My life and my thoughts - on faith, culture, politics, whatever comes to my mind

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Back from France!

I just came back from a wonderful time with Markus in southern France . It was great spending nine days together, just enjoying the sun and the sea and being together and doing nothing ... Well, we did do some things, of course. We went swimming in the sea almost every day, tanned (although I'm not half as tanned as Markus!), read a lot and visited some small and really "pittoresque" Frensh villages like Ramatuelle and Gassin.
And naturally we went to Saint Tropez which is about 20 minutes from where we stayed. Saint Tropez is actually quite beautiful (I have to admit I had some prejudices...). The village looks great, especially in the evening light and there are a lot of quaint little streets, "très chic" bars and good restaurants - and of course lots of places to window-shop! Although most tempting is to "harbour-shop" - there is an incredable amount of VERY expensive boats right in the harbour. But it's fun watching the boats and wondering about the people who own them (most of the time you just see the stewarts and the captain ... don't even imagine the owners steering their boats themselves). Well, I'm NOT into boats and I wouldn't want to own one - but if somebody had invited us for a day trip on one of those we saw, I would have said yes!
And of course we had great Frensh food and drinks :) I especially enjoyed a dinner with my parents (who are on holiday in southern France too) where we had "marmite du pêcheur" - that is a fish soup with lots of different kinds of fish, prawns, mussels and crabs. It tastes just great!
Now I'm back in Bonn and it's back to work... I really miss sitting on our terasse and watch the sea...
But next week it will be vacation again when I'm leaving for a four week trip for the US!