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Sunday, May 19th – Chamonix
I am up early this morning, earlier than yesterday, so I sit on the front door step to our cabin and catch up on my journal. The day is calm and sunny. Near the wall of the house it is warm enough to wear only jeans and a T-shirt. Our three hosts are sleeping but I don’t mind. I enjoy this time alone when I don’t need to wonder who is saying what.
It’s another leisurely morning once the others are up too. This time it’s my turn to accompany Thierry for the grocery shopping. After eating, Mike and I do a load of laundry and hang it out to dry. Then the five of us drive to Chamonix, near Mount Blanc, for another day of sight-seeing. Gerard lends me a warm jacket and mine in hanging on the line.
Chamonix is polished and clean enough to belong to the Swiss. It’s designed for tourists and is priced accordingly. Lunch costs us 100F, but it wonderful to eat outside and watch the landscapes and human scenery. Hand-gliders and alpine skiers are everywhere. The mountains are high on both sides of the town but we cannot see the tops of the peaks, which are set back behind the great walls of the valley. A few gondolas take riders up to the tops of these walls and further to the snow, but the thought of snow just makes us shiver. We stay where we are comfortable. It is enough to gaze up at the glaciers 
and ice falls that course their way the “Mer de Glace” above the walls down towards the valley. 
Gerard drives us to the top of a 1400m col not too far away to meander the trails and rest beside the alpine lakes nearby. I chat with Christian and get to know him better. I teach him some sign language just for fun.
By now it is late afternoon and time to head to the mountain village where Gerard’s friends are preparing Sunday dinner for us. The village is on a local road part way back to Roche and about 1000m up a steep climb. I had images of it being on a hilltop with excellent views, but the road continues to climb out of sight beyond our hosts’ house and there are no clear views from here. Our hosts, Pascal and Regis, are both 28, the same age as Thierry and Mike. They are a handsome couple. They both remind me of men in Toronto, but I cannot put my finger on who exactly. Pascal is slight and full of nervous energy. He is an aspiring artist who paints landscapes and naked men, but he is still learning and is not very good at it yet. We all give him encouragement, however. Regis, the chef, is big-boned and hunky with soft, gentle facial features.
We share several courses and finish in the salon with wine. Pascal, perhaps not knowing what else to do, puts on porno tapes for us to watch. It seems pointless since it will only lead to frustration at best. We watch them far too long, until 2:30. Thierry is obviously bored and Regis and I become indifferent, but the others seem to be glued to the repetitive action. “It’s in English,” Pascal says to me in English, as though I cannot tell, as though the occasional words uttered mean anything to the predicable plot. I am grateful when we finally leave, and I almost fall asleep in the car.
PHOTO 1: Chamonix
PHOTO 2: Christian, Mike, Thierry & Gerard
PHOTO 3: mountain trail
PHOTO 4: glacial tarn (small lake) in mountains
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