Friday, 16-May-2014, through Monday, 26-May-2014   I like traveling. I don’t like sitting still, and I love exploring new places and climbing new walls and meeting new people. Daniel loves France. As of earlier this year, I’d have to say that I don’t really feel one way or the other about France.  But it fits all of my above criteria, and Daniel had found a really nice villa with a heated pool that we could rent.  So we booked flights, rented a car, and looked up areas to climb. This is the story of those adventures – from flying out of Logan and into Marseilles to hiking down into Le Calanque d’En Vou, I took pictures and wrote down notes and stories and ideas.  They’ll all be written down, in the following overarching posts:

• Flying to and from France
• Living in Cassis for a week
• Climbing in En Vau: Take 1
• A rest day in France
• Climbing in Morgeiu
• Climbing in Luminy and Morgeiu
• Climbing in Sormieu
• Climbing in En Vau: Take 2
• A high-speed ride on the TGV
• Adventures in Paris (exploring a city & street art)
• Quick Notes / Thoughts on Countries – France

The actors in this play are as follows:

Myself – I already know who I am.

Daniel – Climbing partner, adventurer, and our primary interperater.  Planned most of the trip, since he knows France quite well, and is a rather skilled organizer.

Erin – another climber friend of ours, who happens to be dating Daniel.  PHD student who gets distracted by any and all animals that she runs across… but ironically is quite good at keeping the rest of us moving when we get lazy and slow.

Rebecca – an old friend from college who moved out to Sweden a few years back.  Tough climber, and subtly nuts.  Gets amazingly fun and giggly when overtired, and can outclimb me… which is sad.

Bjorn – A friend of Rebeccas from Sweden, our resident tall-man and baguette thief (he did pay, though it doesn’t look like it in the pictures).  Climbs hard, climbs well, and has been climbing in Les Calanques before.

Johan – Friend of mine I met in New Zealand, who lives in Denmark (I think?  I always get it wrong…) and traveled down to visit and hang out with us.  Mountaineer and climber, and professional beer drinker.  Or if he’s not, he should be.

Magnus – Another Swede, a friend of Johan who I think I’d met once before.  Almost as nuts as Johan.   Let all this be recorded for posterity and infamy, and may anyone reading it enjoy a taste of the adventures that I’ve had!   Some of my favorite pictures… to tempt the mind: