FULL CIRCLE

Well this is it! We have come full circle and come back home to France. Our last travel picture was Bergerac airport where we took our first almost 7 months ago!! It has been so great to be back in France. Everyone at the KH gave us a wonderful welcome. All our travels have definitely made us realise where we want to be and the place we will call home for the next few years. Definitely here in France! We have loved catching up with all our friends here and the girls have enjoyed it too, we have hardly seen them all week.
I also think that a part of each year will be in the USA as that is the way business is taking us at the moment.
The weather has been glorious blue skies all week and much warmer than England. We have had a wonderfully relaxing week with Mark & Cath, drinking gallons of wine and eating delicious meals.
Half of me wants to just stay here and get settled but I realise too that we need to be back in the USA for the next few months to make our new business work. Hopefully though we will be back at the beginning of April ready to find ourselves a little house and get started.
We leave in the morning about 9am for the drive up to Boulogne so hopefully the Landy will behave and all will go as planned.
Our trip has been such an amazing experience and life changing in different ways for us all. The next post will be thoughts from all of us about the trip.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!

After leaving our cosy beds at 5.30am and stopping off at Einstein’s for a much needed coffee and bagels we arrived at the airport in plenty of time for our flights to New York. We thought we were very clever only having carry on luggage, after all we are the masters at traveling light now. We forgot about the ‘ I’ve got a uniform on and can steal anything from your luggage under the guise of it being not allowed under the new security rules’ lady. I specifically checked the website of the airline we were flying with and it said that nothing over 100ml’s. Anyway when my bag was checked I had a brand new Clinique moisturiser that was 10ml’s over and she put it straight in her pocket saying ‘well you can’t take that’!! Needless to say I was rather miffed. Never mind...on to NY.
We arrived at La Guardia at 11.30 am and the flights out from JFK were not until 6pm so we thought we may have time in the city to see a couple of the sights. As we were contemplating all this a guy came up to us and asked us if we needed a taxi ride. He said he could take us to see all the sights and get us to JFK for 4pm for $250. This seemed a huge amount until he said that just to get to the other airport would cost us $60. He promised us that he would be able to take us everywhere we wanted to go and to see everything including having a snack of the best New York hot dog we have ever tasted (not that hot dogs are really our thing, but when in Rome etc..!!). So we decided to go for it and hope he was not ripping us off.
Well what a day! I can’t think of one NY sight we didn’t see. From the Statue of Liberty to Times Square and the Watchtower building across the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park we saw it all. The hot dog was as good as he promised and so was the slice of NY pizza. The day could not have been better weather wise too. It’s a mad city and we all agreed we could not live there. The high rises seem endless and it makes Paris seem very calm and quiet.
The flight from Jfk to London was pretty uneventful, not great (no free booze, a first for us on a long flight) but not awful either. The films were good and we all managed to sleep a bit.
There was a nasty welcome for us in London though as the weather was dreadful. Cold and very rainy, so we piled on most of our clothes and quickly found the hire car we had booked and turned the heater up full blast. The drive up to Liverpool seemed endless and we had to stop once at a services to have a sleep, as although Nick does all the driving I am the official ‘keep awaker’! The girls slept all the way of course. We headed straight for Nick’s parents house which is where we were supposed to be staying as they were in Venice (we thought), dreaming of their lovely comfy beds that we would just crawl into. Unfortunately when we arrived it was to find that they had returned from Italy early as Fran was really ill with a stomach bug so we headed over to my mum’s and straight into her beds.
After a couple of hours sleep we dragged ourselves out to get the Chinese takeout we had been dreaming of for months and for a quick drink at the local (of course!). It’s lovely to be here with our family despite the weather and we are looking forward to catching up with some old friends here to before heading to France next Tuesday. Everyone’s excited about that!!!

The Fowlers are coming..............!!

Just a quick update to let everyone know we are back for a visit on 8th October for many different reasons. One of which being to see Tom get baptized! We will be in France from the 16th and are dying to see everyone and catch up on our cheese consumption.
As for our family.............well you know how much we are looking forward to seeing you. Be ready for lots of boring travel tales!
We will be back until the 5th November so plenty of time to catch up.
See y'all real soon!!!!
xxxxoooo

Update on life in the good ole US of A!!

Well it's finally starting to cool down here a bit so we have started going to the beach and of course Nick is back into lots of fishing. Candace was stung by a sting ray yesterday though, but she was very brave. Fortunately we had just visited the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and learnt all about them so we knew they were not poisonous just painful. We think we have found a house to buy just a couple of streets away. Not big but with lots of potential for expansion.
Business is back to normal now we are working on it regularly instead of from internet cafes and the new business we have started here is also going very well.
The congregation is lovely and we had a fantastic assembly where we saw loads of old friends that we hadn't seen for years. The girls got thoroughly fed up of being told how much they had grown!!
We do miss France and are looking forward to visiting in January and then hopefully coming back next year for the summer. I don't think we could live here year round, we love French life too much to give it all up. Need to think of a way to import the delicious Australian wine we have been drinking here though!!
We finally (after all these years) got around to taking the girls to Seaworld about a month ago. We had a wonderful couple of days and felt really privileged to have seen these amazing animals up close. One of the highlights was feeding the dolphins and being able to touch and stroke them. The shows were breathtaking but I couldn't help comparing it to other places we had visited and feeling sad that so many wonderful people we had met could never even imagine seeing anything like this. One just that day hundreds of people like us had no problem dropping a couple of hundred dollars on just two days entertainment, never mind the extras like food and souvenirs. It just reminds you how uneven and unfair the world is.
Sometimes I find it hard to spend out on things that I didn't think twice about before. Things that I didn't consider not buying, now I realise that I don't need them. I guess that is why taking this kind of trip is considered life changing, it really makes you think about what is really important in your life. In the western world we are brought up with things, even if we don't have them someone else does. The people we met are just happy to be clothed and have food and shelter. They don't care about brand names and what car they drive, most of them can't afford more than a moped anyway.
We are looking forward to lots of things at the moment. Our trip to the Bahamas at the beginning of October and the Clearwater Jazz festival at the end, our assembly (another one!) at the beginning of November and a trip somewhere, hopefully Arizona, around Thanksgiving.
What are we missing at the moment? - Family, friends, Candace - her books in storage in France, Me - my shoes in storage, esp. my Campers, Nick - his precious watch collection, Lara - her Polly Pocket collection (in France) as she has made a fortune on ebay selling the ones she had here!
ANYWAY.............next update from the Caribbean!!
Love y'all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

16th to 21st July

This week has been spent looking for a house and recovering from the journey and the 13 hour time difference. It has taken the whole week to adjust to Florida time and we have finally found a house in Dunedin, near the library and the Pinellas trail (a walking bike track that stretches for miles). It is old style and has a garage for Nick to drool over, it is so big!
Our friends, Ryan & Kyndall are going to the Keys tomorrow so we have the pleasure of looking after Boris. He is a Bichon Frissee and is so well behaved that we want to adopt him! Not to mention extreemly cute too. We also have the pleasure of their gorgeous home all to ourselves until they return in a couple of weeks - lucky us!
We can't wait to get our stuff out of storage and see what we have - none of us can remember what is in the boxes so it will be fun.

Back home (one of our many!!)

After a filthy lie in and a cooked breakfast and mimosas we headed out to do a bit of shopping. Lara finally got the book she had been wanting since we left France and Candace found stuff on origami (which she has become very good at lately).
The rest of the day was spent recovering from the journey and that evening we got to see some more of our friends, Ryan's sister Paula and his parents, as they all came over for a BBQ. It is a strange feeling being here as it is like nothing has changed at all.
We have a lot to sort out this week, house, work etc but for now it is good just to catch up with old friends and chill out a bit.

San Jose to Denver to Tampa (finally!!)

The flight to Tampa, Florida was at 10.30 am so we had to be at the airport by 8.30ish. Fortunately we were only about a mile away so we didn't have too much of an early start.
All went great, apart from the $50 excess baggage we had to pay! We had about four hours in Denver. Just enough time to relax and have a lovely lunch before getting the last flight to Tampa.
It was a long day as we didn't get into Tampa until 11.15pm but our wonderful friends, Ryan & Kyndall were waiting for us with a big hug and a big car to whisk us back to a comfy bed and a long awaited sleep. They couldn't believe how little we had in the form of luggage although we thought we had a lot as we had added a huge suitcase to our backpacks to carry all the extra stuff we had bought. Us Brits travel light!!
We finally got to bed at about 2am after catching up on everything we had missed since last October.

Santa Cruz & San Jose

After a breakfast of croissants, OJ & fruit from the supermarket we headed towards Santa Cruz. We both really wanted to go to Monteray but it was just too far as we had to be in San Jose that evening to fly to Florida the next day.
Santa Cruz was a typical movie style California scene. Teenagers playing volley ball on the beach and fairground rides all along it. Not really our sort of place so we just stopped for a quick coffee for us and milkshake for the girls at a lovely beach front cafe. We decided to head to the downtown and look for some sights and a supermarket to get picnic stuff for lunch.
After leaving Santa Cruz we headed back inland towards San Jose which is the heart of Silicon Valley but also a nice historic place to visit. I had booked the cheapest place I could find nearest to the airport to make it easy in the morning so we were expecting a grotty motel that would be ok for one night. When we got to the Doubletree hotel we were amazed to find that it was really nice and the room was huge with all amenities and most importantly for the girls - a pool! This meant that we had to rethink our plans to visit some historic places as they just begged us for a swim. In the end it was really nice to be totally lazy for a few hours as the last couple of days had been rather hectic and we had done a lot of driving.
We did manage to get to a Starbucks though to add to our collection of mugs. We thought that in view of how we earn our crust we really should have a San Jose mug!!

12th July – Driving down the Pacific coast

After a lovely breakfast of coffee and bagels we made the tough decision to leave the Inn and head further down the coast. It was a slow drive as the road is very windy but some of the most beautiful and dramatic scenery imaginable.
Again we found a little supermarket and got picnic stuff and this time stopped at an historic state park for lunch. Fort Ross state park is the site of an old fort from the late 1700’s when Mexico ruled California. It was a trading post also for some Russian merchants. The onsite historian gave us an interesting talk about the history of the place and showed us some photos of the damage it sustained during the earthquake.
We had a short walk after along the cliffs before getting back in the car to dive further down the coast.
The weather was again perfect with unbelievable blue skies so we decided to get back to SF to get some better photos of the bridge. After seeing a few more sights in the city we thought we would head south and find somewhere to stay.
We ended up in Pacifica at a hotel just across from the beach and ended the day with a meal at a Mexican restaurant.

11th July – Napa Valley

As the weather was still very overcast and cold we decided to head up to the Napa valley as we had been told that inland the weather is often better. They were right. After just an hour or so driving the clouds cleared to reveal fantastic blue skies and beautiful scenery. It reminded us of the Med area of France but on a much vaster scale. Vineyards as far as the eye could see and for miles of driving.
We decided to stop at a little supermarket and get some bits for a picnic including of course a bottle of California red! We found a lovely little quiet park in Calistoga and the weather was perfect. Not too hot, no humidity.
The Napa valley is 30 miles long and is a bit bigger than the parallel Sonoma valley. After reaching Calistoga we had driven the whole of the Napa valley so we headed over towards the coast for our first glimpse of the Pacific ocean.
I had heard from many people about California’s beauty but never having been I just thought that it was another nice place. After all there are many pretty places that we have been to. Some dramatic, some grand and some unusual. Now I know what the big deal is about California – it has it all!! That day we drove through beautiful vineyards, towering forests and alongside a dramatic coastline. All in the space of a few hours.
We drove down Highway 1, the Pacific coast highway, to Point Arena and found an idyllic place to stay called Wharf Master’s Inn. It was a restored home from the late 1800’s. For about the same price as a Travelodge in London we got two rooms overlooking the ocean with Jacuzzis and open fireplaces. The only disappointment was the awful $30 pizza we had for dinner.
We lit the fires and filled the Jacuzzi tubs and settled in for an early night with a G & T (us not the girls!).