Acapulco:
Had a fun week with Mom and K. at the beach. Mom won the trip at a charity auction, so we made up for the price difference by shopping and charging everything to the room! Shared lots of laughs and good food, and refined the art of tanning, reading Harry Potter and sipping Coronas :)
So glad I got to just sit and fry in the hot sun! I miss summer when it just chooses to not visit northern Europe...
Flew straight back to Paris, and planned to leave after a day of rest for a road trip to tour northern Italy with C. but when he backed up the car to load our stuff...
a rock flung from a nearby lawnmower cancelled our plans.
So after a day of grumbling and looking at prices of last minute flights and road distances, we settled on a road trip closer to home. Only 5 hours by car instead of 9, and do-able in a 4-day visit, we decided to visit the low countries instead of Italy
Although the weather wasn't quite as warm or sunny, at least it didn't rain. We stayed in a cute inn and saw really old windmills...
...toured the Rijksmuseum and Rembrandt's house, rented bikes and saw a bit of Amsterdam.
Then it was off to Belgium for Pukkelpop!
This 3-day concert festival was the biggest I'd ever seen, and the best organized as well. We camped in a field of thousands, and saw concerts by Basement Jaxx, Laurent Garnier, UNKLE, DJ Jazzy Jeff, LCD Sound System, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails and Tool! The music was pretty great, but the crowd was lackluster and not dancing or getting into it enough at all. Oh well.
And last put not least, Rock en Seine, the last concert festival of the season, in Paris:
Saw Biffy Clyro from Scotland, the Hives, 2 Many DJ's, UNKLE again (which was way better this time), (could have seen Tool again too but we had to go to a wedding on Saturday), a little bit of Mark Ronson, Kings of Leon, and Faithless, and........ BJORK! Sigh.
So it's back to work now, getting ready for full time teaching again and very happy about it. I need to make a little money to pay for all these vacations!!!
