La Bouverie (Roquebrune-sur-argens)
It's ironic, not real ironic, Alanis Morisette ironic, that this is the first vacation I've taken in at least four years during which I wasn't worried about the difficulties of getting access to the internet. Now that I no longer need it for my studies, now that I'm graducated, there's free high-speed DSL at the place we're renting. For some reason, I can't get the wireless to work, but if I plug-in in one of the rooms that are occupied by the polliwogs, I can get on-line. It's probably better that I don't have wi-fi. If I did, I'd do the same as I do at home and spend about half of my day in front of the compie while, unlike at home, sitting by the poolside.
I was originally going to leave the compie at home. I eventually decided to bring it to process photos and video (but nothing else, promise). I haven't taken any photos of consequence and I haven't even taken the video camera out of its bag. I'm too busy being lazy.
I'm doing mostly nothing with the serious intent of doing nothing and at great personal expense. I guess you could call that serious nothing-doing; serious goofing off. I haven't taken many pictures, I haven't written any post cards, I've barely gotten any exercise unless you count toting our stuff along the beach, biking a kilometer or two down the road for bread, swimming lazy laps in the pool or snorkeling in the sea... then again, there's the cooking. There's always the cooking, but it's a labor of love... most of the time. Oh, and I usually remember to brush my teeth. Let us not forget that.
There are passion fruit vines growing all over one of the walls of the house and forming an archway that I have to crouch down to get through to get to the terrace where we've been eating most of our meals. The owner said I could help my self. I inferred that he really doesn't know what to do with them.
Yesterday, I opined to the polliwogs that I wondered how many kids in the Var were having pancakes with homemade passion fruit syrup for breakfast. I guess having an American father has some advantages after all.
I'm getting slightly tan. It's a waste of time. I tan rapidly even though I wear kid's sunscreen, I never get darker than 'café au lait', and in the absence of sun (which I can count on when I get home) I lose my tan as quickly as I got it. Factor in the risk of skin cancer and sunbathing is, for me at least, a humongous waste of time. Then again, that's what I'm here for.
Jinkies. I love it down here. I love it because I love it and I double love it because the MSU loves it. It's almost hard to enjoy it because I'm forever haunted by the significant improbability that I'll ever have a place of my own down here. More than 300 sunny days a year, all the rosé you can drink, beaches, mountains, roman sites, medieval sites, sailing... Like California, the only thing that's wrong with the South of France is that too many people have decided that it's nice to be here. The Dutch invade with their legions of mobile homes. You can't see them, but the Russians and the Italians (read Mafia) own most of the really expensive real estate. The Brits and the Danes buy up a lot of the moderately priced stuff. The MSU gripes about 'foreigners' non-stop, especially when we're fighting traffic going anywhere. I keep trying to remind her that I was born a little farther away than Corsica, but she seems to not hear me. She's too busy expressing her distaste about how the Belgians and Dutch cut you off in traffic and park wherever they feel like parking and let their children do as they please. Crowds and traffic and an infrastructure that will never be adequate to handle all the volume required of it.
I won. We brought the bikes. The MSU eventually said that it was good that we have the bikes. Not because we've been using them as a family; there aren't any good, kid-friendly, bike trails this far up in the hills. It's not because I've been using mine to get us fresh-baked bread every day either. No, it's because the car died. I think the battery may be shot. I can't do anything about that today because it's Sunday. France closes for business on Sundays. We'll miss Mass today because the church is about seven kilometers from here and, as I said, there aren't really any polliwog-friendly bike paths this far up. Left to our own devices, aside from going to Mass, we'd probably do what we're going to do anyway: Lay around the pool. Somehow it's different when you know that you're not going anywhere because you can't. There's something in human nature that makes being stuck somewhere different from hanging out somewhere. This is undeniably a good place to be stuck.
I can't see the ocean from here even though it's only about 12 kilometers away. I have an amazing view of the valley of the Argens and the hills on the other side which I think are the Massif de l'Esterel or the Maures... I'm to lazy to confirm this right now. Everything else is just woods, palm trees, flowers, million-euro villas (low-rent district)...
In a week I'll be fighting traffic on my way home and back to work.