the first big trip

Every Monday the guys at Paul's office ask where we went during the weekend. They are somewhat amazed when he reports that the weekend was spent relaxing, hanging out, unpacking boxes, and just doing what Americans like to do.... "nest". So to have a topic of conversation on this Monday, we decided to take a trip. Our original plans were to bike up to a nearby lake (about 20 k from here) . We only have one bike, but there are plenty of bikes to rent so we went to the "velo" place just around the corner. We followed what we thought were the instructions but kept getting messages in French that led us to believe that we would not be renting a bike. They have these bike places all over the city so we decided to try a different one. No luck there, but some kid told us that it wasn't working (whew, it wasn't just our stupidity) and that he knew of a place where it was working properly. We went to the place he suggested and still couldn't rent a bike. (remember, nothing is easy!). So, not to be discouraged, we decided to take the new car. Besides, it is air conditioned. Jeffrey navigated as Paul drove and we arrived just in time to meet some American friends that we had met a few weeks ago. We saw a sailboat as we were arriving, but since there was absolutely no wind, we didn't see any other boats. We were told that this lake was a good place to sail. We just lazed around and watched the people go by and ate our picnic food and talked. It was pretty hot and crowded too. We stayed until late afternoon and then drove back home.