Tour de France '14(5) : Things seen

Zach’s friend Chance journeyed through Japan with his father at the same time as Zach and I began our 'Tour de France'.

Zach and Chance keep in touch through ‘Clash of Clans’ (an online game), Instagram (a social media network), and occasionally even resorting to old-fashioned technology like email to talk to one another.

During his travels through Japan, Chance updated us on features of his travels like his purchase of blurple shoes (blue-purple in colour), seeing life-size Lego figures, and listing all the fancy cars he saw. 

Chance's list of cars includes five Ferraris, four Corvettes, three Lamborghinis[1], two Aston-Martins (V12 Vantages) and one Maserati !

He also noted that he had seen 20 Skylines ! We weren't sure why they were listed. Perhaps they were all pimped out. Or that was the number he counted from the bullet train in a 10 second interval – which would be pretty cool.

Chance even sent us a movie that featured a Lamborghini accelerating past. 

Yeah, it’s more noise than vision, but it inspired us to create our own list of things seen & heard! Zach had four biggies:

Cars:

We have seen lots of Fiats, Alfa-Romeos, Renaults, Citroëns, Toyotas, Nissans, Opels – oh, and a few Ferraris, a modicum of Maseratis, a lone Lamborghini (orange!)

Planes:

Our host in France, Marc (whose house faces the Pyrenées) works with Airbus and worked on both the A380 and the A400-M. The house is in an area that is used by Airbus for flight trials for brand new planes and planes recently built but pre-delivery so we see lots here.
So we have seen up close and personal (at the house or at Toulouse airport which serves as Airbus' base) a plethora of planes: 

-        a number of A380s - the striking double-decker plane with the largest passenger capacity of any plane. Zach is excited because we will be flying in one on our way home in July. That means he and I will travelling at the height of Mt Everest along with about 800+ complete strangers in an area 50m x 6.5m wide - that is half the length of a rugby field, one tenth the width, and smellier than the post-game locker rooms combined! Woohoo, I can hardly wait.

-        the A350 on a number of occasions - this is Airbus’s latest new model, not yet in commercial operation, designed to compete with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. It is a long range, two-turbine, extra-wide body plane with lots of carbon fibre and some seriously cool wing tips (see picture). We have seen Airbus' version (#1) and the one which is destined for Qatar Airways and is half painted in their livery.

-        the Beluga - the weird shaped plane from Airbus used to transport airplane components and other over-sized items (see diagram). The photo at the beginning of this post is a picture of one of the three that Zach saw.

-        A400-M - a four turbo-prop plane with substantially increased payload, volume and range over previous military transporters.

LegoLand:
Zach's went to Germany with his Mum to visit the LegoLand near to Munich. They had a wonderful adventure. They slept in tent accommodation - without sleeping bags - as a cold spell swept across the region ! The accommodation managers were impressed.
At LegoLand, Zach got to ride rides and saw the biggest Lego figures ever. There's a wonderful one of him standing next to a larger-than-life Yoda - but we have not yet been able to compare it with the photos Chance sent us of the Lego figures he saw in Japan. Zach thinks its bigger, but we need to get the image from his Zach's Mum's phone to this blog. Somewhere somehow we'll make this happen !
When Zach and his Mum flew back into Toulouse airport from Germany, as they landed, Zach took the opportunity to regale his Mum about all the planes that were parked around the airport including three of the only five Belugas (the plane featured at the beginning of this post).
A man sitting in front of Zach and his Mum turned around and told them he was impressed at Zach’s knowledge. Turns out he was a pilot and fleet manager with American Airlines and was in France test-flying the A350. We waved at him a couple days later when the A350 passed close over our heads.

Snow:
It was a BIG deal for Zach to see snow. So we mention that again, but we have already covered that here!

[1] Two Mucilagos and one Aventador

Tour de France '14(3): Snow & Andorra

Some days, the snow-tipped Pyrenées which mark the border between France and Spain feel so close, its like we might be able to touch them. But Zach who had never experienced snow wanted to touch it for real.

So, we headed out to Andorra, a little principality (like Monaco) of about 40 x 25km between France and Spain. Its claims to fame are skiing, tax-free haven, and third longest-lived inhabitants in the world (average of 84 years).

We were accompanied by two brothers: Jean and Blaise. Jean is a year and a half less than Zach, and Blaise is transitioning to young adult. Blaise probably only came in order to buy cheap cigarettes in Andorra, but it was fun to have him along.

The drive along the Ariège river towards the mountains was amazing. Lots of signs explained that there were caves and museums of human pre-history along this way. We didn’t stop, but it is nonetheless rather moving to think we were passing near to human homes over 15,000 years old with their artworks still hanging on the wall !

To enter the mountainous country of Andorra, we drove up a very picturesque valley through Ax-les-Thermes, a famous thermal spa resort town. The route then climbed by making very long zig-zags across the mountain up to the crossing into Andorra.

Despite the drive up being like something out of James Bond or the Italian Job (as Zach noted), the crossing into Andorra was uneventful. They didn’t even stop us. Not even to stamp our passport to show we had entered Andorra. How can we log all the countries we have visited if not by passport? Maybe a self-stamping point at the border would be good.

There were at least a few policeman/customs men standing around, but being a tax haven, I daresay the contraband is travelling the other way. This perhaps explains why our nonchalant, James Bond wave seemed to count for little.

Entering from the east (see map), we quickly came upon Pas de la Casa: big apartment buildings, lots of parking (for the tax free shoppers), and access to ski-lifts and slopes.

Didn’t work for me, and I was the driver so we kept going on up. We passed up over the town (more zigzags) and finally came to the Porte de l'Envalira (2408m) at which there were two service stations and a café. We kept going and started going down the other side.

Zach was being very quiet, but I became ‘inquiet’ (French for feeling uncomfortable) because we were going away from the snow - and I knew the snow was where he wanted to be! 

We passed another ski-station called Grau Roig, and came into another little village, Bony d'Envalira. Lots of chalets for skiing in and out of during the season, but not enough snow right now.

We decided to stop at a supermarket to collect the fixings for a 'picque-nicque' and practice our Catalan - the language spoken here. Our Catalan sucked, but we managed to get all that we wanted including Blaise who bought his cheap cigarettes. I presume that the cheap prices aren't that attractive to Andorriens, otherwise they surely wouldn't be living as long as they do.

We headed back up to the top and Zach got to see and touch snow.

Remember the first time you touched snow? It's kind of weird to explain, isn't it? 

It is said that the Inuit (Eskimo) have 20-50 words for snow (although it is disputed!). Australians, not surprisingly perhaps, do not have much of a vocabulary for snow: powder, packed, ice – or more simply, skiable or not!

It appeared to have snowed in the last couple of days because there were a couple of centimetres of light, fluffy, powdery snow over packed, icy snow. Within seconds Zach was making up and throwing a snowball. Then we pulled the toboggans out of the car and started sliding around on the snow. As we ran around, our legs plunged into deep, long-standing snow, our clothes got wet - and of course, none of this mattered. 

Zach wanted to eat some snow – which allowed me to advise him that Australian snow vocabulary does extend to include ‘yellow snow’ which one should not eat. Zach always trying to prove me wrong pointed out that he had poured some lemon Fanta into the snow and it was great! Sigh.

After our picque-nicque from the back of the car, I took advantage of the sunshine to walk up a slope to a lift station to get a 360 degree view of Andorra (see below).

None of the lifts were working anywhere which surprised me as the snow was good for skiing and the sun was shining! Ski season ends in March apparently. I guess it is like back on the Gold Coast – when you live on the beach, you’re spoiled for good waves, and only tourists would go out on a crap day. Anyway, nice walk, and nice view.

So, now we can look at the view of the snow-tipped mountains from the front door, and Zach can say, ‘been there, done that.’

Tour de France '14(2): Fire !

180 degree view from the front door (straight ahead are the Pyrenees)

We’re in Europe – so of course, we have to talk about the weather. It’s changing all the time, so it is the thing to talk about. But Thursday 24 April really gave us something to talk about.

There was a thunderstorm that afternoon. Not such a big one by Gold Coast standards. Just to take a moment out to boast, if you want to see a lightning show, it doesn’t get much better than we have in Coolangatta looking out over the ocean from our balcony. We can watch lightning flashing about for hours. And if that is not sufficiently entertaining, you can spend some time trying to console Zoey the dog, her shivering and shaking and tremors continue as aftershocks for some time after the storm has passed!

However, what France gave us was an up-close and personal experience. 

A loud sizzling sound sounded while we were in the kitchen preparing dinner along with a simultaneous flash of light outside was accompanied by an electricity outage. We mussed around, found the switchboard and turned the electricity back on. In the kitchen, someone commented on the smell of the cooking and closed one of the connecting doors to elsewhere. 

One of the other people in the house, upstairs, came down complaining of the smell of smoke – we told her we had closed the kitchen doors. She returned upstairs and then we heard her say, no there was really smoke. We all raced upstairs and could see through the skylight, smoke rising from the roof. 

We went outside to see that the roof was on fire (see Zach’s photo – the only one of the roof on fire!). A cast of us went running around looking for ladders, fire-extinguishers, hoses, etc. and proceeded to try and extinguish the fire while we waited for the fire-engines (pompiers). The house is some 10 kms from the nearest town, so it was going to take some time. Meanwhile the hose that Papa was using to put out the fire was leaking almost much as it was spraying so his clothes and he himself became soaked through as he did his bit to use water to douse the flames.

Fire engines arrived – four in total eventually – and took over. The roof over one of the bathrooms was completely destroyed and was removed, and two bedrooms on each side of the bathroom were rendered unusuable due to smoke, water-damage, etc.

Dinner that night was by candlelight. Our guests were four firemen who had stayed on after the initial fire was put out, removed hot tiles from the roof and generally making sure the fire was really really out. They also came back at 5am the next morning to check again.

Since then, we have had intermittent electricity which cuts out from time to time – e.g., when someone plugs a mobile phone into a plug to recharge and many of the appliances like the dishwasher are no longer working properly!

And above all, no internet! This has been a bit of an eye-opener. I have realised that the apocalypse in modern times will not heralded by four horseman, not even by the arrival of a tsunami wave, an earthquake, a volcano or even a fire. Rather it will be heralded by the eerie silence that comes by cutting the umbilical that we call the internet! 

Tour de France '14(1): Korea (en route to France!)

The view from our front door in France !

On our way to France, we had a one night stop-over in Korea, a country that neither of us have visited before. But there wasn’t much to see!
There was a heavy fog all around airport – we couldn’t even see the terminal when we landed, and the planes coming and going kind of appeared and disappeared in the mist. Very disturbing sitting in a plane taxiing around among massive planes coming and going!

The bus to the hotel took about 5 minutes and was apparently right next to the airport, but you wouldn’t know for all the fog!

Looking out of our hotel room window, we were able to see into the courtyard of the hotel and there were a couple of cherry-blossom trees blooming which were very pretty. I reflected on whether there might be cheries when Zach dismissively explained to me that cherry-blossom trees are not cherry trees. I never knew – I thought the cherry-blossom season in Japan was from cherry trees. Apparently not according to Prof Holden (Jr).

A pilot on stopover explained there was a nice walk along the street near the hotel and so we went out exploring. Still weird in the fog, but we found an Australian fish and chip shop which the pilot had told us about. Strange kind of blend of Korean shop and Aussie bar.

The thing that delighted us both about are short overnight stay in Incheon in Korea (aside from the dessert bar pictured!) was the friendliness of the people. The waitresses kindly taught us how to say ‘thank you’ in Korean: kum-sam-yi-a-da (no idea how to write it). We’re looking forward to our stopover on the way home when we might venture into Seoul and find a hotel there to stay.