Second round of photos from France

Here are the last of the photos from Biarritz. I posted some yesterday here.

On one afternoon there were excursions as part of Greg's conference, so we joined the wine tour excursion. It pretty much involved being on a bus for almost four hours... Aside from that, it was lovely! The last photo shows my favorite part of the train ride between Paris and Biarritz - fields upon fields of sunflowers! There were more fields of sunflowers than I ever imagined possible on one train ride!

France photos, finally!

Here are some photos I took while we were in Biarritz. It was a really lovely beach town. The photo with the surfer and the couple enjoying their seaside vacation perfectly sums up the odd juxtaposition of this city, in my opinion. Also, that place was selling sandwiches called 'Americans' which was a roll with two burger patties and fries (in the roll) plus your choice of sauce. We went back a few days later just to try them out, never having seen such a thing in America. Oh they were yummy.

I've got a few more photos that I'll post tomorrow too!

hooray for tuesday

This is me right now. Enjoying the sea-view and a cold beer on my balcony (almost). I tried sitting out there yesterday, and that lasted all of four minutes before I retreated back to the safety of the just-inside-the-door area.

I'm feeling so successful with my vacation today!

First of all, I got into this beer with no bottle opener, so that is a good feat. In addition to my cheap beer, I also bought some incredibly expensive (and incredibly worth it) macarons. I only ever had macaroons before, and I never really understood the macaron thing. And I probably won't ever be able to have macarons again, because they just won't be as good and they are dyed all sorts of showy colors.

I was going to try to get lemonade, because lemonade-beer on a summer afternoon is one of the finer things in life. I couldn't find any lemonade though, so I got grapefruit juice, and once that is cold we'll see if it does the trick.

Also, I took a photo for a couple who asked if I would take their photo. I didn't even have my camera out at the time, so they just took a gamble with whether or not they had asked a person who cared about things like framing a shot. I can't vouch for whether or not they were smiling or making weird faces, but that photo sure was framed well.

Before that happened I went to the market and got a baguette that was longer than my arm for 90 euro cents! Extraordinary lunch bargain!

So you see? So many successes, and still multiple hours of afternoon left for reading on (sort of) the balcony!

bonjour

Here is the view from the balcony of our hotel room in France. The photo is of low quality, so I'll go ahead and describe what we are seeing here. Rain. It has been raining on and off since yesterday afternoon, but that is fine by me. Also pictured is our sea view and the lighthouse. Yesterday before it started raining Greg and I got to take a nice walk to enjoy the sea views, and I took many photos which I hope to share soon.

Our travels here were fun, because we flew to Paris and then took a high-speed train to the south of France. Our train was delayed though, so we missed a connection and had to wait for a later train. At the train station we got in the line at the taxi stand in order to try to get to our hotel before midnight, but there seemed to be very very few taxis coming. Eventually a bus came, which was the exact one we needed (and I was so glad I had written down which one would get us close to the hotel, and that Greg had gotten directions to walk from the bus stop to the hotel). We were feeling so good to be on our last leg of the journey, and then the bus stopped to pick up a pack of at least 20 young people who were very drunk and very slow about paying for tickets and stamping the tickets. Finally we got to get off, and while navigating the sidewalks and trying to get around many ambling people who would not get out of our way, I was fairly convinced I hated this place.

After a wonderfully long night of sleep, I woke up to see my sea view, and I definitely do not hate this place. :)

Fun fact #1: The past two mornings at breakfast we have been sitting nearby groups of people speaking Swedish.

Fun fact #2: Salted caramel ice cream can be purchased less than 50 meters from our hotel.

Fun fact #3: There is a chocolate museum in this city, but here is the dilemma: If I was going to spend some money, would it be worth it to go to a chocolate museum or better to just spend it directly on chocolate?

Still Matching My Poster

Okay so, let me just tell this tale of my never ending ability to completely suck at traveling.

This tale begins friday morning. I get up nice and early, and put on my nice shirt that I decided I would wear for my poster presentation. I made this decision long ago so that I could pick the appropriate colors for my poster, because it is a proven fact that if you clash with your poster people are less likely to want to talk to you.

I check out of my hotel, luggage in hand, and walk to the corner where the shuttle bus picks up. I have plenty of time and am pretty proud of myself for sticking with the plan thus far. I wait for the shuttle. No shuttle comes. I see fellow conference attendees with their poster tubes in hand just walking to the conference center. I was only about eight blocks away, but I just really didn't feel like wheeling luggage through the streets of San Francisco. Well eventually I hit the fifteen minute mark, and realized that if I was going to make it on foot I needed to start walking. So walk I did.

I made it to the conference center with enough time to check out the luggage checking booth. There was like a mini airport station set up where you could check your luggage for a fee of $10. I had heard a rumor also, that they didn't charge the airline fee of $15 to check a bag either. So pretty much, if this was true I was saving $5, and not having to deal with luggage all day. And guess what, it was true! This was nearly the highlight of my day.

The best part was that the line was not very long, so I had ten minutes to go over to the other building and hang my poster up and get ready for that to start. I had kind of planned on being at my poster between 8 and 9, and then taking a small break to get coffee and food, and then going back from 10 to 11. I ended up talking to various people, practically without any breaks, from 8 to 11:30, when I hastily departed for lunch.

I got back from lunch, took down my poster, and replaced it with one of my regular letter size versions that I had printed up for people to take if they wanted, which was probably the funniest thing I had done in awhile. I booked a ride on the SuperShuttle which was nice because they picked me up right outside the door of the poster session.

At the airport I soon learned the importance of checking your flight status before you leave. My flight was delayed 1.5 hours (the exact time of my layover in Minneapolis), because we were waiting on an aircraft to arrive from some place with horrible weather. When I arrived in MSP I ran clear across the airport to try to make an impossible connection. I had 4 minutes, and it took me 10 minutes. Even if I had made it in 4 I think I would have been too late. The two people at the gate were amazingly nice, even though I was amazingly angry. I was labelled a "distressed passenger" meaning that since the delay was technically weather related they could only give me a discount on a hotel, not a free hotel. They also gave me a voucher for a $13 dinner and a $5 breakfast. Thanks a heep.

So I called the number they gave me and booked a room at the Park Plaza, which was $60, because I really wasn't keen on being one of those people who were getting mats to sleep on from some closet in the airport. The Park Plaza also had a free shuttle service, so I called them up and the man said a shuttle was on its way. Well when I booked the room, the woman said it was a 9 minute shuttle ride. It was said with much confidence. I waited ten minutes, along with a bunch of others frantically trying to find the appropriate shuttle, when I hear this woman say, "Is anyone else going to the Park Plaza?" From there I managed to find myself agreeing to share a taxi with her and this other man, which would cost us $10 each. Fine. Apparently this woman's delays were not at all weather related, so she got a free hotel room. I was pretty jealous but also pretty tired. We are in line to check in and this woman says, "I could probably get a room with two double beds and then you won't have to pay for a room." I say, "really? That would be great!" And that is how I ended up sharing a room with Zina, the med student at McGill who is currently doing her residency and had a horrible time with their physics exam.

And let me tell you, it was pretty spectacular to wake up maybe three hours later to catch the shuttle back to the airport and still be wearing the clothes that match my poster.

I got to the airport and promptly spent my $18 of food vouchers. I had to buy an assortment of pastries, because apparently a bag of coffee beans doesn't qualify as 'food'. Whatever lady.

I finally got on a plane this morning, and I could start to see the end of this traveling ordeal. Until they decided the plane was broken, and we would be getting on a new plane. So we all get off this plane, walk ten gates to where a working plane is, and board the plane. again. Surprisingly enough it did take off. It even landed in Appleton, which was my destination of choice. And my luggage made it too. And over thirty hours later, I'm still matching my poster.