Les jeux olympiques!! et les autres aventures

This weekend was CRAZY, and I loved every minute of it. It started with Saturday's trip to Provence, the south east corner of France. We saw the Pont du Gard, an old roman aquaduct, some other old city with a very quaint atmosphere (which will be gorgeous in spring when the fields of flowers are all in bloom!), and le Chateau des beaux, an old medival castle. We spent the majority of our time on the bus from place to place, but it was really cool to get a feel for a completely different region of France.

After traveling all day, I departed, at midnight, for Turino, Italy. Bhavana and I spent the next 8 hours on the bus. It was so full that we couldn't sit next to each other. I happened to sit next to a Romanian man who definitly couldn't speak any english or french. I tried small talk, but as you can imagine it was hard. The only connection we really had was when he accepted a cookie from me with a smile. I thought that was cute. Cookies can transcend language barriers. I slept on and off, almost got left at a rest stop (oops), and finally made it to Turino at 8am. We spent the next 2 hours looking for the olympics. Believe it or not, even with signs everywhere, its not inherently clear where the olympics actually are. They're not downtown, that's for sure. It was freezing, and kind of raining, and we were worried we wouldn't find it. Finally after several unfruitful attempts, and one invite to a rendez-vous from some creepy old man, later and we stumbled upon an info booth. Unfortunately, the sweet italian women were not well versed in english or french. Luckily we could follow along on a map, and I remembered enough italian (with the help of val!) to figure out where to go. The map was our life saver. We finally reached the hockey stadium, saw the gorgeous torch burning bright in the midst of the overcast skies, and entered into what may have been the olympic village. It wasn't much, probably b/c it was raining or a Sunday. But we found a food tent with a british rock band that sang the Beetles and a bunch of Swiss fans were having a blast.

The Swiss. I don't know how to describe them. The best I can describe them is Badger fans. They were decked out in red and white with flags and paint and huge cow bells. It was NUTS. Luckily, thats the team we had decided to root for, because they cheered in french (allez, va suisse!). When we arrived at the Germany v. Switzerland hockey game, we wound up sitting in a section of wealthy looking old german people. They must have loved our face paint. We had an american flag on one cheek and a swiss one on the other and we were cheering pretty loud in french for the swiss, and then talked to each other in english. I bet they thought we were crazy. The game was super exciting, but unfortuantly they tied. It's better than losing though. It was Bhavana's first hockey game ever, and now she loves the sport!

After the game we went outside and it was pouring cold rain. We were freezing. Something about it being the winter olympics didn't clue us into the ensuing weather. We hopped on the tram back to closer to our bus station, illegally (apprently you need a ticket, but no one caught us...oops), and searched for food. By the time we found an open restaurant, we were soaked to the bone. We walked into what was apparently a fairly classy place and the people working there just started at us, soaked and covered in face paint. I would pay to know what they were thinking. Finally the host said in broken english, " Do you...ah...need to eat??" we laughed....yes we do. Everyone had their eyes on us as we sat down at a table next to some business men dressed all nice and next to what might have been an american coach. We were stupid and didn't ask what he was, but he asked where we were from and was really nice to us. For dinner, I had the best pizza of my life, followed by some amazing gelato (italinne ice cream). We strecthed out dinner to avoid going outside. Site seeing was out of the question in that weather. When we finally left, it was snowing, hard. The whole city was covered in snow and it felt like we were in a blizzard. We sought shelter at a blockbuster until it was time to go to the bus station.

The bus back was interesting. We got to sit next to each other, but I didn't get much sleep. They played some al pacino movie dubbed in italien on full volume twice through. I didn't mind not sleeping though, bc it was beautiful outside. We drove through the alps, past quaint villages blanketed in snow. It was breath taking. We also drove past the coast and I saw Monaco all aglow after we left the alps. It was amazing. Because of the bad weather, we spent 10 hours on the bus this time. I didn't get back until 630am. Needless to say I was, and still am, very very tired.

The trip itself may have turned out very differently. Things didn't exactly work out perfectly and anyone else may have had a horrible time. But Bhavana and I loved every minute of it. Every thing that went wrong was just another adventure, another addition to our story. I spent a lot of time doing my "praying thing" as Bhavana calls it. It works, and we laugh because everytime stuff works out I tell her that it's b/c I prayed for it to. So as stuff looked like it wasnt working out she told me to do my "praying thing." In all seriousness though, it seriously, I believe, is the only thing that got us there and back safely and helped us have the time of our lives. Our little spontaneous trip had some divine protection, if you will...and I pray that He will do the same for our week long vacation this upcoming week!