2 Weeks in Paradise

As some of you may have noticed I haven't posted here in a couple of weeks. Apologies. I have been in the south-west of France, without internet access. Which I actually enjoyed, its nice to be free of computers and technology for a while. But now that I'm back, I will tell you just what the hell I've been up to.

I was on a brief road trip going through small towns with my Dad, also making a stop in Bordeaux which turned out to be one of the nicest cities I have ever visited. Its a city on the river, whose name literally means 'by the water'. Old architecture, very clean streets as cars are generally not allowed in the center of town, just scooters and the streetcar system that is operated by brand-spankin' new Bombardier trains.




After Bordeaux we went to a small village where my grandparents used to live, along with my great-grandparents. This place is so small that my Dad actually ran into one of his cousins while we were there.

That's the whole town.

Great-Grandfathers house.

After visiting these places for a couple of days, it was off to the real destination. A rather large beautiful house, more like a mansion, that houses twenty people comfortably, nestled in a valley in the Dordogne region of France, about twenty minutes from Sarlat.

The place had a pool, pool tables, foos-ball, huge patios, a massive property, and one of the gates edged onto the tiny town it was attached to. Which was great, because for the first three nights there was a festival going on in the village. Nothing spells fun like some drunken bumper-car driving along with some rifle-shooting.

As I said, the place was beautiful:

The days generally involved rolling out of bed around eleven, having a small breakfast, then sitting around the pool soaking up the sun with some wine until lunch, and that usually happened around three o clock. Then more of the same, with some games of Boule thrown in there mixed with Mojitos, along with trips to Sarlat.


I probably haven't eaten so well in the past two years. We must have had every part of Duck imaginable; fois gras, great local vegetable salads, fruit, wine, cider, the works. Every meal just got better and better. Dinner in itself was always a blast, having twenty people sitting at one table drinking unthinkable amounts of wine and enjoying each others company.

Mmmm, Melons.

As a bonus, there were ponies on the property, just roaming around:

They were friendly, to a point.

I'll have to explain what I mean by 'to a point'. One day some members of the younger crowd and I had been doing some drinking as usual, and went for a roam around the property looking for these guys. We brought along the dog, which is a small Jack Russel. Turns out they didn't like that. All of a sudden they started charging the dog, and us. They may be small, but these fuckers can move when they want to. The darker pony almost nailed me in the head with its hind legs. Bastard. But injuries were avoided, and resulted in nothing more than a high-paced retreat back to the house filled with hysterical laughter.

All in all it was one of the best things I've done the whole summer, I will truly miss it, and of course the people that we all shared the time with.