Seems like we just got here and now it's time to go

I can't believe we have been here for nearly a month! The days have just flown by and now we have just 2 days until we leave for Auch (southern France). We will be sad to leave as we have so enjoyed our time here: the nice chats with our hosts, wonderful food and drink, having just a short drive to the beach, etc... I think we would just stay forever, if we could!

Carter has been working on finishing an outside wall of the house (I'll try to get the pics in the next post) that they were renovating. The old stone wall had been covered with cement and plaster, so they had to chisel off all the old to uncover the stones. Now they (Carter and Alex, our host) are working on putting in new lime mortar to finish it up.

While Carter has been supplying the heavy labor, I've had it pretty easy: a little cooking, cleaning, helping to watch the kids, and helping Mathilde make a ton of diapers for her uncle's twins and for her own baby that is due in just a couple of weeks.

I would have to say that this past Sunday was just about as perfect as could be... We got up late (they had a small party the night before that lasted until very late), packed up a picnic (an enormous loaf of bread packed full of butter, ham and 4 different kinds of cheese) and headed to the beach near Marennes. It was just a gorgeous day: not too hot, not too cold. So there were Carter and I sitting on a beautiful beach in France watching our kids running through the sand and giggling whenever the cold water would rush over their feet. It was perfect.

Now it's on to Auch! We look forward to meeting our new hosts, but we will miss the friends we made here. It looks like we will be in Auch until the 17th of April then we set out on our long trip to Bulgaria: 1.5 hr bus from Auch to Toulouse, 2 hr train from Toulouse to Montpelier, 1.5hr plane from Montpelier to Frankfort, Germany, plane from Frankfort to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and then a 6 HOUR BUS from Plovdiv to Popovo! We are trying to break it up by couchsurfing for a couple of nights along the way.

We plan to stay about a month in Popovo, so hopefully it will be worth the extended travel. We will be staying with an Irish couple that moved there a few years ago, so at least there we won't have a language barrier with our hosts.