oh, balls!

okay, so after some reflection and minor amounts of sleep, i’ve managed to recall of few of the things that happened over the first couple days of our little excursion here.

first, and perhaps most interesting in many respects, we were walking about town trying to find the office of tourism. i believe this was our first official visit to vichy (coming in on the train aside). we were just strolling about, taking it in and asking the occasional merchant the whereabouts of the places we were hunting for. along the way i saw a game of pétanque, more commonly known as boules. i have a mild fascination with the game, and wanted to show whitney how it was played, having explained it a little before. as we stood and watched, a nice elderly gentleman approached and started conversing with us (me). wonderful guy. we (i) talked with him for probably an hour or so, and then decided we needed to hurry off and continue our errands. well, we’ve run into the chap about every other time we’re in town since then -- in one part of town or another. one of these times i’ll have to ask his name.

secondly, it seems that we arrived at a most opportune time in the country. it was patrimony days -- basically free entrance to all museums and points of interest. the nice gentleman heretofore mentioned told us about it, and suggested a few places to visit. in particular we visited the opera house (which is only open freely to the public for some few short hours a year), which was amazing. we also headed to a few museums in town. there was an art gallery showing some works in glass, complete with the artist on hand to do some signing. there was an opera house museum (i guess the opera in vichy at one time rivaled the paris opera!) to visit, where i snuck some photos i ought not to have taken (though is didn’t get the one i really wanted... a show poster for cyrano de bergerac).

lastly, and most recently, we were walking about the park again, and whitney decided she NEEDED some ice cream... so we stopped of at one of the many shops around that sells it buy the cone, and picked up some raspberry and grapefruit flavored ice cream. oh... nice stuff. painfully expensive (2€ for a ball about the size of a billiard’s ball...), but very good.

and that does it for our recap session. this post is already altogether way too long, so i shall end for the moment. tune in again, same bat time, same bat blog.