A Colorful Weekend

Hallelujah! We had one weekend of July that wasn't HOT!!!

I'm really not a fan of how France has not embraced air-conditioning. We've both had a hard time sleeping this month because of how hot our apartment is. 

We spent this weekend up in the mountains with David's parents. And of course, they don't have air-conditioning either... but at least where they live it cools off really nicely at night. 

The downside of going to Gap is that David usually has a lot of errands to catch up on that he can only do there- which leaves me a poor little orphan who has to amuse herself.

On the agenda this week was getting some vaccinations so that David can be deemed sanitary enough to immigrate to America. What cracked me up was that in France, you can't just go to the doctor and get your shots. That would be too simple! France is much more creative than that. He had to go see the doctor, get a prescription for the shots he needed, leave, go the pharmacy, pick up the vaccinations himself, bring them back to the doctor's office, and finally get his shots. As you can imagine, that took the whole morning.

I decided to venture out and walk to town while he was busy with that. Gap has a big market on Saturday mornings that is fun- although crowded, to explore. I was excited when I saw the cute umbrellas and flags hanging overhead! Get ready for a picture overload.

Purely by accident, I stumbled into a shoe store and walked away with these pretties. I think I'm in love. Yep, I still have the same sense of style as my 4 year old self and I love anything sparkly. 

They were 80% off, so I didn't feel too guilty. 

After lunch, I went with David and his mom to swim in a lake! I've always refused to swim in lakes because they gross me out, but I've seen the Lac de Serre-Ponçon before and it looks beautiful and clean. And we can't swim in Gap's community pool because David doesn't have a Speedo. Seriously. He only has trunks and they are forbidden hahahahaha.

The reasoning? The French are convinced that trunks are unsanitary due to the idea that people could wear them around all day and not just when they go to the pool. But who does that? It makes me eye-roll so hard.

Anyways, halfway to the lake we hit a major tourist traffic jam and decided to turn back when the GPS predicted it would take over an hour to get there -when it should have been 15 minutes away. Darn tourists (saying that doesn't really work because I've basically been a full-time tourist for years now).

We ended up just going for a walk around Charance instead. This is the mountain that overlooks Gap. There's a nice trail around a little lake- sadly, not a swimmable one.

We did dip our feet in a freezing cold stream. That was as close to swimming as we got.

Sunday afternoon, we started the trek back to Cannes. I've been dying to see the famous Provence lavender fields, so we made a slight detour to try and make that happen.

Oh, but first David had to make time to play the piano while he was home. One of his favorite things to do! I don't know why I took this picture, but it makes me laugh.

We drove through Valensole, but sadly we were just a week too late. The scenery was still beautiful, so I can almost imagine what it would look like if these fields were purple. We are going back to Provence next weekend, so there's a small chance we might come across some fields still in bloom. If not, good thing my in-laws live nearby! We'll just have to plan a visit someday during lavender season.

These gorgeous sunflower fields were my consolation prize! There were several throughout our drive.

I also made David stop for a picture of the town center of Valensole- I love these typical Provence houses.

All in all it turned out to be a very picturesque weekend- glad I brought my camera along!