Two weeks in a row - it's a miracle of modern blogology!!!

Monday morning here in Provence. It's rainy and cold today but I'm hopeful it will blow over in time for my daily regimen of sun worshipping. Everyone here is still asleep, Bill's tennis match having been cancelled and the boys not required to be on the court until 10am. I realized something yesterday-I have a family of tennis players and I don't know the first thing about the game. I don't even know how that whole 15-30-love scoring thing works. I know, I'm very polished. Liam came home from the camp very pleased with himself yesterday that he learned how to serve. Wonder what he's been doing in Budapest twice a week for the last two years?

So, when I last left you, we were planning on a trip to Nice. Oooooooh la la it was super. Tons of people this time of year, but not so many that you felt like a sardine. We met up with our Magyar friends near the old port in the morning and spent the whole day on the beach. The boys were in heaven. The waves were so strong that they both ended up with a rash on their stomachs that I guess you would call rockburn. The rocks were really big where we were, but smooth and round, and as the boys came crashing into the shore with the waves, they also crashed with the rocks. I went in wearing my Tevas and still had a hard time maneuvering around. Keira and her friend Panni, who is also three, spent the day on the beach eating non-stop and chasing pigeons. I'm sending some more photos to the photo blog this morning, btw, so you can see Nice. I had no idea how big the beachfront was, or how developed. We decided at the end of the day that we must have been in the area most frequented by the gay population (not a problem, just an observation), and it was confirmed as I looked up and saw the rainbow flag flying amongst the French, EU, and others. We stopped for dinner in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Mambo Pizza, where Bill ate one of the best pizzas he's ever had. The boys slept over with our friends and we headed home for a quiet evening. I think I was sawing logs by 9pm.

We met up with our friends again on Sunday for an afternoon in Grasse, which is the perfume capital of the world. We skipped touring the perfume factories, which is more or less a complete racket (ten minute tour, leading you directly into the overpriced gift shop). We walked through the old cobblestone streets, had a terrible minus-five-star lunch for 70Euros, took a little train through the city, and sat in a park surrounded by pigeon shit. Why are there so many friggin' pigeons in the world? They really are beyond disgusting, and they are everywhere.

Anyway, the highlight of our day in Grasse was something out of a scene from The Outsiders. Riley, Liam, and their friend Abel, starring as Ponyboy, Sodapop and Johnny. Actually, they would have been the Soc's in this scene (you know, Greasers and Soc's), but I don't remember any of their names. We were sitting on one of the main squares, waiting for Le Petit Train de Grasse (the little train of Grasse :), and the three boys were standing inside a big music pavillion listening to their echos nearby. Unprovoked, three little hooligans started whipping rocks at them. I've never seen anything like it. They were maybe 5, 7 and 8, no parents in sight, and didn't even acknowledge that we were sitting there watching this madness. Our boys, with the testosterone reflex, started throwing the rocks back. Pretty soon they were actually going at eachother, screaming obsenities about the others' mother and using hand gestures only appropriate for incompetent drivers. What in the world? I didn't even know that my little angels had that in them. After about ten minutes of this, Eszter (Abel's mom) and I grabbed them and headed for the train, whereupon the street urchins followed us and sat next to the train, giving all of us the evil eye. Absolutely no respect for adults, even my glares back and body language didn't deter; they didn't even flinch when the train driver went over and tried to send them on their merry way. One of the three little demons actually ran alongside the train through the streets of Grasse, cursing us all the while. There is a huge population of people from Northern Africa in Southern France, mainly from Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, and as we drove through a bit of a rough neighborhood on the edge of the tourist area, I noticed alot of small kebab restaurants and tea houses full of these groups. There would be a group of 10-15 men, seated inside and outside, smoking like chimneys and drinking tea. And another 200 meters down the road would be a group of teenagers, sortof a snapshot of our little aquaintances ten years down the road - same mundane but evil existence, nowhere to go and nothing to do. It really caught us off guard because it was, at least for me, such an unlikely scene in an otherwise pristine, affluent little town. I realized two things after this little sidenote to our excursion. (1) My young sons are about as streetsmart as the Pope, and (2) they definitely have some redneck qualities.

Yesterday we had a quiet day. Bill took the monkeys for a kirandulas (outing) 30 minutes up in the mountains to a place called Pont du Loup for a tour of a candy factory where everything is handmade. He came back with all kinds of funky stuff, the strangest of which were crystallized rose petals and rose petal jam. The rose petals taste like soap to me, although I know alot of people like the taste. I haven't tried the jam yet, but apparently the kids really liked it. We had crystallized clementine oranges with vanilla ice cream for dessert last night, which was also an interesting taste. Needless to say, my diet has been pummeled by the French palette in the last two weeks, but Bill and I have both vowed to get back on the Weight Watchers track from Saturday.

Will sign off for now, I really need to get the day rolling. A big Happy Birthday wish to my friend John in Moscow. Also, my thoughts and prayers are with my brother and his wife today as they head to the hospital to welcome their new baby girl. xoxo.