"Why do they call it tourist season if we can´t shoot them?"

- handpainted onto a sheet on a rooftop below the Gaudi park in Barcelona


Dad came to visit my last few days in Paris, then we traveled together to Valencia and Florence. It was beautiful, full of great colors and sunshine, delicious food, wine, talking and laughing.
Then one night in Paris staying in a hotel across the street from my host-family´s house (it actually made sense logistically, I promise), but it was really just a tease. Then pick-pocketed in Barcelona on the way to the hostel from the airport, spent about a day in lines, police stations, consulate, passport paperwork. Surprisingly fun busride to Valencia, where I am now, which is stunning, beautiful, fantastic, full of history and sunshine and colors and smiling, expressive, friendly people who wear bright colors and sometimes actually smile in public. (As it turns out, maybe I was getting sick of Parisians...)

I´ll go back to France on Wednesday, where I´ll spend a month in a valley in the middle-of-nowhere part of Normandy (Ticheville), cleaning, preparing and serving food, tending 2.5 acres of organic garden, picking fruit and vegetables, helping with shopping, and borrowing bikes to explore neighboring Norman villages and market towns. E-mail me if you want to know more about this. After July 18, plans are pretty hazy until August 1, Maddy´s 21st birthday, which of course I´ll be in Boston to celebrate.