Melissa: border crossing

elisa and christine prepare a lovely lasagna lunch

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Melissa in front of a spice stand at the biweekly Narbonne market

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Elisa and Juliette in one of the many sweets stores in touristy Provence

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We pose for a picture before the amazing fireworks show in Carcassone

Well it was a rude awakening- quite literally-going from living in a castle to living in a ten person dorm room. Okay so technically elisa's aunt's house is not a castle but it might as well be with the tall fortress walls and moat (okay so it is a swimming pool). I awoke this morning to elisa's head peering into my bunk bed. After checking the clock I signaled to her that it was only 7:30 and we werent supposed to get up for at least another hour but she was looking around for her earplugs in the bed that she made but didnt sleep in (because when we retired to our room last night around 1:30 she experienced a Goldilocks sort of moment and said to me "there is someone sleeping in my bed!"). I was in and out of sleep anyway because when you are sleeping in a bunk bed that squeaks and the person below you gets up to leave at 5am, there is really no way to sleep soundly. I am starting to realiye how much of a burden it is to be a light sleeper on a backpcking trip. My ear plugs are no match for hostel rooms. So we got up early and took advantage of the free breakfast buffet. We mourned for a moment over our farewell to good french baguette and then tried as best we could to welcome in whole grain sliced bread. Also, if you put enough milk and sugar into your coffee it can be ok.

Yes, we are far from southern France it seems but what littel we have experienced of Germany so far has been quite pleasant. The woman at the airport who gave us free plastic spoons to eat the tabouleh that elisa had packed for our dinner, the bus ride from the ryanair-way-the-hell-out-there airport into Frankfurt was nice and getting to our hostel from the train station was easy as pie. The landscape felt distinctly different here than southern france with seemingly boundless stretches of trees and lots of clean cut looking plots of wheat, corn, barley. The bus driver was a bit creepy but he said "Danke shen" enough times to where I think I can pronounce it properly now. Even the German beer has been nice to us so far. At the bar of ths hostel, amongst a bunch of music playing, hot heat, and the air of new begginings we sipped our beer with a new friend and thus began our departure from vacation mode into traveling mode.

Pics from Southern France shown above.