Hello Again Everybody -
It’s Wednesday evening and that means that the kids are with their tutor, working on algebra and hopefully some French.
Lots of sunny weather and a few days around 80+, but now back to the 70 degree range. The swimming pool is clean and inviting, we just need some hot weather, which the folks here talk about all the time, as if it’s going to be 99 degrees everyday.
Marlene and I are off to visit Monaco tomorrow. I’ve been there previously, but can’t remember if Marz has been, and there’s a chance she won’t remember if she’s been there. It’s about a two-hour drive, so we’re on the road at 8:00 am. Lots of walking, a look at a palace and a casino and, I suppose, a lot of people with lots of money.
Marlene keeps talking about one more trip, initially mentioning going to London for a few days (a long week-end). We now find out the kids will be completed with school June 13th, rather than July 5th, so the situation has changed a bit. We spent some time exploring going to Dublin, as Ireland had a proponent in Keaka. When the travel to Dublin became iffy, we focused on Stockholm. We had the travel put together, but started to run into lots of hotels fully booked for the days when we wanted to visit Stockholm. Then Marlene said she’d like to go back to Germany and be in smaller cities to see what German life is really like. Well, we focused on Berlin and today made a reservation for an apartment in a town not far from Berlin, Reichenwalde (you call look it up). It’s not far from Bad Sarrow, which is a well-healed community on a lake. My understanding is the apartment is about 40 minutes west of Berlin. Our interest in Berlin rallied when I discovered they have an overnight train from Paris to Berlin. So, we’re still thinking about it over tonight, but we expect to travel on the high-speed train to Paris and then switch to the German “City Night Line”, which is about a 12-hour trip to Berlin. We’ll have a compartment with seats that turn into four beds at night. Shoot, I’d go to Berlin just to take the train ride. Anyway, we explored going on to Gdansk, Poland, which is 250 miles from Berlin. It’s doable by train and certainly by car, but we’ve restricted the trip to the Berlin-area to about 7-days. Gdansk (Danzig, Germany prior to World War II) is where my great-grandparents (Paul and Olga Block) lived before migrating to the U.S. in 1902. I’ve always wanted to go there, just to see the potato fields my great-grandmother use to talk about working in as a girl. However, I’m guessing the desire is much more exciting than the reality of the visit would be, though I doubt I’ll ever get so close again. Oh well, you can’t go everywhere.
Again, I apologize for repetition. And, speaking of repetition, we visited the town of Loumarin the other day. I believe that was the fourth visit. Since it was Mother’s Day, it gave Marlene a reason to go back and purchase a necklace that goes with some earrings she purchased on a previous visit. It worked for me, as it provided a nice Mother’s Day gift. My excuse for not getting a card this year was that it wasn’t Mother’s Day here in France. I believe French Mother’s Day is May 25th. By the way, it may be a good idea, but we’re not celebrating twice.
We got some more photos of Loumarin (I had to do something while Marlene shopped and you can only eat so many cups of chocolate chip gelato). One photo is the side of a church on the outskirts of town, which has a wheat field next to it. There’s an interesting cluster of houses across the field just on the outskirts of town. And, in the same area there’s a castle. I hadn’t noticed it previously, but there’s an interesting looking fountain in Loumarin. There’s a photo of a typical street scene on the edge of town. Another photo gives you a look up a typical Loumarin street (like so many it’s very narrow, but still utilized by cars and trucks). Then you have a photo of the center plaza, which is highlighted by a restaurant in each direction. And, along the way there’s a small grocery store, operated about as basically as you can operate a grocery store, with more store in the street than in the building.
You may wonder what the Camargue is like? It’s not far from our house and you’ll find out more, soon.
The Wilsons
