Ghosts, field trips and Mario

Our first few days at our apartment in Chambery were accompanied by sleepless nights... and ghosts. The second night Tim had a middle-of-the-night spooky experience and the third night Jenn had one of her own. The fourth day we took to ridding our place of ghosts with a ceremonial incense cleansing of every room, saying prayers aloud and flicking salt water on the floors. Whether it cleared the apartment or our minds, it has seemed to work and we got back on track sleeping well shortly afterward.

Jenn attends class for four hours every morning while Tim repeats the most important phrases in the French language: "I would like a croissant, please. Thank you. Goodbye" at the local bakeries of Chambery. There are so many bakeries here you could throw a frisbee from one to the next. Speaking of frisbee, Tim has found a local team to play with a couple times per week. While Jenn has found a couple of new French friends through an online language exchange to meet up with and exchange French lessons for English when she is not in class. Her school has organized a couple of field trips as well: one to a nearby tourist town called Annecy and another to a nature hike through Les Gorges du Fier.

But the most exciting part of our time in Chambery was a short visit from Mario! After we left him in Paris three weeks ago, he made his way south to a rural part of central France where he has been working on a farm in exchange for food and accommodation. He has been working on getting his political asylum paperwork in order and has a meeting with the French immigration office in Limoges next week. We're wishing him the best! 

The ground floor entrance to our apartment (a former hotel from the 18th? 16th? century) was designed for horse drawn carriages to enter. It used to be a hotel back in the day.

The horse & carriage door of our apartment (from the street)

The view from the local hiking hill. (Chambery)

Lake Bourget near Chambery.

The old town (Chambery)

When in France, one must smoke on the balcony. Tim has held on to some cigars he picked up in Myanmar.

Who iz dees 'Mericahn? Huh, huh, wee, wee.

Typical evening on our balcony.

Class field trip to a nearby tourist town called Annecy. 

Lake Annecy.

When we learned that a world champion chocolatier and pastry shop was in town, we had to go. Tim got the most American thing on the menu - cheeseburger-shaped pastry. (Annecy)

Cheeseburger pastry in paradise. (Annecy)

The pony tail is really taking shape!

Nice French architecture (Chambery)

800 year old alleys. (Chambery)

Classic French look. (Chambery)

Old town Chambery

Jenn is looking quite French!

More typical French architecture. (Chambery)

Now that we have our own place we have switched our Couchsurfing profile to 'Host', instead of Surf'. So far we have received only one request from a nice Finnish couple, Laurin and Marja. (Jenn was at class when we took this photo right before they left).

Jenn checking out the Gorge du Fier on a class field trip.

Contemplating the faces in the gorge (you can see a face profile in the wall if you use your imagination)

During heavy rains and snow melts the water in the gorge fills up and has flooded the boardwalk many times in recent history. The water can rise over 23 meters in a matter of hours!

We played in a summer league frisbee game with the local players of Chambery. We drove to Grenoble (1 hour away) for the match.

Mario and Jenn during the solstice music festival. It is a country-wide music festival that has been taking place every June 21 for the last 30 years. Free music shows are played throughout the entire city... all night long! (Chambery)

Tim and Mario (Chambery)

The UK and Paris

We survived our flights from Hanoi --> Hong Kong --> London --> Glasgow with the help of free booze, Hidden Figures (so good), and Moonlight (OMG, even better). Our first few days in Scotland were spent in Fort William, trying not to wince while sampling whisky at a tour of the Ben Nevis distillery, waiting out the rain at the indoor rock climbing gym, and practicing our Scottish/English/Jamaican accents. On our last day in town we finally got perfect weather for our summit of Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the UK.

After our time in the Highlands, we headed south to Glasgow to visit my dad's cousins, Shirley and Billy. They rolled out the red carpet for us: we took lovely walks through the surrounding countryside, had tea and chocolate biscuits (aka KitKats or Twix) every day and Shirley prepared a full Scottish breakfast, complete with haggis.

Next we headed to Canterbury to see Russell Brand on his stand-up comedy tour of England. We had bought the tickets back in March solely because it was one of the few shows not sold out, having zero comprehension of geographic distances or public transportation in England, and without knowing that Canterbury's cathedral is a UNESCO world heritage sight. We left Billy and Shirley's on Sunday afternoon and arrived in Canterbury well after midnight, having taken a plane, a bus, and several trains. The next morning we awoke to find out that Canterbury is a bustling tourist destination with a lot of history. We walked around, took a river tour, visited the Cathedral, and thought about what it would be like to dodge the contents of chamber pots as they sailed out of the windows of the buildings 500 years ago. As with much of the trip, we did very little last minute planning, and it worked out mostly great.

From Canterbury we took the train to London for a few hours, then boarded a night bus to Paris. We stashed our backpacks in a locker at a train station, then headed to the Jardin de Luxembourg to meet up with our friend Mario who we met in El Salvador at The Bubble, early in our trip. Despite all odds, Mario, a twenty-one-year-old young man from a small town in El Salvador who spent ten years working as an auto mechanic from ages ten to twenty, and who learned English in a year talking to travelers at The Bubble, saved the money to fly to France to learn French and escape the mounting violence in El Salvador due to the increase in deportations from the US. He is an incredible person, and we had a blast touring Paris and playing frisbee in the park and checking out the Mona Lisa with him.

Our last night in Paris a friend of mine had the three of us over for dinner. Josie is Argentinean, and she was an exchange student at my high school through Rotary during my senior year of high school. We have kept in touch over the years, including when I studied in abroad in Argentina and on a couple of trips back to Buenos Aires since then. She met her French husband when he was living in Buenos Aires, and they moved to France eight years ago. We had a great time at dinner eating delicious food in the French style (appetizers, main course, bread and cheese, dessert) and switching between Spanish and English and un peu de français.

Yesterday we moved into our home for the next month, an apartment constructed in the 1800s (or was it the 1600s?) that we have ALL TO OURSELVES! in Chambery (eastern France). I start a French course on Tuesday, and je suis tres heureuse!

First glimpse of the Scottish highlands from our bus window

Fort William, Scotland

On a tour of the Ben Nevis Whisky Distillery (Fort William, Scotland)

Walking up the highest peak in the UK: The Ben Nevis

Made it to the top of the Ben Nevis!

Near the waterfront along the River Clyde near Glasgow, Scotland

Tea time with Billy and Shirley! Hedgehog tea cozy, Charles Rennie Mackintosh mug, After Eights: can't get more British.

Jenn, Billy and Shirley

Billy let Tim try on his kilt!

Along the Great Stour River (Canterbury, England)

The Canterbury Cathedral stained glass (Canterbury, England)

Meeting up with our friend, Mario, from El Salvador. (Paris)

Mario doing some break-dancing flips in the park. (Paris)

Along the Seine River (Paris)

Rafeal, Jerome, Tim and Jenn in Paris. Jerome is a friend of Tim's that he met 5 years ago through Couchsurfing. This was their fourth international meet up in 5 years! (US 2012 --> Paris 2013 --> US 2014 --> Paris 2017)

Mario breakdancing at Le Louvre (Paris)

Checking out the underwhelming Mona Lisa. (Paris)

Dinner party with Jenn's high school friend Josefina and her husband Charles (Paris)