This is a week's worth of writing, different day:diffferent color

MY TRIP
Its Saturday now and i have almost been here in Assignon France for a full week. The flight here was almost easier for me than figuring out the bus system in Washington. The flight was nonstop from Seattle to Paris. The seat in front of me had a computer in it which allowed me to chose from dozens movies, TV shows, play games, check where our plane was on the map, and tons more! Zoey had taken doggie downers and slept almost the whole time except when i got fed dinner. She stood up in her carrier and proceeded to beg even though her eyes were red and she was deffinitly high as a kite. LOL i guess some things never change no matter how strong the druggs.
I only had an hour to get through customs and board my next plane to Barcelona Spain, but the airport was easily mapped out and almost everyone on the plane went in the same direction so it was easy. Getting Zoey’s papers to get into France was not only very time consuming, it had ended up costing almost $200
(not including her plane ticket), and was so frustrating it made my mother and i want to pull our hair out. So you can understand my irritaion when going through custom i asked the security guy looking at my passport
if he wanted to see Zoey’s documents he shook his head ‘no’ and gave me a smirk that read, ‘silly, why would a dog need to show papers?’. Grrrrrr…. But i thought, oh well, better to have too much information than not enough.
A piece of advice for any American traveling to France: Bring a small dog! People were extremely nice, dispight the steryotype that the French are mean to Americans, and a lot of that was due to Zoey. French people seem to love dogs. People would come up and say how cute she is with a big smile on their face and make friendly small talk to me while admiring her saying how well behaved she was. Not only is it a great conversation starter, it also allows people to know you speak english without being rude. English speaking people would come to talk to me to discuss our entire flight’s missing baggage problem (which ended up delaying us getting to leave the airport by an hour just because something was in front of the luggage door).
One day while in a village about 20 min from Assignon, a lady on the street came up to pet Zoey, and we striked up a conversation. This led to Chris and Tom (the friends of mine that own the place i’m staying), the lady and her husband, and i all having coffee together. The couple was from Britan and were musiscians like Chris. The husband had actually played drums in a band called ‘alternative television’. It was apparently a very popular group in the 90’s. The couple was very nice and owned a house only a few minutes away. Both couples exchanged phone numbers so they could hang out next time the were both at their homes in southern France! All because Zoey is so cute J
The house that i am in has so much character. I absolutley love my room and spend most of my time inside in it. The window has iorn bars in front of it which add to its charm and it is the perfect hight and size for Zoey to poke her head out of it and look at the street below. The house is very old and sturdy with tiled floors that are at least 300 years old! The roof terrace is perfect foor me to read a book and write on the computer (as long as it is charged), and it is where i hang up the laundry after washing it. It is also where Zoey saw a 3 inch tall praying mantis for the first time! It looked like a little stick to her at first so when she went over to sniff it and it moved, she jumped a foot into the air hitting her head on my chair. Lol the whole thing left her puzzled.
The windows don’t have screens on theem so anything comes in the house. Since they don’t have the crazy buggs here that they do in Olympia I don’t mind. Although, last night i did have a small little sparrow fly into my room and it was kinda annoying. The dang bird couldn’t figure out how to get out. It was small enough to keep flying around in circles in my room, banging itself into closet doors half open, the clown puppets hanging from the ceiling(which is actually the only thing in my room i don’t like, even Zoey growls at them), the walls and the bookshelf. The bird wouldn’t have been as annoying if it didn’t wake me up every 15 min for several hours. As if getting used to a whole new sleep schedule in an unfamiliar place wasn’t enough.

The town of Assignon is very quant. It lookes out on vinyards surrounding the village. There are winery’s (called Domain’s here) all over the southern Langudoc. There is a church that rings its bells every hour, the amount of chimes in accordinance with what time it is. Then around 9 everymorning there is a lady in a truck that sells fresh bread to the townsfolk. Almost all day you can hear the singing and chirping of the numerous amount of birds in the town. This makes a very nice backround noise with whatever you are doing. The streets are narrow with built in gutters on each side. Dogs runn arround freely off leashes and sometimes even without there owners. Zoey was pleasantly intreaged by the level of sophistication by these dogs going on strolls by themselves. The only downside to this that i can see is the level of dog poo that laces the town streets. Escpecially since i have a dog that tends to find a scent that she likes and then proceeds to roll in it. Yuck!

The weather here is absolutley beautiful. It is almost always sunny, even if it’s cold. There are many trees and vegitation but the ground is kinda dry. The wind blows strong and they say the wind gets a lot stronger, so that will be interesting. The warmest i have had to dress so far has been tennis shoes, jeans, and a thin hoody. It has only rained here one day since i have been here, but when it rains, it pours. The morning that Chris and Tom left back to washington it started raining. Then it began to pour. The srteet gutters all had a foot of streaming water in them. Then that night there was thunder and lightning. I have never been that close to a lightning storm. The thunder sounded like a shotgun going off on my roof and the lightning lit up my room. Zoey got scared and hid under my bed. I was intreged and wanted to stick my head out the window so i could look up and see the lightning but i figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to get hit by lightningg my first week in France. So i settled for enjoying the noise and light show.
The trees don’t grow to enormous hights like they do in washington but there is deffinetly more wilderness without homes or houses or roads. I often go on walks with my neighbors Marie and Lea. Many times we will walk for an hour and only run into 3 or 4 people, which being from Alaska is something I have missed greatly. The vegitaion here is amazing though. Everytime I have gone on a walk I have picked something new. The first time i picked almonds and figs. The second time I picked chessnuts. Then we walked by the vinyards, and since the have already harvested this seasons grapes for wine, we got to pick fresh white and purple grapes. There are three donkeys that are by Assignon and Lea and i picked grapes and fed them. They were so cute and would pick them out of your hand using their lips. Last night when I went on a miny excursion with Lea about one mile from our houses and climbed some rocks, she pointed out the rosemary and thyme plants that grew freely, scattered all around. Here the people are so friendly that you can walk around and pick things freely, unlike the US where people are more stingy about their land and there are ‘No Trespassing’ signs everywhere.
The roads here are narrow and Very windy. People drive on them quite fast in my oppinion for how much they curve. I have not yet attempted to drive on them, escpecially since the car that is availible to me is a 5 speed and has no power steering. I have been lucky enough though to have my neighbors take me places.

So, Chris has here at the house a dvd called ‘the tripletes of bellville’, which I watched a few days after arriving in Assignon. It is an animated french film in which a granny goes to New York to save her grandson that was brought to America by the French mafia. Overall it is addorible and heartfelt, i would deffinatley recomend it. In the film, the American’s are almost all portrayed by whales of people that are not only EXTREMELY obese but also tower above the french characters and are all obsesed with hambergers. Now granted it is a cartoon that is exagerated, but it still playes up the wiedstread steriotype in France that all Americans are incredibly huge.
This steryotype hasn’t really bothered me until i was at the grocerie store with my neighbor Marie. She was helping me order some cooked saurkraut and sasage from a stand in the store when the man helping us gave me an extra hotdog free of charge because "I can tell you are on American". At that point i didn’t know whether to feel flattered for the gesture, or embarrassed and selfconscious about my apperience. I just had to put the idea out of my head and be happy that i got something free.
At first glance it doesn’t make sense that the average French person is skinnier than the average American. The stores here are full of an abundance of cheep and delicious cheeses, breads, and only whole milk products. Unlike the United states that have many Low fat or non-fat, low calorie, low-sugar options. Also,cheeses are expensive and, to those like me on a low budget are considered a treat not an everyday diet, along with the pasteries. I have come to the conclusion that with the food availible, the French remain skinny because they were forced to learn portion conrtol at an early age. Which unfortunatly is something i have not yet learned, even now in my mid-twenties.

So this morning it has been a bit nippy, and since iam staying inside writing I decided to build a fire. I am not as skilled as i once was a building one, and the wind whips through the stove from the vents so fast it kept putting it out before the flames would start ignighting the fire. I ended up going through 6 matches and quite a bit of paper. Hopefully i will get better at it. If not, i think i might have to resort to dowsing it with gasoline, which i am trying not to have to do. I am not so much afraid of burning down the house, since it is all made of stone that might be difficult even for me, but i am very clumsy and am quite fond of the hair on my head and lashes so lighter fluid is the last resort.
Zoey and i went for a walk this morning, and i think she is now more annoyed than anything that dogs are not on leashes. She is just such a pretty dog, all the othher big dogs want to play with her. They follow her around and want to play with her. Many have jumped up at her and then chased her down the streets. They are so much bigger than her that instead of wanting to play, she just gets frightened and runs. Shooting me a look that screams ‘Help me mom!’. I know they don’t want to hurt her, so the whole thing is actually rather funny to watch. Dispite the dogs chasing her, Zoey is getting more comfortable with her surroundings and when i let her outside to go potty she wanders off much farther from the house than she used to. The other day when we went for a walk, she kept stoppinng to sniff the pathway we were on, so i ran way ahead and hid in the trees. A few moments later she came running down the path looking fratically from side to side. When i jumped out at her, she jumped on me and gave me a pissed off look, but since has followed more closley to my side when we go out walking.
Yesterday I went to my first Sunday market in St. Chinan. The town square was full of people and dogs. The produce is absolutley amazing. I bought five fresh organic tomatoes for 90 cents, fresh blackberry jam for $4, and Lea bought about 2 cups of fresh and seasoned olives for about 2 dollars (you would pay 4 0r 5 dollars for that in wasshington). To say it mildly, the market here kicks the market in Olympia’s ass! Plus i can bring Zoey! The dogs at the market were all on leashes, and it was so crowded that Zoey would often get tangled around peoplee walking by, or other dogs would try to sniff at her causing people to have to stop. But, people here like dogs so much, nobody seemed to care. They would all just smile J .

So Saturday night Lea brought me to a party at her friends house at Assignon. She said that i should see what a party in France was like. I was deffiinatley hesitant escpecially because i was older than everyone there by almost 10 years. But I didn’t want to be rude. I figured i should try everything once. Turns out it was almost thhe exact same as a teenage party in the states. They even played a bit of Bob Marley. Ha ha. There were only a few thinngs that were different. The guys screamed like little girls when they wrestled(they don’t waste as much energy here trying to act manly), and there was a little more techno played.
One of the customs they have here is that they kiss on each cheek when they say hello to people their age. This was very acward for me. Lea and I showed up after most of the other people had arrived, and all of a sudden everyone came up and kissed my cheecks. It was a party of mostly men(which I explained to Lea that in the US we call that a ‘sausage fest lol). I don’t handle myself well when i feel uncomfortable, so I must have seemed like a retard after about the seventh guy had come up to kiss my cheecks and i couldn’t stop giggling ackwardly. LOL they gave Lea a silly look and she just kept repeating "Um..she is american". Personal bubbles are not as common here apparently.