12

Yesterday we drove back from the Croisat's and experienced the most incredible, scary, big lightning storm I have ever seen. It started far away, and I saw some fork lightning which I thought was really cool. I couldn't even hear it at that point. But then it moved gradually closer until it was practically on top of us. We all sat on our covered deck to experience a bit of this. At one point a giant bolt covered the entire sky and lit everything up completely, followed in less than a second by the loudest thunder I had ever heard. I had to clap my hands over my ears, Lise too. It sounded sharp, not at all a rumble. I got a couple bolts on video. The rain was mostly pelting down really hard.

The storm went on for a long time, maybe an hour (Lise thinks two). We moved back inside after about 20 min, it got to be a bit too much.

Yesterday was also the beginning of Gishwhes, a global scavenger hunt myself, Julias, and Lise are participating in. So I was working on a Gishwhes item last night in the middle of a giant thunderstorm.

 

Today we cleaned up the apartment and left. We are currently on our way back to Bern for two nights to pick up the camping supplies we left there. The people who actually live there will be there this time, so we'll be in the basement suite.

We stopped at a grocery store, but it was closed because it's Sunday. I was hoping to get skittles for a Gishwhes item. The hunt lasts a week, which is good because we'll have a portion of the hunt at Drake and Anna's house, which gives us a lot more resources to complete items. Some items are much more easily done at home. I'm looking forward to doing this next year when I can go all out and use everything at home and in my town. For now, it's a photo scavenger hunt on the road, which comes with its own challenges.

 

We got to Bern. We spent the entire evening doing Gishwhes stuff. I researched where to buy etch-a-sketches in the UK on our driving route. Tobin practiced making faces. Jeff did some video stuff on the computer. We managed to find skittles at a rest stop on the way here (they were in a cardboard package like smarties normally are), so I tried various pens on them to see the result. You know, normal evening stuff.

We are now staying in the basement suite of the house because the actual residents are present. They're very nice, by the way. We had a bit of a chat with Horst the dad and the others later as well. The suite has a motel feel to it, because we're all sleeping in the same one room which also contains the kitchen corner and table. The one bathroom is a small room off of the main one. It's very cozy, and kinda nice when people are not grumpy but I can see how living here for a long time with five people would be a bit crazy. I would probably be out of the house a lot.

We had rice and canned ratatouille and apples and various other food bits for dinner. We're getting down to the last bits of our food. Leftovers from everywhere we bought stuff. So I think most of our next meals until we get on the plane to London will be bits and bobs of whatever we have to eat.

Tomorrow we'll go out to Bern and possibly another ropes course place like the accrobranche in France. Tomorrow is Switzerland's national holiday, so there will be decorations and crowds in Bern as well as fireworks and barbecues in the evening. We will probably join in the Posthaus' (family we're staying with here) barbecue for dinner. I'm hoping that we'll have a lot more time for Gishwhes tomorrow, because there are still so many items to complete. 

The only photos I have from this time is this carrot I put a face in when we were driving today:

  

It's an angry sad carrot. 

11

Today we drove to the other side of the valley to get to accrobranche. High ropes courses in trees. I went in the car with Mathilde and Nadia, and it was very fast driving down the mountain and around all the curves. I forgot how fast people who are used to driving in skinny roads drive… It took me awhile to get used to it the last time I was here. Every time the bus to school went around a corner I thought we would hit a car coming the opposite direction. But we survived.

The ropes courses had a lot of choices of level. The highest at two were black and super-black. The lowest was green, then blue, super-blue, and red. I started on red thinking it would be equivalent to the adult course in Victoria at Treego, and I was right. It was about the same. I wouldn't want to do anything higher than that I think. Black would kill my arms even more. And there was a Tarzan swing thing which I skipped because I didn't think I could make it with my jello arms.

After the red corse and some really cool long ziplines, I did the two blue courses with my family. It's interesting: I think my French has come back pretty much entirely after only being here for two days.

Accrobranche was really fun. After that we came back to the house and met up with Clem who had just gotten back from a group trip to Spain. We all went in the pool, we even got Jeff to join in. Dinner was tartiflette, which normally they only make in the winter to have after skiing, but so we could taste it they made it for us now. After dinner we all kinda migrated to the living room and hijacked a movie Clem was watching. And then to bed.

If there's a certain amount of detail lacking from this post, it's because I'm trying to get the very most out of my time here with the Croisats. We've been busy the entire day visiting and playing music and talking and doing activities, so the time for writing them down is shorter. Just know that I'm having an amazing time here and I absolutely know it's not the last time we'll have both families together. I hope the Croisats come visit us in Victoria next time. Bisous à tous!

 

      

10

Well, I didn't post yesterday. That's because…. I just didn't. I don't really have a reason. We didn't go anywhere specific, so maybe that can be a reason. Notable things from yesterday: Tobin, Julias, and I went outside to throw a nerf football thing, and I made tartiflette (a cheese potato dish) from scratch on my own without a recipe. I was very proud. It looked and tasted amazing.

 

 

Today was spent with the Croisats. Very happy to see them again! It's been two years and a lot has changed but also some things have not changed at all. People have gotten a lot taller. Some furniture has moved around. But it's still the same place and the same people.

What I was most excited about was allowing my Canadian family to meet my French family for the first time. It was a bit awkward and slow at the beginning, but as soon as everyone remembered how to speak French and be social it was great. We arrived at noon, just in time for lunch. We ate outside on the stone patio: pasta (with gluten free rice option) and tomato sauce. And bread and stuff. And dessert. It was really nice. This place is so familiar, I think I really missed it. I just keep noticing things that take me back two years ago…

After lunch we headed up to Chamrousse, a ski hill by winter and a hiking/mountain biking hill by summer. We got there just in time with our two cars to cast the last gondola up to the top. They shut it down as soon as we stepped off (it really was the very last ride). Then we started hiking down.

The views were amazing. There was a bit of cloud fog stuff at the top, but it cleared out farther down. Taiga (the dog) ran ahead a lot, Tobin as well. There are certain similarities.

We could see amazing views on all sides all the way down: from the majesty of the great peaks to the vibrant mean couloirs and patterns of the moss on the rocks. About halfway down we saw a group of ten dogs (mostly border collies like Taiga) and four people making their way down. They had stopped at the lake to let all the dogs play a bit. Aline made sure Taiga was on a leash every time we saw them, because she doesn't play well with other dogs, and I can't even imagine what ten of them against her would be like.

When we got to the big lake that we were maybe kinda going to swim in, we felt the fridge door water and said, how bout not. But we still stopped there to eat some macaroons and peaches and apricots. We were planning to put up a slack line too, but it was getting to be 7pm and we were all a bit cold so we decided to just keep going.

We weren't going to end up at the same place we parked the cars, so Mathilde and Nadia ad Taiga went ahead to get the the end of this trail and walk along the road to get one of the cars (Mathilde driving). The rest of us kept going at a normal pace. My family and I started singing any and every song we could think of just for fun and to keep Tobin occupied (everything from northwest passage to blue skies to cat came back to black fly to where the watermelon grows). It was much better than descending the last bit in silence, for sure. And I think Aline and Olivier liked it.

At the bottom, we sorted out cars. Mathilde drove Jeff and Olivier to drive the two cars back to us waiting. I went in the Croisat's car like on the way up, that way Aline and Olivier were in different cars to guide each one.

Once we got home everyone was pretty hungry, so dinner started to be made quickly. I got out Mathilde's violin (it's a really nice instrument) and started to play fiddle tunes. Pretty soon Julias joined in on Clem's cello (Clémentine is coming back from a student trip to Spain tomorrow), and then Tobin joined in on piano and we got out Mathilde's campfire violin and soon we had four people. We played a couple tunes, and did some jazz improv. Later Mathilde and I tried to remember a song that I had sung and she played on piano. We looked it up on YouTube (Robbie Williams- Feel) and got most of it alright.

Dinner was a different kind of fondue than you may think. It was fondue bourgonoise which means little pieces of raw meat dipped in hot oil to cook them. Same idea with the bread fondue except replace the bread with meat and the cheese with oil. It was really good. There was rice and salad as well. We all stayed up talking (and kinda forgot about the gluten free crumble for dessert) till midnight. The younger members (Nadia, Tobin) went to bed before that.

 

I think I'm going to really enjoy my visit here. Our two families seem to be missible. Everyone is communicating fine. My French seems to have almost completely returned to full abilities rather quickly. The only thing missing is vocab, but that has always been true.

It's going to be hard to say goodbye to these people and this place a second time…

 

    

9

Today we drove from Padova to Annecy. It took about five hours. We got here in the daylight, which was very nice. We got shown around and given the key to the place by Noémi, who we had to phone prior to our arrival so she could meet us here. She's someone our swappers know in town. Let me just say, it is so much easier to communicate when you know the language. French is comforting.

This apartment is on the first floor with a nice view from the balcony of the city, as well as a bike path that is practically in our back yard. I think tomorrow we'll take the bikes from the garage and do a bit of a bike trip.

There was a lot of food all stocked up for us, so we didn't have to go to a grocery store today. We had pasta and tuna and cheese and bacon bits (lardons) for dinner, as well as apples (which were here already).

Nothing much more to say about today, other than my communication skills helped again when the neighbour showed us how to do the recycling here (and they have no compost! Too bad). Pretty long driving day.

Oh yeah! One more interesting thing: on the way here we went under Mont Blanc in a tunnel and drove practically underneath (just south of) Chamonix, the ski hill where I learned to ski over five days in 2014 on my exchange. This area of France feels very familiar, and soon (Thursday) I will get to see the Croisats again. I'm very much looking forward to visiting with them!

So that's about it. We're settled in, relaxed, able to communicate, lots of food. That's all you really need. Haven't heard any wood pigeons yet, sit tight for the update.

 

       

Some of these photos look very much like paintings. Cool.

8

We went to Venice!

I'm going to have to make this post a little shorter than some others because I'm very tired and want to get to sleep. We did a lot of walking. We left at 10am and got back around 8:30pm. It was a very long day.

To get to the main Venice area, you first drive over a causeway very similar to the one that gets you to the Tswassen ferry terminal from the mainland. Then you park the car in a giant tall parkade on an island called Tronchetto specially made for that. Then you walk or take the "People Mover" train from there to the start of the grand canal. We walked and it probably would have been better to take the train. We took it on the way back.

The first thing we did was just wonder. We chose whatever small alley looked the most interesting or was least crowded and looked less tourist-y. There were SO MANY tourists, especially in the morning. Almost everywhere is crowded, so we sought out less crowded areas.

We walked and explored and got some gelato for maybe an hour, finding some dead ends that lead into the water and other residential-type deserted alleyways. I was very excited to be in Venice, but it's hard to take a lot in when it's 33 degrees and there are people everywhere trying to sell you stuff and beg for money. Luckily this wasn't actually too bad on the whole, and it could have been much much hotter. We found our way to the Rialto bridge, which was packed and only worth seeing once to say you've seen it because of the crowds; a bit like the Mona Lisa. I really think I got more out of the normal Venetian life and locations than I did out of piazzo de San Marco or the Rialto.

We brought 6L of water, drank all of that and actually refilled from water taps throughout the city to end up with mostly empty back home. I think we were all sweating profusely and were probably a bit dehydrated despite our best efforts. We ate lunch we had brought with us on a bench in some shade in a square. It was very hot, so sitting in the shade was a welcome break.

Getting down to the end of the grand canal after walking and seeing the main tourist places was the worse half of the day. It was still amazing, but what I got to experience after that was better for me. After seeing the main gondola docks at the edge of San Marco square (and admiring the fact that the big city feel transitions so quickly and smoothly to docks and maritime), we started walking on a new route to eventually get back to a restaurant we had starred on the map to remember; it had a gluten free menu. None of the other ones we had passed said anything about gluten free, but this one had some pasta options. So we started the trek.

Along the way, we passed a junction of several tiny canals where power boats and gondolas were jostling for space. We sat and watched the amazing precision and communication of the gondoliers for about twenty minutes. There were at least 7 in view at all times, with the gondolier pushing and skulling away at the back. Occasionally they would push off from a wall with their foot. More than occasionally, actually. It seemed to be a valid move in line with j-stroking. I watched them move their boats with added interest; it's very similar to dragon boat steering, which I've done before, as well as very familiar to me because of all the boating and coaching and paddling I've done. I think it would be fascinating to learn to steer a gondola (although I noticed there were a distinct lack of female gondoliers. I wonder why). I think if I lived in Venice, I would absolutely take advantage of the many, many tourists; either by busking or entertaining or gondoliering or other. It seems like you need to be assertive and careful when gondoliering: there were so many near-misses as gondolas passed inches away from walls or other boats, but they seemed in control at all times. Sometimes they would yell or give hand signals to other boats, saying "stop, there's a boat just around the corner here" or something. I saw two of them get in a mock fight as their boats passed. They smiled and laughed as they went on their way, so my guess is they were friends teasing each other. I think I could have sat and watched these boats all day, but soon enough everyone was ready to keep moving. It was just so fascinating. Also,there was this construction-boat with a digger attachment loading concrete onto a wheelbarrow for some project, and it was parked in the skinny canal just like any other construction vehicle on any normal road. It was constricting gondola traffic even more: added challenge.

About 3/4 of the way to the restaurant we came across this tiny shaded square with free shaded seating at tables. It was mostly deserted except for the occasion crowd that would walk through on a B-line. There was a water fountain here like in so many other places around the city, spewing it's potable water from the month of a carved lion's head vertically to the ground in a never ending stream (so you know how I said this post would be short? It seems I lied). This place for us was an oasis. Not too crowded, lots of shade and seating, and free potable water just steps away. At this point in our walk we were all feeling the heat a bit too much and really starting to get grumpy and done with all walking ever. So this lovely little square was tremendous good fortune.

We all sat at a table, refilled our empty water bottles, relaxed, cooled off, and used the water as a bit of a shower. We all rinsed our arms and faces and we wetted a bandana to put on faces and hair. It was wonderful. And we started a trend: as soon as we used the water everyone passing by seemed to suddenly notice it was there and stop to fill bottles and rinse arms. After some ten minutes in that square and feeling much refreshed, we set out again.

The food at the restaurant was really good. We mostly got pasta. I got "senza glutine" tortellini with cream and ham. Very good. It was a well enjoyed dining experience by all. We made sure to use the WC on premises before leaving.

By then it was maybe 5:30, 6pm. We were all tired and satisfied by Venice (despite the certain alleyways that smelled of piss and the beggars and the millions of tourists and the boiling heat and the foot-killing cobblestones and the litter-all of which are just big city things you can't really avoid). We caught the water bus back to the start of the grand canal, where we struggled for a bit trying to find the People Mover train. We eventually found it, and got to our car (again, eventually) and drove off. We stopped at a grocery store on the way home and I had watermelon, peaches, and maybe a tad too much pasta for dinner (what can I say, I'm in Italy. It's really good).

Tomorrow we drive to Annecy, France. A country where I will feel a bit less lost and helpless in than Switzerland or Italy.

 

I very much enjoyed Venice. Next time, I want to go in the winter and live there for at least a month. Less tourists, maybe a few degrees colder, and enough time to really get into the city.

The start of this video is from the mountain in Bern with the coaster, the second half is the crazy gondolas in Venice:

 

                          

7

The wood pigeons here go coo-COO, coo. Very loudly.

I was woken up twice by church bells.

 

If you thought we were going to Venice today: nope! Just kidding. We were all way too tired from yesterday so most of us woke up at 11am. I had a good breakfast of boccencini, yogurt, and ham and cream cheese on rice cake. Then Julias and I played a bit with the five decks of magic cards we found in the games cupboard (they also have jungle speed- I think we will make use of that tomorrow). Most of the decks were unplayable due to lack of land.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon were spent just relaxing and planning our day in Venice tomorrow. And wasting time on the Internet, there was some of that too. But there's only so much time you can use to take in a new county at once before you need a break.

At about 4, we went to a grocery store. The one nearest to us, about 300m away, was shut because it's Sunday. We walked to the one 1500m away (oooooo so far!). We got food, including a gigantic watermelon and pesto and chicken and some gluten free pasta. They sold whole rabbit meat as well as some tiny chicken-like bird meat, which I thought was interesting. They had a wine wall. They have an entire side of an aisle devoted to pasta, with about 1/8 of that selection of gluten free pastas at the end. Which is to say that there are different kinds of spaghetti to get (no 5, no 3, no 4, etc) that I could not tell the difference between. I was amazed by the gluten free selection: not just penne, but spaghetti and rotini and other kinds, and some very small ribbed tubes which we purchased. And all the gluten free pasta is GOOD pasta, because we're in Italy. So I'm very happy.

We also got some gluten free ice cream to share on the way home walking because it was very very hot.

We made dinner: fried chicken, carrots, and zucchini with garlic and olive oil and the little tube pastas, all with pesto. It was incredible. I knew it would be good, but not this good (it was really good).  We ate on the balcony next to the kitchen, next to the basil and tomato plants out there, watching other balconies with cats and the church steeple in the background and listening to the loud cicadas. In Padua/Padova. In Italy. It was a very atmospheric dining experience.

After dinner we went out to walk around the older parts of the city. It had cooled off significantly at this point, to a more manageable heat level. It got dark very soon after we left, but it was more like twilight then anything else. It was very nice, we walked through to a square with a big cathedral and tiny cobbled streets and overhanging buildings. Very medieval. There was a moat and a wall around the main square and surrounding streets.

There were lots of people out of all ages. I think because it's so hot during the day, people wait till it cools off, which is around 10pm. There were lots of gelato places with many customers, and several literal hole-in-the-wall places selling burritos and the like. The only downside from the walk was that Tobin really needed water once we start going, and this is the only trip so far on which we didn't bring water. But when we got to neat parts of the walk and after playing some twenty questions, he was alright.

And then we got home, and now I'm sitting on the couch, and tomorrow, Venice.