Monday, August 10, 1998 -- Aix en Provence, France - 12:30am

Good weekend.  Worked like a dog, and just getting over a cold- it was quick, but lost my voice for a couple days.  Got everything done I needed to before my holiday vacation.  I'm taking 3 weeks off, until August 31.  Very psyched.  Now I'm in Aix en Provence, at a 2 week intensive French course.  I'm on the verge of being fluent, and I think this will put me just over the edge.  I can understand much of it, but can only speak some, so spending a lot of time exclusively on french will help.  Spent the entire evening tonite speaking only french- even told a few jokes.  That's when you know when you are really learning a language- when you can make people laugh.  There are about 20 people here from all over- Spain, Italy, Germany, US.  Funny, everyone seems to speak English but none actually are.  We're sticking to french.  Some interesting characters, ranging from about 20 to 50.  We've taken over a small hotel here in Aix en Provence- this is beautiful countryside- Cezanne immortalized it in many of his paintings, and there is no lack of patronage to him now.  I think it'll be a very fun couple weeks, and I'm looking forward to meeting some new people.

So after the 2 weeks doing french classes I take off from here and travel by car from here to Barcelona.  It will be a 10 day trip with my best friend Jim.  He's flying in from Minneapolis, on a free-ticket coach class thing from United.  This is the flight from hell, poor guy.  Coming here, he's got to fly from Minneapolis to Chicago, then Chicago to Boston.  Boston to Washington Dulles, then Dulles to Paris.  Then after he gets to Paris he's got to find his way to the TGV and take the train to southern France.  He'll be a wreck by the time he gets here.  But then he'll have a couple weeks to recover, and what the hell, why should he complain, he's saved a thousand bucks in airfare.  Right now is the high season for vacationers here in southern France.  We should have a great time- lower France and northern Spain.  I've never been to Barcelona and am very psyched about hanging out there on holiday.  Plus, having 3 weeks contiguous away from the office will be good for my brain, my back and my spirit.  I am planning on taking my digital camera to record all the sordid details of the trip.  'Night.