France « jonesberries

Ahhhh Plans

What do they say. The best laid plans of mice and men.

We made plans to go to India and a major catastrophic event happens to wipe out most of the roads. What is that about. Well….. we think to ourselves. We can help. Help how. Bringing in stuff. But then what. Do we just become more of the hungry mouths to feed.

We planned on our kids being able to go to UK to school and our visa extension was DENIED. Plans. Plans. Plans.

We planned on spending some time in EU and the Shengan countries changed the rules. Now, instead of 6 months in and 1 hour out it is now 3 months in and 3 months out.

What is all this about.

We try to be organized and are stopped at every turn.

Now we are feeling quite rejected and unloved by the border peoples. We are feeling more and more like we have no foundation.

We are thinking of doing something quite drastic. Andrew brought up showing the kids the countries they have passports to and hanging with some relatives for a bit. A round the world trip.

Dang, that sounds extravagant. I know people fly all the time but it is NOT GREEN and NOT CHEAP and I DON”T WANT TO LEAVE MY TRUCK and WHAT ABOUT MY DOG!!!! Dang, I sound like my mother not wanting to leave her home and her STUPID DOG to come and visit her daughter!

Oh no! Am I choosing my beautiful, cute, in-training mutt over my beautiful, amazing, self-sufficient 2 oldest kids. You know, I am such an external processor.

OK, lets try this with the other objections. I DON”T WANT TO LEAVE MY TRUCK. You know we have been offered this amazing huge warehouse in Germany to store her in. It would be so much better if someone wanted to use her while we were gone. You know, try out this nomad thing in Europe or something. That would be nice. Our truck could hang out with some new people or something. We’ll have to think about that one.

Next one. IT IS NOT CHEAP. Several of the people from this squat we are staying in right now fly all the time. THey say it is cheaper. It is just that big chunk at the beginning and the limited funds after. It just seems so extravagant. YOu know, people have been helping us out in so many ways. NOT to by high-flying but to live simply doing good stuff. Still, we have been trying to find cheaper ways of bringing the truck and all by sea and havent’t found anything yet. But maybe we haven’t tried hard enough yet. If we bring our tipi and a small stove and pots to cook on the road it could bring the cost down considerably. Hmmmm.

IT IS NOT GREEN. I can justify this by averaging it out over the years but there may be no way of getting around this one.

I dunno. I want to be fair to my kids. They have cousins they have never met. They hold a passport to the USA and haven’t been there for 7 years! They hold a passport to New Zealand and only those that were born 17 years ago saw it and then only for a week.

Decisions, decisions. Plans gone to the wayside. New possibilities coming up. May become plans.

In the meantime we will continue to work on our truck

and look at beautiful skies

and hang with new friends.

Thru the Western Europe South edge

Went thru Western Europe.

After the Dali Museum we dropped off Alana in Italy. We miss giggly, colourful Alana. Now we are only 5. Such a small group. So much less than the 9 we were just a short time ago.

We stopped off in Venice. Dad took lots of touristy pictures of the younger girls feeding the pigeons.

I took the girls to the Leonardo Da Vinci. There were all sorts of machines created from his drawings. We got to touch them and crank them and go inside some of them. Quite fun. We expected Hannah to be in heaven. TJ looked for bones, again, and found them on the wall in some of the paintings. We told her about how DaVinci opened up dead bodies to see how peoples bodies worked on the inside. She thot that was great and would like to do that as well if they let her keep the bones.

We saw some amazing masks in Venice. We bought some plain ones and painted them ourselves.

Andrew has been working on the car electrics. Mixed success.

Abigail got my attention at the grocery store. “Mom”, she said, “That guy is named Jesus”. I told her how that is a reasonably popular name in Spain and Italy. One night in Italy we were parked in one of the really small and overcrowded rest areas in Italy and this truck driver told us a much better, hidden place to park. Later, we looked at his truck, It said Jesus on the side of it. Thot that was funny so took a photo.

We are now in Croatia. We love Croatia. Not much internet. Sorry for the sparse blog entries. We were last here before TJ was born. We have made it down to Dubrovnik this time. It is a great old city but way too many tourists. We kinda like the hidden fishing villages and the deserted areas best. We found one campground, north of Split, that only cost us 13 euros, no passports needed, no electricity, no trash. Just a couple of clean toilets and a solar shower. An old olive grove. Nice people. We liked that place. Took our blow up Canoe out into the crystal clear water.

We head for places beyond tomorrow. Getting closer and closer to Macedonia. We need to be there by the 9th.

So this is where we have been on this last leg – Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Croatia and Bosnia/Herzegovnia.

Highlights.

Spain – Dali Museum, Beneficio, Salami.

France – great picnic areas to stop at for the night, Motorhome shops, FOOD.

Monaco – well, didn’t see much of it, couldn’t find where to park our big truck – but we went through this tiny country.

Italy – Lasagna, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza – always great pizza – we love pizza – Venice – ice cream – food – downside, can they make their rest areas any smaller. We had to stop so early in the day just to get a spot to park at the rest areas for the nite – poor truck drivers.

Croatia – bakeries, small cheap campgrounds, crystal clear water.

Bosnia/Herzegovnia – we only went through about 7 km of it but it was quite thrilling it being in the news and all. We saw gunshots in a sign. Ooooooh! We saw a bolder in the road and the car that hit it. Ooooooh! What excitement!

What fun. Bit tired. lLots of driving. Looking forward to staying put some when we get to Macedonia. Also, looking forward to seeing some friends.

Liz’s Toilet Terrors in France and Spain

frairetoilet1

When I asked about the toilets, Hannah not only told me where they were but gave me other advise too. She told me to push the red button to lock the door, which I did confidently. I tried the door again and sure enough it was locked. Just as a smirk of satisfaction crossed my face a sudden, the lights went off and an extremely loud sound made me jump and reach for the door like that was all I could depend on to keep me safe. But it was no use, the water just kept shooting out, soaking the bottom of my jeans and making me feel so scared that the fact that it was only water shooting out at me seemed to have escaped my frozen with fright brain. I pulled and pulled at the door desperately and continuously accomplishing nothing, for it had locked just like i’d hoped it would 3 minutes ago.

Eventually it stopped and when it did I stood there shaking out of control as if someone had just put a knife to my throat. Why I felt like that is beyond me, perhaps I should keep off the adventure books for a while. the lesson from this is very similar to others: “Don’t push the red button” or you may find yourself in the bathroom as it vigerously self cleans itself.

I considered my lesson learned. Or so I thought…

sptoilet2

Another country, another terrifying self cleaning experience. This time I had an audience. As I banged on the door and screamed for help Mum, Dad, Abi, Hannah, TJ, Sam and Donald all watched, laughing! Unable to do anything else.”HELP!” I screamed. “Push the red button” mum said back, but she couldn’t be heard above the chaos.

I came out shaking and told my second story (as you can see in the picture above) as everyone failed to hold in all the giggles they had left. Why does it always happen to me? I asked myself as you’d probably expect I would. Is it some kind of curse or am I just too stupid to make sure it doesn’t happen again? Or do the toilets have it out for me…

French Aire number 2

frairemankite

Our next French Aire was a parking lot right on a beautiful beach that was next to a small village at the very southwest of France. The boys had a friend to meet and dad could do admin. He had to be creative but it was possible. There was electricity for the truck and access internet in the village with his ipod. Unfortunately his laptop computer cord is still MIA but he got lots of essential things done. The man in the picture above was doing his thing as we arrived. Yes, it is a man sitting in a kite riding the wind. He went back and forth on the current for much longer than we felt like watching.

frairervs

This is the Aire with cold Hannah coming back from the beach. There are over a hundred spaces at this Aire, electricity, a bread van comes around every morning and we met some great people.

fraireboysbeach

Sam and Donald going swimming even on the coldest days.

fraireabirain

It rained for 2 days of our time at the beach. Some people say we have a rain blessing. The only rain here for months and we bring it. I wouldnt quite call it a blessing. hmmmm.

frairebungie

No this is not one of us. There was a big, NOISY college party over the weekend next door to us. The party included lots of ketchup and flour, camels and bungie jumping. Hannah really wanted to do some bungie jumping but we had the great excuse of IT IS A COLLEGE PARTY AND YOU”RE NOT OLD ENOUGH TO GO TO COLLEGE.

frairedogbike

Hannah politely asked this boy for a picture. Yes, it is what it looks like. This boy rode round and round the parking lot with his dog riding right in front of him with paws on the handlebars.

frairegizhats

One of our neighbours was this really nice French lady named Gizelle. Abi had just finished her first crochet project. A hat made of cut up old t-shirts. Gizelle showed us some mini hats that she had crocheted. They were so detailed and precise. AND guess what they are made of. You will never believe it. Carrier bags. You know, the ones they try to give you from every shop you go to and you get duped into taking them because you are too lame to remember your eco-friendly ones. Oh yeah, and the guilt is so bad you just cant seem to throw them away, thinking about those poor little turtles that eat them and DIE. So anyways, Gizelle has found and answer to those drawers and drawers of carrier bags. make them into hats.

frairegizeggs

Or egg cup holders.

frairegiz

She showed me how.

French Aires on the way south

fraireabiteeth

Did we tell you we discovered “Stellplatz” in Germany. Absolutely brilliant spaces for free or minimal cost in Germany. So we bought ourselves a little book, in German, that has paid for itself over and over. Actually, I think it would be impossible to find without a GPS. So, we decided to try our luck out with the Aires in France. Now, these cheap places to stop have minimal facilities. Many are just places in a parking lot. Some have electricity. Most you have to bring your own toilet. So to get to these we had the book, a german dictionary, a french dictionary and our GPS. We were thrilled to find that at one stop that little symbol in the corner meant A SHOWER. We have been shower challenged since realizing that most campgrounds are outside of our budget so we were thrilled.

frairemomshower

Only to find that the showers were very cold and…. hmmmm. how do you say…. wild west…. saloon like….. semi-public. However, we all took advantage of this beautiful, minimal shower.

Farmers stand in France

I tell you I love roadside farmers stands. On our way to see friends in Grenoble, France, Andrew stopped so I could get some rasberries to share with our friend. Things always taste better from a farmer’s stand. Mum

jonesberries

Comments

Categories

recent posts

Archives

Ahhhh Plans

Thru the Western Europe South edge

Liz’s Toilet Terrors in France and Spain

French Aire number 2

French Aires on the way south

Farmers stand in France

Twitter: jonesberries

Communities

resources

travelers

Meta

Traveler IQ test