I can see clearly now the rain is gone

So yesterday I got a job and I got into a school for woodworking/carpentry! Just as my doubts started to outweigh my hopes, It starts to pour. What can I do but go with it? I have no fear now, today. I just finished my first shift of work, window washing. Done it before, enjoy it, worked up a few sweats. My school, which was looking to fill up its roster, starts on June 14th: less than 3 weeks from now! It ends sometime in March. Before it starts I will figure out a place to live, get government aid for lodging and food, go and check out the campus two hours north of here in the department Deux Sevres, finish planting the garden, save as much money as I can working, and train myself to read and write better in French, as well as study Carpentry. Time to kick it into high gear. Thankfully, I can take advantage of the French government social aid (before it crashes) and go to school for free and get reimbursed for most if not all of my living expenses during my studies.

My dad keeps telling me Europe is falling, that I should go back to Canada, where the future is more certainly successful with the huge natural resource base and the distance from the Middle East and Africa (don't call him racist, the problem is illegal immigration from these places into especially Spain and Italy, but also France, where it just takes a short boatride.) We will see.

Camping in the Pyrenees was sublime, snow capped mountains, green forests, grey rock, cold streams. And, believe it or not, I didn't encounter a single mosquito! It was 25 degrees warm, minimum 10 degrees at night, in the thick forests and along the water's edge, 1000 meters from sea level, and no mosquitoes! And the Pyrenees has this sort of weather for six months of the year! A few hours hike up and there is cold and snow, a few hours drive and there is the coast of the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, also world-class cities of Bordeaux and Toulouse, and Spain, for inexpensive shopping and practicing Spanish. To top it all, inexpensive housing and living. Hmmm.....

Anyway, gotta go wash this body thoroughly and eat some fruit.

Cheers,
Maurizio