Today we drove from Tobias, Tabea's oldest brother's, house in Konstanz to Provence. We are in a hotel tonight because we arrived later than the campground was open due to some road construction and having a little trouble finding the right gas station and getting a late start from Tobias' house. But now we've done all the driving and everything else will be day trips.
Switzerland was surprising to me. I thought it would look like Rocky Mountain National Park, but it just didn't. You don't really drive in mountains in Europe ever, it appears. There are always huge valleys and they dig giant tunnels through the mountains longer than the Eisenhower or just as long anyway. So it basically looked like Germany. But then we got to France. We arrived in France just west of Geneva. It was beautiful from the start. We went through some pretty big mountains and tons of tunnels and then headed over towards Lyon and south to Avignon where we are tonight. The valley that went south from Lyon was amazing. The west side was tons of treed mountains, in the distance. The valley floor was cultivated with corn and other crops, often vinyards-- the corn surprised me. On the East side, however, were mountains like I've never seen. There is something haunting about this particular range of mountains. They have large patches of white rock that almost looks like snow, but isn't. Otherwise they are treed-- coniferous forests mostly I think. But then there was one grouping of granite-like mountains rising up behind the others in gray, a stark contrast to the dark green and white of the closer mountains. There isn't really a way to describe it and we were trying to get south quickly so we didn't stop. But it was amazing.
Tonight we are in Provence and it is very clear. We were driving in as dusk and the sunset behind the Western mountains was very nice. Everywhere there are fields growing something, most often sunflowers, and there are always cyprus and bushes between the fields. It is not so much a patchwork as an embroidered landscape with the cyprus and light green coniferous lowgrowing bushes interlacing with the golden grasses. Everything had a beautiful filtered light as we drove through because of the sunset. There were several old, old villages perched along the tops of the mountains. And once there was a 10th century castle. It had obviously been somewhat (at least) restored, but it was really cool perched on top of one of the white stone and dark forest mountains.
Tomorrow we are going to investigate Avignon in the morning. For a period, the Popes had their residence in Avignon. They called it the Avignon Papacy and it had to do with some unrest in Rome and a dispute with the Holy Roman Emperor because the popes wanted too much political power. So the papacy was moved to France, the popes during this time were French. (By the way this was the majority of the 14th century.)
After that we'll go to the campground and then set up and then to the sea (we are staying very near the sea already.)
I don't know for sure if the campground will have internet or not; it depends on whether we are able to get into the campground we originally booked for despite having missed the first day of our reservation. Even if it does have internet, I didn't bring my car charger converter for my computer so I won't be able to use my computer unless they have a lounge or something in the office area of the campground.
Anyway, hope all are well. Things here are great.
I have a dissertation subject. It is amazing how travelling and talking with other people really helps my thinking, but now I have completely figured out what I want to write about and how to go about it. This is a major breakthrough as before I only had a general idea. I haven't finished my papers, but actually this is an even more important accomplishment. I am excited to begin work on this once I get back to Syracuse. In the meantime, I am going to continue to soak up as much as possible and work on language as much as possible. My German got pretty good indeed by the end, considering the time I had here, and my French seems to be getting us by for now.
Actually it is sort of funny. I keep throwing German words into my French and then the French speaker to whom I am talking keeps switching to English. It is quite obvious to them that I am American, apparently, and so they go to English instead of German even though the reason they know my French is not great is because I throw in German words. Pretty funny.
Goodnight all,
w
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