Working in Iowa!

I just got home from a 4-month contract - I was working in Iowa!  I had never lived in the mid-west before, and only had two short work-related visits to Iowa before.  While I am very happy to be home again, my time in Iowa was extremely interesting and pleasant.  I know that a big part of that is that I had worked with and knew several people from California who had transferred to Iowa earlier.  They had made the transition, and helped me do so as well.  They recommended restaurants, car-repair shops, and entertainment. They talked about Iowa-specific concepts - or at least they were non-Californian concepts :-).  More on those later - for the moment, I'll just say I am very grateful for their kindness.

My trip to Iowa started with a flight from Costa Rica to California - which I missed!  I ended up going on a later flight to Miami, then to Los Angeles, where I stayed the night in the airport before collecting my luggage and catching an early morning flight to Sacramento.  If at *all* possible, I heartily recommend *not* spending the night in the LA airport!  It is specifically set up to discourage this occurrence!  All the chairs have integrated arms, so no one can lie down, and the air conditioning is turned to frigid.  And there is no food available.  And they continually broadcast on the PA system.  And if you leave the terminal, you can't get back in until it "opens" again in the morning.

Fortunately, the rest of my trip went fairly smoothly.  My parents picked me up at the airport, and we went directly to the clinic where I had an appointment for my pre-employment drug test.  If you aren't familiar with working in the USA, this is something nearly every employer requires.  The procedures scream "We don't trust you!  We know you will try to cheat!  CERTAINLY you do drugs, and we're going to catch you!"  But don't take it personally.  It's the price of admission. :-S

I spent the next few days rearranging my packing, getting USA things out of storage, getting my car checked out for the trip, shopping, and visiting with friends and family.

Monday morning, I packed up the car, and headed nearly due East.  Four days later, I was in Cedar Rapids, IOWA!


View California to Iowa in a larger map

Celts (etc) in France

Part of the Festival of Saint John in Perpignan involved giant dancing puppets, morris dancers, and bagpipes!  How eclectic can you get?

See more short videos of the giant dancing puppets and bagpipes by clicking here!

Feeling French

Things that make you feel French:
- opening the bedroom window shutter in the morning
- watching swallows swirl in the twilight
- becoming even pickier about bread
- tasting cherries at the open air market
- realizing that field is not full of corn
- fields of wheat, sunflowers, poppies, grape vines
- listening for, and understanding, your train announcement
- spreading pâté on a crispy, springy slice of bread
- cheese on pear slices
- drinking wine all the time
- drinking café au lait with breakfast, but black coffee after lunch
- ordering a lunch with no clue what it is, and then discovering chicken on your plate
- holding 10 euros in your hand, all from different countries
- walking down Victor Hugo Avenue
- going into a bathroom, seeing a man washing his hands, and passing a woman coming out of a stall

French Pictures

I uploaded a whole lotta pictures from our France trip!  Check out the album here:
France 2011

Paris Airshow

Although we missed the Paris Airshow, we did get to tour the Toulouse Airbus facility, *and* saw bits and pieces of the Airshow on French TV (can we get a little enthusiasm here?)

:-D

Here's a link to the Paris Airshow 2011 in Pictures.

Perpignan - Catalan Concert Video

This video is from the concert in Perpignan, during the Festival of Saint John.

I definitely wish I had captured more than just this one song by this group - Jasmina has an amazing voice!

You can view all the videos from this concert by clicking here.

Nîmes - bullfight videos

I uploaded the videos from the bullfight at the Féria de Nîmes

NOTE:  despite what Rick Steves has to say about the bullfighting in France, these bullfights are Spanish-style, and the bull *is* killed.

To see them all, click here

Home!

Sunday, June 26

Ahhhhhh....

It is now almost 24 hours from the time we woke up this morning in France, and we're home!

And off to bed :-)

Toulouse - Airbus Tour

Saturday, June 25 ~~ Sunny and warm

This morning (*early* this morning), we took a tour of the Airbus A380 program - in French!  While I didn't absorb everything, it was still pretty interesting.

It lasted an hour and a half, and consisted of three parts - an overview with telemetry during the test flights, a view of the factory floor where the planes are assembled, and a walk-through of a section of the passenger area.  We also got to see a mock-up of the cockpit of the A320.

Interestingly, just the day before, Airbus was in the news - they had just won a *huge* contract to supply Air Asia with 200 planes.  Earlier in the week, government officials were pressuring Air France to buy their planes only from Airbus, in the name of "economic patriotism."

Details:

• We had to order our tour at least 2 weeks in advance, so we did that when we first got to Toulouse.
• Our tour started at 9 am, but we were required to be there by 8:30 for check-in.  
• From our hotel, to get to the Airbus plant, we first walked to the train station (5 minutes), then took the Metro across town (10 minutes), then took the tramway (light rail) to the nearest stop (30 minutes), then walked (20 minutes).  We gave ourselves and hour and a half, and we got there 10 minutes early :-)

Sète to Toulouse

Friday, June 24 ~~ Sunny and Breezy

We kept thinking about a way to stop off in Carcassonne for a half-day tour of the old city, but finally decided that we hadn't quite relaxed enough :-).  So, we waved to Carcassonne as we rode the train past, eating our picnic lunch.

We spent the afternoon catching up on our internet (we had no connection at all in our hostel at Sète), and figuring out how to get to the Airbus tour tomorrow :-D.

Sète - Beach? or Museum?

Thursday, June 23 ~~ Early morning sun, mid-morning light rain...

The weather made up its mind, and a soft warm breeze blew us down to the beach :-)

Sète - Stormy Weather

Wednesday, June 22 ~~ Morning Thunderstorm, rain, fog

Original plans called for a trip to the beach - hah!  We woke to thunder, lightning, and rain falling through fog.  So, we had a lazy morning and then a lazy afternoon :-).

Sète - Fête de la Musique

Tuesday, June 21 ~~ Foggy and cool

Today was the world-wide Fête de la Musique, and Sète was not left out!  Most events were in the evening, and included a parade and a flash mob.  We caught faint strains of music from the town at the hostel into the wee hours.

Sète

Monday, June 20 ~~ Sunny and warm

Our train pulled into Sète in the late afternoon, and we picked up a *very* sparse map at the train station information office.  After comparing it to the more extensive wall map, we decided on a route, and headed out.  Along the way, we picked up some groceries.

As we followed our route, we looked up at a hilltop - non non non!  Please, not another mountain-top hostel!  Yes...  Fortunately, I remembered my backpacker climbing - step, breathe in, step, breathe out, repeat until you reach the top.

Note for future:  remember to print out a map and hotel information for places that aren't spelled out in the guide book...

Perpignan - Palais des Rois de Majorque

Monday, June 20 ~~ Sunny, warm (25 C), with a nice breeze

As we had yet to tour an old building in Perpignan, we spent our last morning here at the palace of the kings of Mallorca - built in 1276, it definitely qualifies as "old."

So many of the roads and courtyards, including this Palace, are paved in these flat rocks set on edge, I just had to get a picture...

The hike up to the top of the tower was well worth it

 I thought the Pyrenees made a great background for the rainbow-colored Gare (train station) :-)

Back down from the tower, we visited first the upper chapel (used by the king).  The entrance is faced in marble

Then the lower chapel, used by the queen.

Perpignan - Collioure Day Trip

Sunday, June 19 ~~ Sunny, warm (25 C), with a nice breeze; cool morning

Today, we took a day trip via train to Collioure, a very pleasant town on the coast, known as "The City of Painters."  There, they were also celebrating the festival of St. John!  We got there mid-morning, and found a wine-tasting going on in the park.  The tourism office was open, and provided us with a town map, a listing of the day's events, and a map of the Chemin du Fauvisme.

Since we had only had a coffee and some left-over snacks on the train, we stopped for another coffee and croissant, then walked around the town, looking out for the Fauviste paintings and "viewing frames." 

We also stopped in at the Notre Dame des Anges

and this chapel

The Fauvist paintings (Matisse and Derain) are posted along the route (the Chemin du Fauvisme), where the artists had painted them - we could see both the painting and the inspiration for it :-). 

The "viewing frames" are metal "picture frames" set up so the view through them corresponds to a painting (not shown, but referenced) - we found 3 of these around the village - so exciting each time :-D

We had lunch, then headed around to the other side of the bay.

We got back to the center of town in time to see some folk dancing to traditional music!

Ice cream called, so we got a cone each of *very* rich coffee and dark chocolate, then caught the 4pm train back to Perpignan to *rest!*

Perpignan - Catalan Festival of St. John

Saturday, June 18 ~~ Overcast, Cold (high of 18 C), and WINDY!


The festival continued today - Rick was smart, and wore his jacket; I somehow expected summer to continue, and left mine behind.  Our events kicked off with troubadors and giant "puppets." 

The festival continued with more Catalan music and traditional dancing - the Sardana.

In the middle of all this, we discovered an *amazing* restaurant!  Morrocan food to die for - Restaurant La Suite at 8 Rue de la Fusterie.


You can see more about where this all happened on our trip map:  Julie and Rick in France 2011.

Perpignan - Catalan Concert

June 17 ~~ Sunny and warm, breezy

We considered taking a day trip to Villefranche-de-Conflent, and the Yellow Train (link) from there.  This idea was doomed!  When we walked to the bus station, we found there was no information center, so we continued on to the tourist center.  We did find all sorts of bus schedules there, but no timetable that would work for us (much later, we found that there is also a train to the village).  The good news is that we got a very nice schedule of events for the Festival of Saint John that had just started :-).

The rest of the day was given over to wandering the old town, getting our bearings, and finding a laverie to do laundry.  Speaking of laundry... The automated (not staffed) one we found had the directions all spelled out, and it was fundamentally easy.  But as with all things done the first time, a little show and tell from someone who knows the ropes always helps.  A lovely woman did just that!  Then she even showed us where the good grocery store was :-D.

After a little rest back at the hotel, we headed out to Place de la Republique - there was a *great* concert full of Catalan music - four groups took turns performing, and we loaded up on local sounds.  I took some short videos, which may or may not be worth uploading - stay tuned ;-)

Avignon to Perpignan

Thursday, June 16

We caught a late afternoon train to Perpignan, and 3 1/2 hours later, we were confused for the first time in a French train station!  This station had two major exits, and neither side mentioned the main street we were expecting :-(.  We picked one, went outside, and asked for help - and promptly turned around as directed, went to the other side, and out...

Several blocks later, we collapsed at our hotel, and had a light dinner of cheese, bread, fruit, and veggies.

Avignon - Musée Calvet

June 16 ~~ Sunny and Hot...

This morning, we packed up and went to the Musée Calvet - again, no camera.  There were two statues that I added to my wish list - one of a faun, and one of a reclining woman with a snake...

As usual, we spent several hours ogling paintings and sculpture - we found one in particular that reminded us of the works of our friend Donna (Nu Bleu).  And I was especially proud of myself when I correctly connected two works by the same painter, previously unknown to me :-).

Avignon - Pont Saint Bénezet

June 15

On the ramparts near the Pope's Palace was the very nice Jardins des Doms, with a view of the old bridge partially spanning the Rhône river.  The Pont Saint Bénezet (aka Pont d'Avignon) was built in 1185, and most of it was washed away for the last time in the 1600's

Avignon - Palais des Papes

Wednesday, June 15 ~~ Sunny and Hot!

Today was dedicated to seeing the Palace of the Popes

and the oldest religious building in Avignon, the Cathedrale Notre Dame des Doms next to the palace