The Summer I Enjoyed

Hello and welcome to the blog. By golly it's been a while! I've had a rip-roaring summer (do we still say rip-roaring? I believe the Spanish would say muy animado) Anyway, bit of a summary:

• My holidays actually started around June 16. School only just re-commenced this Wednesday, which means I enjoyed a generous 12 week holiday. In France there are actually more school holidays than in any other EU country (however, french students, on average, spend more hours at school during the week than other EU students... Pick your battles kids!)
• That week I went on a day trip to Montpellier, bought some sunnies and hired a bike for the afternoon. I had lunch with a duck that day too.
• My host father (who is a pilot for fun) took me on a tour of the region in a snazzy little jet. I wasn't even a little nervous. Nope. Not at all. It was a hot day, that's why I was sweating so profusely...
• June 27th went to Paris, met up with (half) the family (they came all the way out from Oz, did I mention that?) at CDG airport. We hung out in Paris for a week, doing the whole "tourist thing" Thoroughly enjoyed it I might add...
• July 3rd we trained it down to the south of France (my domain, as I've come to think of it) where we hired a car, met up with Irene (my fairy Godmother) and hung out chez Anke in Cabannes, just outside of Avignon. We also did the tourist thing down in the south too.
• Then we headed out to Greece (via London, it was 12° and drizzly, in the middle of JULY, their summer) Loitered around Athens for a few days, saw the Acropolis (thats the Parthenon, not to be confused with the fiery horsemen thing...) and then headed out to Naxos island, in the Cyclades. We stayed there for a week then Michael and Mum had to go home back to Australia. I stayed longer in Greece (wouldn't you? comment now!)
  
• Watched the Doctor Who season 4 finale, as it happened on YouTube (hey I thought it was worth a mention - Davros was back!)
  
• After travelling a bit through Greece (destinations including, but not limited to: Ptolemaida, Plati and Thessaloniki) I had to come back to France. Imagine that moment at the airport "oh, I don't wanna go back to FRANCE! I wanna stay here in GREECE" It wasn't all bad, I got to hang in Fiumicino for the afternoon as I waited in between flights (Fiumicino in Italy, I've gone to Italy again!)
• When I got back to France I discovered it was the Summer fête votive season. Basically big town parties, one town at a time, and exclusive to this region in the south. I also piloted a boat (are boats piloted? If they are, then I did)
• Then we all headed up to the mountains, to do some good old fashioned 4x4 in the brand new Hybrid Lexus with Regular Road Tyres. It was cold as Hell (again, nothing Biblical, there is a town in Norway called Hell. The mercury there regularly drops below -20: this means in Winter, Hell literally freezes over) up there, at the top of St Martin De Belleville it was 8° and foggy... Brrrr! The mountains were actually quite spectacular in summer, even without snow (although the tops of the taller mountains actually have snow all year round, such as Val Thorens and Mont Blanc. The latter peak has an altitude of over 4800 m, sorry Kosciusko)
  
• And to top it all off I thought I'd ride my recently repared push bike to the Pont Du Gard, a mean 30 km ride. Watch out for me in Le Tour De France next year...

Oooh! Dot points! Love m'dot points. That about does it for now I think, best not to over do it in one go. I'll try to post some more details up later on (and some piccys) and I WILL send another e-mail, I swear. Those "what happened to those Travel Newsletters" comments are REALLY starting to pile up ;)
FrenchSimon Out.

Oh, and Happy Fathers Day!