|
The port of Porquerolles.
Bienvenue au port de Porquerolles. But,
don’t ask me to pronounce that with a good French accent.
On the second day of the conference, we had talks only in the morning and
took a boat ride around the island in the afternoon.
I take my boat touring seriously.
A fort perched at a strategic lookout.
Nice piece of real estate.
Winding around the island edge.
The eastern tip of Porquerolles.
Rock.
A small, secret cove tucked away on the side of the island.
Lighthouse above to prevent shipwrecks (the lady on the boat told us about
the many shipwrecks around the island, which didn’t exactly make me
feel comfortable).
Another lighthouse and fort. Hey, I guess you can’t have too many.
The wide open sea.
Ah, nice.
Gently dancing on the cool breeze.
Boat crew.
Cool shot taken by Eva.
Another nice Eva
shot.
The windmill. We would find ourselves there later in the middle of the night
after hours of partying…
Our crew went on an evening stroll. From left: Antony
from S. Africa (but in Oxford), me, Eva from Budapest, Anna from Barcelona,
Nikolai from St. Petersburg, and Fidel from Madrid.
We found ourselves hiking down a cliff.
View from the cliff.
Cactus fruit.
Looking out at the view.
Nice background.
Watching the sun set.
Out drinking and celebrating Eva’s birthday.
Our crew is getting bigger.
A quick riff on an old piano. There is a picture of the sea on the piano that
says Claire de Lune. Inspirational “sheet music”?
Our expanded group, after they kicked us out of the bar.
Hmm, we’ve found ourselves with wine at the windmill.
The guys forced Antony
to tell a story so he proceeded to give us a twisted, complex story of
mystery, love and intrigue involving a dragon among other details. It was
kind of trippy to say the least.
Ask this guy to explain the two meanings of the French expression for
“Give me a kiss” (that’s the first meaning).
Anna is falling asleep while I watch shooting stars pass overhead.
The next day we went for a bike ride around the island all afternoon.
Bike path.
Our bike crew.
We were trying to find the lighthouse, or Phare.
This sign was confusing.
Biking through the island.
Hmm, a nice beach down below.
Loungin’ on the “black sand
beach”.
Yeah not a bad conference. Not bad at all.
Me and Eva looking quite relaxed.
Gentle waves.
Colorful pebbles.
We wanted to jump into the water, but we discovered something interesting
floating around.
There were literally hundreds of jellyfish lining the water waiting for a
hapless prey to dip his foot in. Yikes!
Waiting for the tide.
Just on the other side of this thin strip of island tip was the “white
sand beach”, which was fine to swim in.
Aida and I chillin’ on a washed up log by the
water.
Antony and I
take a dip in the sea.
I swam around for about 20 minutes, just loving the fact that I could do this
in the middle of winter instead of freezing my ass off in England.
The sun started setting, so our bike crew got dressed and decided to bike
around before the sun went down.
Hiking down a cliff to try to get a good vantage point to watch the sun set.
Ah yes, I think we found the spot.
Good view.
The peace and joy glow from their faces.
Dusk setting in.
The sky burning from the sunset.
Quiet calm before nightfall.
A precious fleeting moment in the day when you can see the Earth moving.
The last night of the conference we had a disco, which was a bit random at
first but we were all game. The music started before the bar opened so we
were all a little hesitant and shy to hit the dance floor. I got people
started by playing the memory dance game.
Here, the guys watch as I do a breakdance
move—which, actually wasn’t my contribution to the memory dance
game, but someone else threw that in there thinking no one could do it.
So people started coming up to me totally freaked out when they saw my eyes,
which glowed only when I tilted my head upwards towards the blacklights on the ceiling. I had no idea what they were talking
about, but they were convinced that I was either wearing some cool new
clubbing eye make-up or that I was the incredible hulk. I got Nikolai to take a photo of my
eyes, and when I saw the photo in his camera, I took was freaked out. I think it was the result of these
greenish eye-drops I had been using, but this is something I will definitely
have to follow up on with my eye doctor (and get more for when I go clubbing
again).
Wooo!
Now the party is getting started!
A little salsa with my Latina friend from Barcelona.
Eh, it was crowded in there?
What can I say.
Yay group photo at the end of the night.
We went down to the water, stuffed ourselves in this flimsy little rowboat, and
took a photo.
Alex thought it would be so funny to push the last one out of the boat into
the sea, but in so doing he ended up falling into the water (see drenched
leg) while the guy in the boat jumped safely to the dry sand.
The final fort at the point of departure.
Hanging out on the beach waiting for our buses.
Final group shot before departure.
Good night Porquerolles!
|
