Wednesday 23 July 2008: Sarah needs a haircut badly! It's not fair she already looks worn out after three week's vacation! She should look awake!!!!

Sarah says:

True that! I should look awake and fresh and alive and vivid with clear skin and nice hair and wide-open eyes and a healthy glow from all the rest I had! But instead I have had diarrhea for three days straight, my hair is dragging me down with all its grey and lack of style, my tan is fading and I'm starting to pale again. My skin is bad. Even my outlook is slightly grim! I think I got a little depressed after my friend Erika left. I felt sort of soulless ever since. Oh well! This too shall pass! Saturday I'll have a haircut! The sun will shine this week! Friday I'll get my hairy legs waxed and my toes re-polished! Today I ate a great fruit salad I made with FRESH blueberries!! It was like summer on a spoon! Tonight I want to make a great veggie salad and fish. So there are some really good things in my day and work is good. So there! Now you have the rainbow too instead of just the rain!

Tuesday 22 July 2008: Sarah is a bit alone in her own world today at work and at home. Heidi celebrates holidays!

(he's mine!!!!!)

Heidi says: our night out in the museum 'Huis van Alijn' in Gent was a fabulous one. I DJ'ed, together with my very goodlooking partner Mr Nice, and our dear loyal friends came to listen and to dance!!

Sarah says:

Life is very quiet. Busy at the office catching up. Quiet at home without the kid. Quiet at work without Heidi. I am not used to being alone for so many hours a day and at night. I was happy to meet my mother-in-law at Hema today for lunch. To break out of the silent space for a while. Luckily it's busy in one way or another and the day is flying by with all the catching up and getting my head around things and all. By the way - I bought this crazy expensive tooth-whitener from The States to try to get those yellow fangs of mine to match my whiter front teeth. So far, there's only a little bit of change but at least that is something! I hate my yellow fangs. I have tried baking soda - which really does work - but it's too abrasive and my gums get raw from it. One friend suggested fluoride tablets. I'm going to look into low doses of those. I'll keep you posted and hopefully you'll notice a difference in my fangs! Look at the photo above - nice and clean and white in front until you move to the right to that other-colored fang tooth on top. It's thanks to coffee no doubt! But I can't give that up!

Monday 21 July 2008: No photo of Sarah or Heidi today so please welcome Sarah's daughter on her way to camp for a 10-day stay!

Sarah says:

On her way to a 10 day camp with the Chiro... I'm going to miss that little bunny so much during the next weeks. The last three weeks have been so nice together. I remember last year when she went away on this camp for the first time she was so nervous and so were we. Now she was ready for sure and so were we - but 10 days is long!!!! I hope she has a great time but I cannot wait until she returns! Life will be quiet with her away and me all alone at the office with Heidi away... But quiet is good sometimes and I shall try to enjoy this time all to myself. It's rare to have that so I should learn to bask in it a bit...

Sunday 20 July 2008: Hair today, gone tomorrow... Sarah's Marv shaves his vacation beard. Sarah will miss it badly - being a fan of hairy beasts!

Sarah says:
Marv grew a beard during our vacation. I like beards. I wish more people did and didn't tell him it looked bad and all that... But he has to like it - which he did - but it's just not done in Belgium. Tuesday it's back to work so it was time for him to shave... I'd relly like him to grow a full beard! All on and wild! But that will never happen. I look happy in the photo below but in fact I'm a little sad to say goodbye to the beard!
It's Post Secret Sunday. I chose the below one about shuffle-mode on an ipod and being spontaneous because that's what vacation feels like! It allows you / one / me to be spontaneous, which is GRAND!!!!! Everyday life has a lot to offer and I am really fortunate to love my job and family life and to have some good friends to pass time with. Even so - the spontaneous days only come during vacation. No plans! Or just some here and there. Meals just come as they come at odd hours or here and there when we are moved to eat. We wake up late. Plan the day based on the weather or our moods... It's really fantastic! Today, for example, my husband, my daughter and I played Monopoly for 5 hours straight!!!!! I'm happy to report I won by a landslide! Then we got a movie and are busy watching it. I have seen it - Moulin Rouge - so I'm sitting here at the computer and watching the parts I want to see again. Tomorrow is the last day to sleep late. Our daughter goes away to camp for 10 days. And it's back to work for us on Tuesday. In some ways I look forward to working again because I love what I do and I feel great and comfy at the office. But I will miss the ease at which the days pass during vacation. I'll miss that feeling of total relaxatin and the ability to shut down and let go and enjoy. There's still half of a summer left so that's a great thing. The days are longer. The weather is bound to improve. My husband have our evenings free since our daughter will be away for a while. It can also be nice. A movie here. A cafe there. A dinner out one night if we feel like it. A game or two with friends. It's all good and I can't complain I guess...

Saturday 19 July 2008: Goodbye Erika, Neil, Oscar, Coco-Rosie, Cato, Cookie and Cleo the pigs...And aren't genetics odd???!!!

Sarah says:
Man I hate saying goodbye! Just when you get all comfy and catch up and have some good laughs and some good looks into the past and towards the future, BANG! Time's up! It would be nice if good feelings could last just a bit longer sometimes! BUT - we had the time we had and that was treasured and good. So now It's until next time! This is really the painful part of living so far away from close friends and family. You get this lump of sadness and almost dread in you heart and head the moment they are gone again after seeing them. I walk around in a rainy cloud for a few days - feeling slightly numb and shattered I guess. Great to see Erika, Neil and Oscar. Felt like home...

Now here's where genetics get weird! Look above at the photo of me, Neil and Oscar. We look like a family! Oscar has my coloring. I could be his mom!

And look below! My daughter has Erika's coloring! She could be her mother. Nobody would ever know! My daughter has Erika's light skin, light eyes, light hair. Oscar has got my dark eyes, slightly darker skin and all that... Why did our babies get the colorinf of our husbands?! It's just one of those things that can drive a mom crazy for a second. Most of my friends here in Belgium look more like my kid's mother than I do! It's kind of strange and funny.
And alas - it's time to say goodbye to the guniea pig babies tonight. They will be going to the same home as their brother from the last birth (Krik-Krak) went. They will go along with the new babaies from the other furry pigs from before too. It's really sad to see them go. They are terribly cute and sweat and their mom is just sitting in her cage all alone now. Who knows what her instincts are telling her. One day 4 babies and the next day they are gone. There's something truly awful about that. But we had to do this. Today we will reunite the mom and dad (sister and brother) again and hope they don't fight as much as the last time. We know that the mom is not pregnant this time (as she was last time already) - so we can only hope that will somehow make a difference.

FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY!!!!! 18 July 2008: Heidi goes to Holly...days!!!!!! And Sarah, Erika and Heidi meet up for a bit with kids galore...

Sarah says:

Happily (as my kid would say), we ran into Heidi while we were walking to the center of Kortrijk and we got to take a photo of me, Heidi and Erika together for Face The Day. We welcome Erika and Oscar as very special Face The Day guests.
Erika, Oscar, my kid and I also had Belgian waffles in the center. Oscar's dad Neil Smith actually has a Belgian restaurant in New York City of all places and he from outside of London no less. But I can assure you that this was the first REAL Belgian waffle that Oscar has ever had!
Even later that day, Heidi and Nico stopped by with Yma and Oscar and Yma hung out on the floor together pretending to make food and eat for a little while. Fun to see these kids together. Yma is 6 months older than Oscar. They both have these wonderfully expressive eyes as you can see. Check out Yma below. Heidi says she was fake smiling here. Even her fake smile is a very special and beautiful one. Look at those eyes! You can almost see what she'll look like when she a lot older. She's really not a baby anymore...

Heidi says:

After three nice and interesting weeks, i will withdraw myself from this second home, and spend some time at my first home! It's almost holidays for Heidi! Olé!

I had a haircut at lunch and as always, I don't like it. I will like it in a couple of days. Haircuts are horrible! They are never what you expect them to be. They only are what you expected after a few washes... Thankfully, i am aware of that! :)

And now, let the last hours begin!

Thursday 17 July 2008: To all those who... ... Sarah's got a boring photo today so offers a couple of Oscar happy and sad!

Heidi says:

To all those who still have their Flemish flag hanging out of their window, you're *é"#^´%s...

It's becoming a little bit shameful to live in this country with everything that's going on in the government. And then you have these dumbasses who hang their flemish lion out, even though the flemish holiday was on the 11th of July. To make it even worse...

Now, to end this with a positive note (for me anyway): I ran 54 minutes yesterday. Another personal record that's broken. I might only do a short run on Friday, because my body feels a bit painful today...

THIS IS A LOUSY AFTERNOON, WITH A COMPUTER THAT DOESN'T WANT TO COOPERATE. I AM TIRED AND READY TO CRASH. THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE...

Sarah say: Just a regular photo of me today as I couldn't get Erika in one with me. We had a fine day together though. Catching up. Laughing. Discussing stuff. We hung out in the kithen as I prepared food for dinner. It felt very adult. We have grown up. It's a nice feeling. What's really nice is knowing how close we have stayed after all of these years and that we can just pick up wherever we left off and continue to be nostalgic and live in the past a little if we want to too. Sometimes it's as if we are still 14 years old. My daughter was looking at us often as if we were out of our minds. We can't help it - we regress sometimes. And it's fun! As for Oscar - well he remains lively and lovely. As the pictures above show, there is a fine line between happy and sad with a 15 month old. By the way, the shirt I am wearing in the above photo was a gift from Erika. On her last visit, she tried to give me a shirt that was like three sizes too small. Though it was flattering to know she saw me as thinner than I was - I really couldn't wear that shirt so... When I first saw the shirt this time - I was sure I'd be way too fat for it and again that she had seen me as smaller than I am. But alas - the shirt fits and even looks good - so there you have it!

Wednesday 16 July 2008: A little break outside can do miracles... As can a really cute baby and a visit from good friends from New York!

And later that day, Erika and I and the families had a nice walk outside to mess with the jetlag a little bit and get some fresh air! Erika is like a monkey on my back... Can never shake her. Nor do I want too! It's so good to see her. We have had a lot of of laughs and man is she married to the ever so funny Mr. Neil Smith and together they have the ever so darling Oscar Charles Dionisio Smith! So glad to have them all here for this visit!!!

Sarah says:
Welcome Oscar to Face The Day! His mom and dad, Erika and Neil, will grace these pages too over the next few days! It's so great to have them here! Oscar is lighting up the house already with his big smile and laugh!

Heidi says:
I couldn't sit still anymore, my shoulder was hurting like crazy and so was my right hand, and my eyes were not seeing clear anymore. I went outside, read a page in my book and took some pictues of myself. Refreshed to go!

Monday 14 July 2008: Another day in Sarah's life during her vaction! Nothing to report but fun and relaxation I'm afraid...

Sarah says:

Later that day Heidi and I were reunited for Face The Day! She is now officially paler than I am thanks to my south of France tan I'm afraid!

Heidi says: Sarah, these colours aren't true! I am not at all as tanned as I look in this picture!!! I look orange there, and tan, but I didn' even sit in the sun yet... And I don't use tanning creme. Time to check your camera, dear...

Sarah says:

Stopped in at the office to do some administration today and got to see the lovely Heidi! Always good to see her of course though we forgot to take a photo! I have to get used to bringing my new camera along. It seems to delicate at this stage!

Tonight we picked up the guinea pigs, who seem well and healthy! Then we went to see some friends - Steven and Tilly and their kids - and had a late evening of constant laughter and talking crap. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Oh yes - and though I missed one set of Sunday Post Secrets I haven't missed this week's. Below is my favorite one because I read three books during my vacation and totally enjoyed myself!!! I'll write more about the three books another time! I love eating up books! I can't say I'd eat the pages literally but it sure does feel like a great meal as you drink up all the words and munch on each character. I hope I'll continue to read! I think the computer and TV in my life get in the way of reading. I have to make reading more a real goal of mine! It feels so good - what a great escape!

I'll see Heidi in a little while and I'll bring my new camera and will try to take a photo of us together and get Face The Day totally up to date! I have missed it while I have been gone!

Sunday 13 July 2008: Home Sweet Home for Sarah and back to life as usual -though still one week of vacation to go!

Sarah says:

Back home. Back to the couch and TV and computers and almost to work but still one week at home to enjoy... The best part is that my friend Erika will be arriving here on Wednesday with her husband Neil and their baby Oscar. They will stay until Saturday! I can't wait to have them!

I'm learning how to use our new camera so bear with me as my photos vary from one day to another. It's much more complex than our other camera with higher quality. But there's a lot to learn! By the way - notice my husband's beard growing there in the background! He's REALLY on vacation! I love it!

Tuesday 15 July 2008: Sorry!!! Face the day is a mess!!!!!! Search for today's post... :)

:-

And finally - the last day of Sarah's French trip - passing through Orléans on the way home for a night...

We stayed in Oréans on the way back to Belgium for one night and popped into the city for a quick evening look before going to sleep at our cheap (Euro 34 for all three of us combined) hotel. It's a good way to travel using these cheap hotels. They aren't luxury at all but they are clean enough - though small - and pretty perfect for a night's sleep along the way!
Orléans is of course most famous for the famous woman on the horse above - Joan of Arc.
The city is a strange one. It somehow misses the glory is seems like it is supposed to have. The cathedral above is of course a site to see! Most striking to me though was the below site. Look at the building on the left. It has a Jewish star on it! It's a synagogue! An unexpected synagogue right next to a church. Living in Europe, I have become used to not seeing Jewish symbols anywhere other than in Antwerp and at the occasional Jewish museum. And there, right smack next to the church was a big Jewish star. I could hardly believe it. You have to understand - though I am not a believer or any sort of practicing Jew or anything like that - coming from New York - there were churches and synagogues and mosques and every sort of denomination of all of the above all around - even in the small town I grew up in... Living here in Europe - I just see Catholic symbols - everywhere always. So to all of a sudden stumble across this synagogue - well, it made a big impression. Especially after having been inundated with so many churches for the previous two weeks! Jews have really been erased throughout Europe. Obliterated. We all know the history. So somehow this synagogue gave me a little comfort.

Our daughter in the hotel with her pet Coyote - sleepy after a long, nice trip through one part of France for two weeks!
Viva France! Thanks for the nice vacation!

Our next to last day on our vacation in France - a little visit to the Spanish border!

We wnet to the Spanish border and visited the cute village of Bossost and drove through other nearby towns.
It looked quite different building-wise to the French towns around the corner. I love how things just change all of a sudden at borders? You quickly know you are in another country just by looking around - even though it all looks basically the same... Above you can see the river valley and some back streets we walked through. In a field of thousands, 2 (not 1 but 2) four-leaf clovers popped into my daughter's site. Sh felt like the luckiest girl in the world in Spain!
We ate a lot of ice cream during this trip! After all - what is a vacation in the summer without ice cream!? We all agreed that the Spanish ice cream we had in the above photo was the best we had had the whole tome by far. Viva Spain!

Sarah's vacation in France - trip to the sea - Biarritz on 09 July 2008!

It was a fantastically sunny day so we went to the sea - to Biarritz on the bottom west coast of France near Spain. It was more than a two hour drive each way - which we did to and from all in one day. But it was very worth it! What a beautiful beach! Blue sea! Great sand! Very beautiful people to watch - many women with no tops - which required a bit of explaining to my daughter and a little bit of controlling of my husband's eyes! (just joking! I had to look a lot to - some very perfect breast all around - how can't you look!). The place is very crowded but we found a quieter beach away from the main crowds and had a sunny, lazy day. I really enjoyed it and my husband and daughter did as well - fighting with the large waves but being able to stand up in the water all the while - which removed the danger of the hard waves a bit. Many sea-towns - especially in Belgium I'm sorry to say - are so built up and ugly - that it was such a relief to see all these pretty buildings clean and tasteful surrounding the wonderful sand and sea. What a great day! My favorite I think. The most vacation-like one!Our daughter had a blast in the sea!
Beautiful bodies. Beautiful waves. Beautiful sand. Beautiful views. Beautiful sea. Beautiful day!

Sarah's vacation in France - second week - our day in the Pyrenees

Above you can see me and a sleeping bear in the mountains!!! Scary!!! In our second week in France we went into the mountains and explored the Midi-Pyrenees a bit. We were a few days ahead of the Tour De France and saw a lot of places those crazy cyclists would soon ride through. One place - a peak of 2115 meters struck me! I can't believe those bikers ride down tat mountain after reaching that peak. All I could imagine was death after death of falling biker - building up too much speed and falling off the cliffs! I don't know how often that happens but surely it must sometime. Those guys are daring! Amazing athletes!
Well there, we did see someone tumble down a cliff. It was really scary. My daughter and husband walked up what seemed like a small mountain. I watched from below. There was a family next to me watching their 4 kids go up. When the kids were ready to come down - one took a step and he just stumbled and started rolling - not in a smooth way - down this mountain. He hit hard and for a second it looked like that was it - this poor kid was going to roll hard and heavy down this mountain to his death right before his parents' eyes and in the view of all of us onlookers. Time stood still as I watched from below and my husband watched from above. Nobody could do anything! I heard the mother cry out in agony and fear. And then I couldn't see the boy anymore - he landed somewhere flat and luckily soft. It was really dramatic. I hope I never see that again. In the meantime, his other brothers and sisters froze and were then afraid to come down the mountain themselves. One older one moved down to his fallen brother and after a while we saw the two. They inched down together on their butts - totally fearful. The boy was okay in the end - hurt I am sure. What a day that poor family must have had! From below - it really didn't look like a high mountain hard to come down. My daughter went up alone at first and it all looked okay. Thankfully though - my husband followed after her and could help her down the mountain - because one wrong step and you could fall like the boy we saw did. Scary! Only people who know what the are doing should try these things! I'm so afraid of hurting by back by falling hard that I hardly hiked at all. I'm just too afraid to slip. I'm glad I trusted that fear inside in this case and didn't go up that 'little" mountain. My daughter said she felt sick coming down it.

It was beautiful!!
One of 20 bears that still exist in these mountains! Amazing to be able to watch these bears in action in a reserve for them. There is a lot of discussion about these bears and if they should be re-introduced as they are sadly dying off and nearly extinct in this region. Bring them back I say! They were here first! The land is theirs, not ours! But people say no! They don't want the danger. Nature versus man. Nature is amazing. I'm glad we got to be in the middle of all its glory.

We made it to the Col du Tourmalet! But not on bikes of course! It was amazing to see all the bikers making their way up the mountain! The Tour De France passed through a few days later.

Below, you can see a You Tube film of some of the route.

Tuesday 15 July 2008: a new day, closer to holidays! I need them!

Heidi says:

I was wondering on my bike this morning, about glamour and who has it in his or her life. I think nobody knows what glamour means. I think it's very shallow. When you're 20 years old, you think your life will become glamourous, as you read those women's magazines and they shout glamour and beauty. Of course, you're too poor to buy all the stuff that they tell will bring you glamour, and so you wait. Later, you start to wonder about the meaning of life, and you get scared of death and losing the people you love, and so there is no room in your head for glamour. You struggle on. There comes a time you get a baby. The baby wears you out and you're the furthest from glamour you can ever get. I am almost thirty. I am starting to get scared of aging. I have enough money to afford something nice every once in a while, which I do, but I still don't see or feel any glamour. Glamour is magazine language, and the people who supposedly had or have it, commit suicide at an early age or die too early of an overdose (suicide?) or die lonely. Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Heath Ledger, Marlène Dietrich... There are enough examples.

But then again. Maybe those two times my friend Wout made me walk on a catwalk were glamour? Maybe all the times we're on a dancefloor, shaking everything we've got is glamour? The long afternoons I've spent on my roof terrace when I was pregnant? The nice pictures Nico and I took on our holidays? The fun of dressing up to go to a swing party and to be asked to dance the lindy hop with a total stranger? Maybe...

Day six, seven - who knows anymore -- of Sarah's vacation in France...

One rainy day we went to some thermal baths nearby - there are many in that region. We didn't get any photos - but it was great fun! One of the best moments that we all enjoyed. It wasn't cheap - but it was worth it. There were all these different pool areas in a grand building. One area had like a waterfall rush of water you could stand under and get pummeled by water. That was my favorite part for sure! Next to that there were heavily bubbled baths/whirlpools. My daughter's favorite was the music pool in which underwater you could hear relaxing music. She also love the mint tea they gave for free at the hammam area. It was terribly relaxing! Loved it. After that, we headed to a castle high up on a hill. We took some fun medieval torture photos there and watched a fire-throwing-knife-tossing performer.
I was busy looking at the fake Knights in the castle and noticed that one was wearing gloves from today - not from 600 or so years ago! I looked closer and closer at the gloves and was about to touch them when all of a sudden the fake Knight moved its head! It scared me and I gasped! My husband and daughter enjoyed that! It freaked me out! I had been had!!! I'm just glad I hadn't grabbed the fake Knight's private area!
The next day we went to Albi - a great, great place with an amazing cathedral that is totally worth the visit - just for it alone even. I have never seen a church like this in my life and boy have I seen a lot of churches. It was 100% facinating - architectually and historically. We went to Albi to see the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum but the cathedral was the real draw in the end! The cathedral is like a huge fortess you can see from all directions. It looks far more military than church-like from the outside. It's bombastic to say the least - in outer structure. Simple but HUGE - the pillars holding it all up look like fa elephant legs from afar. The place just seems endless. It looks like a place to fear. A prison. A grand train station in Europe. That's until you get to the door - which is overly decorated and in total contrast with the rest of the outer structure. The inside is overwhelming! Just totally over the top with every style from every era in every corner from top to bottom. It's really necessary to rent a headset and go through the whole church listening to ever detail described. I was in awe really. I had no doubt in my mind why people feared God and Hell. If there's anyplace I have ever been that forced that point - well it's surely this cathedral in Albi. It's just decadent and crazy really. It was here that I saw the crazy detailed painting of the Last Judgement. That painting alone could be responsible for millions and millions of people converting to and believing (being forced to believe) in God!
Above you can see me in awe of it all. Below a dark shot of the Last Judgement in the Albi Cathederal though the link above will bring you to a much clearer shot I found on the net.

Monday 14 July 2008: Heidi cleans and cleans and cleans...

Heidi says:

Cleaning day at the office. Seriously, the water was black when I threw it away...

In the evening I had some energy left to run 40 minutes, after eating french fries. My stomach didn't like it so much though. I ran 40 minutes with stomach aches. But it survived! Last Friday I ran 50 minutes. That is quite amazing as a couple of months ago I though I'd never be able to run!!!!

Day five and six - maybe seven of Sarah's vacation (04-05-06 July???)

Swimming and sun! Great parts of our trip! We don't see a lot of sun in Belgium so we really soaked up what we could in the south of France. A pool was a really nice added value where we stayed. We divided our days between relaxing by the pool and going here and there at a slow pace. The absolute best thing was not touching a computer for two whole weeks!!!! It was really fantastic and much easier to kick than I thought it would be - having not been without a computer for the last several years! But I loved it! It truly added to the relaxation factor - just not being connected to the world other than for the occasional text message. Unfortunately and not surprisingly - the minute I was back home I was of course back on the computer - and here I am again on this blog....
The above photo was taken on a bad-weather day. We went to a cave to see hand-prints from 24,000 years ago! It was pretty cool. All these strange guesses as to why there were so many hand prints all over the cave and caves in the area and why the hands all looked like half of the fingers or all of them were cut in alf - maybe mutilated? Maybe a secret language? Nobody knows and nobody will ever know. But it's so fun to guess and imagine and to see something from so very long ago from our cavemen relatives! I totally enjoy that sort of thing. And it was even better because it was just the three of us with a guide - a private tour because it wasn't busy. And tjhe nature around was beautiful too.
Later that day we went to a very, very old church that's foundations and details were from the Roman times and sometimes dated back to the year 1000!!!! It's just insane to see things that old still standing! To imagine how people built all this stuff way back then! That's where churches amaze me. How did the create these amazing structures so very long ago? It's just so easy to imagine people falling off scaffolds while painting high cealings and lugging huge and heavy boulders and slabs of all sorts of concrete-like stuff so high up - but so hard to imagine how that all took place. It just reminds you that 1000 years ago and before, there were people just like all of us with architecture (mostly for God) in mind. Hard workers. Dedicated to these massive projects that sometimes went on for not only decades but centuries. It's incredible to be in a place where for more than 1000 years people have come to pray. Many pilgrims on their way to Portugal pass through this church and have for 1000 years!!!!!! It's all a bit mind-blowing!
My daughter took the photo above. A common site all over France. The slab in the photo below dates back to Roman times! Crazy!!!

Day two and three, maybe four of Sarah's Vacation in France (01 -02 July)

When in France, do as the French - even if the bread is too hard and sometimes tastes like toilet paper and cuts the inside of your mouth... Oh the famous French baguette... I was so looking forward to having baguettes each day with cheese and my husband would have his with wine... It would be a delight! True vacation! Alas - honestly, mostly the baguettes were way too hard and pretty much tasteless I'm sad to report. Every now and then we found a good one - but that just didn't turn out to be what I had dreamed of and expected! And my poor husband - because of a tooth problem and antibiotics he was on for it - he couldn't touch wine! He had really looked forward to having a glass of wine with good bread and cheese - but it didn't happen that way at all!

In fact - the poor guy ended up spending most of a day in a dentist's office in Lourdes of all places as my daughter and I went to Jesus and Mary shop after Jesus and Mary shop looking for glow-in-the-dark Mary's and the like to pass our time while waiting for my husband.
Above is a shot of me and my daughter passing time in Lourdes I think while waiting for my husband to come from the dentist. Did you know that there is a pharmacy on almost every corner in that city! I guess that makes sense because so many sick people go there praying to get better. It's a sad place if you ask me. I guess one could also see it as a place of hope. The atheist in me just can't see it that way. It just seemed like a bunch of false hope mixed with disturbing commercialism. It seemed like such a desperate and sad place. Waiting in a long line to touch a wall and give a quick passing-by prayer - then shuffling off into the candle area where you can pay as much as Euro 300 for a huge candle for your huge prayer to come true. If you don't have that much, you can get a candle for Euro 2 or so and hope it has as much miracle power as the huge ones in the special huge candle place that sort of rubs in your face that maybe if you spend a little bit more on a bigger candle uncle Roger with his bad limp and lungs might just have a better chance to recover... It all struck me - a total non-believer - as quite sick! But who am I too say! And what right to I have to be critical really. I'm sure Lourdes means a whole lot to a minions of people. It just turned my stomach though. I felt like I was watching one car crash after another, which basically I was being an atheist in such a holy place. I'm the bad one in that scenario. But that's the thing! It's a tourist place. There is shop after shop after shop - streets and streets lined with shops that all have the same over-priced crap - probably made in some third-world place on the backs of people who pray for food in their mouths and real health issues every day... Who could never make it to Lourdes to get their miracle! And don't even get me started about all the people being wheeled around in wheelchairs and brought in to pray. And about the mass-made and marketed Lourdes water bottles that people buy and buy so they can go to the fountain there and fill these bottles (sometimes even cooler-sized ones!) with holy water! I mean even we bought some of these bottles! So many people like us there buying these bottles, fueling this strange industry there - and not believing but somehow "enjoying" the kitsch value of it all... You could almost feel guilty about that - if you were a believer. And my child - I'm not sure what she made of all of it. It made her uneasy that's for sure. It certainly was interesting and eye-opening to say the least - but quite disturbing at that...
Above you can see a photo I took with my phone and then with our new camera!!!!! I guess that is the first photo on Face The Day taken with our new camera! My daughter and I were waiting the whole day for my husband and he had the new camera we had bought in Toulouse the day before. My daughter and I did get to see a little of Lourdes while waiting - as I described above - but too little I think. Or maybe too much -- too many Jesus and Mary's - that is for sure!
Since my husband didn't get to see anything on our first day in Lourdes - other than a dentist's office and one of the hundreds of pharmacies (which is ironic, isn't it - so many sick people go to Lourdes to ask to be healed that the pharmacies bring in so much work and money - it's probably the best possible place on earth to have a pharmacy!!! I'm sure you could become very wealthy in a short time! Doctor in Lourdes too! And undertakers! Sick people making the long trip there to be healed in the waters and baths of Lourdes sometimes die on the way!) Anyway - I had better stop going on and on about it. I do not mean any disrespect to any believers out there. Truly, I don't. There was just something so unsettling about that place. The desperation of it all. And because France is so full of churches too and we visited so many and so one particularly that will always stay in my head - that had this horrifying, huge depiction of heaven and hell - a painting so vivid and so powerful that it made it ever so clear why so many people believed and were forced to be believers -- because if you didn't - boy would hell be a horrid experience for you and you'd be torn apart by scary monsters and the like! All these symbols and messages. Disturbed me to no end! Believe! Believe! And you will be healed (and if you aren't - it's probably your own fault anyway for some sin you did!). Feel guilt! Repent! God will take care of you! All too much for me to take in frankly....

And alas -- a very tranquil photo above of a Lourdes Mary we bought (yes - we too very much fell for all the commerce at Lourdes and fed the system that semi-sickened us) - floating in the pool later that day... Doesn't our new camera take lovely photos? That's another thing - there is something slightly sickening about having your camera break and immediaetly being able to buy a new one. Like a click of a finger! Bam - what you need you can get in a second! The guilty jew or maybe even catholic in me feels - well, sort of guilty and dirty for being able to just buy whatever I need like that with little thought! What a world we live in! You can have everything in a second! Well, maybe not everything - but almost -- here in the comfy Western world anyway... I bet the underage kids lead by some parish of converters in whatever poor country that probably makes the above plastic Lourdes Marys have never seen a camera!

See what a country of churches and in your face Catholicism can do to one's head????!!!!

Tuesday 15 July 2008: Sarah's back with lots of photos of her two week vacation in France! Day 1 AND THE LAST PHOTOS WITH SARAH'S BELOVED CAMERA...

Sarah says:
In the above photo you can see the garden of the house we stayed at in Montréjeau, which is in the Haute-Garonne part of south-middle France in the Midi-Pyrénées. The town itself is nothing to write home about. But the region and many of the surrounding towns and villages are really beautiful with special landmarks. The mountains are close and the sea was about two hours away on either side. The Spanish border was about a 30 minute drive from where we were.
My daughter and I really enjoyed having a pool in the backyard. The weather wasn't great all of the time, but some of the time it was perfect. We read many a newspaper at the table next to the pool, as well as played a few board games and had some meals and snacks there. Very relaxed and relaxing!

My daughter was especially pleased that the owners of the house had two dogs. Every day, my kid got up and ran outside to play with the two dogs and brush them. She took care of them and they took care of her. I never knew she liked dogs. It made me happy for her but also a little sad - poor kid has no brothers and sisters and she'll never have house pets other than guinea pigs I assure you... She has all these care-taking abilities in her and is lonely a lot I suspect. Those two dogs gave her unconditional love and attention for those two weeks we were there and she basked in it! I can't describe how happy she was with these dogs and how gentle she was. It was nice to see her in this scenario though a little eye-opening too... By the way - behind her and the dogs, you can see the house we stayed in - in the top floor apartment with two bedrooms, a living room, bathroom, toilet and kitchen. It wasn't high luxury or anything but it was certainly just fine for the three of us - especially thanks to the pool and the dogs ( for my daughter). And for 14 days, it only cost us about Euro 440 or so... Can't complain about that! It allowed us to take day trips all over the region. And the kitchen allowed us to make most of our own meals and pack picnics rather than eat out all the time, which in that region of France wouldn't even be possible because of eating times and opening hours and all that money we saved!!! I highly recommend this sort of set up and this sort of vacation - though the place we stayed wouldn't be for everyone of course and a car - a good car - is essential for all these day trips through mountains and valleys. And with that in mind, I must add that gas cost us an arm and a leg! We had to fill up so many times! And there are expensive tolls to pay throughout France. To get to the sea, two hours away, it cost us more than Euro 25 in tolls alone. But the roads are great - well-cared for and clearly marked. That was a surprise to us. We though it would be more like in Wallonia here in Belgium, which can be hell to drive through as one minute there is a sign and then nothing for miles! Very easy to lose your way! But not in France! Where we were, even on the smallest back roads, there were good markings and directions. Made life easy and relaxed as we didn't always have to be busy looking at maps and all...
There above you can see the first meal I made with salad and warm goat's cheese and honey for me and my husband and more kid-friendly stuff for the girl! I really enjoyed making meals during this vacation. It's different than at home. Time isn't really important. No real schedule. I found it really relaxing to be in the kitchen throwing whatever I could together. But taking all the time I needed to do so as my kid played with the dogs and swam...
VERY VERY VERY SAD THING ABOUT THE ABOVE AND BELOW PHOTOS IS THAT THOSE WERE ABOUT THE LAST TWO PHOTOS MY FAITHFUL CAMERA TOOK BEFORE IT TOTALLY BROKE (thanks to my dropping it on my desk on the 29th of May!) I knew it would eventually just give up! And that it did, on day three of our vacation in Toulouse, which I'll tell you more about soon! The above photo is of a big bug on a leaf - very trippy. And then the camera came back to life just a little for the final photo it ever took below... May that wonderful old camera of mine be remembered well and fondly for all its good and hard work over the last few years. I took almost every photo on here with that lovely camera! I honestly will miss it! It was so easy and durable for all those years until I let it fall so hard! It served me and Face The Day so well!

Friday 11 July 2008: Heidi is having a pessimistic day

Heidi says: a forced smile...

Heidi says: maybe my fruitsalad is the saviour of the day?

Thursday 10 July 2008: autumn in in the air and that is not amusing...

Heidi says:

Summer is giving us a pre of how autumn feels... Since yesterday, it has been raining non-stop. Still, that didn't stop me from running 38 minutes in the rain yesterday evening! It was my best one so far! It's not very attractive to run in the rain, but once you're in it, it feels magnificent. You have more breath, no hayfever and you are refreshed the whole time (so you're less red in the face). When I started to run about two months ago (or is it more?), I set my goal on 30 minutes. I think my new goal is 1 hour. Yikes! (like Jeff would say)

Wednesday 9 July 2008: If Heidi could make a wish...

Heidi says:
If I could make a wish, I'd wish that my grandmother would live again.

Tuesday 8 July 2008: Grey day

Monday 7 July 2008: a monday morning is a monday morning...

Heidi says:

When a baby is born, one of the first things it should be thaught, is that monday mornings are tough and you have to learn to live with them. Not that I have to complain. It's all going smoothly today and I feel happy and in balance. Maybe that is because I dyed my hair again in the weekend and it's very dark and it suits me and so I feel more balanced? haha, bullshit! Or maybe not? Who will tell?