Recently one of my least proactive friends reprimanded me (through Lauren on gchat) for how little I update my blog. This is a person who, after accidentally leaving his backpack full of his things at the Grand Rapids airport, refused to call claiming it was lost forever, gone. Needless to say, his teasing hit its mark (well, that and the fact that Lauren included a hyperlink on her post to my "post" so her friends and family could see more pictures) (and, of course, I actually do want to tell you all about my fabulous recent vacation). So, here we go....

Well, I'm going to start by backing up just a tad. When Lauren and I got back at the end of February from our two week winter vacation, we were dreading what a loooooong month March was going to be. We were looking ahead at 5 straight weeks of "work" with no vacation and on top of that, packing up and moving out of our darling apartment. But, March was full of sunshine and the time flew by as we played outside, sat at cafes philosophizing, sat in our windowsills sipping wine. Suddenly the end of the month was upon us, and in the span of a long weekend we packed, cleaned, packed, cleaned, organized, and moved out of our little place and back in with our friend Julie where we started the year (Most Generous Friend Award!!). The next day we left on a two week vacation that turned out to be one of the most beautiful, adventurous, and utterly goofy two weeks I've ever spent!

To start vacation off with a B-A-N-G, Lauren and I and our two Kiwi friends Juliette and Dmitriy went to Euro-Disney where we spent the day frolicking around like little kids and laughing at the goofy translations on some of the rides!!


After Disney, Lauren and I headed to the south of France for a week. Neither of us had ever been and both of us would have kicked ourselves in the seat if we lived in France for the second time without going. We started off by exploring a handful of costal villages around Nice (our base city which is sprawling and, in fact, not very nice) like this one:
And this one:

The beach was actually made of small pebbles that Lauren and I spent almost two hours digging around in collecting sea glass much to the amusement of the other sunbathers and much to the envy of passing children.

After two days bopping around Nice, we boarded a ferry and headed south to the island of Corsica (just north of the Italian island Sardinia). In my imagination, the ferry looked something like the flat 6-car raft that nudges its way across Lake Charlevoix attached to a chain, so needless to say I was rather flabbergasted when we ended up on a this:

If the cruise ship crossing was a surprise, the landscape that awaited me on the island was speach-stealing (hmmm, not actually a phrase we use in the English language??). The island had alp-like snow covered peaks, vineyards, sloping hills and valleys, brightly colored Mediterranean-style villages, jagged chalk cliffs, and cerulean water lapping on white sand beaches. I am still stunned. We arrived in the port town Ajaccio and took the bus early the next morning to the picturesque city of Bonifacio where we spent the next couple of days (including my birthday... which just means that pretty much all birthdays from here on out are going to be pretty anti-climatic).

Here you might think that it can’t possible get any better....but it does!! From Bonifacia, we decided to take a boat trip to a tiny island/nature reserve just off the coast. Normaly the boat drops you off on the island to explore for about an hour, and, if you want, you can wait for the second boat later in the afternoon and spend 5 hours on the island. Because the morning we went was a bit blustery, everyone but us and two friends we’d made at the campsite decided to leave. So, to sum it up, we spent the entire day on a private island scampering over rock formations, peering into tide pools, taking pictures of wild flowers, and swimming in water cold enough to keep a popsicle from melting...


At the end of our stay in Bonifacio, we headed back to Ajaccio for a day and night before returning to mainland France on the ferry/cruise-ship. We were returning with the friends we had made at the campsite (two students: a guy from Columbia and a woman from Brazil) and we were supposed to take the early bus at 6am. But, instead of a bus, a little shuttle thing came and picked us up and then proceeded to drop us off on the side of the road about 10 minutes outside of town promising that a bus would come along to get us in a little while. As a semi-joke, our Columbian friend stuck out his thumb and before we knew it, we were climbing into the van of a half-American half-French wine maker who drove us all to Ajaccio while discussing the differences between French and American wine and wine-making processes. Lauren and I ended up finding his wine in a local food market where we also bought a delicious all-Corsican picnic to have on the “terrace” of our hotel.


During the second week of vacations, things took a turn for the, er, ridiculous. With our Kiwi friends, we rented a chateau (castle) complete with canopy beds, spiral stair cases, and a knight in shining armor.


The castle is in the middle of French farmland, so we spent our days cooking with fresh eggs from the neighbors


playing lawn ball


practicing our archery skills


visiting the French version of Medieval Times (an experience so bizarre that it merits its own blog post)


and of course filming a mocumentary of the history of the castle complete with medieval weapons (hatchet, sword, giant pan, log) and a narrated text translated into English by the previous French owner of the castle with the most hilarious structural and grammatical errors ever. (if you know what’s good for you, you should probably avoid ever bringing this up again in order to avoid sitting through it multiple times while Lauren and I laugh at and explain every inside joke...)

Well, whew, this has gotten unreasonably long... but the vacation was so extraordinary that I feel like even this hasn’t done it justice. It’s hard for me to imagine a better vacation than one that combines stunning landscapes, delicious food, good friends, and of course extreme goofiness!


Now things are starting to wind to a close. Lauren leaves to go back home in just one week and I only have one month left of work (with two three-day weekends and one week off...what is the official benefit again of extending my contract??). I’ve got lots of fun week-end trips planned for May and the first week of June I’m going back to the south of France with some British friends...then it’s back to sweet Michigan for a summer full of friends, family and fun!