Moissac: Filled with Dangerous Old Fogies

In the past two days, I have seen a dog get his paw run over by his master in a motorized wheel chair AND an old man drive his car into a tree. Obviously, there's one thing we can take away from this, it's that Moissac senior citizens need to watch where they're going!

Beware!

I've been in Moissac for two and a half days now. So far, I've been to the abbey three times and I plan on returning there again tomorrow to tour the cloister. If you're anything like me, you're wondering, 'What the heck is a cloister?" Well, contrary to what you might imagine, a cloisters are not those things that get removed when you have a colonoscopy, neither are they the clumps of grains found in Honey Bunches of Oats. Cloisters are, well, um...they're basically like a courtyard with a covered walkway surrounding it.  This cloister is especially cool because it is lined with amazingly detailed columns and beautiful arches (or a series of arches called an 'archade'). Nope, there won't be any Pac-Man at this arcade, just columns and carved capitals depicting various scenes from the Bible- which, in my mind, is pretty much as fun as pinball (and less expensive).

Columns lining the abbey cloister...forming arches that make an archade...make sense?

As I mentioned in the last blog, I am staying at a hostel here in Moissac. Most of the hostel guests are walkers en route to Santiago for the annual religious pilgrimage, navigating their way along 'The Way of Saint James'-. What started as a Catholic tradition is now a walk completed by people of all faiths (or non-faiths). The Way of Saint James starts in France and ends in Santiago, Spain and is 730+ kilometers (about 450 miles). Imagine walking from Spokane to Boise.... it's like that.

I've met several very nice people in my past two days, in particular, a woman from Holland (Gerda- sounds like 'Heerrrrrda', it helps if you hock a little bit of a loogie while you're saying it... that's what I do). We (Gerda and I) shared a nice little chat session at a cafe near the abbey. Gerda confessed that she loved ice cream and I told her about my love for sorbet, so we sat and ate dessert for about a half hour and then we were on our way back to the hostel. If there's one thing I really enjoy about about being on this trip, it's the people. I mean, art is cool and all, but the people make it so much more valuable.

Well, that's about it here. My sketches have been a little lack-luster, but I'm okay with that. There's plenty to see and plenty to draw and plenty to do, so I am happy (even if I am not pumping out a masterpiece every day).