The Human Factor

All of Todd's hard work in Paris has finally paid off!  The movie, The Human Factor, is finished and has been chosen to be in the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France.  Todd plays the voice of Earnest, the protagonist.  Here's a link to the movie (password: taylor):
http://vimeo.com/32662119

Bangkok Dangerous

Paris is COLD!!  And as much as we like it here, we are getting the hell outta town in search of warmth.  Next destination:  Bangkok, Thailand.  For those people who may be concerned about "the worst flooding Bangkok has seen in 50 years", we decided that we needed some life-threatening experiences to make our blog more interesting.  (Kristina thinks it will increase our chances of the blog being made into a movie... hopefully it doesn't star Nicolas Cage.)  Actually, the flooding is not affecting central Bangkok and besides, we are bringing our swimsuits and goggles.

J-E-T-L-A-G-G-E-D

We have been in Paris for 24 hours and we have spent the entire time in the hotel... not honeymooning, but sleeping.  When we finally arose, we made our way to the nearby and familiar CarreFour for the staples: water, museli, soy milk, fruit, chocolate, juice, and rose... guess it's official, we're back in Europe!

Au revoir (Translation: until we meet again)

Our whirlwind two(ish) day tour of Paris was not nearly enough.  We barely scratched the surface.  At the risk of offending both Parisians and New Yorkers, we saw a lot of similarities between Paris and NYC.  We'd love to elaborate, however, it's 2am right now and we have to wake up in three hours to head to the airport to catch our flight to HAWAII!  So, for now, here are some Paris photos:

These lines are making me crazy

Today, Todd had a rehearsal for his voice-over job in a short French film.  He spent four hours going over four pages of copy with the writer, director, and his costar before his recording tomorrow.  At some point during the rehearsal, he was told that one of his lines ("What makes people work?") is very pivotal to the plot, so the way that the line is delivered is extremely important.  We have been discussing/trying out different ways for him to read it and we can't help but be reminded of a very similar situation in a Seinfeld episode where Kramer has just been given a part in a Woody Allen movie and his line is, "These pretzels are making me thirsty".  Jerry, Elaine, and George each attempt their own version of the line at different points in the episode and it is hilarious.  Here is a compilation all their deliveries from www.youtube.com (if you haven't seen the episode, click the following link.  It is worth watching. Seinfeld: The Alternate Side Episode):

Siestas and Sundays

In Europe, everything is closed on Sundays: gyms, shops, supermarkets, etc.  It is almost as if people don't get enough rest during the work week with all the siestas (lunch/nap break during week days for some amount of time at some point between 12 and 4pm).

Our last day in the south of France happened to be a Sunday, so we threw on what we deemed 9/11 memorial gear, and toured the city of Biarritz.

While most everything was closed, we were still able to see sights like the Vierge du Rocher (the Rock of the Virgin) which is a stone hollowed out by Napoleon III,

and the lighthouse which Todd immediately decided that he needed to jump off.

To finish off our south of France stay, we had a great fish dinner with Thierry and Delphine (thanks again you guys)!

We have just arrived in Paris today and are staying in the La Villette area.  Tomorrow we plan to tour the city before Todd's voice-over job and Kristina can't wait to try a real French crepe!

We LOVE Hossegor!

Hossegor is a magic place.  It has so many great things: good surf, warm ocean, beautiful beaches, small town, a lake and cannals, clean crisp air, forests, mountains only 30 minutes away, and Spain only 1 hour away.  The week that we spent there left us wanting more!

During our last few days, we got to stand up paddle on the Lac d'Hossegor and down the cannal with Delphine and her two awesome girls, Nino and Luise,

We spent some more time with Thierry and Fred at the naked beach,

Todd and Fred surfed a bit,

And, we biked through the forest.

Today we rode the bus 45 minutes south to Bayonne and, although we were sad to leave Hossegor, we are excited to explore this area for a few days.  We are staying in a room that we found off Craigslist with a lady and her son about 6km away from the beach.  Viva le France!

Baring it all by beyond Bayonne

Our vacation in the basque country is going well, especially since the weather has gotten nicer and a west swell picked up.  Each day, after oatmeal and coffee, we ride our tandem bike through the forest or around Lac d'Hossegor to the beach where Todd's friends, Fred and Thierry, work called Plage des Naturistes.

It is a beautiful, wide, white sand beach that stretches for miles with clean warm water, sand dunes, good surf and... oh yeah, it's a naked beach.  By naked, we don't just mean topless.  Most of this beach's patrons are actually naked, as in NO CLOTHES - no tops and no bottoms.  Though, we have attempted to live by the motto of "when in Rome...", so far, our clothes have remained firmly on our bodies.

Despite maintaining that it is uncool to post voyeur photos on the internet, we just couldn't help ourselves with this one (besides, the only thing to see here is the cigarette!):

Today, as entertaining as the people watching was, the surf proved even more entertaining!  Todd got to ride a soft rescue board for a couple hours all by himself in clean, overhead beach break:

But wait, there's more!

Without fail, French meals catch us by surprise.  One would think that after spending almost two weeks in France we would have it figured out, but one would be wrong.

It all begins with slices of some of the best bread we Americans have ever tasted, some sort of spread, and varying other snacks.  In Sault, the popular spreads were caviar d'aubergine (eggplant caviar) and tapenade d'olives.  At dinner last night with the Krawiec family, the spreads du jour were tuna, guacamole, and foie gras (duck liver).  Of course there was an assortment of salamis, nuts, tomatoes, and... vino.  For two people accustomed to making a meal out of pupus, this is more than satisfying.

Here's where the first surprise comes... this is not the end of dinner; it is only the aperitif.  So, having stuffed ourselves with all the great goodies, we then get to sit down to have the main course.  Last night, we had duck confit ("poached" duck leg), pommes frites (french fries), salad, and of course, vino which were all VERY good.  At this point, anyone should be well and truly sated.

But wait, there's more!  "A meal is not a meal without cheese"... and more vino.  Here is a photo of some cheeses that we sampled in Sault:

Finally, there is dessert.  It is always too good to pass up despite the fact that we've maxed out our bellies. Last night was gateau au chocolate a cheval (chocolate cake in the shape of a horse) topped with English creme and grapes.

None of this should surprise us anymore but we have to admit that once again, last night's feast caught us off guard and we left stuffed...and smiling.   MERCI BEAUCOUP KRAWIECS!

Poterie

While in Sault, we spent some time with Jean-Pierre learning about his work with ceramics (www.jeanpierrethomas.com).  His home is his workshop which made it very easy for us to be involved.

We saw virtually every step of the process including removal from the kiln after firing,

the smoking of the pieces to obtain a specific color,

and even got to practice some!

Thank you very much Jean-Pierre such a great experience!  And, thank you Thomas family for hosting us for ten amazing days!  We had a great time and are looking forward to seeing you again soon!

Petanque-a-tonk

Petanque, pronounced "peh-tonk" is a VERY popular game in the south of France.  It is pretty similar to bocce ball but as you can see in the photo below, the metal ball (hollow and about the size of an orange) is tossed palm down with backspin towards a small target ball.

Lucky for us, there happened to be a petanque competition on our first night in Sault!  With one practice game under our belt, we entered the competition... and WON our first game!!!  The locals were super happy about "Hawaiian people" beating them.

Since then, we have played petanque at bbqs, at the house, and at the local petanque field.  Unfortunately, we haven't improved much and the beginners luck has worn off.

Trio forges the Gorges de la Nesque

Getting up at 9am after a late night of beer and pizza is totally worth it if Jean-Pierre is giving a guided tour of the Gorges de la Nesque:

We parked the car at the top of the canyon and hiked down to the bottom of the gorge where we found the remains of the Saint Michel de Anesca Chapel:

From there, we explored the other side of the canyon and walked along the dried up river bed finally arriving at la cathedrale where we did a bit of acoustics testing (la la la la):

Thanks Jean-Pierre for a great tour of the canyon and a beautiful hike!

Oh my ass!

Today we went for a bike ride... actually we scaled the famous Mt. Ventoux on a tandem bike!  This mountain has made an appearance in the Tour De France 14 times since 1951.  It was a 26km uphill ride (52km round trip) with over 1210m of altitude gain from Justine's house to the summit.  The first 20km had a fairly minor incline averaging about 3.6%.  The next 4.5km averaged 7% and the last 1500km were an ugly 9.5%.  Here is a graph (compliments of http://clubcinglesventoux.org/) showing the profile of our climb:

Some photos from our ride:

It took us about 2.5 hours to get to the summit where Pascale Thomas was waiting with her pom-poms!  As difficult as the ride up was, the ride down was more painful because our okoles were so SORE!!!  For the rest of the day, we plan to restrict the contact between our sore asses and all chairs, benches, sofas, etc.

Tour De Sault

This afternoon Justine's brother, Etienne, took Todd on a mountain bike excursion through Sault and the neighboring villages.  It was a couple of hours of great variety with nothing terribly technical but lots of fun.  On a particularly fast and rocky single-track downhill it became quickly apparent that Todd's skills weren't exactly up to the task of keeping up with Etienne.  The result was an ass-over-tea-kettle launch in which the brunt of the impact was fortunately absorbed by Todd's helmet.  His shoulder took a little bit of it too:

Tomorrow, we have our sights set on Mt. Ventoux using a tandem mountain bike rented from a local shop.  We aren't sure how long it will take us, but we are certain that we will eventually get to the top!

Give a man a ratatouille or teach him how to fish

Today we had our first traditional Ratatouille made by Justine's mom, Pascale, and OMG it was good!  It is a vegetable stew originating in the south of France made with eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic.

Following the Ratatouille, we sampled a very tasty lemon pie made by Justine's dad, Jean-Pierre:

The food was ample fuel for a hike along the river near the village:

While on the hike, Justine began teaching Todd how to catch fish with just your hands.

Sadly, we did not succeed in bringing home any fish today, but Todd is determined to try again another time.