je pourrais le faire avec deux droigts dans mon nez

yes...i could do it with two fingers in my nose

a phrase normally used by most frenchman who can do something well...


so, i think that the frenchmen can do fireworks with 2 fingers up their nose...
i went to annecy yesterday--for those geography freaks, the village between geneva and grenoble with an incredible lake--for the fete du lac. it is a 2 hour extravaganza of fireworks.

imagine 2 hours of american grand finales...with a grand grand grand grand.... .... .... .... grand finale at the end. i never knew that there could be so much fire in the sky at one time. in-credible.

the ville of annecy is situated among 5 mountains in the alps with a massive lake on one side. the lake was the cleanest lake i have ever seen. when i was out in the water, i looked down and could see the bottom 30 feet below me, and all of its contents. it was old with shops and cafes everywhere.

i have been meeting people from everywhere...a list of most of the countries:

portugal, spain, france, england, belgium, germany, switzerland, austria, italy, greece, norway, denmark, venezuela, mexico, brazil, argentina, columbia, mexico, canada, algeria, nigeria, russia, romania, pakistan, india, oman, saudi arabia, lebanon...just to name a few...


i went hiking up in the vercorse region today to a small, high altitude farm near Grenoble. the hiking was miserable, i am not going to lie--1500m up, 10 km aller-retour--but the view was incredible. i could see three towns down the drac river, and all of grenoble. on the way, i had an incredible conversation with a friend from Oman about the differences between media and reality...and the differences between his (arabic) culture and america...and his viewpoint on terrorism, hezbollah, and all that crap. we also talked about muslim, christianity, and the idea of the medium morality that is held by all...

very interesting to say the least.

the other night, i went to a welcome party at a local pub. and, just to let you know...partying is the same in europe as it is in america--lots of drinking, and nothing but...
but before that, we hung out in a gazebo (we being the english speaking folk with the espagnols) and talked.

thats only the tip of the iceberg--but i have no time...

i hope all is well..