Three Months in France March 31 – June 28, 2007

We are in Nimes at the moment. We didn’t do much today except actually travel here. Nimes is approximately 325 KM away from Giroussens and the journey took us a little less than 5 hours including bathroom, coffee and lunch breaks.

We’re checked into a Formule 1 hotel here which is in itself a new experience for us. We have two rooms and we’re here for two nights and the total price including taxes came to 123 Euros. Thats as cheap as it gets I think. Two rooms at the Holiday Inn down the street would have cost us over 450 Euros by comparison. Anyway a room in Formule 1 is about the same size as a university dorm room and through the use of a bunk bed they offer space for 3 people to sleep. Toilets and showers are shared facilities located down the hall but the sink to wash your hands is in your room. The showers have an auto-steam clean function that turns on after you leave so theoretically they are kept in good clean condition. The toilets are reasonably clean but the automatic lighting system in them has been pushing the limits of my mom’s patience. When you open the door to enter the toilet the lights automatically go on and when you leave the lights automatically go off – thats the way its supposed to work. There is no manual switch to change this behaviour. Anyway for reasons that are unclear the lights went off shortly after my mom entered the bathroom on two occasions. On one of those occasions my mom was in there helping Emma and when the lights went out Emma panicked a little and ended up peeing all over her clothes. While I’m on the topic of washrooms I forgot to mention our rest-stop incident earlier in the day. While en-route to Nimes we stopped at a nice rest stop so that Emma could go pee. When she was taken into the bathroom she began to cry and scream because she couldn’t stand the stench and the general creepy conditions and she refused to pee in there. So Marissa and my mom took her behind some bushes and Emma went pee on the ground. After they were done a French man went up to them and complained about how Emma was peeing on the ground while there were bathrooms there. Imagine that!!!! Its ok for your dogs to crap on the sidewalks but a 3 year old girl peeing in the bushes, out of the way of any foot traffic, is a problem? Overall I love France but the French and I have extremelly different views when it comes to things relating to toilets, pooh, and the washing of hands.

Anyway, we are in Nimes and tomorrow we’re going to visit the best-preserved Roman arena in France as well as a Roman temple called The Maison Carrée. Both of these structures are approximately 2000 years old so they will officially become the oldest structures that I’ve ever seen or visited.

Good night from France.