Seas of Lavender

Hello my friends. Sorry it has been a bit since a post ;) To the comments, Alex, I have been resting my arm and thanks for talking to me the other day, Ian, love ya...How do I reeeech theeese keeeds?, Nas, I will get you a damn chuck hat soon, thanks for the comments brother, Tiffany and Karly, j'taime, Phyll, gonna make it to Paris next week,Evan, my man I KNOW, I gotta become a fan of the vino, Mom and Dad, love you guys and it is kinda bittersweet that you got your computer fixed.

I have been pretty much haven't done anything baseball related these past couple days. I have been spending my time just getting out and seeing what there is around me. It is absolutely beautiful. I get the same feeling like I did last summer when I was in Europe.

"I can't believe I am looking at this."

On Wednesday, I went with Chris and his kids to a park that sits right outside Mt. Saint Agnon. This was some park. It had rolling hills, huge slides and zip cords for kids to play on. Joey would absolutely go nuts. Im telling you these slides were huge. Then once you get away from all the playground equiptment, the park just opens up to a beautiful apple orchard and forest behind it. Chris was telling me that when the apple blossoms turn into fruit, people can just come to the park and gather some apples or simply just pick one from a branch and enjoy it as you walk around. You know I am going to do this...
That night, Chris invited me over to watch a football match on tv between Paris SG vs Caraquefou in the Quarter Finals of the French Cup. This was a huge match because every year in France they hold a country wide tournament that has every level of every soccer club involed in an intricate tourney setup. Caraquefou is the equivalent to the Drury Panthers and Paris SG is the equivalent to the St. Louis Cardinals. So imagine a small town club team playing in a massive stadium vs a team that should just woop the shit outa them. The whole stadium was just rockin cheering for the underdog. I bet the guys from Caraquefou were just livin' it up. Paris SG won on a goal toward the end of the game and the whole crowd was just upset.

Thursday was just a lazy day. I woke up, ran, and went to the field to do some touch-ups, and had pasta with the ol' roomie. She is so nice. I know I have told Mom and Dad this, but when I fall asleep on the couch watching French tv, she sometimes puts a quilt over me. Hahaha, I really think she enjoys having the company. I'm her foreign son. We have the best charades. I have been able to learn a lot of household objects around the house. I will tell you one funny thing that happened....

When I had correctly labeled everything in the kitchen in French, she was very happy and I exclaimed a French slang for "That was wonderful!"
That slang is "Tod du la ball!" But I said "Tod tru da ball!"

Tru ball is french for asshole.

She just laughed and laughed. To her, I must have said something along the lines of, "That was wonderasshole."

Okay...on Friday, I went with Chris's family again to another park. This park was somewhat a refuge for forest animals. Wild boar and deer is all I saw. Really...kinda the first park that didn't wow me. C'mon Chris...gotta wow me man...EVERYTIME. You know I'm joking.
That night I was going to have dinner with Olivear from the team at his flat. Olivear lives really close to Chris and I, and they pretty much take turns totin' me around. So Olivear picked me up around 8 and we headed for his flat. He had a great dinner made. Rice, pork, and filled vegetables. I brought some whiskey and ice cream for dessert. He lives with his girlfriend Marie, who is just as nice as she could be. So we all had ice cream and drinks after dinner then Olivear and I did something that I haven't done since I was back in the states...

I saw that Olivear had two acoustic guitars in a corner of the living room. I asked him if he played and he said he plucks around a time or two. So we brought out the guitars and played together. It was just great. Drinking whiskey and playing guitar with a friend. Hadn't done that since Carl and I played together. We laughed at the mistakes that both of us would make and would just yell with excitement when we put chords rhythmically together. It was so much fun. I have a feeling that we will play together more often.

Now to the forests. Every forest that I have visited, you can find hundreds of small purple flowers. That just coat the ground. The pictures you see are the ones that I encounter every day on my morning runs. It is absolutely beautiful. They fill the scenery with their color and fill your nose with a their fresh scent. I really wish you could just walk through these paths. Seas of Lavender.

Miss you guys and I am going to catch some Z's. We got Cherbourg tomorrow and hopefully we can pull off a sweep. Love you guys and talk to you soon. Au revior.