Posted by: Peter

We are safe and sound in another gracious host’s home near Romans, France!  Thank you Miguel and family!

My time was fittingly spent biking with the whole family, including two children 4 and 6, 10km into town to buy groceries for tonight’s dinner we made for them, preparing dinne, and conversing with them afterwards.  So, pictures with them and of the last week will have to come later.

Although we arranged this stay through the Internet, the night before we arrived at Miguel’s, Drew and I were approached by a woman with distinctive red hair and green glasses in a small bookstore we had stopped in to buy a paper map of the region.  She had seen us biking by a bit earlier when we had entered the small town of Beaurepaire.  Drew engaged her in French and learned that her husband loves music and they also bicycle tour.  Soon we had her address and phone number and an invitation to camp in a field next to their home with mention of a shower.  On the first trip such spontaneous home-stays came amazingly about every 1-2 weeks.  Laure and Sylpain have the honor of being the first such stay on this trip – a big THANK YOU to you!

They invited us in for the evening for tasty lemon grass tea from their garden and a local pear liqueur.

We did a musical “barter” with Sylpain, who plays both the Tuba and the Flute and had just returned from a trip to China, my second home, with a beautiful traditional Chinese flute he played for us.

We also talked bikes.  They both especially like recumbent bicycles and recently bought a recumbent tandem, which we all drooled over.  I am also interested in a unique and rare German-made tandem with a recumbent in the front and a normal bike in the back so the back person gets a better view and the couple can trade riding positions, which I first saw on the last trip.  We have been very blessed with homestays thus far and I look forward to meeting future hosts!

Although we have had a handful of positive encounters through our music on the street, like Cornilus in Basel, who enthusiastically discussed being aware, present, and taking action in the way the world calls us to with me, I am hoping for more performance opportunities that will both lead us to great people and exchanges as well as bread money.