Perpignan and a Spanish haircut

Hello all! I'm writing a little sooner than I have been because I'm leaving this afternoon for Perpignan, where my host father's parents live. Perpignan is a Catalan city close to the border with Spain. Apparently Salvador Dali once said that the train station in Perpignan was the center of the universe, because he got his best ideas there. He even painted a picture of the Iberian Peninsula rotating around Perpignan, which is now there on the left. I'm not quite sure how that shows what I just wrote, but apparently that's what it means. However, I'm not quite the art guru.

Anyways, my point of writing all that is that I'm going to be away from the computer for a few days, but hopefully I'll come back with some good pictures for you all to look at. I'm also going to get a haircut in Spain while I'm staying in Perpignan, because apparently haircuts are cheaper there.

I went to a market yesterday morning. It wasn't a market for produce, mainly clothes and some other products. It was on one side of the stadium for the soccer team Nimes Olympique, which is in the Ligue Nationale, two leagues below Olympique Marseille or Olympique Lyonnais, two teams that you might see on TV playing in Ligue 1 or the Champions League. On the other side of the stadium was a huge market for flowers. I bought a sweatshirt at the market, and now I'm going to stop myself from buying much more than a t-shirt, because if I don't I won't be able to close my suitcase in June. There are weekly markets for produce in the surrounding towns, although I don't have much of a need to go to those because I'm not buying my own fruits and vegetables.

I'm much more settled in here now. Last night when my local coordinator and his British wife came to check up on my I caught myself talking French accidentally every once in a while in the middle of a conversation in English. I also have to keep catching myself from saying "Oui" or "Quoi?" when I'm talking to people on Skype. I've been really enjoying riding here. On Saturday I rode 100 kilometers by myself. It would have been nice to ride with someone else, but at the same time I was happy I was alone cause I had some really awesome moments where I was happy it was quiet. Just me winding up that valley, then rolling along in the sun and smelling really good bread baking, an old French guy clapping for me right after climbing the "colline" at St. Comes, etc. It was awesome...

Bisous