French Holidays

I am currently taking advantage of the numerous public holidays in France in the beginning of May and doing some long weekends (faire-ing le pont as the Franglish say). Last wednesday, Anja and I went to Grenoble to visit a friend. The city is amazing, with mountains all around and a really good art museum. We also spent a night in the Alps and did a great hike (through some remaining snow) and a day in Lyon.
After two days of school, Claire and I left again, this time for Brittany. We spent a beautiful sunny day exploring Rennes, went to Mt. Saint Michel today, and tomorrow are heading for Quimper. We'll also hit St. Malo and maybe another town before heading home on Monday. Eating lots of crepes and trying to learn Breton.

Bikes in France

Today I went to LeClerc, a hypermarché chain that is near me to buy a bike helmet and some other stuff. I noticed that, unlike its relatives in the US, not only were there bike lanes almost all of the way there (along major roads), but there was a covered bike rack next to the parking lot. Can you imagine people biking to Wal Mart?

On a related note, it took me a while to figure out the bike racks here, as almost all of them are just tiny things where you can stick your front wheel. The trick--here in Blois, people are content to just lock there front tire to the rack, whereas if you did that in the States (or maybe in bigger places here) you'd come back and your wheel would be there but your frame would be gone.

Also, the mail people deliver mail by bike.

Today was a beautiful fall day, which I hope won't be the last, as it was much more pleasant than the cool gray weather we've been having lately, and I got myself out of bed to go to the morning market that is held in the old city. It was so much bigger than I expected, with at least six blocks filled with stalls selling everything from mushrooms to cooked chicken to rabbits (dead) to cheese to pasteries to shoes and lingerie. Very exciting! And cheap! Most things are actually much cheaper at the market than at the supermarket, I've discovered. Saturday will no longer by my day of sleeping in, I guess, because is this is too much to pass up. It was also much aided by the new addition to my bicylce, a basket for the handlebards that can be removed and carried around like a very typical French shoping basket. Now I just need to discover a market that occurs in the middle of the week, so that I don't have to worry about my vegetables going bad halfway through.

Observations from the first 72 hours

- My shower doesn't have a shower curtain. Therefore, there is a very large bathmat. I think this is because it is French.

-Everything except for food stores (and even some of those) closes in Blois from about 12:00 to about 14:00. It is like a siesta, except it is just so people take a long lunch, I think.

-The grocery store I went to had about 10 different kinds of goat cheese (it is a specialty of the Loire) but not, as far as I could tell, any parmesan.

-The roads all have bike traffic lights (I think) and a lot of roads have bike lanes. Also, cars are very respectful of bikes.

-I can bike for 3 minutes and buy a very good baguette for less than 1 Euro.