Ryan in Europe

It was great to have Ryan here. I went and picked him up from the airport. I was worried something would go wrong in Paris since he can't speak the language, but he arrived in Marseille without having any problems.
The first thing we did when we got back to Aix, even before returning to the apartment, was go to Crepes-a-Gogo. My favorite crepe place.
The highlights of his stay include climbing Mount St. Victoire, going to Cassis, and of course visiting family in England.
We left early on a Sunday morning to go to the Mountain. It was a good thing to do on a Sunday since everything is closed here on Sundays. The day before we had picked up all the things we needed for a picnic from Monoprix. This included wine, cheese, and bread. Very French. We also brought pistachios, cookies, and bananas. We took a little shuttle bus to get to the base.
We got off the shuttle at a stop where there was a resevoir and a big dam. It turned out to be somewhat of a mistake not to bring a map of any kind. We started going in the direction that everyone else was going, but after awhile there were so many forks that there wasn't a clear path. We sorta just went towards the mountain's peak.

We ended up on some random little trail that was difficult to follow. In the end, we did get near the top where we realized we had gone on a very old trail and there was a much easier way to get to the same destination. Oh well. It was an adventure.

(our picnic)

(one of the paragliders)

(on the mountain)

Near the peak, we had our picnic. We relaxed in the sun for a long time and enjoyed all the food. It was a lot of fun. We pretty much spent the whole day up on the mountain. We didn't get back to Aix until about 7 pm.

(on the beach in Cassis)

Later in the week, we went to Cassis. It is a beautiful little town on the coast. There, we relaxed on the beach, had icecream, went on a boat ride, and had dinner at a lovely Italian place.

(the beautiful water around Cassis)

(the cliffs)

(Ryan and his favorite kind of pastry with apricots)

Over the weekend, we went to Southend to see my family there. It was lots of fun and great to see everyone. We went into London for one day. There was a great exhibition on at the Natural History Museum called, Wildlife Photographer of the year. It is a photography exhibit made up of the winning photos from a competition put on by the museum and the BBC Wildlife magazine. We bought a little booklet and brought it back to show everyone, which inspired Pete, Jo, Rowena, and Rob to go later on.
Another big event of that weekend was Peter's announcement that he and Jo will be getting married. Yay! It is very exciting.
Overall Ryan's stay was wonderful. We went to many great places, spent time with family, and had great food. Both of our bank accounts have large dents in them now, but it was well worth it.

(Ryan in Hyde Park in London)