Update of Friday and Saturday.

First and foremost I may have been premature with my praises of the French medical system. After only one dose of medicine for Audrey and I, I realized that we clearly did not have enough medicine for the required 8 days. This was of course after a short frantic period of thinking we were overdosing. Anyway, after much discussion and a call to the Dr through an interpreter it was painfully clear that we were going to have to go back to the Pharmacy and explain the problem. We fretted about this for a while and I final decided to just learn a few numbers and phases, suck it up, and go. I did decide to go to a different pharmacy (they're everywhere), not wanting to mistakenly place blame or insinuate incompetence. Plus, I thought, there is always a chance that a pharmacy in one village thinks the people in the next village's pharmacy are idiots, couldn't hurt. Soooo, the kids and I marched in with our medication. I struggled through with my poor French and explained how many doses were needed and how many I actually possessed. The woman behind the counter listened to my terrible attempt, punched a few keys on the calculator, looked at me and said "You'll need another bottle". Great Thanks.

Later that day, I also managed to go the post to pick up a package, buy a book of French stamps, and a book of stamps to send mail to the U.S.. Again, I had practiced a few phrases before I left, but it was still extremely satisfying to walk out with all three desired items after not having spoken or heard a single word in English. It's amazing how fast you start to pick it up when you have to.

On to Saturday.

We went to our first real "brocante" today. It's basically a flea market, but with some nicer things. The old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" seems to be especially true when everything you look at is of a foreign nature. Almost everything we saw would have been a pretty good find at a regular garage sale. Luckily, our newly acquired VW golf (used) doesn't have much trunk space and I have yet to learn how to say "do you deliver" in French. I'm sure we'll be back.

Then after lunch in a cafe, we went on a hike with a new friend. It was over 2 miles out and (obviously) over 2 miles back, during which time we saw numerous waterfalls going down the mountain. Several of these were actually on the path itself and we had to cross, much to Lane's delight. Supposedly there was a very large waterfall, not crossable, towards the end of the trail; however, we wisely turned around before we got to it. Wisely, because with 1/4 a mile left in the hike, we lost Lane. Not physically, but mentally. It got bad in a hurry. It took pizza and a movie back at home to get him back to normal.

All in all, a great day.