We visited a small town in Andorra called Pas de la Casa on Saturday. It’s just across the border from France. But to get there was fun. Picture climbing mountains in a very small car, just switchbacks all the way to the top (more fun coming down!) There are two tunnels under the mountains; one goes toward Barcelona and the other toward the center of Andorra. We’ll probably take the second one next time we go to get to Andorra la Vella. We didn’t make it to Andorra la Vella, it was further in and we were running out of time. But that’s the other big town in Andorra.
Pas de la Casa is a border town and basically a ski resort, though this time of year it's pretty barren looking. It's so high up in the mountains (The Pyrenees) that it's above the timber line. Very barren, just grass and hills and rocks, oh, and wild horses. The big draw there this time of year is the shopping. France adds 20% tax to everything. 20%! So people go there for perfumes, jewelry, sporting goods, high ticket electronics etc. It's a steal at 20% off.
Mostly wandered through shops, tried to touch a wild horse but it showed me it's back end so I got out of its way. Walked, drove, ate. It was nice.
We explored some tiny towns on the France side on the way home and took pictures of churches. Stopped and had a few coffees here and there. Z you would love it! No brown water pretend coffee here. I’m not used to coffee this strong but it is surprisingly good.
Still trying to clean the place up and organize. It’s difficult to tell who is winning the spider wars. I was trying the humanitarian approach at first (not wanting to invite bad Karma) but couldn’t keep up. It seemed that every day there were more webs and more spiders in the corners of the ceiling. I finally just took the broom and began sweeping them away and squashing as many as I could get. This seemed to be working until yesterday when I opened a shutter and almost screamed at the size of the friend waiting for me there. Word must have gotten out and they’re sending in the heavies. I swept the big guy off the ledge, he curled into a ball and fell two stories. Of course my bedroom window is right below and now I’m paranoid that he may have gone in there.
S is gone now to Turkey and Hungary. Drove him to the airport at 5hr on Monday morning and will pick him up on Saturday afternoon. At least I have the car. He has encouraged me to go out and explore. I have to admit that it’s a bit frightening. Getting lost in Chicago is one thing, at least they speak the language and I know which way is west. Here I still don’t have my bearings and mostly have no clue which direction I’m driving in and if I get lost, no one speaks the language.
Went to the grocery store for a warm up and out to find a place to send a FAX on Tuesday. Today, though the mission was to find IKEA. I printed the map from the website, then compared it to the 4 other maps of Toulouse that I have, went out. Of course I got lost. I took the wrong turn off the highway and couldn’t get back on. (Damn those frickin circles, where are they when I need them.) So I just drove in the general direction until I found it. I had been trying to get there at 10hr, when they open, and arrived at 10:22. The parking lot was almost full, just like any other IKEA I’ve ever shopped at. It’s the weirdest thing. Anyway, went in list in hand and found a few things I needed. I didn’t get everything because it’s hot, and the store was hot, and some of the people were um…well to borrow a line from Meg Ryan in French Kiss…hygiene deficient. But at least it gives me an opportunity to get lost again tomorrow.
I came home and hit the boulangerie, there are two in town, one is a chain, you see them everywhere in every town. The second boulangerie is local and wonderful. I bought a couple of ‘brioche’ and some ‘palmiers’ too. The bread will be the death of me. Still losing weight though, apparently the stress still outweighing caloric intake. Cannot get used to the taste of the milk; even the nesquick doesn’t mask the flavor enough. This could be a problem, I love milk.
