Not counting the previous two weeks in Italy, Lourdes was my first serious trip abroad. I worked at Camping de la Forêt, which is not far from the Lourdes grotto and is owned by friends of my family. I also made a few trips to the Pyrenees, Lac du Gaube and Pont d’Espagne. Of course, I spent a lot of time down in the grotto and was lucky enough to be present during the visit of the Holy Father John Paul II to Lourdes. My newly acquired school French benefited greatly from this stay, although the Basque dialect of the local mountaineers, who sometimes stopped by the camp bar for a drink of pastis, was quite a challenge. If only I knew how much this first experience with the French language would help me in the future…
