Vive La France!

We're back from our very relaxing vacation in the south of France, and we were greeted to more sunny skies (finally!) in Paris when we got back. Pictures here.

We rented a car in lieu of taking the train this time so that we could drive around the coast, including a few towns in Spain as well. The rest of the pictures are from Bastille Day which was as fun as we anticipated it would be. The French celebrate their national holiday pretty much the same way we do on the 4th of July, except that instead of barbecues and those delicious American flag cakes, the firefighters host parties at all the stations in Paris both the night before Bastille Day and the day itself. I thought this was very cool yet at the same time somewhat unsettling as well. If there's one time of year when firefighters should be on alert it's probably that time of year when tons of citizens buy a bunch of fireworks to set off in their tiny apartment balconies, only to be rescued in case of fire by a crew of drunk and/or hungover firefighters.

Speaking of fireworks, in Paris the city sets off fireworks at the Eiffel Tower (of course) as well as various other locations around different arrondissements--we went to the Eiffel Tower show (of course), and saw a pretty spectacular display which was choreographed to music. Apparently the theme this year was "cinema" and they blasted music from some of the most famous movies during the show--the most popular among the crowd were the Star Wars, James Bond and Amélie theme songs.

Anyway it was all very fun, although we definitely missed the 4th of July parties. There's just nothing quite like em.

A Vacation from a Vacation

Sadly Paris has been seeing a lot of rain of late, with only more rain in sight for the next week. So, John and I decided to take a small vacation to the sunny Mediterranean coast for a little while. The Cote d'Azur (Nice and Monaco) is always a mess of tourists, so we have headed down to the western side of the coast at Argeles-sur-mer. We didn't bring the cord that connects to the computer, so we can't post pictures until we get back to Paris, but it's all sunny blue skies, aqua blue water, and Pyrenees Mountains for us for the next few days. We get back to Paris just in time for Bastille Day on the 14th, at which point it's supposed to be back to blue skies.

Tomorrow we're going to venture down into Spain to see some of their beaches. Argeles-sur-mer kind of reminds us of Santa Cruz in a way, except to John's chagrin there aren't any waves suitable for surfing. On the other hand, most of the women sunbathe topless so that may make up for the lack of waves. Otherwise it's a pretty beachy town, very laid back with lots of crepe and ice cream stands (in lieu of hot dog stands), and some outdoor beach cafes.

We'll post pics when we get back to Paris!