back to the real world

i have finaly crawled out of the bottomless pit that is a two week vacation with nothing to do...it was a long hard journey, but somebody had to do it...

the first week was pretty calm...hanging out at the park...a couple evenings at mcewans with the assistants...saw brice de nice with M...

tuesday of the second week i went to the canadian world war one monument at vimy...it's south of lille near arras...it's easy enough to get to vimy, however the monument is about 5 km outside of town...fully knowing this before setting out, miriam, raoul and i had decided the walk would do us good...so we get off the train at vimy and head out of the station (i used the word station lightly...really it was just a stretch of gravel next to the tracks with a delapidated, abandonned station)...so we head towards this panel of signs to figure out the right way to walk...just then this old man drives by in a car...we all joke about trying to look as pathetic as possible and maybe he'll have pity on us and give us a ride...sure enough, the guy makes a u-turn, stops and asks us if we're heading to the monument...we say yes, and he tells us to hop in...five minutes later, we arrive and he walks us into the guide booth and introduces us to the staff...they all know him, turns out he spends most of his days picking up people at the station and driving them out to the monument...we thank him and he asks what time he should come back to take us back to the station!!!! the angel....we tell him 4 and head off to check out the site...

at vimy they have preserved some of the original canadian and german trenches...the ground is still marked by the bombs...in some places there are still huge craters, now covered in grass...it's impossible to mow these areas, because they're so hilly, and because there are still undetonnated explosives, so there are heards of sheep everywhere...the monument itself was closed due to construction, but the park, cemetaries and trenches are beautiful...at 4 on the dot, our french hero came back...he drove us back to his home where he showed us pictures of vimy before and after the war...the town was complete destroyed by the germans...he showed us pictures of his 80th b-day(!!!!) then took us back to the train station and waited with us till the train came...such a nice guy...i hope i'm that active at 82!!!

wednesday i finally saw million dollar baby...i knew the ending already but still bawled my eyes out...friday i headed to the chateau de chantilly, just north of paris...while it's not as impressive and extravagant as versaille, it's a beautiful chateau...luckily it was a nice day and i got some great pictures...saturday M took me to the beach at le touquet...it was quite a drive, but was really beautiful...thanks to all the rain recently, everything is so green...we spent a rainy hour on the beach, but it was fun...

so, all in all, a rather calm vacation, but i need to save my energy and € for my trip to spain with my sister in TWO WEEKS!!!!

now it's back to work for one last week....the last few weeks here are going to go quickly, i know...so i better enjoy them while they last...