More France

Not to much to report on, I went for a walk today just the kids and I.  I only had to tell one person that I didn't speak french and even then we where able to communicate a little. The problem with twins is that everyone wants to stop and talk to you about them and I cant talk. Willy, the mom of the family I am with helped me find a ceramics studio that I joined today. I was able get on the wheel and make a few things.  I am very exited about it but no one in there speaks any English so it will be very interesting trying to communicate. One of the Lady's there understands if I talk really slowly and Willy helped me translate a few key words like clay, kiln, and fire.  Things are going really good so far. 

p.s. the picture of the building with all the windows that look the same is my building.  The pictures of the big door is my door and the picture of the stairs is inside my building walking up to my apartment.

France !

I left New York on Thursday evening and got to my new house at about 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday. I was really nervous about flying alone and had a hard time leaving but everything went totally fine. It was only a few hours on the plain in the dark before we started to fly into the day time so I didn't get much sleep. On Saturday the father of the family I am with, Yann took me to Sete to go site seeing and it was really cool.We went to a very old cemetery which I loved.  Sete is the town to the south of us about 10 minuets and it has canals in the city sorta like Venice. Today I saw Frontignan which is the town I am living in and it is really nice and really old. Some of the houses you walk by are dated around 1872 or around there. I didn't have my camera when I went out today but will take pictures of the town and the house I am in which is also really old and amazing. The boys are already accustom to me and are so cute. They are 18 months old and casing all sorts of trouble and make it hard to sleep in the morning but I have ear plugs that are already a necessity.

 I finally unpacked my bags today and moved all my stuff into my room and put all my cloths on there shelves.  Feels good to have a place that is mine after living in the van. It was really hard to say goodbye to Jeremy and I am having a really good time hear but I feel his absence in my life often. The family is really nice and talkative and we all eat diner together after they put the kids to bed.  Yesterday Yann made squid for part of diner and I wasn't the biggest fan, but I did try it. 

So far I am off to a really good start and am feeling good about everything.

New York

 

          

We arrived in New York after driving 700 Miles in one day.We has been set back a day because we has to take the car into the mechanic because of a massive oil leek.  So we had to spend the night in Kansas. I wouldn't really recommend Kansas to anyone. It was about 3:00 in the morning when we got in and we really wanted to take a shower so it wasn't till about 4 that we finally went to bed. Which was perfect because we where right out side of a bar and they where closing at 4 so it was quite. We spent the next few days with our friend Aaron who lived in Manhattan and had a really good time. We went to a fun house party, a movie, went out to eat and just had allot fun. Then we went to stay with another friend in Brooklyn for a few days. We went and saw time square and the natural history museum and the Mett and the Bodies exhibition which was one of the most interesting of all the exhibits we saw. We where there for about a week total and I had such a good time. It was hard to leave, I could have stayed for another 2 weeks and still have things to see. It was also much harder to say goodbye to Jeremy then I thought it would be.  I was very nervous and wished that he could have been coming with me.  I also met up this a second cousin of mine who is a big fancy business man and he was able to get Jeremy a job for a couple days paying really good and  that will help out alot with Jeremy's trip. Over all I had a tone of fun in new York

I will call this one National Parks

 

 

 

        

We've gone to The Grand Canyon, Canyon De Chelly, Mesa Verde, and Arches. We are getting a pretty good sized collection of the brochures they give you when you come into the park.  We stayed in the Grand Canyon For 3 days.  I am happy to have finally seen it and it was pretty amazing but some how I wasn't so awestruck. Maybe it was just too big. Both Canyon De Chelly and Mesa Verde where cliff dwelling ruins and where really cool to see. Just seeing somthing that was that old had allot of power. The museum at Mesa Verde was really cool and had great little dioramas of what life was like for the people there and it had lots of artifacts, like sandals made of woven yuka fiber. There were also lots of  baskets, pottery and tools. It was my favorite park with cliff ruins because there where lots you could see from lookouts by the road, and the guided tours that took you down into the Ruins where only $3 dollars.  It had the biggest and most well preserved ruin I have seen on the whole trip. While we were there there was a pretty big dust storm.  It was strange because the storm that had picked up all the dust was miles away, so we didn't have any of the wind.  It made for some interesting pictures. The dead trees in the pictures where from some big fires that went through there years ago .  It was still pretty dead and dismal in places. On our way out of Cortez (which is where Mesa Verde is near) we got caught up in some interesting weather.  We where still in the dust storm and now it was very windy and then it started snowing and raining. The snow was muddy looking because of the dust and it made our windshield a mess.  Now we're in Moab Utah. We finally stayed in a motel last night for the first time on the trip.  It was very nice to have a little room to spread out in, and have a shower or three, which I did.  We went to Arches National Park today and got snowed on.  The area is like it's from another planet.  So picturesque, like everything you see is a post card.  We move on tomorrow. Next stop Telluride to see my cousin and go snowboarding for the day.