Wednesday, September 23, 2009

My French Connection - Part 2

Figuring out the menu in French was a little challenging at first. However, as I glanced through the menu, I began remembering a few words and what little I knew of the language I translated for my lunch companions. It was not hard to figure out what dish one is going to order once one knows what are the French words for beef, chicken, pork and fish. We were all set on ordering what we wanted when minutes before the waitress arrived, I figured out the restaurant had lunch specials too. Lunch specials were considerably cheaper.

After lunch, we headed back to the bus in a rush thinking that we were holding up the others. We were told that we had until 1:00pm to eat something. When we got there, we found that half the bus load were still out there somewhere. I guess most of us opted out of fast food and went in search for a good meal at the restaurant.

We finally moved about 1:30pm and made our way to Avignon. We arrived at the City of Palace of the Popes by 6:00pm. I was so glad to have finally reached a destination where I could rest for the night. Sitting on the bus for another night would have been torturous.

Once we picked up our room keys from the coordinator, we were requested to be at the dining room by 7:00pm. As you can imagine, with less than an hour, I had no time to unpack. However, I desperately needed a shower to feel refreshed. And boy! it was a good one after more than 12 hours in the same clothes. I suppose many of us felt that way because when we met at dinner time, we all had a sigh of relief whenever the topic of shower came up.

It has been more than four months now since that trip to Avignon. I cannot remember what we ate but I have a photo of it. This is what we had for entree ...


... and this was the main meal.


After dinner, four of us at our dinner table, decided to walk around and take in the evening sights. We called it a night when we headed back to our rooms at 10:00pm. I believe I was knocked out by 11:00pm after making sure I got some pictures transferred to my laptop.

Next morning, after my shower, I headed out to the main square to take in the sights again and get more pictures. I was taking some pictures of myself when a kind stranger came up to me and offered to take one of me with the palace in the background.

After that, I headed back to the hotel for breakfast. We had about 3 hours after our meal to do a little touring around the city before checking out and continuing our journey to Lourdes. Off I went to the Palace of the Popes. Rich in history, I won't even know where to begin but you can read it here. :)


At 12:00 noon, we got back on our bus to make our way to Lourdes, catching in some sights of the city which we missed.

To be continued ...

Monday, September 14, 2009

Meme: Save Yvonne's Sight

I was not ready to come back from my break (having too much fun in Facebook) but after being tagged by Ruby Ahmad for the Save Yvonne's Sight Meme, I decided to return for a brief moment to share this story.

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Yvonne Foong Ming Niang received 'Her World Young Achiever 2008' (read here) award early this year, for she has achieved more than most people have done in a lifetime.

Her continuing fight against neurofibromatosis (NF) is legendary. Neurofibromatosis (NF) causes tumours to keep growing inside her body.

Yvonne has received a long list of awards for her tireless work to go on living & help others along the way, for she is a fighter, a feisty wonderful young lady.


To know more about Yvonne, here are some write ups:

Marina Mahathir has blogged about Yvonne : please read this

Sharon Bakar has also blogged about her plight before : please read this.

Yvonne is scheduled for an operation between 1st - 4th December 2009. She has lost her hearing and now faces losing her sight too. The cost of her surgery is USD44,000 or RM154,770 and cost of staying in hospital for two weeks is USD915 or RM3,219. She has to raise the funds by herself.

To date, she has raised about RM10,000 of this and is hoping to raise the rest by republishing her book I'm Not Sick; I'm Just a Bit Unwell in English and Chinese. The books are now available in Malaysian bookshops and from her web site store. She is also selling T-shirts at bazaars and via her web site store. You can read about her surgery and donate to her fund here

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You can also help by sending on this meme. If you do, please follow these meme rules:

1. Create a blog entry titled "Meme: Save Yvonne's Sight"

2. List three things you love to see. Add in the picture of Yvonne's book cover. The URL is http://www.yvonnefoong.com/images/banner/my-story.jpg

3. End with the line, "Yvonne Foong is in danger of losing her eyesight thanks to neurofibromatosis (NF). Please find out how you can help her by visiting her blog at http://www.yvonnefoong.com.

4. Tag 5 blog friends. Be sure to copy the rules, OK?

5. If you have a Facebook account, please check out Ellen's new invention, a "feme" pronounced FEEM, a meme designed for Facebook here. And if you want to blog about NF, that would be great too!

Three things I love to see:
(not in any particular order)

1 People learning to live with each other

2 Loved ones (family and friends)

3 Beauty of nature and all it has to offer

Unfortunately, I am not going to pin this on anyone (breaking one of the rules of this meme). I have not been in the blogsphere for some months and am unsure as to who is still active with blogging. So please, if anyone out there who would like to meme or feme this, feel free.

Yvonne Foong is in danger of losing her eyesight thanks to neurofibromatosis (NF).
Please find out how you can help her by visiting her blog at http://www.yvonnefoong.com