Durfort, France Part Une
Bonjour!
Our Durfort group met at the Toulouse airport. We hugged. We chatted. We were all very excited to meet each other.
Cori volunteered to drive the second rental car while Diane and Tracey navigated. In two cars, we journeyed to La Cascade in Durfort.
It was quite the adventure! Cori was smart and asked how to put the car in reverse before she left the airport.
Me? Not so much.
I had driven a stick shift for many years and learned how to drive on a stick. I didn't think anything of it until we accidentally drove down a one lane road and came nose to nose with a truck towing equipment. We were expected to back up.
The driver of the other car was very patient.
Me? I was more than a little freaked out.
I was hoping that they'd show me how to back up (turns out that in some European cars, you pull up a little metal piece on the stick and then put it in reverse. I didn't learn that until later on when we arrived in Durfort.) Instead, they backed up themselves and let us pass! I was terrified that I would have to back up before arriving in Durfort. Thankfully, when we arrived, Diane and Cori showed me how to do it. PHEW. Lesson learned, always ASK when you're in a different country.
Magic!
I didn't take photos of our meals as much as I would have liked (above is an idea of the breakfast that was waiting every morning.) Our first night was a light dinner of salad, soup, bread and my personal favorite dessert of the week, chocolate pudding.
Dinner our first night ended up being over two hours long. There was a lot of talking and learning about house rules. We were eager to get to the studio!
After dinner, everyone was more than eager to get to work. It was late (after 9 p.m.) but we dove in and started our week together by making our journals from scratch.
I'd like to extend my deepest gratitude to the following stencil companies:
Each company generously donated stencils to my week in Durfort, France.
These are just some of the stencils used by our group throughout the
week.
At the end of the week, everyone went home with bags bursting full of art supplies including stencils (very special thanks to Artistcellar who made enough stencil kits so that each student was able to take home well over a dozen stencils.)
We bound our journals and by the time we finished, it was well after 10 p.m. It had been a full day of traveling for some of our group so we decided to call it a day.
We soon discovered that Karen from Colorado was the night owl of the group, staying up late into the night working away in her journal. We'd wake up in the morning and find that she had finished several pages while we slept. She was like the little elves but instead of shoes, she made magic in the form of journal pages.
What adventures did we get into on our first full day together in France? It turns out that every day truly was an adventure! Stay tuned for the Infamous Bridge Saga...more soon...
Durfort, France Part Une
Artistcellar
Crafter's Workshop
Stencil Girl
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