Day One 20-may-2007

All right I made it.. Actually the trip from NY was very uneventful. 6.5 hour filght to Madrid... NO SLEEP on the over night flight. grrrrr Hmm I only spent three hours in Spain but I am begining to think that this is a place I could get used to...At any rate the short fligt from Madrid to Marseille was even less eventful.. Everything went so smooth... We picked up our luggage and our rental car and headed straight for Arles... WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLl... okay Me in my infinite wisdom said oh it's easy to get from Marseille to Arles...All right so we took a little side trip.... It took us a little longer to get to Arles.. but if any one asks you how to get to Arles tell them you want to go the Avingnon Tarascon route... TEE HEE..Eh we got here in one piece..Settled in and decided that we were starving... Air plane food does not cut it... so we got back in the car.... ( i have never had a car here so it was my first time driving in France!! WOO HOO!!)We headed straight for St Maries De la Mer... Needless to say It is a good three days before the Fete and the place is packed..Gypsies everywhere... We found this little out of the way place to eat in.. Actually it was serving food so we grabbed the place. We had the priviledge of sharing the place with a wonderful Gypsy family.. I did find it very unnerving, however, that most of the "Payo" Touristas found them to be annoying.. These people are so full of life and love for their children... The whole evening made me smile.. After dinner we walked around the beach for a while. As I was walking not really paying attention to much of anything, I heard the faint strumming of a guitar... ALE!! There were about 4 or 5 Young Gypsie boys sitting on a concrete bench singing and doing the palmas as a 15 year old "Maestro" played on.. It was amazing to see that this music is still aive and it flows through even the younger generation.. We then decided to head back to Arles.. On the way back we were able to catch a flock of flamingos feeding.. AMAZING!!At any rate we made it back to Arles totally exhausted.. But somehow I feel recharged in this place... That's all from day one Mel