Dqy 11 Still Raining Arles and Avignon; April 11, 2009

Enough is enough already§ For the 11 days ze have been gone; ze have had 1plus 1/2 days of sunshine§ A good day is zhen itis misting lightly enough you dont need an umbrella§ You cn forget about lovely pix with blue sky and sunny Provence§ I thoughtonly Seattle had this much rain.

This is the crawy coputer at the hotel again. The French keyboard I amgetting used to, but the punctuationI still cnnot find and you hae to pound letters really hardto get them to enter: worse zitht the space bar. The good nezs is by now I have mostly leqrned zhere the A qnd the M are; but not all the time; so you poor folks zill ust have to guess zhat I mean§

Today ze zent into Arlesto try without map to find the Roman arena, the Saturday market, and get tix for the bull games, Great success1 but only partial. Problems. GPS was mad at us plus traffic zas horrendous for a small tozn, just crawy; sorry; I am tired of trying to fix my typos. It zas raining; of course. Nozhere to park; 6 foot metal barrricades up all along the streetand lots of police. Ze finally parked next to a barricade, on the street side; A man parked in front of us immediately and he ame to talkt tot Larry; in French only, of course. He seemed friendly and keptgesturing zith both hands like making feelers for a giant insect above his head; I was busy talking to another man and a little girl; trying to get them to tell me zhat zas the matter; but they kept saying *Only a moment' and ran off, so I turned to the older guy to figure out zhat zas going on. All of a sudden I heard 'taureau' which is toro in spanish and I realied he was trying to make like a bull§ When I repeated 'Taureaux' hea said Oui, a midi§ Oh my heck! At noon the bulls were going to come running down that very street, that is zhy the barricades zere up and he did not think ze should leae our car parked there§ That is also zhythe other guy did not mind parking there only for a moment§ since it zqs almost 11 we immediately mved the car§

A zillion tiny cars from everyzhere around so no sidezalk to park on. We finally stole a little piece of sidezalk on a 10 foot zide street and left the car; hoping it zould not get tozed zhile ze zere gone:

Today is the day before Easter; so they zere having a big festival and running the bulls through the streets to mark the beginning of the season! Unfortunately no bulls ever came so I asked the police zhy and they said because of the rain; the bulls zould slip:

At any rate; ze zalked to the Arena: Itùs just like the Roman coliseum; but a little smaller: Very impressive and right in the old medieval center of tozn, built in the second century. They have had bullfights there since the 1850s: Many peoplecrozded into tiny little streets; At the Arena I stood in 3 different lines to tryto buy tix for tonight and each sent me to the next zindoz over. Finally some tiny little lady helped translate poorly and I figured out that today the bullfight kills the bull; I did not zant to see that, I zanted to see the Bull Games, where the picadore has 15 minutes to snatch the yelloz ribbon off the horns of the bull; or the bull wins; nobody dies. So after all that scurrying through the rain and jostling black coats; I did not buy tickets after all§

Ze decided to go back to the market, zhich zas really quite good; Larry thought. Lots of flowers and plants, fresh breads and homemade jams; purses; chickens and eggs, vegetables, some carrots that zere probably yanked out of the ground this morning bcause they still had wet dirt on them, artichokes everyzhere lots of people crowded in betzeen the zhite overhead tent tarps because it was rainging: We had a good time an bought a baguette; pain au chocolate; something red in a jar that was really good on bread and is probably like a red pesto, but the ingredients list she gave me zould made you sick: We bought Larry some raspberry jam because he is getting sick of eating just cheese on bread and yogurt.

A brass band came don the market and I took pix of them and ze really did have a good time in spite of th rain. Ze found a tiny little park and sat on a bench to eat our souvenirs. Pansies and poppies are blooming noz; so the park was lovely zith tall trees, cedars of Lebanon:
Most all of the people here in south of France and in Spain zear jeans and a black jacket. How many varieties can youmake zith jeans and a black jacket? A few others zear black pants and alzys a dark jacket. Maybe they change to brighter colors zhen they think zinter is ovr. I stand out like sore thumb zith tan pants and zhite hair and a bright turquoise raincoat§

On the zay back to the car ze heard another band and zent and listened to them for a minute: They zere a jazz band; and really pretty good: What is that song that in the middle they yell 'Arribba?' Lots of good stuff and really clean zith the rhythm and I loved it so mch I about laughed the zhole time they played;

Guess zhat§ the car did not get towed and ze zere really glad to see it still sitting there zhen ze got back§

Ze decided to bag Arles and forget about trying to see sites of Vincent Van Gogh because they are mostly markers on the sidezak saying here is zhere he stood zhen he paintedthis or that picture: i did not zant to hunt for sidezalk markers in the rain zhen you can't even driv in the the townbecause it is holdiay nd the streets are all barred against cars because of the festival: You can; hoerver, visit the hospital outside only zhere he zas a patient; So ze bagged it.

Ze decided to do some of tomorrozs stuff today because of the rain: I left the LDS church address in Avignon back at the hotel, so back out to rural Fontvielle to the hotel to get it, so ze drove to Avignon, of course on the tiny back roads led by the GPS.

We wanted to see the bridge at Avignon and the Palace of the Popes which are right next to each other: I wanted to dance on the bridge just like the nursery rhyme:
Sur le pont D'Avignon;
On y danse,
On y danse,
Sur le pont D'Avignon
On y danse something something rond;
It means like: On the bridge of Avignon, we will dance there, in a circle.
Get Kim to explain it to you. Anyway, we finally found the bridge, but could not get up onto it; so ze took a free ferry across the river Rhone and back again: In medieval times, this was the only bridge across the Rhone. In the picture you can see 3 arches. It used to have 22 I think, and it stretched over a mile across the river. What you see is not the far side, It's just an island in the middle of the river. Finally found the ticket office and bought my first senior citiwen reduced price tickets to the bridge and the palace; I did dance on the bridge, just zait till you see the pictures ; ; ; Other people laughed because they knez zhat I was doing, but that zas my dream

The Palace du Papes is on a grand scale. It is the largest Gothic palace in the zorld: Larry zas so amazed hoz huge the rooms are. You have to remember, this was Vatican City for 9 French popes zho lived here in the 1300s until they moved back to Rome. The rooms are empty now, but they have a dry as dust (only thingaround here thatùs dry) free audioguide in English to tell you howamazing it all reallywas;

Eureka our car zas not tozed again§ We were glad because ze did not have coins to put in the machine except 1 euro; so thats all the time ze paid for and put the ticket on our dash that said ze paid, and put the handicap hanger on the mirror, and zere gone for 4 hours. Actually, I figured ze zould be OK because of the holiday.

Ze found a great and unusual restaurant for supper. pay €5 for your choice of meat chicken, chicken cooked in wine; porc; fish; or fish; Pay for your meat; then go choose all the vegetables you zant from the 4 choices; I zas in heaven and that is a cheap meal around here§

Ze wanted to find the LDS church in Avignon tonight so ze could go to sacrament meeting tomorroz for Easter: I had the address; went back to the hotel to get it, but no, the GPS denied that street existed. Today zqs not a good day for the GPS. It zould not recognize Palace of the Popes, but ze got there: For the church; ze finally put in an intersection a few blocks away; and it got us that far. We drove around for an hour afterthatbefore ze finally found it: The sign was really tiny. A Czech brother said 'But you had the faith' and maybe ze did. His daughter teaches at BYU; After ze finally found it ze saved that locqtion and it saved the coordinates so ze can find it again tomorrow:

Part of the problem is they do not put street names on the main road, just some of the cross streets; qnd they do not put numbers on most of the buildings. Since the GPS denied that street 'no matches found' we were in trouble; After ze had been driving on exact the street where the church is for half an hour it finally recognized that street§