic just in case. Yes, that is made for children, and yes, it still works for me.

The highlight of today was hanging out with Bernard, which I haven't really gotten to do. He and I went to pick blueberries this afternoon. They're a very nice berry to pick because there are no thorns, you don't really have to bend over, and there are a lot of berries on each bush. We had quite a time all the same because it kept raining sporadically. He pulled the car right up to where we were picking and we would sit in the car while it rained and then dash out to pick berries when it stopped. Eventually we just picked berries as it rained, and stopped when the back of our shirts were soaked through and our hands were numb. Getting to eat fresh blueberries made it all worth it, though. It's fun talking with Bernard because he speaks enough English to help me with most vocabulary I don't know but leave some things for me to explain, which forces me to not only speak more French but also explore the English language. If I ask him how to say something in French ("comment dit-on 'tired of washing dishes' en français?") and he's not familiar with the English word, I have to describe the concept. This can be challenging in and of itself, but then to do it in French...it gets exhausting. (How would you explain 'obnoxious'? in French?? yeah, I don't know either.) He sometimes asks me for help with English words and phrasing in emails when he's writing to English-speaking clients. We make a good team.

I probably won't be able to access the internet while I'm gone, but expect a long post with lots of pictures and stories sometime in the middle of next week!