Toodle loo, mon poisson, au revoir!

Southern France was a huge suprise. First, we actually met some really nice French people -- two to be exact. The guy who ran our cooking class (I learned how to "carmelize" zuchinni!) was hillarious, didn't speak a word of English, took us wine tasting at 11am and then introduced us to a bunch of goats. The second really nice French person worked at the tourist office in Cassis, so she doesn't really count because she's paid to be nice. Regardless, she actually pointed us in the direction of a mini hike that my mom could manage and a huge plate of mussels. yum. Mom and I ate a TON of seafood on the trip because the freshest thing they get in Iowa is rocky mountain oysters and because the word "poisson" is fun to say.

I still continue to be blown away by how old shit is in Europe. Arles (left) is famous for Roman ruins and for being one of the last stop's on Van Gogh "I swear, I'm sane" tour. It was tre fun and the locals enjoyed laughing at me while struggling to pronounce "eau" correctly.

After Arles, we headed south to the coast. This is probably a messed up analogy, but France is a lot like California...topography wise that is. It goes from mountains to coast to fields, etc. I had no idea that there was so much diversity so close together. We then trekked over to Antibes (near Cannes), visited Grasse and Biot to spend bling on parfume and glass, then sat and fried like tourists for a day. Got me an excellent base burn/tan which has quickly faded because it feels like friggin October here.

And even though she was was an annoying bitch for 25% of the trip, TomTom the Navigator was helpful 75% of the time. Which is good because since I don't even know the intricacies of Dutch traffic laws, figuring out French signage would have been a challenge. The phrases I know in French are mostly useless (la vache mange le garcon) and my mom's French consists of "buenos suerte" which isn't actually French, but a gold star for effort. (one time in Spain she wanted to tell a waiter the meal was very good and said nice to meet you instead...). Sad to leave the sunshine, we spent the last day in Amsterdam resting from our severely strenuous vacation and breathing in the final enjoyments of the holidaze.