Homeless in Ohio

Cincinnati

Toledo

I spent about a week catching up with people in Cincinnati and wondering why I came back to Cincinnati at all. Seeing friends was obviously great, but it certainly isn't easy to leave the beauty of France to return to the butt ass ugly of Ohio. I also got the good old Subaru checked out to make sure nothing too major was wrong for the return to Seattle. I replaced something small, but the rest of the stuff that could have used fixing could wait (according to the car guy). The day came that it was time to make the drive to Toledo to stay with my sister. I wasn't sure if my boxes would fit in my car and it definitely looked like it would be a close call. The last thing that I needed to happen was to have things not fit. Luckily, I don't own much and I managed to squeeze every last thing that I own into my car and I was off! The scenery didn't exactly improve though by heading to Toledo. If you can imagine, I think it got worse. Yes, there is worse than brown murky water and flat land. Of course, my car was acting a little weird on the drive so I figured a second look couldn't hurt. And it's not like I had much to do for two weeks anyway without a job and all. I headed to Chicago Tuesday and my car went in Wednesday. I needed to get some city time since the suburban life was causing hives and anxiety. Well, maybe not the hives but I am pretty sure the anxiety was actually starting to kick in. On my last day in Chicago, I found out that those problems I was told I didn't need to fix, I should in fact fix. The Subaru has put up a good fight, but putting more money in it and driving it back to Seattle didn't make sense anymore.  Luckily, the car guy knew a guy with a used car lot, he drove my car for ten minutes and wrote me a check. Well, that was sure easy. I guess everything really does work out. Now that I don't have a home, job or car...I am officially homeless.

Ooops! Forgot to Say I'm HOME!

After my escape from the "scary ass Russian guy" I got to spend a few days back with Brigitte and Philippe. I think that was the best way to conclude my trip. I brought back tons of wine and chocolate for us to devour along with all of the fantastic food that I had missed. I had almost forgotten how hard it is to get motivated when you have eaten your weight in duck and deliciousness cooked in duck fat. Good thing the pool was opened while I was gone so that I could just move a few feet with my wine and relax somewhere new. Leaving was still sad this time but it was easier than the first. I spent my last two days in Paris. I figured since I had come all this way I should probably see the Eiffel Tower or whatever.

Right across the street from my "hotel"

Getting Caught Up

I have been terribly lazy about blogging lately, but for good reasons. First, Brittany, Zane and I had a little adventure to the south coast. We stopped in Avignon first to see Pont Du Gard, visit the city and we found an awesome guy to couchsurf with. Next, we took a short train ride to Arles to see some more Roman ruins and just visit. We found a pretty cheap hostel to stay in but it was for sure low budget. I was all for it of course and did most of the convincing that we didn't need anything nicer. We had a fabulous view of a Chinese restaurant and after Zane and I stared at all the people and watched all of the delicious food come out, we quickly arrived at the Chinese restaurant. Come morning, we headed off to Cassis, which was my favorite by far. It's on the water and not too big of a city so it's not terribly touristy. I could tell that there were less tourists when we arrived at the beach and I was greeted by topless old ladies with boobs to their knees. These people were definitely regulars since their skin was like jerky. Besides seeing too much of too many people, the city was beautiful and the gelato was fabulous. We had trouble finding somewhere to stay and ended up spending too much to stay at a Best Western where we had to sneak Zane out of the window in the morning in order to avoid anymore fees. The old woman at the front desk was onto us, but she had no proof of our plan. We successfully only paid for two people but had to sleep three in one bed. If there is ever a time that people need matching pajamas, it was this night. We returned to the castle the next day but not without too many train rides and a failure to catch the last bus by 10 minutes. I tried to rally the team to hitch hike our way home, but to my dismay, we ended up paying out the ass for a taxi that drove twice the speed limit and chose to drive in the middle of the road even around blind turns. We managed to make it home safely and greet two new workaways. I absolutely loved our new workaways, they let me show them around the city and ventured with me on the bus. We got super lucky and found an amazing cherry tree while killing time for the bus, bought goat cheese at the local shop and held a newborn baby goat at the fromagerie. This was all before we found a Burgundy wine tasting that cost 5 euro to try too many wines to count. The next day we found yet another place to try more wine, dried our bucket of cherries and drank and ate our way through the days. I was sad to leave, but we made a pretty good run of the few days I was still there.