Clearly, I've been home a while. However, I never finished the blog, and I want to, if only so I can look back and remember what I did. I also enjoyed writing, and I'd like to continue that as well. If school ever settles down, maybe I'll get into a good habit of doing it often.

Well, today is a blog on Pau. I walked around downtown one beautiful day and took a lot of pictures, just of things and places. Nothing special, but it's what I saw all the time.

Oh yes. A pun off of "Pau" and "Hollywood." Isn't that creative?












Also, this is Henry 4's birthplace. He later became King of France, and we actually talked about him in my French Civ class last week. Don't ask me what he did, because I don't know, it wasn't on our test. But, he was important, even if only because he was royal. Pau's pretty stoked about their status as his birthplace. And it's not actually a palace, it's a chateau. It's not really all that magnificent. But, it puts Pau on the map and in the history books, and after all, that's what matters!

The palace has some gardens, and this lovely walkway with the arching arbor. There were grapes on that vine too, huge clumps of green grapes. I was very tempted to taste them. I didn't, because there were people around, but I thought a lot about it.













Now, this one might be hard to see, but it's at the top of the Funicular, which is over 100 years old and still running (for free!), and it's a view of the Pyrenees. On a really clear day, you could see the whole mountain chain running from one side of the horizon to the other. Towards the end of my stay, they got snow, and that was stunning beautiful. I have some pictures of that to come later...





One day, while Jennilynn and I were on our way home, we detoured and saw a beautiful view of the Pyrenees. Also, it happened to be in front of a field of wildflowers... yes, my weakness. We stopped and played for a long time, used a board with nails to set up my camera and get this picture. Basically, we looked like idiots, I'm sure, but it was fun and I got some beautiful flowers! We also bonded, which was fun.















And, for more, I was journaling downtown one day when the leaves were changing, and I just thought "Wow, this looks like France." Not real France, but the France that everyone has in their heads; it was the "French" that make prints in Hobby Lobby and cool posters. I think it was the color of the leaves, combined with the benches and gravel walk, and the lamp posts (is that one word or two?) that looked straight out of Narnia. Altogether, it was pretty fun.