Crepes For Dessert

Tonight, Elena made crepes for dessert. Who knew she could make crepes? They are so yummy. I had one with chestnut paste (marron in French) and Lingonberry jam (from Ikea). Then I had one with honey and cinnamon. Elena is having one with honey and cinnamon, too.

It looked simple enough to make. Flour, egg, milk, and butter. The exact ratios are Elena's secret. It was the best dessert I had in a long time. :-)

Here is Elena making them:


While her crepe recipe was primo, I find her technique of simply rolling the crepe up to be messy because it bleeds fillings from the end you're not biting.

Here is my crepe folding technique with my honey and cinnamon crepe:

Daylight Saving Time

By the way, this weekend marked the beginning of Daylight Saving time in Europe. It is the second such change for Elena and I as we moved between the American start and the European start. Such time chaos.

And note that I call it by the proper name with the "Saving" and not the "Savings". It's the basis of a great trivia question or a bet in a bar.

The Anglophone Library or La Bibliotheque Anglophone

Today, Elena and I went to the Bibliotheque Anglophone (formerly Americaine) which is part of a University Paul Valery Inter-university Library on the east bank of the Lez River by the Plaza of the French Revolution. The library is up on the second floor at teh top of a large diameter spiral staircase. It's not super big, but it has about 25,000-30,000 books, about half the space for fiction and half for non-fiction. It also has free internet (for members) and a desk where you can study. And finally, it has a selection of DVDs which can be rented for 2 euros for movies and 1 euro for serial things like tv shows. Magazines are available and can be checked out as soon as the next issue arrives. There weren't too many magazines. Newspapers (I don't remember seeing them) can be checked out when they are a week old.

The librarian we met was Francoise. She was very helpful and friendly. We filled out a library card right on the spot. Since the library is supported by its subscribers, there is a charge for the card, but it is a reasonable 26.68 euros (18.29 for students and 60.98 for families). I asked why it's such an odd number. It's because it used to a round number in the days of the French Franc, but when they switched to the euro, it would have taken too much bureaucracy t o actually round up the price to the next euro. There's France and its bureaucracy.

Hours are 9:30 to 6:30 weekdays except Monday where it opens at 2:00. Those are September to June hours. Perhaps July and August it closes?

We checked out 2 books and rented the DVD Notes on a Scandal.

So if you're in Montpellier for a while and want access to a library with English, this is the place to come.

Tour of the Historical Center in English

On Saturdays at 3:30pm, there is a tour of the historical center in English. It starts from the Tourist Information office on the Place de la Comedie. You need to buy a ticket from the caisse at the office and tickets are 6,50 euros.

The tour starts out with a talk about the foundation of Montpellier. Unlike many of the other towns around which were founded and built on a Roman style, Montpellier was founded in the 12th or 13th Century and so it is on a medieval model with narrow winding streets with no balconies. It has many squares which are at the intersections of the steets. In many cases, these were churches that were destroyed in the various conflicts in which religion was involved. So the churches were destroyed leaving space for the more useful outdoor cafes.

We learned that the Place de la Comedie which is the huge square by the Comedie Opera House is one of the few Parisian style squares with Parisian architecture. It was once a huge roundabout and the fountain of the Three Graces right by the McDonalds was the center of the roundabout. Now that the city center is pedestrian and tram, there is no need for the roundabout. All in all, the population seems to like the square as it is now judging by the huge throngs of people that gather there. There was a demonstration for Palestinian rights there on the day we had our tour. A demonstration on the liberation of Tibet a few days earlier. It's a nice square because there is always a lot going on.

Anyway, we learned about the little brass markers embedded in the street. They mark the part in Montpellier of the St. Jacques Pilgrim Path on the Santiago de Compostella pilgrimage. Elena wants to do this--not for any religious reason, but she likes the idea of walking.

We entered a number of private homes of former residents of Montpellier. Well they aren't really private homes anymore. Many were very large. We went to the treasurer of Montpellier from hundreds of years of ago in the 1400's--Jacques Coeur. He was sort of the first guy to put Montpellier on the map.

We looked at the architectural styles and saw buildings with various styles on the same building as the owners made parts of the building more modern or remodeled or whatever it is they did to make the hodge-podge of styles.

Around rue Foch, we entered a recently discovered mikve from the 1300's. This is a bath used in Jewish purification rituals. We went down into a basement and stood in the stone changing room. We could see the bath through a stone window. The water was crystal clear. It was hard to tell that there was water.

Finally we ended by climbing to the top of the Arc de Triomf by the Peyrou. That was Elena's favorite art because her favorite direction is up.

The whole tour was about 2.5 hours. We saw the location of an archeological museum where we can see more and our tickets will get us in for free. We also found the location of a couple of small free museums right by the Shakespeare Pub which are worth taking a peek at.

Finding Resources in Montpellier

When we got here. We knew nothing about Montpellier. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, the reason we chose Montpellier was because it was recommended by a guy named Charlie I met in the laundry room of my Seattle apartment building on my last day living in Seattle.

So when we got here, we didn't know how to start integrating into Montpellier life. We found the tourist information center. But it is not so helpful to start a life (albeit a short one) in Montpellier. It's good for tourists.

Well over time, we started to find more and more. The word "d'occasion" which means 'used' got us to kijiji.fr which we have used a bit but not really to much success. The internet found a club called Evasions, which we joined and looks really good.

Then in Lodeve, I found a magazine called 'Blablablah' which serves the English speaking community in the area. Through them we found that there is an English library very close to where Elena and I started jogging. There is also a French American Center near the Medical school--also not a far walk from our place. We will check those places out today.

We also tried an "Irish" pub called Fitzpatrick's but it wasn't really our kind of place. Most of the crowd there was into a football (a.k.a. soccer) game.

There is a pub called Shakespeare's which I'll have to check out since they have a happy hour where the beer dips just into the price range that I'd call "not horribly unreasonable". They also have a quiz night. I don't know if the questions are English or French.

Finally, just up the street from us at the corner of Gambetta and Clemenceau is a cafe called Le Dome and they have a sort of multi-lingual thing on Tuesday nights. So Elena and I will go there then and have a pint of beer and see what it is.

Evasions: An Outing

When we moved here, we didn't know anybody so we looked around on the internet and found some groups we might join. One was called Evasions. We emailed and got a response. Soon we we at the office right on what was the main square during medieval times, but now is the second biggest square (dominated by the very un-medieval Virgin Megastore). We had a nice chat over tea about the club and its activities and joined up.

Then yesterday, we had our first event. We got a bit of a late start and walked really fast to the meeting place which was at the parking lot of the Australian Cafe between the Lez River and the Antigone. We were just a little late, but they found us walking fast.

There were a total of seven of us. One other guy, and the rest women. We split up into 2 cars and headed toward Villeneuvette to see the Manufacture Royal which was a 17th Century cloth manufacturer. We were going to view the town and see the museum. However, as it isn't tourist season yet, the museum was closed. Oops. Oh well. The town was interesting anyway. There was one chimney that looks like it was built in the last century. But all other structures are really old. They made of stone and whatever it is that's used as mortar. The town has a fountain in a sort of amphitheater type thing with Apollo spit water out into a small tub, which drains into a bigger one, which drains into the main pool.

There are actually peopele living in the town. One guy watched us from his window. Then we headed to the next destination which was a town called Maureze with a church way up on the top of a hill. The town is the home so several very tall (like several stories high) standing rock structures. Perhaps volcanic plugs? We had pizza there We expected the pizzas to be a bit smaller than they were but about half the people managed to finish their pizzas. We were only in that town for lunch and a quick up and down on the "cirque" which runs by the church.

Then we went by Lake Salagou--a lake made by a dam. There is a small abandoned village down tight on the lake. Apparently, when they dammed the river, the inhabitants of the town either thought or were told that their town would be flooded so everyone left. But then when the lake was done, what actually happened was that the town had prime lakeside real estate. It's still abandoned for the most part, but apparently people are starting to move back. There is a lot of recreation on and around the lake, so Elena is excited because she loved outdoor recreation.

After that we went to Lodeve to see the Cardinal Fleury Museum. They had a permanent exhibit of several painters and scupltors. There was a Courbet and a Juan Gris painting. The second floor was an exhibit of the sculpture of Nathalie Decoster. She does figures with tiny heads and really long legs that represent humanity and puts them into scupltures representing our relationship with emotions, time, etc. It's interesting to see. The top floor has fossils, and evidence of early inhabitants--so a sweep through time of the area.

After that we came home. It was a very nice trip. The members of Evasions were kind. They put up with my really bad French. For some reason, my ability to speak was really bad. I guess it was the first time that I was in a situation where I had to speak French. And nothing came to me. I fought to find the words I needed to made a complete sentence but wasn't really successful at all. I'd try to say something and fail miserably. Then a minute later, in my head, I'd find the words and string them together like I should have been able to do just a minute before. I guess a new language is like that. Humiliations and failures at the beginning. I remember when I first started meting Japanese people while taking my Japanese class. I'd try to talk and nothing... Even stuff I learned in class didn't come to me. But each failure and one's reaction to it is a learning experience. Each time I figure out a way to say what I wished I would have said is a strong lesson in recalling the words I need when I need them. Like the simple word 'place' or 'endroit' just didn't come to me. I couldn't remember 'endroit'! It stopped me cold and ended my ability to finish a though I was trying to make. I'll remember it next time.

I just hope that I don't scare people away from the group--making them think that they have to deal with the 'new guy who can't speak French'.

Shopping In The Roger Salengro Plaza Market

Today we did our morning shopping in the Place Roger Salengro. It's an outdoor market with lots of fruits and vegetables. Most of the market people are Arab. We spent 2,90 ($4.50) on a big bag of fruits and vegetables including two large and yummy tomatoes. Then we went to a butcher where we got some kufta meat (spiced ground beef), a few bags of spices, some cous-cous from a bulk cous-cous bucket, and a few other items. The total bill for everything was a tad over 10 euros ($15). The people in the stores are very friendly. Hopefully, this is what Morocco will be like when I go there.

Elena and I plan to do our shopping there as much as possible. We think it's better to support the people trying to make their living running vegetable stands than to spend all of our money at the lare grocery chains. The prices are also cheaper at the open air markets. The bananas today we 1,40/kg where they are about 2,20/kg in the grocery stores. The older bananas are as low as 1,20/kg but I didn't see any at that price today.

DVD's

This is a post that will be updated over a couple of days. The first part is Wednesday, March 26, 2008.

OK, Elena wants to watch some DVD's and be able to watch TV. This post is about the DVD part of that.

I have a computer with a DVD drive, so DVD's should be easy. But I have the region code to deal with. DVDs in North America are all region 1 DVDs and will work in a region 1 DVD player or a multiregion DVD player. But the DVDs here are region 2 DVDs. They will work in a region 2 or multiregion DVD player. Apparently, the DVDs on the computer are also set to a region. In the research I've done, I've discovered that you can change the region code but only 5 times over the life of the DVD drive. I wouldn't mind changing it once in Europe and then once when back in the US. It doesn't bother me so much.

The other part I don't quite understand. There are 3 protocols over which TV signals are broadcast. NTSC which is used by the highly advanced nations, PAL which is used by the advanced nations, and SECAM which is used by the backwards nations. France used to use SECAM, but I think they recently upgraded to PAL because they didn't want to toss their lot in the SECAM crowd (Did they--it's confusing?). All over the internet, I'm reading about PAL and NTSC coding on the DVD. I suppose it could be the case that the DVD has the NTSC or PAL coding, but somehow it makes more sense that the DVD would have only the picture information and that the DVD player would ride the picture information on top of the protocol. It doesn't seem like something the DVD would have on it. And that confuses me.

Anyway, I downloaded VLC from VideoLAN which can apparently handle whatever you choose to put into your DVD drive. But I have yet to try it. Why? Read on.

One nice thing France has (which alone would make it NTSC-worthy) is a DVD rental place called Video-Futur. They have machines that are automated DVD dispensers. For a mere 1,50 euros ($2.25) you can rent a movie for 6 hours. For only 2,00 euros, ($3.00) you can rent it for 24 hours. And we have one of these about 3 blocks away. Yay!!! Today we popped in. It turns out all we need to make an account is a piece of ID and a 'justification of residence' (or whatever it's called) that we can get from the reception desk in our building (one of the nice things about a student residence). So tomorrow we'll attempt to create an account at the Video Futur, and then attempt to view one on my computer.

Stay tuned to this post for more about how this works....

Update for March 31
Last night we got a video rental card for the Video Futur just down the street. It was a machine and a store. All we needed was my passport and the Attestation of Residence. The woman explained all the rules and regulations in French. Elena understood them, but I didn't. Oh well, we get the card. They don't have a huge selection--mostly fairly recent movies. There isn't a huge section of older movies like many video stores have. They have a separate 'police' section for crime-drama, I guess. We rented Black Snake Moan for 2 euros for 1 day. You can rent a movie for 2 euros on Sundays for 24 hours.

So we came home and popped the DVD into the computer. I didn't know what would happen. Would it complain about the region code? Windows asked me what I wanted to do and "play DVD with VedioLAN VLC" was one of the options. I selected it. Then voila!!!! The DVD started and up it came. It was easy to use. The mouse worked to select the items on the menu and we were able to see the subtitle tracks and choose one (we eventually chose English because there were a couple of parts we had trouble understanding with our laptop computer speakers). But in general, I want to chose French and see the French way saying what they are saying in the movie. Someday, I'll rent a French movie and watch it with French subtitles to help attune my ear. Sadly, we are very unlikely to find French movies with English subtitles.

So the DVD worked. We are very happy.

TV

We need TV. Seems easy enough, but it's not so simple. France has a few channels and those are either over the air, I think, or on TNT. TNT is not Turner (something) (something) but cable TV in France. It has 18 free channels and other channels that you can subscribe to. If we want TNT in our place with a box, we need to pay 30,00 euros ($45) to buy one. Hopefully, we can get enough channels on the antenna well enough that we don't have to do that, though.

Anyway, there was a TV advertized on the bulletin board of our residence. We sent the sellers (a couple of German students) an email asking about the TV. Turns out they put it on eBay.fr. Cool. We found it. Nobody was interested and the reserve bid was only 1 euro. But, it looked like the TV was going to not sell. Then about 2 hours before the end of the auction, someone put a bid on it. So we bid. Right now there is about a half hour to go and our bid (10 euro max for a bid of 5,50 euros) is the top bid.

It's kind of fun. We are learning about TV and eBay.fr. That's always fun. If we get the TV, we get to figure out how to get it hooked up. Hopefully not too hard and hopefully we won't need TNT or the converter/30,00 euro hookup.

later that evening
Yay!!! We won on eBay. Some guy started the bidding at 5,00 so our 10,00 euro turned it into a 5,50 price. Then, with 1:30 left, some other guy came in with 6,00 and then 7,00 euros in the last 0:14 seconds. The result? We got the TV for 7,50 euros or just over $10. Now we have to pick it up and lug it back. It is very close to where the courthouses are. Not excessively far, but it's not going to be fun to lug it back.

The next day
OK, what a day. We emailed the owners of the TV and didn't get an email. So we decided to just pop over to their place. They are right by a church on St. Anne's Plaza. We rang and a guy answered. He's German and spoke English. He said he's just there with his girlfriend and she's be back in about an hour. So we waited an hour and went back. They are all Germans. Two cute German women studying something here in Montpellier about to head off to their internships in other cities. They leave the next day and the day after, respectively.

Then we saw the TV. We knew how far we had to lug it (about a 10 minute walk unencumbered). It wasn't pretty. The TV is big. Not super big, but big. And ugly. Here it is:


Isn't that the ugliest TV you ever saw in your life? Gee it's ugly! Anyway, it was ours. I gave them 8,00 euros even though we got it for 7,50. So $12 for a TV. Not bad--even though it's so damn ugly.

We managed to get it to come with the chair it was on. We lashed the TV to the chair and started lugging, carrying, and dragging it. We'd try one thing for a block, then try another thing for a block, then another for yet another block. Block after block. When we were half a block away some guy saw us and volunteered his friend to help us. His friend took it the rest of the way and up to our room. We thanked him graciously and gave him a can of beer which he cheerfully received.

Here's the chair which we now have:


Then the hard part. Getting it hooked up. We had a cable but it didn't fit into the TV. But we figured we'd be able to get something off the air even with no connections. You can always get a really staticy picture. But before I go on, I need to explain something about the Radiola RC5.

The TV has 8 channels. By that I don't mean that there is channel 1-8. There are 69 potential channels, but you have to choose the eight you want to see and assign them to 1-8. So how do you program which channels get assigned to the numbers 1-8? Voila!




This has 8 sets of a screw thingies and a 4 positon white slider switch. See the picture below to know what the white slider does. So what you do is use the white slider to select a band. Then you tune it with the screw thingy. You screw a little slider across the length of the worm screw to tune it. It takes about 2 or 3 minutes to fully traverse the length of the screw until you find a channel. Do this for each of the channels, 1-8, that you want to program.

So back to our story. We tried to get a channel on channel 1. Nothing. As I said already, we couldn't get the cable plugged into the TV--just the wall. So we headed back to the Germans at St Anne Plaza. We bought a little shelf for 5,00 euros. and explained our predicament with the TV and asked for advice. They said they had some sort of internet box. They said you can hook it to the wall for the free channels or hook it to the internet for all the channels. We headed back.

Frankly, other than getting the shelf, we didn't make any progress on the TV side. So we put the shelf into our place and made a third trip back to the Germans. This time they gave us their cable box. It is a Neuf brand media center with a card with a smart chip, USB port, ethernet, TV--basically a full media center that is computer controlled. They also gave us a couple of splitters. One splitter had a sightly crushed connector--so it would fit into the TV. That is how they got the signal into the TV. The hole in the TV is the wrong size for the standard cable. So we lugged home the cable box.



We plugged the cable box into the wall and then used the "peritel" to connect to the TV. A "peritel" is a big connector with 20 connections--sort of like the old monster Centronics printer cables from the days of computer yore. With the peritel plugged in, we could see the name of the channel on the screen, but not the channel itself. It scanned and found 22 channels, but we couldn't see them. It seemed like progress, but not really.



Then somehow--I don't know how--with the TV plugged into just the wall, it suddenly had a channel. So we started adding channels. We managed to find 4 or 5 unique channels. THe same that we had in the other place we lived. That means we can watch such shows as Les Experts: Miami, New York: Unite Speciale, portes Disparus (CSI: Miami, Law & Order: SVU, Without a Trace)--we hope.

All that remained was to return the cable box to the Germans. Elena did that while I cooked up a dinner and went to the store to buy a well deserved bottle of wine.

So now we have a TV. It has a few quirks. One quirk is that once every few minutes, it sort of flickers off and loses the signal briefly. It's a $12 TV, so I can live with that.

Also, there is no remote control. Back in the olden days, they didn't have remote controls yet. I think it went Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age, Remote Control Age. This TV is too old. Fortunately, there are only 5 channels, so we don't have to do much surfing.

But the other quirk is that it doesn't turn off. There is a big button called M/A that pushes for in and out. It looks like it should be a power button. But it's not. It doesn't turn off the power. It can turn on the TV if the TV has been plugged in. Clicking the channel buttons will also turn on the power of a freshly plugged in TV. The only way to turn it off is to unplug it. Just in case you were dozing because my blog is too long, let me repeat that in bold: There is no turn off the TV--you have to unplug it!



We haven't decided yet, but we may go out and get a TNT box to get 18 free digital channels. The box would be 30 euros, but we could sell it again on eBay later to get some of the money back. We'll see if it's worth it.

Update from March 31
There are movies, but some of the channels are scrambled for some of the movies. Like we wanted to watch "Be Cool" with John Travolta, but it was scrambled. I found the schedule for movies at http://www.programme-tv.net .

"Visa: It's Everywhere You Want To Be" Except France

Yep, that's Visa's ad slogan from a while back. Would that it were true. Instead, it's only in half the places we want to be. Each store is hit or miss. First of all, most of the places around here use a card reader that reads a chip in the card instead of the magnetic stripe. Then, even though theyare able to swipe the card, it doesn't work anyway.

So far, our Visas are not working at Loisir Francais (or something like that), Carrefour and the Sauramps bookstore. They are working at Intermarche grocery store, Go Sport, and Ikea.

Frankly, it's a bit annoying to have your credit card working at only a smattering of places that actually display the Visa logo at the register. It basically means that you better have enough cash on you to cover any purchases that would otherwise be done with the Visa.

So my note to Americans traveling to France with Visa in hand--count on it NOT working at most registers at the store!

Made It To Carrefour

We went to Carrefour again. This time, it wasn't Easter. No problems with it being closed--we hoped, at least. We found a way to get there that isn't along the highway.

And it was open. It's the anchor store of a mall called Grand Sud (or is it Sud Grand?). The first thing up reaching it was to find a restroom and happily the restrooms are the free kind. To call it an anchor store doesn't do it justice. It's half the mall.

But Carrefour isn't cheap. It isn't expensive, but it isn't cheap. It just has a large selection. However, they don't have Elena's long-cooking oatmeal. Oh well. We did stock up on more olive oil, laundry detergent for handwashing our laundry (who knew such a thing existed?), and a few other things.

We tried to use our Visa, but it didn't work. The Visa card is really hit and miss. And Elena's Visa card has a chip that the French are using these days. My American Visa is still in the 20th Century with just a magnetic strip. By the way, the French call a 'chip' a 'flea'. Funny to me, at least.

So it's a 1:15 hour walk to Carrefour and another 1:15 walk back from Carrefour. We'll probably go there from time to time--not because it has so much more stuff, but more because Elena really likes to take long walks. ;-) And it's on the way to the sea where we intend to spend some of the warmer days during our trip.

The Crazy Way Stuff Works

In this post, I discuss four things that took me a little while to figure out. But Elena calls me a dromadaire sometimes, so maybe it should take me a while to figure this out. ;-)

1) The toilet
OK, this one didn't take that long to figure out. I'm not that much of a dromadaire. ;-) Basically, lift up on the knob to flush. The nice thing is that you can lift just a little bit and then push back down. You can't do that with American style toilets because it would require pushing a chain and you can't push a chain--only pull it.

2) Stove control
This is our stove control:


It goes up to 6. Of course, America's stove controllers go up to 'High' and Spinal Tap's amp goes up to 11. The funny thing about it is that the little mark that shows what number you are on is just a sort of indentation. You can see it in the picture, but in the real world of kitchen work, it's almost impossible to see. I wonder why they didn't paint it white. Maybe I'll buy some WhiteOut and whiten it up so we can see it. It has already caused problems.

At least this stove has a red dot and a white circle to indicate which burner the knob corresponds to. The red one, obviously. The stove in the place we stayed in first had a white circle and a disc (white filled in circle). Which is the burner: the circle or the disc?

3) The door lock

This one took us a while. We were about to go tell the reception girl that the door doesn't work when I finally got it. The door is operated on a lever. Push the lever down to unlatch the door. Simple, right? Right.

The problem came when we left our apartment and tried to lock it. We put the key into the lock and rotated it clockwise. But the deadbolt tongue didn't engage. The deadbolt stayed put. We turned the key harder. Then harder. Still the deadbolt tongue didn't come out. There seemed to be no way to get the deadbolt tongue to stick out. It seemed like it was broken somehow.

Then for a reason I can't explain, I turned the lever up. Like this:


When I did that, the deadbolt tongue came out. Push the lever down, the deadbolt retracts. Lift the handle up, the deadbolt comes out.

So what does the key do? The key puts the doorknob into one of 2 states. The "unlock" state allows the handle to be lifted up or down. The "lock" state allows the handle to be lifted only up--but not down.

It's a very different locking mechanism that I've ever experienced. I've seen wooden locks in Japan (usually for shoes), and all sorts of other locking mechanisms, but this is a first for me.

4) Closing the cereal box
This is a Grand Jury brand cereal. It seems to be the store brand of the Marche Plus. The only other way I know of the Grand Jury brand is from the "Americans in Paris" episode of "This American Life" (available on iTunes) where David Sedaris, an American living in Paris, was reprimanded by his partner Hugh for buying Grand Jury brand butter and allowing Ira Glass (the host of This American Life) to eat, like, 6 pieces of bread with that butter. Anyway, Hugh's opinion notwithstanding, I have no problem with Grand Jury brand. We bought a couple things from it and haven't had a problem. Anyway, I digress.

The box has 2 flaps. One flap has the little tongue--just like an American cereal box. But whereas the other flap on the American cereal box has a little slit that accepts the tongue, the Grand Jury box has a slit, not on the flap, but well down the side of the box. Then it has sort of pendulum-scythe shaped scorings on the side of the box. And the flap that should have the slit is actually connected by a scoring that suggests it should be torn off.

OK, I can handle this: I'm an engineer. So I ripped of the flap. Then I squeezed the box and the top of the box sort of collapsed. Then I saw that if I flip the tongued flap over the top of the box, it would reach the long slit on the side of the box. I've never seen anything like it. I'll have to check other serial boxes of other brands. It might be a French thing. Or a European thing, at that. Here is it all secure from the oxygen, bugs, etc. But as it is muesli, it is not safe from Elena. ;-)

Cheap Wines From The Local Grocers

Now that we are in France, we'll be drinking some wine. So this is a blog I'll update as I drink new bottles of wine.

Art de Vivre: Chardonnay, Vin du Pays d'Oc 2007
The INNO store has a bunch of varietals of Art de Vivre for about 3 euros. This chard was tasty. I'd buy it again.

Le P'tit Caboulot: vin blanc sec, vin de table d'espange no-vintage
Not bad, but not good. But you can't beat the price of 1,05 euros at INNO.

Daquet de Berticot: sauvingon, Cotes de Duras 2006
Again, about a 3 euro wine. Yummy!

The following two were bought at Intermarche on rue George Clemenceau.
Selection Jean d'Almdu, Cuvee du Patron, vin du table de France, red
Selection Jean d'Almdu, Cuvee du Patron, vin du table de France, white
Each were right around 3 euros. The red was OK, but I didn't like the white. One of these days I'll get another bottle of the white and a bottle of the 1 euro P'tit Caboulet and compare them, but right now, I think the 1 euro is the better.

Les Petit Caves, Bordeaux, appellation bordeaux controlee
Not bad at all for only about 2,03 euros! Definintely a rebuy at that price. Got it at Marche Plus on rue George Clemenceau where this wine was half our bill when we got the wine, 4 potatoes, 2 carrots, a head of lettuce, and a tomato.

Castelmaure, Corbieres, Appellation Corbieres Controlee, red, 2006
Exactly 2,00 euros at Intermarche and very nice. Definitely a wine to buy again. Why can't I find $3 wine like this in the USA? :-(

Le Chemin Occitan, Corbieres, Appellation Corbieres Controlee, red, 2006
Around 2,70 euros at Intermarche, I think. I didn't like it by itself but it did taste good once we were eating. So I'd say it's a wine best drunk with food. In fact the bottle recommends it with either raw ham or rabbit with mustard. Intermarche has rabbit, so maybe I'll give it a try.

Royal With Cheese II and Other Cheesey Questions/Answers

OK, when we were in the main plaza (Place de la Comedie), I saw the price for a Royal Cheese. It showed 1,95 euros. Maybe the 3,40 euro price at the McDonald's on the Langedocienne highway was a combo price. Anyway, $3 is a much more reasonable price.

We decided to google the difference between fromage blanc and yogurt. There seems to be a fair amount out there on it. The main difference from our perspective is, well not much. The culture is different. And all the different dairy products, creme frais, fromage frais, yogurt, sour creme, and whatever else there is have different properties when heated that change the texture of the cooked products.

I also figured out the name of the Intermarche Mousquetaire. It's not a "mosquito net" store, but their mascots are "musketeers". Makes much more sense, eh?

More Exploration

We went on a nice but windy walk. Most of the stores are closed--either because it's Easter or because it's noon. Who knows? Anyway, we headed for the northwest part of the old city. We found the location of the office of the Montpellier Alpine Club, but it is only open on Thursdays after 7:30pm. It's in a wonderfully named location. It's in the section of town called the "Fine Arts" at the intersection of "Poetry Street" and "Musical Esplanade". How nice!

We found some amazing new sites by the medical and law schools. No camera, so I'll post pictures when I start blogging about the sites of Montpellier.

We made it back to the main plaza and went to the Polygone which is the mall in the downtown. We wanted to find the bathrooms, but they were in the section of the mall closed for Easter. So we went to the McDonald's. Elena found the bathroom. But you need to get a code that you can only get if you buy food. But Elena asked a girl outside the bathroom if she could let her in. They tried the code but it didn't work. Then they noticed a sign that said that the bathroom is not in service. There is a public bathroom, but the dog owning bums were camped there. So we picked up a couple of groceries at the Monoprix grocery store, which thankfully was open, and came home.

It's fun to find all these historical markers. I'll document them as I find them if I have a camera. We found the location that Marechal Foch stayed when he led the French army in WWI. Wine drinkers may recognize his name because there is a grape named after him. We also found the building where Napoleon's father died. It's near the halal butcher where we bought the turkey on Easter Sunday. There are some other markers, but they concern figures who I have heard of but who I don't know. I have to look them up.

A Look Back On Jefferson & Vernon Hills

So we spent about a week and a half in my ancestral town of Jefferson. This is me in front of the ancestral home.


I saw the pedestrian bridge for the first time in my life.



We visited my brother and his family. We ate a nice meal at 545 North in LIbertyville, Illinois and had a Metamucil to help it through. This is Tim helping mixing up the Metamucil.



Here are Tim and Tressa's children with Todd & Paula's kids. All girls. Yikes!



We got the car washed in Jefferson. Before:



After:



And after the last snow:



Right before we left, my Aunt Gail came over to wish me a good journey and give me a good luck charm. Here is her picture of us. She came about 15 minutes early when Elena was in the shower, so Elena isn't in this one:

My Room

Elena and I spend most of our time in my room because I have the computer and we are internet junkies. Bug the space between the desk and the bed is narrow. So we decided to do a little rearranging. And as is becoming a French theme--that which should be simple, is unnecessarily complex.

The problem is that, for some reason, the desk is bolted to the wall. So I figured it can't be too hard to unscrew it. But the screws are held in place with these things:


And they ripped out of the drywall. Oh well. A bricolage in our future.

Anyway, we got the desk moved over about 4 inches--that which was needed to fit the bed in along the other wall.

So it went from this:


to this.


By the way, have any idea what the thing on the right is? Neither did I until we unplugged the phone and that was the hole that was left. It's a French phone jack.

Royal with Cheese

Yup, it's called the Royal Cheese and at the McDonald's at the A9 exit # 30, it's 3,40 euros. That's like $5.10. For a quarter pounder. Le Big Mac is the same price. There is no way a sane American traveler could eat at McDonald's with the exchange rate as it is. There is something called a Big Tasty for 4,50 euros. That's like $7!

What's a Whopper cost? "I don't know. I didn't go into Burger King."

We found it on our trip to Carrefour--the megastore in France. It was closed because the Romans executed some guy who bothered the rich, and then his followers built up a bit too much of a story around him a few decades after the fact.

On the plus side, the non-Christian places were open, so we found a nice halal butcher with cheap turkey that we ate tonight. They also have cheap couscous, and cheap spices. The nice part about living in the sector with a lot of Arab immigrants is that we get inexpensive meats and veggies even on Easter. I wonder which Muslim and Christian holidays fall on the same day...we better stock up for those days.

Anyway happy Easter to all. Maybe the rabbit, eggs, and all the chocolate contribute to the celebration of the story of Jesus rising from the dead. And may Jesus have mercy on the souls of all those who eat ham for Easter. ;-)

Comfortably Moved In

Whew! We are moved in. And after sleeping in an this Easter Sunday, we are rested, contented, and ready to start our vie francais.

We moved from our old place to our new place:


View Larger Map

It took 2 trips to move all our stuff, but once we moved, paid, and got our keys, we were free and relieved. The place is furnished with the bare necessities. And what does one do in that case? Why, go to Ikea of course. Fortunately for us, there is an Ikea in walking distance (by our standards). Ikea in France is just like Ikea in the US and Canada. Same blue building with yellow IKEA, same layout, same stuff, same goofy names, same crowds of pretty women shopping (I don't know why, but Ikea is a primo girl-watching location). So we wandered around looking at all the stuff we'd like to buy if we had more than 2/3 months here. Anyway, we had some things we absolutely had to buy. The total was 29,93 euros or $45 dollars.

Item	Euros	Dollars
A laundry drying rack	5,99	9.00
2 coffee mugs	2 x 0,50	2 x 0.75
candle	1,70	2.50
3 pot set	7,99	12.00
wooden spoon/fork/stirrer set	0,50	0.75
2 pan set	6,99	10.50
2 flexible cutting boards	0,50	0.75
2 drying cloths	2 x 0,34	2 x 0.50
4 knife set	2,99	4.50

After we left, it started to rain. But not long. We made it back with all that stuff in my backpack. Was happy to get back because my feet were starting to hurt. When we got back we found that we are half a block from a pretty nice grocery store called Intermarche or Mousquitaire or something. We went there and got the most important item: a cheap coffee maker--only 11,26 euros. Yay!!! We need our drip coffee--we're Pacific Northwesterners, after all.

We got a bunch of other groceries that we'll be needing like balsamic vinegar and mustard for salad dressing, salt, pepper, paper towel. We tried to find a big yogurt, but the only large containers (like we have in the USA/Canada) were not labeled yogurt but white cheese (fromage blanc). They were in the yogurt section. Elena bought one and it isn't quite the same--less refreshing and too creamy. So we have to figure out the yogurt stuff.

Today we are going to try to find Carrefour--will they be open on Easter? That is like the French version of Superstore in Canada or a SuperTarget in the US.

It's so nice to have internet again. I have a lot of blog maintenance to do. I spent a lot of time yesterday catching up on my blogs. There were like 500 slogs. Yikes! So I got caught up with the goings on in Seattle and on Capitol Hill. Biggest news seems to be a pillow fight.

Also caught up a bit on the election news. Pretty much status quo except Obama is having a pastor eruption.

One more thing we found. Elena kept looking for craigslist in France and complaining that there is no craigslist. We'll, we popped "montpellier d'occasion" into google to see if we could find a market for used stuff (tv? etc). That's when we first found kijiji.fr. So kijiji.fr is the French copy of craigslist. Yay!!!

Elena has already posted a couple of ads looking for people for us to stuff with and she wants a running partner. I'll try to find language exchange and lessons on kijiji as well.

Our Old Place vs. Our New Place

Of course we took some pictures of the places we stay. First our old place where we stayed for a week. This place is 220 euros a week in the current season.

Here's Elena in our new place updating her blog for future posting (no internet here).


We think they did this to the wall so we could have some 1750's charm.



Our hallway to the bath room is even narrower.


The bathroom narrower still


Here are Elena and I outside our place in the Place St.Ravy



Now for the new place:
Here's Elena packing away the pack


Here's my spacious room


The dining area:


The kitchen:


And the bathroom:

Apartment Is Secured

We got our place. There was an additional 100 euro per person registration fee that we weren't aware of. But C'est la vie. Elena also saw an ad for an apartment in the lobby of the Clemeceau. So now she was totally in 'second guessing' mode. But we signed the contract and paid the registration fee and deposit. So on Saturday morning, we'll move in and that'll be our home for the remainder or our stay in Montpellier. 340A and 340B in the Clemenceau at 1, rue Bourrely, 34000 Montpellier, France. So we will live like students for a couple of months. Hooray! Je suis encore un etudiante. We can live a pretty inexpensive lifestyle, I think. But, we'll see. Hopefully, we'll start meeting people and doing stuff and that can get a little pricey if they all go out to drink.

When we got back I went out and bought La route (The Road) by Cormac McCarthy. My credit card didn't work, so I'm a bit worried about that, but I'll try it somewhere else again tomorrow. I sat at the place just under our room called Le Carre and had a coffee and read La route, underlining all the words I don't know.

Tonight, for only 10,21 euros, we got chicken, 4 chocolate flavored yogurts, a 3 euro bottle of wine (Elena vetoed the 1 euro wine), and some pasta sauce.

So, now the pressure is off, and we can relax. We'll soon move in to our new place, and then we can start actually exploring the city. By the time I move back to Seattle, I'm going to be Seattle's foremost expert on the city of Montpellier. ;-)

But I intend to share my expertise with the readers and googlers in my humble blog. Now that we are a bit more secure in our futures, I'll cut back on the minute-by-minute blow-by-blow accounts, and try to make my blog a bit more thematic. The fact is that there are almost no accounts that I could find about the minutae and the mundane problems that people have when they travel in the manner we are traveling (living for a 2-3 month term in one place). They tend to drop those problems into the background once they find a solution and don't record them on the internet for future travelers. I'm hoping that some of my descriptions are googled and that people who are crazy enough to try to do what Elena and I are doing can see some of the practical steps and options.

And anyone interested in visiting or living in Montpellier should also find a lot of information in my blog. And I am looking forward to exploring all of Montpellier and the beaches nearby.

Victory Is Nigh!

We woke up at 8:42 after a nice and restful sleep in our tiny bed in our tiny room. We had a pot of coffee and headed out to the Clemenceau. We got a bit lost on the way and had forgotten to bring our map, but after Elena asked for directions, we got there. And we accepted the offer for a room starting April 1. Then the manager who showed us the room, gave us a break on the 10 days up to then. So we could get the room for 280 euros for those 10 days. That means lugging our heavy bags only one more time. Yay!!! So we need a cash deposit of 100 euros each and 140 euros each for the first 10 days. Whew! We sign the contract at 2pm.

There is an open air market close to the residence. Bananas are 1,20 euros per kilogram instead of 2,20 euros like in the grocery stores in the main plaza. So Elena doesn't have to go on a banana austerity program. Of course, the prices here are still high, so we'll be a bit austere. I'll splurge, maybe today on La Route by Cormac McCarthy. I read The Road in about 2 days, so the French version should be pretty doable. Our new area seems to be home to a population of the Arab immigrants, so we'll get yummy Moroccan foods for good prices and we'll have access to good spices. I'll also be able to try to practive reading Arabic script.

We'll I better get off the computer to let Elena finish her blog, then it's off to the internet cafe and then to the Clemenceau.

End of the Second Full Day in Montpellier

Damn! I'm tired. Elena and I walked all over today. We walked here, there, back here, back there, then over there, then there, then here, etc. You get the idea. We walked.

Anyway, we woke up this morning a little before 8. Since it wasn't yet 8--when we had decided to get up, we got to savor those minutes you get when you wake up before your alarm on a non-work day. We savored them, because even though we both had a really good night's sleep, it's nice to be in that restful, peaceful state.

But all good things come to an end, and we had to wake up.

We headed out--with laptop--to Les 3 Graces, a cafe on the main plaza with WiFi. Or so we thought. After all, they showed up in my iPod. Knowing we'd probably get online, I ordered a large Americano and Elena ordered a large Cafe au Lait. We got the Cafe au Lait and a double espresso. Oh well. We asked the waiter for the password. He told us it is difficult to access the internet. After a little back and forth, it became clear that the WiFi of the place was only for their waiter pocket PC ordering system and not the public. We had our coffees and skeedaddled. There was a bit of excitement outside because the Creperie next door had a fire.


Then, we went to Lamy to ask about other places in the University area. NOthing really. It's the Da Vinci or a small place. So we said we'd be back and headed out to google more apartments and options in Montpellier, and I wanted to get a USB thumb drive. I went to the Polygon which is the local mall. No stores there seemed to have USB drives. Then I found a store with USB drives, but I couldn't get in. So I went to the cybercafe and found Elena where I left her. She had forgotten where it was and waited for me patiently while I was wandering around in the Polygon.

So we got the addresses of a couple of places and figured out what happens when you type 54321 into a French keyboard. It's )"'e& where the e has an accent over it.

I tried my iPod at Le Riche again. I tried the )"'e&--the iPod has a French keyboard for entering French letters. That didn't work. So I tried plain old 54321 again. This time, 54321 worked! Yay!!! Now I have to furtively try to log in with my laptop and see if I can connect. Could it be an ASCII vs. Unicode issue? I don't know. But I have to figure it out.

Anyway, we got a couple of locations from the addresses in a brochure we had. We almost got three, but the time ran out just as google maps stated searching for the location. Oh well. The first one, the Observatoire, was close so we went there. The woman at the reception was very nice. She told us that they had nothing at the moment, but she called another place nearby for us and said that they had a room for 2 for 3 months. We headed down there--the Clemenceau. But, noon had passed in the interim, and reception was closed. Hmmm.... Ok, to the second one, Sun Valley. This one is way out on the west of the city. We got 2 two way tickets.

Getting those tickets wasn't easy. I was touching the screen to get the round trip tickets, but nothing. Then a girl watching us showed me a cylinder stickout out. It worked like a mouse wheel or Blackberry wheel. But it's about 3 inches long and 1.5 inches in diameter. Cool.

So we trammed out. The university area was nice. Many many students. We went about 8 stops and got out. Elena took a look around at the green but essentially lifeless area and said "I'll tell you one thing right now. There is no way I'm going to live here for 3 months." So we crossed the tracks and waited for the tram back.

We got some turkey, cheese spread, a tomato, and a sunflower seed baguette and went home to make scrambled eggs and a baguette. Yummy!!! Then off to the residence that closed at noon. Reception was open, so we explained our situation. Then she remembered the phone call. "Ahhh...." The rooms are $480 per person (1-3 month rate). Halfway through, I guess she liked us, so she dropped it to $420 per person (the 10 month rate). These rooms have internet, but the layout is funny. Basically a common kitchen and bathroom, then 2 sleeping rooms.

We headed back to Lamy and along the way decided on the da Vinci, if they had internet. It was $200 cheaper, but we'd have to pay all at once. The Observatoire is $200 more expensive, but cleaner and but we'd get to pay each month and have more flexibility.

When we got to Lamy, we asked if the da Vinci had internet. No. Damn! And there doesn't seem to be a good way to get it for a short term.

The other problem with the Clemenceau, is that the weekly rate (the rate we'd have to pay until April 1 when the monthly rate kicks in) is super high--almost 3x what we're paying right now. So we'll have to fend for ourselves until April 1. So back to the internet. But first we needed a USB drive.

I found the USB drive place. I asked for one in my bad French. What could have been an easy transaction, was complicated by the sales woman trying to give it to me free in exchange for a store card. I didn't want a card--just the USB drive. But Elena wanted the card, so she was trying to explain our situation to see if we could get the USB drive for free. Finaly, I got my way. 12.40 euros. I pulled out cash, but she can't easily accept cash. So I pulled out a credit card, but she had me stick it in the bottom of the machine instead of swiping it. They must had credit cards with a chip here. That didn't work either. So we had to go to a different registers where I could pay in cash. Whew!

Then we transfered our blog information to the USB drive and went to the internet cafe. Elena googled for a place to stay until April 1. I updated our blogs.

We checked a few local hotels by just walking to them. Then got dinner ingredients at INNO (chunks of beef, frozen vegetables, spiced couscous, and a 1.05 euro bottle of wine. It was about 11 euros all together, but we only intended to use half the ouscous and vegetables. We cooked up a really delicious meal, drank the not-too-bad 1 euro wine, and went to sleep watching a documentary about some orphaned bear cubs, "Dr. House" and "New York: Unite Speciale" ("House" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit").

So we went to sleep optimistic. I'm excited. I hope Elena is excited too.

Catch Up-Sort Of

Hello anxious readers!

I am writing from an internet cafe with French placement of keys! It is more than a bit frustrating. We are still having laptop connectivity issues, so until then, we are doing only emergency internet usage. I managed to dump my blog posts onto the blogspot, but I'll work on them a bit later and get pictures, timestamp, etc correct.

We have found but not reserved a spot that will be available from April 1. So we are in good shape. More to come. Until then, try to read my last few posts, and know that we are having an adventure! :-)

A Minor Problem

We decided to cap off the night with a drink and internet access via my laptop at a cafe in the plaza called Le Riche. We went and ordered a couple of drinks--I got a medium Amstel for 4,10 ($6.00) and Elena got a mulled wine. Then we got the password for the internet. Well, the password is 54321 on the keys across the top of the keyboard. It didn't work. They reset the router and watched me type it in. Nothing worked. I tried a bad password and it had the same effect. Then I remembered what the girl at the other internet cafe told us about typing in our codeword. She told us to use the keypad to enter the numbers. We did and it worked. My hypothesis right now is that when you press the keys that are the 54321 key, the American keboard produces 54321, but a French keyboard produces something different. The French keyboard is quite different, after all. The 'm' is by the 'l', and 'q' and 'a' are swapped, the '.' is shifted. It's very difficult to use. Elena was excited to use a North American keyboard. But no such luck. We tried everything. Tomorrow, I'll look at the French keyboard and see what the characters are for them. Maybe I'll have to buy a USB French keyboard. Somehow, I'l get it figured out. There is another place called Les Trois Graces which has WiFi, so we will try that as well. Hopefully their password isn't something that depends on the vicissitudes and whims of the keyboard layout designers. Oh well--back to CSI: Maimi in French (Les Experts: Miami).

Elena Saves The Day

We went out again. This time we went out with the intention of making progress to finding a place. Elena and I had many disagrements about the next place to go. I wanted to check the bookstore to see if they had a Lonely Planet that listed a place that has short term housing, then I wanted to go to the university area and see if they had either newspapers or bulletin boards or bulletin kiosks that had sublets, etc. I'm not sure what Elena wanted to do. We went to the bookstore. They had an English travel book section that Lonely Planet books but not the one with the name of the place that has short term rentals. They had the France Lonely Planet, but it's only in the Languedoc-Roussillon Lonely Planet. So we headed out to get to the university area. We went to the station and found the vending machine. I got out a 10 euro bill to pay for some tickets.

"You need coins. The machine doesn't take bills," said a very scruffy looking guy. He was like an articulate bilingiual bum--scruffy beard, smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer, managing his dog. But after Elena explained to him what we wanted (a room for about 3 months), he told us the only way we could do it was through a real-estate agency. After he told us that, he and his dog left. It was like a scene from The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. It's like he was put there to put us on the right path and then disappear.

We went to a real-estate agency called Immobilis. That particular branch only does purchases, but they sent us to the rental branch of Imobilis. But they only do rentals for 6 months or longer. The woman there recommended a long term hotel and a place we can ask about near the university. Elena wanted to walk to the place near the university, so we started to walk. We made it to the front of what is apparently like the City Hall, only it's called Hotel de Ville. We were a tad lost and were looking at our map when a group of 3 people approached us. Two young women and a young man. Perhaps students. They were a great help. Elena spoke with them in French. I understood a fair amount, too, but didn't add anything except nods, etc. We went into the city hall, but weren't sure how to proceed. Then the guy from the group came in and guided us over to the receptionists. He helped us with her. She was surprised that we hadn't had much luck with the real estate people. We decided to try a couple more real estate agencies just to see if we could get better luck. After all, there has to be a way to rent a place for a short period of time. What do men do when they are kicked out by their wives, after all? That must happen in Mediterranian areas where the women are hot-tempered and the men are horny.

So we went to a real estate agency called Lemy. We walked in and got a very nice women who was willing to help us. She found a student apartment for us to look at. The problem right now is that there are almost no furnished apartments at all in the area. There are plenty of unfurnished places but almost no furnished. She got us an appointment with a guy who manages student housing with one of the only "furnished" places at a place called the Leonardo da Vinci. Elena and I went to take a look. We tried to buzz him, but no answer. Then a student, black as black, came and let us in and showed us the way to the manager. The manager looked and sounded just like the characters I read about in Peter Mayle's 'A Year in Provence". Elena could talk with him, but I didn't understand a word that came out of his mouth. I couldn't even tell if he was speaking French. We saw the place he had. It was on the very end of a hallway on the 3rd floor (4th floor by American standards). When we first entered the room, it was hot. Very hot. But open windows will take care of that because it's rather cool out right now. The kitchen wasn't big, but it would work. The rooms weren't big. It's not bad at all. On the way back we got a couple of newspapers.

We had tried to get a newspaper in the morning. I wanted one with classified ads but the free paper didn't have classified ads. So Elena asked a set of 3 police where we could buy a newspaper. The police told us that there were people handing out free newspapers and they thought we were goofy for wanting to pay for one. Anyway, we found a newstand that had the local paper for 0,85 euro ($1.30) and we got it. Then we found a free paper that is only classified ads in a rack outside some store.

After buying some pasta, chicken, sauce, oil, frozen veggies (but not paper towel) for 9,80 euros ($15), we came home and cooked--rather successfully given our small kitchenette. We had a nice meal, drank our wine we bought in the morning, and browsed the classifieds. Today was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but we are now confident that we can find something. We know more than yesterday about how to find a place. We know the French T# system (T1 is a room, T2 is a 2 room, etc.) We know there is a spot at the Leonardo da Vinci. We haven't even been to the University area, there may be places there. We are optimistic and excited!

Our First Morning (Notre Premier Matin)

We just got back after our first morning outing. It was chilly but nice. We found our location on the map and started to walk out to the main plaza. It was about 9, but the town was just starting to wake up. We are smack dab in the middle of the old part of town, now called Le Quartier de l'Ancien Courrier (The Old Postman's District). We wandered around a bit and eventually found the main plaza. People were everywhere walking around the plaza, drinking coffee in the cafes surrounding the plaza, coming and going. We went over to the tourist information center and got some information on the place including a brouchure with many apartments of the sort we might be looking for.

We passed by a McDonald's and I checked my iPod for WiFi. Nothing that wasn't locked. And nothing that appeared to be McDonald's WiFi. There is a ton of WiFi called Wanadoo. I'm wondering if I can subscribe to Wanadoo and get WiFi through them.

We decided to get a coffee at a place right on the plaza. Cafe and Toast for each of us. One Coffee + Toast costs 2,60 euros! And the coffee was a little espresso shot thing. The toast is 3 slices of white bread toast. Elena wanted a croissant but they didn't have croissants. So between the not-real-coffee and the white bread, Elena didn't get what she wanted at all. I would have liked more coffee, but I was OK with the toast. Elena looked through the apartments and I looked at a free newspaper we were handed and the map of the place.

After that we went to get groceries:
coffee beans 1/2 lb for 2,91 ($4.50)
6 rolls of toilet paper 1,89 ($3.00)
soap 0,60 ($1.00)
6 X-large eggs 1,53 ($2.25)
2 bananas 0,97 ($1.50)
bottle of wine 3,39 ($6.00)
liter of milk 1,00 ($1.50)

Then we came home for real coffee, a shower, and to get ready for our day. Right now Elena is looking at opportunities like the Alpine Club of France. Last night she declared she didn't like MOntpellier, but that's OK because on our first night in Barcelona she declared that she didn't like Barcelona. It takes her a while to warm up to a place. But now she is getting convinced that this is a nice place to hang out for a while. I hope our apartment hunting goes well. We have to move out on from our tiny digs on Saturday.

So we have seen The Gap, Body Shop, and 2 McDonald's so far. We checked out the bicycles at a sports store--the cheapest was about 140 euros or $250. I still owe Elena a bike from Christmas 3 years ago.

A few notes on our apartment: it is in an old building. By old, I mean it was built when George Washington was traipsing around the forests fighting the French. The very first inhabitants of this building were probably horrified that George Washington assassinated one of their diplomats. (He signed the confession, but maybe didn't know what he was signing.) The toilet works on a pump. When we flush the toilet, a very loud pump pumps twice for about 6 or 7 seconds each. We have a window that opens onto a "courtyard" that's about 10 square meters and totally enclosed. The 13" TV has only about 12 channels, but most of them are copies. I haven't checked to see how many unique channels there are. All French--no English on this TV. The stone spiral staircase has a timed light at night that turns off before we can reach the our place 4 stories up. It's charming, though.

It's a good thing Elena knew how to buy produce. Apparently it is weighed in the produce section and a sticker is stuck on. It's not like the USA where it's weighed at the register.

We also tried to see if we could get internet somehow. When I look at my WiFi list, I see tons of wanadoo and livebox access points. I thought maybe these were something we could log onto if we had a password and user name. However it turned out that these were modems that people own that connect to the internet through the cellphone network. Seattle has a system like that called Clearwire or something like that. Anyway, we went to France Telecom (Orange) and looked into our options for that. Without a 2 year contract, it is prohibitively expensive! So we won't be doing that.

Arrival in Montpellier

Je suis arrive! It wasn't easy because except for the very first train stop, there was no announcement about where we were stopping. You had to look out the window and see what the sign said in the pitch black darkness. But at last, we made it to Montpellier!

We lugged our luggage up some more stairs. We found a couple with a sign with my name on it. Whew! They were there. Yay!!! THen the bad news. They came on foot. We had to lug our luggage...uphill...for 10 minutes! Yikes! But Elena had enough Frenchto have a nice little chat with them. I understood most of what they said except for when there was traffic or loud noises.

The first thing I noticed: university girls. Loads of them. Loads and loads. Hot and cute. Oh, I'm going to like Montpellier! We finally came upon the Rue de ?? Croix and took a left. Then the streets got narrower. Finally we wound up next to a restaurant called "Carre". The door to our place was right to its right. The door opened and we took a stone spiral staircase up 4 floors to our little room.

I do believe it is the first place I've ever lived where one dimension of the room is so small that I can touch the facing walls without even exerting myself! The room is basic, but functional. Small but charming. It'll be fun to stay here for the 5 days while we figure out what to do with our futures.

It's about 11pm, so off to bed.

Last Day in Barcelona

Ugh!!! Was that the alarm? Jet lag hit me and I couldn't fall asleep. Elena had the watch in beep every hour mode and I counted 2 of them. I thought I'd be able to sleep since we walked all over the city. We walked and walked and walked. My feet were so sore! I was watching Spartacus in Spanish and after 12am, I was hoping the next battle with the Romans would be the last, but the slaves won and I had to turn off the TV.

Elena started rearranging the weight in the luggage in anticipation of carrying it back to the station. Then we headed out to go to Starbucks (we found one just a block away from La Sagrada Familia) and to go to the grocery store to buy some meat, cheese, and bread to make sandwiches for lunch. We got to Starbucks and ordered 1 tall and 1 grande coffee--they call the drip coffee by the name "cafe de la setmana" or coffee of the week. Well, it seems that the Starbucks didn't have the coffee beans for brewing drip coffee! The guy said we they were on the way and that we could only have "normal" coffee, by which he meant an exzresso drink. We let a woman behind us place her order while we mulled over the options. So we decided to get an Americano and the barista guy seemed pleased with our choice. We sat and sipped on our Americanos and marvelled that we couldn't get drip coffee at Starbucks on a Monday morning!

At last, we finished up our americanos and headed up to the grocery store (Bonpreu). It was after 9 and the store opens at 9, so imagine our surprise when the store wasn't open yet! Or maybe we shouldn't have been surprised. So we went to the hostal and got our luggage and went to check out. The hostel owner came down and we asked if we could keep our luggage there. She agreed and out we went to have one more crack at Barcelona.

Since I know Elena likes to climb slopes, I had suggested Montjuic. We walked there. Along the way both our feet started to hurt. It was the furthest point from our hotel that we had walked yet. And we were only half way to the mountain! When we almost reached the point we popped into a patisserie (forn de pa) and got some pastries. Then we went by the Coliseum and up toward the National Art Museum of Catalanya. There were escalators all the way up to the top (there are Olympics venues up there so they needed a way to get crowds up the mountain), but only took one story of escalator. The rest was foot and leg work. Fortunately, when we reached the top, Elena pulled out the pastries we bought and we scarfed them down followed by a couple of bananas we had bought 2 days earlier. Then we wandered around on the mountain gaining altitude until we reached the Castle.

At the Castle we had a neat little surprise. We saw the port of Barcelona in operation and they were discharging a COSCO vessel. That's Elena's company! It was fun to see it way down there looking like a little toy container ship. We tried to take pictures. The deck cranes blocked the view of the COSCO on the side of the ship, but we got enough that it might be possible to tell. We had a good time making work jokes.

Then we went on a teleferic which is a gondola hanging from cables, but it does a left hand turn at the half way through. Cool, eh? At the end of that we were at a funicular stop, but decided to walk down despite our painful feet. We got to the bottom and crossed El Rival, La Rambla, La Ribela, and finally made it near the Familia Sagrada where another Bonpreu was open. We got 9,85 euros of meat, cheese, bread, nuts, cookies, and water. Half of it we ate in the shade of the park right by the Sagrada Familia. It was yummy. Then we went back to the hostel to get our luggage. Slowly, slowly we progressed to the station. We managed the stairs, managed the turnstiles, managed the subway, and managed several esclators before arriving at our station. Yay!!!! We popped into a cafeteria. I guarded the luggage as Elena went to get a latte. Then Elena guarded the luggage as I went to get a beer. Elena said her coffee was really good, but it couldn't have been anywhere near as good as my beer. I was hot, tired, sweaty, fatigued, but when those first few swallows of cold beer went down my throat, all was well again. Elena looked jealous of my bliss and asked for a sip. I was afraid because I had memories of her in Greece on a hot day chugging a Mythos beer at the base of the Acropolis. I've never seen anyone chug a beer so fast. But she took only a small sip. Whew!

Then we got a couple of beers for the road and headed to platform 12 to catch our train. There was a security checkpoint. After a while, they let us down to the platform. We waited for the train. As the time for the train to come approached, it was looking like there wouldn't be enough time to get everyone on. The monitor that showed the train schedule had a little tiny red scrolling thing. I got closer to it so I could read it. It was a tiny little alert that the train would be an hour late. Damn! So we sat there for an hour more waiting for the train. When it arrived, we fought through the train to get to our car which was the furthest car from where we were. In fact our seats were the furthest seats on that car. In fact, our seats faced backwards and our knees would go right against the knees of the guys who were there. They were horrible seats. Immediately Elena thought the ticket vendor did this to us on purpose. I'm not as sure, but she's from Europe so maybe she knows something I don't.

I'm writing this as we are on the train. We'll be in Montpellier in a couple of hours. Until then, toodles!

Another Jaunt to Las Ramblas

It turns out that La Rambla is just a part Las Ramblas. Wow! That means more exploration! So at about 7pm we went out to check out La Ribera and La Rival. We found the street with all the high priced shops on the way. Then we found La Ribera. It's a part of town with the narrow, twisty, cavernous pedestrian streets (though we did see a Citroen slowly plow through a crowd gathered to watch a musician) filled with souvenir shops, sandwich shops, and bars. In many ways, it is similar to the 'Old Town' in Prague but without all the crystal shops. We started to get hungry so we popped into a place called the Pita Inn--a sort of fast food pita place. We got 3,50 euro chicken and beef wraps. Then Elena tacked on a 1,40 euro 250ml water. When we got our pitas there was only meat in them. You add your own toppings like onions, lettuce, tomato, beets, curried cabbage, and a couple more I can't remember. Then after we sat down, we learned the trick. Since you get your own fixings, you can order a 1,95 euro falafel pita and load up on the free stuff. Oh well we know next time. The cool thing for me was that I understood the price the cute checkout girl said both times. Siete con diez and uno cuarente. Or 7.10 and 1.40. Gee! Maybe my Spanish comprehension isn't so bad!

So let's look at some liquid prices:
1,40 Euro ($2.10) for 300 ml of water at Pita Inn
0,49 euor ($0.75) for 1.5l of water at a grocery store
1,128 euro for a liter of gasoline--about $7 per gallon
1,75 euro ($2.65) for 750ml of Rioja red wine
2,10 euro ($3.15) for a tall Starbucks coffee

After La Ribera, we walked on the main Rambla to the port and then went over to La Rival which is on the other side of La Rambla. That side is like the Little Morocco. Most of the signage was in letters and not Arabic script, but most of the people we either tourists or Arabish. There are a lot of hotels and hostels right in that area. We walked back. By now our feet we very sore. We had walked all day long.

One of the tricky parts of Barcelona is that all the intersection corners are clipped. They are all like octogons if viewed from above. This gets to be annoying. But it's even worse when a diagonal street crosses this intersection because it's hard to know if you are on the right street. And the lights are deadly because the 'walk' signal flashes for only a couple of seconds before turning to 'don't walk'. In America, the flashing 'walk' means, 'only start crossing if you are fast. In Barcelona it means, 'if you are in the intersection, sprint to the closest side.'

Barcelona--Our Only Full Day

Today was our only full day in Barcelona. We woke up and headed toward the main station to get tickets for our trip to Montpellier because the owner of the place we are staying will pick us up and we have to tell him when we will arrive. So we headed down to the Sagrada Familia and took a right to go to the Sants station. Elena felt like a coffee and so did I. We were thinking we might find a Starbucks because then we knew we'd get good coffee and not Nescafe.

When we were almost to the station, we passed a prison. How odd to have a prison in prime real estate. Maybe it's supposed to be a reminder to the citizens of Barcelona. It looks like an old facility. Only the guard tower tops looked sort of high tech.

We made it to the station and got a couple of tickets. 54 Euros each. The bus would have been 30 Euros but the bus leaves at 9:30 am and the train leaves at 4:42pm. So we opted for the train. Then we decided to head to La Rambla which a guy at Tourist Information recommended.

We went down the Avenue Roma and headed toward La Rambla. Elena had noticed a bunch of people carrying flowers all over. I didn't notice them myself. I guess because I was looking for Starbucks and pretty women. When we got to the top of La Rambla, we still we thirsty and a tad hungry. We hadn't seen a Starbucks, but there was a nice looking little cafe that we entered. So we went in. Elena ordered a cafe au lait (cafe con leche) and croissant and I ordered a coffee and toast, I think (cafe i tostada). I got a croissant. Oh well. Both breakfasts were supposed to be 1,70 Euros according to the chalk board outside, but the bill was a la carte and the total was 4,82. We left 5 Euros. I told Elena later and she said I should have told her then so she could point it out to the guy. OK, next time.

We walked one more block and, voila, Starbucks! We just had coffee, but Elena wanted more. SO we went in and got two tall coffees. A tall coffee at Starbucks on La Rambla is 2,10 euros! It's $1.73 in canada and right around there in the United States. But it's $3.15 in Europe! That's almost twice as much. Crimeny! Anyway, we sat there and Elena brought over a local newspaper.

It was fun looking through the paper. The language in Barcelona is not SPanish, but a Spanish/French hybrid. 'and' is not 'y' but 'i'. 'with' is not 'con' but 'amb'. 'I' is not 'yo' butt 'jo'. There are many words that are more French than Spanish as I know Spanish--'the weather' wasn't 'el tiempo' but 'el temps'. There are also many words that are Spanish but with different letters. Like 'beach' and 'travel' are not 'playa' and 'viaje' but 'platje' and 'viatge'. There are also a lot of letter 'X' than can be found in Spanish. The cedilla is also found along with both types of accent over the e.

(A realtime OMFG!!!: The Brady Bunch just came on the TV. But not the one with Florence Henderson. It's apparently called La Tarda. It's got the same theme and opening sequence with the Hollywood Squares layout-not no Alice equivalent. The song has the "all of them have hair of gold, just like their mother/the youngest one in curls" but they are all brunettes. ROFLMAO! Back to the blog.)

So anyway, we looked through the paper noting all the neat differences from Spanish and similarities to French. Then we headed down La Rambla.

It was crowded! Wow! When we left in the morning, the city was dead. But La Rambla was crowded. It was divided into sections according to the commerce on the boulevard in the median. There was a jewelry section, portait section, art section, clothing section, food section. But there were several copies of a souvenir store called alternately 'Hola' and 'Hello'. We saw the start of a parade. There were two gendarmish looking men on horses followed by 2 broom sweepers, followed by a street sweeper car (under which I briefly considered tossing my now empty Starbucks cup), and then a set of a boy and 2 girls in robes carrying religious looking stuff. I figured it was a preparation for Semana Santa (Holy Week). Here it's called Semantya Santa, I think--another deviation from Spanish. Elena took a couple of pictures, but the parade stalled there--I think they were waiting for a starting time. We go bored and left.

There were many people disguised as statues. Elena took some pictures of them until I admonished her that we need to pay them to take their picture. She noted that you only need to pay them if you take a picture with them. We worked our way down to a large column. We took more pictures. Down by the sea, we took some pictures at a building with mirrors mounted on the upper floors. Then we walked along the water. Barcelona has many sections of beach. Nobody was sunbathing yet but people were laying and playing on the beach. Cafes were packed. We passed the nude beach section, but there was only one naked guy. Two girls layed out a blanket, but Elena didn't want to stick around to see if they would take off their clothes.

We found a place to eat. Elena was excited about paella, so we got a seafood paella. It's a large round iron pan maybe a foot in diameter with handles on both ends. We also got a patates bravas which is like baked potato sections with a slightly spicy mayonnaise. I had 2 canyas and Elena had one. A canya is just a small glass of the house beer. The paella had 4 shrimps and 4 mussells and cubes of some fish on a large bed of rice cooked in some sort of savory sauce. I peeled the first shrimp, but decided that it's OK to eat the shell as well. I did cut off the heads, though. We weren't sure how the paella was priced. It is about 9 euros but requires a minumum of 2 people. So is it 9 per person or 9 for the dish? After a few attempts to ask for la cuenta (the check) we got it and found out. Yep, 9 per person. So the total was $25.18 or something like that. I wasn't sure how to tip, so I rounded up to $26. I hope that's OK.

We walked back with all that paella in us. We found several more nice little areas of Barcelona. I stopped at a machine and got more money. Elena thinks I'm taking out too much, but we'll need it. It's not like we'll be stuck with a bunch of left over euros.

We got a chance to see La Sagrada Familia from the other side on our way back. There is scaffolding all over it. I'm not sure if it is still under construction or already being restored. I think the former. It costs 8 euros to get in and I only pay to go into gothic, high gothic, neogothic, and romanesque churches. Not art deco churches.

Back in our rooms, we are logging onto the internet with somebody's unsecure connection called 'zoom'. I hope we aren't cyber-trespassing too bad. I'll add pictures when we have a legitimate connection and aren't cyber trespassing.

It's 6:30pm now. The next blog will have anything we do if I can awaken the siesta girl laying in bed.

Made It To Barcelona!

I'm writing this in our room at the Hostal Lazza in Barcelona for later upoad to my blog when we find an internet cafe (pictures will come later). Here is me with a 1,75 Euro bottle of wine that actually tastes really good (Comportillo Cosecha 2007 from Rioja). I had Elena take this picture so I could show you what a homeless, jobless guy looks like when he's drinking a $3 bottle of wine. ;-)


Anyway, we last saw the parents leaving from Janesville. We looked something like this:


We were a bit worried about the VanGalder bus because we switched at ROckford, picked up a few hotel people, and then got stuck in traffic. Anyway, we arrived about 40 minutes late, but we had enough time to check in and get to our gate. The international terminal at O'Hare sucks. There are no bars, restaurants, stores, or anythig worth looking at. Just a couple of kiosks--one duty free and one not.

I'm not allowed to tell this story, but I will anyway. We didn't get the seats that we picked on the Expedia seat picker and Elena made the LOT girl go back and see why. After a few minutes she came back and said there was nothing in the reservation. Then she capped it off with "you must have done something wrong." I thought it was funny, but Elena didn't. It was an Eastern European customer service catfight in the making. Sadly, no cat fight.

The flight was long. 9.5 hours long. It was a relief to get off in Warsaw. Elena needed a latte that wasn't made with Nescafe because anyone who has traveled to Europe with Elena knows that she goes out of her way--way out of her way--to make sure she doesn't have to consume Nescafe. Yes, my arch enemy is the Social Conservative, and Elena's arch enemy is the restauranteur who serves Nescafe. We deborded and got into another security line to get on the next plane and Elena got a latte at a place called Coffee Heaven. She said the latte wasn't great--not bad, but not good either. So I think they should rename it Coffee Purgatory. Well, the security line doesn't allow liquids, so when we got near the front of the line and Elena had most of her latte left, we went back to the end of the line.

The flight from Warsaw to Barcelona was more pleasant. We were able to catch a little more sleep (it was like 3am our time). We finally arrived at the airport. It took a while to figure out what carousel our bags would come out on because 1) the carousels are individually marked instead of there being a central set of screens that point you to the carousel, and 2) Warasw was spelled Varsalia or something like that and the flight number was in really small print. OUr bags were quick and we got out. Then we got on the shuttle to the train. THe shuttle is free. Then we took the train to Barcelona. That was free too. Then we took a subway to the station right by the Sagrada Familia. The whole way, we were lugging our excessively heavy luggage. I think it's because Elena overpacked her clothes and she thinks it's because I overpacked by books. Of course I'm right--but that doesn't matter because Elena is the woman. ;-) So the official reason is that I overpacked my books.

Well, we got to the Hostal Lazza and checked in. They do take credit cards--just not today. So it's a god thing I got some cash at the first ATM I saw.

We showered and went out for a nice walk down to the Arc de Triomf and the museums. Then we walkde back and stopped into 3 different grocery stores as we figured out how to do dinner. We got 100 grams of a sausage, a tube of chevre, a baguette, and a bottle of wine. Total was about 6 Euros. And that's what we ate. Now it's almost time for bed.

Interesting observations:

• The passengers on LOT applaud when the plane lands. On the first flight, they applauded on take off
• The 'walk' signals in Barcelona suddenly turn into 'Don't Walk' and traffic starts up
• Couples make out by the museums in Barcelona
• POlish flight attendants are young and pretty--I guess discrimination is allowed
• Iberian girls are still sexy. And becuase they are short, a larger percentage of them are in my height range
• There are lots of banks and pharmacies in Barcelona

Jefferson to O'Hare to Warsaw to Barcelona

Well, we're packed and on our way. We're going to Janesville to get the bus to O'Hare.

Everyone's getting ready so I better fold up the laptop.

I'll blog later. :-)

Almost Ready

Hmmm.... Elena beat me to the punch. Usually her blogs lag mine and she uses mine as a reference to write hers. Well, I shouldn't say "usually" since she just started. Anyway, we leave tomorrow. So here's what I had to do to get ready:

• Buy travel insurance. Did that just now. Thank goodness for the internet and online insurance. $500,000 policy with a $1000 deductible for $438.
• Decide which books to take. Just my little language books and travel guides.
• See people--saw Ken and his wife Josey two nights ago. Saw my brother and his family last weekend.
• Buy a few items--nylon cord, a money belt, a compass, and a new Moleskine to start a new travel journal.
• Repack--need to reduce the amount of stuff I need.
• We also got a hostel room in Barcelona and a week in an apartment in Montpellier.
• Charge my iPod. I have 19 This American Life episodes loaded onto it.
• Figure out my passport--I'll get it renewed at the Consulate in Marseilles.
• Confirm our tickets--LOT 2 from O'Hare to Warsaw and LOT 437 from Warsaw to Barcelona.
• File taxes--hey I need my stimulus money to stimulate the French economy, right?
• Deposit a check--not so many branches of my usual bank out here.
• Laundry.
• Turn off voice mail on my cell phone so I don't spend $2 to receive a non-message that somebody left. BTW AT&T international Customer Care is 1-916-843-4685. Did you know that you can't use AT&T voicemail to have an outgoing message unless you accept voicemail? Back in 1998, I had an answering machine that let me choose between outgoing message only or outgoing message with voice mail. I can't believe I can't do that in 2008. Shame on AT&T. Also I needed my phone unlock code. Again, AT&T didn't send it to me--only a message saying that my issue was resolved successfully.
• Wash the car.

Credit Card

Last week I tried to get a credit card that had an expiration date after my trip ends so I don't have to deal with it expiring when I'm abroad. The problem with that was that when they send out a new credit card, they cancel the old one. I was about to head across the USA so I decided to wait until I got to Wisconsin and get an expedited credit card sent to me here.

But when I called, they started out by telling me the same stuff that the first guy said, but after a bit of time, the customer service guy said that they could send out a new card with my same number and not turn off my current card. So I'm getting an expedited card and my current card is still good while it comes out. Why couldn't the first guy give me that offer? Oh well. At least it's going to work out well. I just have to be home Tuesday from 8 to 5 to wait for the courier.

Seeing The Brother

Later today we are all heading to Chicago (actually a northern suburb) for dinner with the brother, wife, and nieces. My cousin and his wife might be there too. It'll be one last chance to see them all before my risky adventure in Africa.

Flight Booked

We have officially booked our flights. We leave from O'Hare at 6:30pm on Friday, March 14. Connect in Warsaw. Then to Barcelona! Why Warsaw? Because the cheapest flights by far were on LOT Airlines out of Poland--only about $640. Who would have guessed?

We got a hostel in Barcelona near the Familia Sagrada for a couple of days. So we are set to get to Europe! We will figure out how to get up to Montpellier from Barcelona.

Bad Gas

We woke up from our slumber in Murdo. No murders in Murdo while we were there. We hit the road and drove east, and east, and east, and east. It was very windy--the kind of wind that makes you drive with the steering wheel aimed at 1 o'clock (okay, actually more like 12:20). We gassed up in Mitchell at a Cenex and headed east. Once again my mileage was off. We only got 240 miles on the tank instead of the 360. Just like my tanks in Vancouver. So is it bad gas? Or the wind? Who knows? We gassed up again in Albert Lea, Minnesota and the mileage was back to normal. But the wind also died down at that point. Why do all my mileage events have to have these extra variables so I can't isolate the gas as bad gas? Anyway I had a fun time talking about bad gas. Elena also enjoyed my bad gas jokes--for a while.

We got to Minnesota and then through Minnesota, finally arriving in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Then we headed 2 or 3 more hours to home.

We saw no police in South Dakota and Montana. But once we hit Minnesota and Wisconsin, there were police speed traps. In one case in Wisconsin, a police man decided to enter the highway right in front of us. So we had to wait until he pulled someone over before resuming our scofflaw speeding ways.

My parents expected us a day later and we didn't call. Just decided to drop in. At about 6:30pm we pulled up to the house, and I tried the door. Locked. Then I rang the door bell. My Mom answered wondering who it was. I got almost my whole line of "excuse me kind folks. Would you be willing to put up two homeless unemployed people?" before she realized who I was. About 5 minutes later my Dad came home. Then we all drank a 1.5 liter Yellow Tail Chardonnay and 2 Pizza Pit pizzas.

So we made it safely from Vancouver to Jefferson in 4 days! Very nice. No problems worse than the key fob stopping--and that was a worse problem for the people in the Motel 6 who had to hear my car alarm go off 3 times that night as I tried to fiddle with it.

The only regrets--I wish I would have taken some pictures of things that I wasn't aware of until it was too late:

• Exit sign in Montana "Anaconda Opportunity"
• Exit sign in Montana "469"
• Skeleton of man walking skeleton of dinosaur
• Every single kitschy Wall Drug sign for the miles before Wall, SD
  
• Perfectly cast shadow of the profile of our car on the wall next to us
• The Missouri River
• The Mississippi River
• The Buffalo Bar and Restaurant in Murdo