The first days in France

3 July 2012
And when I arrived in France - the earth started shaking again in New Zealand. This time it was on the North Island and luckily it was very deep, so no real damage. It was felt in a huge part of the country though and also very well in Blenheim.

4 July 2012
I had a very good night sleep - no real jetlag symptoms at all, so the day started great although the breakfast was as basic as the hotel, but it did not bother me at all! My first goal of the day was Aix en Provence where I needed to sort a SIM-card for my cellphone and a GPS for my car. Well, getting into Aix was more of a challenge than anticipated. Not being used to traffic lights and more than 5 cars waiting for an intersection, driving into Aix was quite an experience for me. Needed to change quickly to European driving mode (slightly aggressive), otherwise I would still have been waiting there somehow/somewhere. Although Aix is not a huge city, it felt like that to me. Also had to wait in the shops for a long time to get served, but finally managed to spend a lot of money but got what I needed.  And in general it is a very beautiful city.

After a very nice and well-deserved lunch with a nice rose I headed to http://www.domainefavori.com/winery-france.htm. This vineyard/winery owned by Dutch people I 'discovered' via an 'old' studymate from years ago in Holland. They offer free accommodation for 4 hours of work in their vineyard 5 days per week. Well, what a great way to be amongst the French vines. Especially, when you can also enjoy the beautiful swimming pool and in general the very nice and relaxed surroundings. After a few hours here I already feel at home, but not the least because of the very friendly people here - and imagine they are all Dutch !!!!  One downside is that I will not improve my French, but to practise it a bit, I bought the book Alice in Wonderland in the French language.
The afternoon ended with a nice swim and then I got invited for a meal by one of the other volunteers and I gladly opened one of the bottles of wine that I bought this afternoon after a very good winetasting at Domaine Saint-Jean-Le-Vieux.  http://www.saintjeanlevieux.com/provence/accueil.php. And imagine - this lady was born and raised in New Zealand!!! How small can the world be ?! So, it was great to talk a bit about our experiences with the cultural differences etc.  But the evening finished early, because .......
Tomorrow morning at 7am it is working time!!!
5 July 2012
Woken up by the alarm at 6am - well, that doesn't sound like holiday, does it? And of we went - 4 of us - to do 4 hours of removal of watershoots - ooohh, the joys of bending and kneeling all the time. I really must admit that I was tired after this - clearly not used to any physical work anymore and the temperatures doesn't help either. But only one more day and then I have already weekend!

In the afternoon I went to one of the villages around here and had a nice lunch again before driving to another bigger village for some happy supermarket shopping. Here I spent a lot of time, especially in the wine department. It is sooooo amazing to see the huge selection of wines here and the prices! I am not saying supermarkets are cheap here, but some products are.

In the afternoon I switched on my TV to watch the Tour de France, and guess what - the TV just has the Dutch connections and I could follow it all in Dutch. How am I going to improve my French here???? And then I did something that was very unusual for me - suddenly had an afternoon nap - well, I absolutely must have been more tired than I thought.

The day was finished with a very nice dinner with the owners and one of the volunteers that is leaving tomorrow.

Love,
Anita