eels

What a lovely day it was today. I started the day off thinking "if I don't do something today I'm going to go crazy!" and then in walks Rodolphe asking if I wanted to see inside a real french supermarket! I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd already ticked that off my list of tourist things. I drove the car! On the wrong side of the road! well, correct over here...

Then we went to river again. I got attacked by an eel. A real life eel. We were watching a really cute eel moving rocks with its mouth (not an easy feat) I was considering even helping... when all of a sudden, daddy eel came CHARGING at me. I mean charging, like a bull eel. I screamed an ugly, girlish scream, which I'm sure was accompanied by an ugly facial expression.

I still like eels though.

"Tonight's pizza night". The happiest I've been, so far on this trip, was when I heard those three words. I had a hangover today, and I had actually been daydreaming of pizza.
The cause of my hangover was a bunch of beers, a shot of rakiya (nasty Bulgarian spirit) red wine, and a few rum cocktails. I threw it all up behind my caravan.

It was a lovely day though. Jan, the older brother in the family I'm staying with, and the only one I'd met prior, had just arrived for the weekend, and him, his brother Rodolph and I went bar hopping (which in the south of france consists of going to weird empty corner stores).

and once we were all feeling a bit beer headed, we decided to go for a nice tractor ride to the river. Safe? Probably not. They own a big orance tractor, Jan drove, and Rodolph and I took a side each and hung on. It was strange, for some reason, driving down the dirt path through a neighbouring field (for some reason there aren't any fences here) past the kiwi vines, I thought to myself "this is the real thing, this is what life is like here". God knows why I thought that, it's not like I've seen countless images and films with french youth driving on tractors in their togs.
Rodolph decided to show us an even better swimming spot than where they usually go, and he was pretty sure he could remember how to get there... we parked the tractor, and within seconds we were fighting our way into thistly prickly stinging nettly hell, that somewhat resembled the overgrown hedges in the sleeping beauty cartoon that the prince has to get through to get to give Aurora true loves first kiss. Rodolph didn't have shoes on. It took us a lot longer than it should have to decide to go back to the tractor and find another spot.
The water was freezing, it being snow melt from the pyranees and all.

So anyway, today I struggled over John Updikes The Witches of Eastwick all morning until I decided I hated it. That probably didn't help my hangover.

Something I really hate about european keyboards is that the full stop shares a button with the semi-colon... But you have to push shift to get the full stop! That's just ridiculous. I've never even used a semi-colon! (because I haven't quite figured them out yet)

I kind of like stinging nettle. It's like spicy food for your feet. The first time you experience it it's too much, but it settles down to leave you with a comforting reminder that you have feet, and when the pain goes away, you want it back.

Im in the south of France, near the town of Bayonne, 50ks from the Spanish boarder. Im staying with a family who Ive never met before, and I fluctuate between feeling very comfortable and a little intrusive. Its made easier by my lovely sleeping quaters, a minutes walk from the house, in a little carivan. The window above where my head lies in bed, there is a glassless window, which caused for an interesting first nights sleep, due to the huge thunder storm. They sell flowers in the markets, so I try to help out with the moving around of pots (which is surprisingly often) seeing as though I have zero skills in the kitchen. There is aparently a river 20 minutes walk away that flows from the pyrenees. Theres a weird little chapel on their land that is so creepy, with falling down; faded and peeling biblical paintings, something from a horror movie. I need to get a cord for my camera to get photos off it... and I need to take photos.

The family slips in and out of french and english, they also speak spanish danish and I think one of them speaks vietnamese. Its enough to make you feel quite inadiquate (if my spelling doesnt already.)

Generally I sit around practicing and reading. I enjoyed Twilight and the second one a lot more than I wanted to...

I'm off to Bordeaux today. On the TGV. I remember the french lesson in primary school where we learnt about the TGV. I don't remember anything interesting about it or anything, it's one of those weird memories that you feel take too much space, like that space could be better off filled with something nice, or interesting, or scary. Oh well. I hope it's really fast!

I am so tired. I can't go into my room for anouth hour and a half, I've walked for way longer than was interesting or physically pleasant. Paris is a lot nicer in the summer, I've decided. I've had quite a few very succesful french coversations, which is always a nice feeling. Owen wants me to buy him a snow globe, but the truth is, I'm scared of the tourist shops. I walked past a thousand, each one I decided wasn't the one for me, even though they were all exactly the same. EXACTLY. They even had the same person working in them. An old man carried my bag, that was nice of him. Running out of internet. And consciousness. And spelling ability?

Last night at Taj Mahal, the man gave me free champagne when he overheard me refer to myself as the birthday girl. I felt like a liar all night.
Today the adventure begins. I'm driving to Katoomba for the winter solstice festival (druids and shit) I'll catch the train to Sydney tomorrow to see Deerhunter, then Monday I fly away. First problem: there is no accomodation left in Paris for when I get there. I'm sure there is if I search, but I can't be bothered.

This is the response somebody left to a thread about "Kida" the first "black" princess. The thread creator was saying that the term "black" refers only to African Americans.

Being black isn't ethnic everywhere. Aboriginal people are black, yet very much different from us Americans of African decent. They have blue eyes and blond hair. They are very similar to Atlantians in that regard. People in Australia call them black, yet here we call them Aboriginal. It's really all about perspective.