Below are the thrilling- and chilling- events which unfolded on the
coast of France, near Bordeaux.
Or, you know, just some stuff we did, your choice, really.
Anyhow, as they actually do say here, rather often, voila!

7/7/07 Rovereto to Verona (train)
This morning, I went out earlyand bought bread, finally having located
the bakery.
We raced today again, but didn't understand the start times, so we all
got an extra twenty minutes or so added to our times- not such a good
ending, but I wasn't winning anyway.
20:34
Following a couple of bored, unenthusiastic games of double solitaire
(it's far too hot to be enthusiastic), we continue to await our
overnight train to Paris, the lonely whirrs of the
poster-advertisement machines scrolling, accompannied by the station
announcer's voice over the speakeres, which summarrizes each train's
route and amenities and punctuated only by the occasional train
clattering through and the mumbles of a beggar woman from Bosnia.

7/8/07 17:00 Paris to Bordeaux
Last night's train came, and we slept in our train compartment's
seats, which folded down into beds. Plastic-sealed sheets and pillows
were provided. Comfort levels were acceptablee, but not optimal, as we
shared the compartment with a mother and daughter from Mexico (I
think) and a man in bunk arrangement.
Upon arrival in Paris, we had a few hours before boarding this train,
so we walked about and saw the Eiffel Tower, acrobatic policemen (nine
or so in arrangement on one motorcycle), the Arc de Triumph, and the
tourists. Lunch was onion soup and a chicken dish.
I have read all of my books (Feed, You Don't Know Me, A Certain Slant
of Light, The Foretelling); Ryan's (Finding Lubchenko); Eileen's
(Saving Fish From Drownig, High Tide in Tuscon), qnd the entire legal
text, in French and English, of my Eurail pass. I brought the Qu'ran,
deciding thqat if I was sufficiently bored, I would read it, but I
find it, while interesting, about as interesting as the aforementioned
pass.

7/10/07 7:37 Lacanau Sud (meet site)
I am glad to see that today there are port-a-potties. Yesterday, the
toilets were holes in teh ground, with spots upon which to put feet
(to be fair, there was a building, though not much else).
My race went well, but for one small mistake, which moved me down
about fifteen places because of the speed of the course.
In the evening, we walked along the beach, wind blowing shivering
jelly icebergs of sea foam across the wet sand. We picked up rocks,
explored others' sand structures, and walked back to the car with
blown rain from the sunset on our backs.

7/12/07 11:54 Bannes (meet site)
Yesterday´s race was great- I disregarded all mapped features and
spiked every control using nothing but compass and pacing- which means
two things: everything is runnable, aided by the lack of hills, and
the map here, if trusted, tends to add confusion. This was a problem
for other people. I had a near perfect race and came in 51st...
In the afternoon, the sun finally came out (it´s been raining daily)
and we went out to the beach, which was very crowded.
13:14
I braided a crown of the wild heather that grows rampantly here and
put it on the head of a little Scottish girl who was watching me from
nearby. She ducked back shyly behind her father, but then gave it a
thorough inspection and shoved it down over her head to be a necklace.
23:17
We walked Lacanau after showers, discovering a geological exposition,
an art gallery, a beach, and lots of French (and other) tourists.
In the evening, after a delicious paella dinner with a Canadian man
who´s staying downstairs from us, we went downtown for a last
internet. There´s a kitten there, Pitzu, which I lured out from under
a parked car the first day using my hair. Today when we came in, the
owner saw us, smiled, and fetched the kitten from the back for us.
In the square, there is music and polka dancing, which I can hear from
here. We particularly enjoyed watching the mixer dance for its
confusion-due to a mishap in steps, a couple of younger teenage boys
ended up paired for a turn. At first, they stood there looking
awkward, then one shrugged and they danced the turn.


Remarkable and Interesting Facts and Observations!
-Our shower has no curtain, only a half-wall (vertically) and a tub. I
believe the intent is that we sit to bathe.
-On a quest for books to read, we've been asking around to other
English speakers at the O meets. We've noticed a disturbing trend.
Books appear to be outmoded. Some girls in my age division, British,
informed me, "oh, we don't read." A man from the Netherlands
explained, "the kids have their mp3 players." A man living in Belgium
told us, "I don't read. My girlfriend does, but I just got to the
movies, where I can get the story in two hours." Well, I was
flabbergasted. What a lovely word.
-Running in sand is Not Fun.
-"chantilly" is whipped cream. And I´d always thought i was a type of lace...
-nutella is incredibly popular here. Meanwhile, one must search the
top shelf in the grocery store very carefully to locate the peanut
butter.
-every morning, you can see people walking down the street with long
loaves of French bread,
-"pain", the French word for bread, will get you a baguette. If you
want anything else, you have to know the words for it.
-Crepes are their idea of pancakes. Delicious!
-There are many pine forests on France´s west coast.
-American music, like McDonalds and Starbucks, are ubiquitous.
-There´s a really sweet kitten at the internet cafe, named Pitzu, It
is, as Ryan says, "a ball of 100% pure squirm".

I´m quite behind, aren´t I? Typing from Copenhagen...