Although our lives are admittedly in the realm of “every day is a holiday”, we did take a week to really be on holiday. M has always wanted to surf in the Atlantic, so we headed that direction from our place in the Var, France.
To break up the journey a bit, we revisited a few places that we had been to before when we first got together and M brought me to France for the first time to see if I would like it here. Remember, this was always meant to be our “final destination” – that was before Italy hit our radar. So, we stopped for a night in Carcassonne, which is a wonderful medieval town. We stayed within the castle walls this time as well, which was rather amazing.
From there, we headed for our almost week-long stay in Biarritz. This is a well-known seaside town for surfing and seafood. It was a great town even if the weather did not cooperate for the entire time. We still got a few days of surfing 
(for M) and beach bumming (for me) in before a storm came through with wind and rain that made the waves 
too big for those who care about their lives. 
We probably could have stayed one or two fewer nights there, but it did give us a chance to explore around a bit more.
One day, we drove into Spain to visit San Sebastián. It was a bit too grey to fully appreciate, but it was still a cute seaside town as well. Of course, us being as fickle as we are briefly considered whether or not it was somewhere we could live. Fortunately, neither of us were overly enamored with that particular place, so we said no. 
However, it was nice to hear some Spanish and feel the flair for a couple of hours.
On our way back, we stopped in a town called Espelette – famous for its pimentos 
. Apparently, it’s one of the only places that these can grow in France due to its particular climate at the bottom of the Pyrenees mountains 
. So, we explored the town and, of course, bought some pepper products. 
I’ll try to get some more pictures posted soon, but am still editing at the moment as my vacation-mode has not yet fully turned off. 
~T 
over the years. There are elements that I find parallel my own perspective of the world and reason for traveling it.
discovering something new and unknown. While I do not believe I am the first and only, I do believe that my experience is unique and my eyes see it as only I can. 
. Thanks to C19, I had started to feel content not going very far from home. However, I know that there are still so many places to explore, especially in Europe 
where I haven’t traveled much – yet. So, … I have some ideas formulating about upcoming trips both within continent and off it. Stay tuned!
spaces. 
. Even after a hiatus, my habit of falling asleep before the plane had even taken off was fully in form. It has been a laughed about trait of mine, as a family tale that most have been impressed with – an enviable gift to be able to quickly fall asleep on any moving form of transportation. 
from
, I put on my AirPods with noise cancellation mode on and magically, I didn’t feel the need to sleep as the plane started taxing on the runway. The blocking out of sounds and keeping my eyes averted from the energies around me prevented the usual overload so that I did not feel an urge to shutdown. 
during travel, I am also feeling more prepared to re-enter the world as it starts to return to a new sense of normal armed with newly acknowledged tricks up my sleeve to be able to interact again with hopefully a bit less stress and anxiety about being amongst others. 
Overall, I really liked it, but I didn’t love it. One thing that struck me, and I should probably do some research about it, was the fact that much of the architecture seemed very modern. I appreciated the fact that old churches had been renovated to apartments or pubs, but the buildings were mostly contemporary in lot of spaces. This made the place/country feel a little bit sterile or lacking in culture, which is definitely not the case. However, aside from a lot of art museums – which in another phase of my life would have been a massive draw – there wasn’t a lot to show for a country that expanded around the globe, but now only remains on a small land mass. 
