Colmar, and Southern France 5/5/08

I woke up this morning, and hurried down to breakfast. I met Jan on my way down the stairs, and she shook my hand excitedly, and welcomed me to her home. She told me what was laid out for me in the kitchen for breakfast, and reminded me to help myself to anything. She looked very busy, putting the finishing touches on the house in order to make room for the 14 people who where coming to dinner, at least 6 of whom staying the night.

As I mentioned before, I happened to arrive as 3 different groups of people were expected to stay with Jan and Randy. One of these groups where 3 college kids from California who are studying abroad in Oxford. It was planned that I would travel with Jan down to the train station to pick them up, and then the 5 of us would go exploring Colmar. Randy was, at the same time, going to go pick up the second group who were (I believe) christian missionaries that run basketball camps with which Randy is affiliated. The 3rd group (I think) was to meet us later for dinner, this group mainly seemed to consist of fellow missionary friends of Jan and Randy who've been traveling around Europe, and needed a home to stay in. It was all very confusing, but Jan and Randy looked like they had it down pat.

For breakfast I had a french type of cereal which I'd never had before, and doesn't exist in the states. It was surpassingly amazing; much better than most cereals in the US. Along with it, I had some toast with home made French jam, and orange juice. It was so good to have a real breakfast, and not budget cereal and stale rolls, like in hotels and hostels. After breakfast, I went upstairs to take a shower and get ready for the day. My shower was wonderful, and I came back down to the kitchen fully refreshed. When I returned, we were still just waiting for Randy to get home before we could start off for the train station, and in the meantime, Jan let me play the piano they had sitting in the living room. It had been more than 2 months since I'd played the piano, I felt like I'd almost forgotten how, but soon things began to come back to me. It's just like riding a bike, you never really forget. I felt a little more like me again, letting my fingers remember how to play the songs I used to play, and even remembering where I'd left off on certain songs I was still writing. Sometimes 2 months can seem like years when you're away from something you love.

When Randy got home, he was thrilled to see me, and couldn't wait to show me a home video he'd found which had my dad in it for about 2 seconds while Denny Belese sent them off on their missions trip 20 years ago. My dad was sitting there beside Denny as one of the lead pastors and looking a little like Sonny Bono with his mustache and haircut, which he'd always assured me was very fashionable at the time. After my dad was out of the shot, Randy stopped the video, and said "There's your dad 20 years ago." He was interested to hear what both my parents look like now, and I said "well, they have different haircuts."

Talking for a bit, I told Jan and Randy my plans for staying here and where I was off to next. They said that I was welcome here, of course, but there wasn't enough to see in Colmar to fill up 4 days, and because they'd planned for me to be here earlier, they wouldn't be around for a lot of the time. They thought it might be a little silly to take the huge leap from here to Barcelona, when I could much more easily head down to the French Riviera for a couple days and then take the train from there to Barcelona. That way I could see another beautiful area, and have only half the distance to cover by train. Plus, he told me, you can't see France and not see the French Riviera. I said that might be a really good idea, besides I started to sense that my staying here too long might be imposing a little bit on their plans, and this was maybe a kind hint that I should keep moving. Randy said he'd help me figure out some affordable place to stay down there later.

Jan and I headed off to go pick up the rest of the group, and she pointed out some of the things Randy tried to last night, but were too dark to see. We drove through the gorgeous French vineyards which seemed to have no end, and past tiny villages I couldn't even hope to pronounce the names of. The landscape was all green, and there wasn't a single cloud in the bright blue sky. Wooden supports for grape vines rose from the ground like endless forests of tiny branchless trees. This indeed looked like the wine country.

We arrived at Colmar station, just before their train was due in, and looked for somewhere to park. Neither of us had ever met these kids, all Jan knew about them was that they were friends of her son, Pete's, and that one of them (Daniel) was of Korean decent. We looked for someone fitting this sort of description, and it was almost immediately after we parked that we found them. Daniel was indeed Korean in decent, but all Californian at heart. He wore a t-shirt and jeans, and had crazy dred-like hair. Traveling with him was his fiance, Amanda, and their good friend Janelle. They all seemed very nice, and I found it comforting to be in a car full of people who sounded just like me.

The first thing Jan did was take us to the old part of Colmar to walk around, and see the town. She warned us that the old town is quite touristy, but if you can get past that, it's also the most beautiful part of Colmar. She was certainly right about all of it. There were tourists all over, however the town could not have been more beautiful. I know I've said this several times, but this time it was ridiculous. The town actually did look exactly like something from disneyland. It looks exactly like Belle's town in Beauty and the Beast. As I walked through it, I felt like singing something upbeat and cheesy, but I resisted the urge. Off to one side there was a couple dancing to an accordion being played, and on the other side, several children bought ice cream from a local shop. The houses were colorful, and looked hundreds of years old, and the wood and stone bridges rose over rushing creeks, which bore green trees more vibrant than I'd ever seen. The glass in the windows were cut into beautiful patterns of Diamond shaped sections, and reflected the look of dark glass and steel. A storybook village came to life in this small town, and my eyes had trouble believing it was real.

We walked on further through the storybook village, and we sat down at a restaurant and ordered some kind of French pizza-looking dish, which Jan told us was something we had to try while here in Alsace (the region of France we were in). It was wonderful! It was cheese, onion, and something like bits of French bacon on top of a thin, flakey crust. After dinner, we climbed up to the top of the old village keep where we got a view of the whole city. While climbing up the several stairs to the top, I got to know Janelle, Daniel, and Amanda a little bit. I started talking to Janelle about travel, and she was saying she knew several people in South America, and that I should definitely travel there next. She mentioned that she often travels through South America, and Africa on missions trips, so I told her about my best friend and his family who travel to Malawi a lot on missions trips. She asked who they were, and I hesitated for a second. "What, like they're names" knowing she wouldn't have a clue who they were by name. I said it was my friends, the Gashes. "Jordan Gash?!" She blurted out. I was astounded. "What?! Yeah, do you know him?" "His fiance, Alex and I are good friends, we were roommates!" She said excitedly. She went on to tell me that all 3 of them were APU students studying abroad in Oxford since January. They came down here because their good friend Peter (Randy and Jan's son), has also just graduated from APU, and they thought they'd go see where he grew up while they were over in Europe. I was absolutely stunned. What are the odds that thousands of miles from home, I happen to run into my best friend's fiancé's former roommate. From that moment on, we all became really great friends because we all had such a close common ground with each other. I'm sure, walking through the campus, or hanging out with Jordan at one of the Alpha (bible study group) get togethers, I must have seen them all there at some point. Months later, here I am across the world in France, and I happen to be rooming with them. The world is such an interesting place, we are all so closely connected and we don't even realize it. We talked about Jordan and Alex's upcoming wedding which they were all sorry they wouldn't be able to see, being as how they're living in Oxford now. However, I told them I'd relay their blessings, and we talked about APU, and Janelle attempted to talk me into applying their after getting my AA at Saddleback. Something which Jordan's been trying to talk me into for a while now.

When we'd finished walking through Colmar, Jan took us to another nearby, tiny village where we went wine tasting. I've always been more of a red wine kind of guy back home, that is, until I tried authentic Alsace white wine. It was amazing. We tried all the range from dry dinner wines, to very sweet dessert wines. As we drank, the lady who worked there talked us through exactly what we were drinking, and how it was made, as Jan translated for us. One of my favorites was the Alsace Crement, which was sort of a more classy substitute for Champagne. I bought Jan and Randy a bottle of it to pay back Jan for buying me lunch this afternoon, and Randy served it to us at dinner that night.

By the time we got home, we were all exhausted from our wonderful day in Colmar, and we crashed upstairs in the attic. We kept ourselves entertained until dinner by telling stories, looking at pictures, and I even got them to play a game of "name that tune" using the movie themes I had on my computer. Daniel was amazingly good at it, and rarely misguessed.

When dinner was ready, we gathered downstairs and met the rest of the 14 people who were clustered around the table in the dining hall. They were all very nice people, and I felt very welcome sitting among them. The "college kids" as they referred to the 4 of us as were all seated at one end of the table, and we often had our own conversations going separately from the rest of the table, which talked majority about missions and sports. Steve was one of the sports missionaries who coached basketball for underprivileged kids, or kids of other missionaries (MKs- Missionary Kids). However, he was a lot younger than the rest of them, and sat near to us, so he often became involved in our conversations rather than the "grown up" ones. It was a great dinner, and everyone was so kind and loving sitting around that table. It almost reminded me of my own family sitting around the Thanksgiving table up in Northern California.

After dinner, we all helped to clear the table, and then the grown ups had their meeting, while the kids watched episodes of The Twilight Zone in the other room. We watched old Twilight Zone episodes, and ate popcorn and chips until late in the night. When it was time to go to sleep, Daniel, Steve, and I headed up to the attic and found our respective beds. We stayed up a little while longer talking, and laughing about a huge bug we discovered on the wall which none of us could identify. Eventually Steve killed it with a slipper, but we all told him the mother, and 24 billion cousins were going to get him in the night. He scraped the bug carcass onto the stairs as a reminder to the rest of them to go no further. The whole day was so much fun, and solidly eventful! I'm so glad I got to meet all these new friends!
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