Maxfield Adventures - Living life to the Max: Sarlat

Church * Lascaux II Cave

Two major events to note - we managed to have our first Sunday (& day for that matter) without spending any money. We've tried to not spend money on Sundays, but it seems that something has always come up (I.e. Parking costs or food usually). The second thing to note is that we didn't take any pictures today - weird. (All pictures below are from Friday and Saturday)

Church was awesome! As usual we didn't understand anything, but small things helped us enjoy and feel the spirit of the members. For example, the girls attended YW with 3 other YW, 2 were from Ireland and their mother was the teacher. So, the YW lesson was in English. In Sunday School (adult and youth) the teachers made sure we had the right lesson number and we followed along. We sat next to a man who could translate for us if we got lost - Eric even managed to contribute with a comment that he translated. The same sister who taught Sunday School also taught Relief Society (there were 6 sisters in RS). I sat next to a sister that spoke 8 languages - she's half Hungarian & Romanian, she worked in South Africa at the Spanish Embassy, then in Italy for 6 years where she met her LDS Tongan Husband from Australia (he was playing Rugby in Italy). She joined the church a year ago and is preparing to go through the temple in Australia so her husband's family can be there with her. Charlie just goes to primary with no problem and seems to find a way to fit in - he said they told a story about Lamanites and Nephites.

Church was an hour away so we didn't get home until 2:00. Emma and I made awesome omelets for dinner and we relaxed. In the early evening we visited a "cave museum". In this area of France there are several very old caves with cave art (think Indian petroglyphs). Historians think these caves are 13,000+ years old. The art is much more sophisticated than a petroglyph - it has three dimensional properties, accurate anatomy, detail, shading, and a bunch of other things Maren could tell you because she studied these pieces of art in her AP art history class. Most of these caves are no longer open to the public and if they are the tickets are very hard to come by (be in line by 6:30 a.m.). We visited an exact (to the centimeter) reproduction of Lascaux (down to the temperature in the cave). It took 11 years to create. The guide took small groups of 20 people into the cave at a time for a 40 minute tour. It was fascinating. Bulls (one bull is 15 ft long), Ibex, Birds, Horses, a bear - historians don't know why the art was put there as no one lived in the caves; perhaps religious reasons. (No pictures allowed).

After our cave tour we enjoyed our frozen lasagna that I cooked in a microwave for dinner (I'm sure the French would really be disgusted now - but we're keeping it simple) and played cards outside in the cool country air.