the birm*

God is good! The flight to Paris was great and they let me on with my excess baggage (again!) after some re-shuffling, some sweet talking and a smile. I slept a fair bit, ate heaps of great food, watched a few good movies and arrived to find two friends waiting for me. Laurent (an old skating friend) and Baptiste (who I went to kindergarten and primary school with) picked me up and drove me to Baptiste’s where we had a good chat and warm meal. Praise God that I all went smoothly from my luggage being let on to getting picked up.

Got up with baptiste the next day at 4am (thanks to jet lag I’d been awake since 3), had brekkie and saw him off to work. I then had a great time of reading and praying, thinking and listening to the French radio before walking to the station. It was only a short walk, but my arms almost dropped off and I couldn’t take more than 50 steps at a time (12kg on back, 5kg on front and 16kg in each hand).

At 7:30 I got the train to catch the metro to the train station, where I caught the TGV (literally “train big speed”). 3 hours later (the kms fly at 200km/hour!) I got off in Grenoble where I was met by Marc, Tom and Brenda. We had lunch in Grenoble (I’d forgotten that French shops close at lunch, so if you need to pick something up, make it before 12 or after 2!) then headed back to camp.

It was great to see camp again (and the people there obviously!). After I dropped my luggage off I got straight into it and mixed some cement! We had some dinner and I hit the sack (my winter sleeping bag which had been sent to France months ago) about 9:30pm.

This morning I slept in…til 6:30. so I got up, grabbed some warm clothes and headed up “la cheminee”, which is a zig-zaggy track straight up the mountain across the valley from camp. I made the top just before sunrise (sunrise is subjective here, I’m sitting out on the front step and the sun has only hit camp…it’s 10am) and admired the morning splendour: snow capped peaks, the golden glow of the sun coming up, frost on the ground and rivers gushing below. It’s great to be back!