We took longer than we wanted to get out of the house, but it takes a lot of planning to get all our destinations (and the maps for them) in order. This has been the essence of our trip-late night planning and early morning organizing.
We stopped at a grocery store for the things we needed for the day and then we headed to Nîmes. I was really excited for this because I have a mission friend who lives there. Emmanuel Prunin served in Geneva with me for four transfers (nearly 6 months) as an office Elder. When we had problems with our apartments we called Elder Prunin. My companion and I needed to replace our shower-head and we prepared a halloween prank on him when he came to fix it. Elder Prunin was on the train with me when I left Geneva to go to Lyon, and THEN when I finished my mission and left Lyon to go to the mission home in Geneva, quess who was on the same train.
We met up with Emmanuel at the church. Its always funny for missionaries to meet after the mission because even though we know eachother well, we still have to ask about names. I knew his name was Emmanuel but I asked if that was what he goes by. He said his friends call him Manu. My parents cracked up. One (yes, one of many) of my nicknames is Nanu. Manu and Nanu hitt'n the town.
Manu learned quite a bit of English during his mission but he still does not speak it fluently. So it was fun for me to speak mostly french and also fun for my parents to make sense of the little english that Manu shared in telling some of the history that he knows about Nîmes. Although- they were probably surprised to discover something I already knew. Manu is a joker. He would tell them something that was totally made up- but not always far off. Nîmes has a symbol engraved and otherwise represented EVERYWHERE- it is of a crocodile tied up to a palm tree. You can look it up on google if you want the explanation because I don't remember it right now. But I think I remember Manu saying the crocodile was a gift to Cleopatra from her lover- he said it so convincingly.
We walked through the old town with Manu and went to Les Arènes de Nîmes, an enormous roman arena- still used for concerts and even bull fighting.
We visited a couple other old roman buildings in Nîmes before we found a kebab shop and ate lunch. Then Manu walked back to get his car while we walked to the Jardin de la Fontaine (Fountain Garden) and up the huge hill to the Tour Magne (Great tower). All of it was very beautiful. Manu met us at the top and drove us back to our car at the church. We said goodbye and drove back to Avignon to see their fortress-well, the Papal Palace- and the Pont d'Avignon- a bridge that doesn't extend all the way across the water.
Before we lost the sunlight we wanted to make it out to Pont du Gard- a Roman aquaduct outside of Remoulins. Its enormous and quite impressive.
I don't know what to say about the things we saw today- we got some great pictures, and I mostly just enjoyed catching up with Manu. It was a great day.
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