So I don;t seem to be very good at keeping up with the blog. It is once again Wednesday and I have not written anything about last weekend. Well, it started Friday afternoon when I went to the spa with the USAC group. It wasn't too spa-like, no massage or nails or anything like that. Basically a couple of warm swimming pools with jets in them (like huge jacuzzis) and some saunas. It was nice, though, very relaxing. Afterwards we went to Robina's (resident director) house for dinner and to stay the night. She lives on a farm with 10,000 ducks, the smallest of which were very cute! Hilda loved them and after being initially scared, held one. Robina has a beautiful old house that has been recently renovated. Our dinner was excellent. Of course, we had fois gras and duck confit, but many other wonderful things as well. We brought a bottle of Ron Zacapa Centenario which went over pretty well. It was a long meal (as is typical here) and we didn't finish before 11pm. Conversation was almost all in French and as I got more tired it became more difficult to understand, but all in all, I got the idea of what was going on. Some of the French professors were there too which was fun. It is nice to get to know people outside of the normal context in which you know them. Hilda was going for attention as usual but mostly well behaved. Robina's kids are wonderful and they help to keep Hilda in line a bit. She didn't want to eat her dinner, of course, but eventuallyl she was convinced to have at least some (I mean, duck confit, come on, kid!!!).
Saturday was an excursion with USAC to Bayonne and Biarritz. We started out in Bayonne on a city tour. It is a beautiful Basque city, I wish that we would have had more time there! It is a walled city and also has amazing chocolate. Apparently it is where chocolate was first introduced to Europe. After a lovely Basque lunch, we went to Biarritz. Hillda was able to fall asleep on the bus between the two (just about 20 minutes) and continued to sleep about a full hour so the first bit in Biarritz was me on the bus with sleeping Hilda on my lap. Never fear, I was still able to knit! Once she woke up, we went to a little beach south of the main beach and played a bit in the small waves. The main beach at Biarritz has quite large waves so we were happy to have found this little spot. The weather was not really great, so we sat on the beach for a while then went to the Ocean Museum just in time for the feeding of the seals. The museum was half acquarium and half museum. Hilda enjoyed the animals much more than the museum exhibits, and she would not believe me that the underwater viewing of the seals was of the same seals that we had seen from above.
On Sunday, in Pau, there is an extremely limited bus schedule and no busses come to Bizanos where we live. In the afternoon, we hiked into town and hung out a bit. Hilda played in her favorite fountain, we rode the funicular, I had a lovely (3 Euro!!!!) cup of tea. Nothing too exciting.
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