Postcard from France

I was feeling nostalgic today and I wanted to just take my time and wander around alone (try not to escape from my nostalgy nor transmit it to others). I could have gone running and make it go away but I felt like this one needed time, and fortunately I had time, so much time I can even share it with you! Accompanied by a breeze of fresh marine air telling me "come to me, let you go", I walked for hours, camera in one hand, "pain au raisin" in the other, sad musik in my hears (mostly Tom McRae and the Pixies).

Why am I sharing this here you will say, first of all because I haven't posted in a long while and second because I realize something: it's only 2 months after I came back that I realize how much I missed France and what was exactly that I was missing. 

This morning I took great delight in the smell of toasted French bread, the smell of the bakery, the smell of the newspaper kiosk stand, the smell of the coffee place at the train station, the smell of bar and cigarettes, the smell of good cheese... And lately I also got to taste again true vermouth Martinis, mini tiny delicious espresso amazing cheap well cooked meat, and most of it all I got to experience THE OCEAN again. All of the feelings from being on the beaches of the Atlantic in the South of France: from the smell of warm pine trees you get a glimpse of the horizon and then the smell of the air. I thought this year the water was pretty warm and it was really not an issue to throw yourself in the waves (yes, because of waves - and they were kinda big last week - you can't just enter gradually, you literally have to throw yourself in it). Then in the middle of the ocean you get the smell, the touch, the taste and the anger of it! That's what I was missing the most in Toronto, and I got it all here!!

I also love visiting a city and getting lost in its streets. Well, in North America there's no such things as small streets in a star-shaped city. For some reason, Bayonne is just the perfect city for me to get lost in: I can't get my way properly in Bayonne, my internal GPS is completely off . Wherever I want to go implies to  get lost where I didn't expected to: I found it annoying at first, but today I was amazed how bad I could orientate myself in there and that gave me some excitement.

Last thing, before coming back I was saying how I hated french people, how arrogant they were, how judgmental, sad and annoying I found them... well, don't get me wrong I met those kinds of people here, but I also met a whole lot of very nice persons: open-minded, talkative, social, they like to party (especially here in Bayonne there's a huge one called Les Fêtes de Bayonne - I wanted to make it easy by sending you a link to Wikipedia but they don't point out the fact that the maire just gives out the city to the people for these 5 days...)
And most of all, they have some peculiar sense of humor!!! :)

I wasn't inspired for pictures, but here are some that could easily be post-cards pictures: espelette pepper, pepper again, xistera and the ocean.

On non-fiesta day, I wish I could wake up behind these louvers every morning.

I wish you all spent a nice summer.
xoxo