Seeking a good hearty meal and some pastries, we arrived to the Ultimae headquarters in Lyon. Our main purpose for this visit was not to see France, but instead to spend some good quality time with our dear friends Sunny, Vince, and daughter Iris, with whom our previous visit in 2007 allowed us only two short nights. Cloudy, cool skies with a bit of rain gave us some relief from Italy's heat and days were spent sleeping in, having cafe's in the nearby square, family dinners at the house, and sipping Pastis (local anise flavored alcohol) with Vince over discussions about the magic of music. I even got to spend a few hours in Aes Dana's studio watching him crank out a track from scratch with effortless deliberation. To my surprise and excitement, after some conversations about yoga, Vince offered to make the ambient soundtrack to accompany my in-the-works yoga/meditation cd! Wow. I can't imagine who I'd rather co-create this cd with. Sunny and Vince are in the process of relocating the Ultimae storefront to a new location--a small, cozy den a stone's throw from their 6th floor apt. (with no elevator). I was anxious to be a part of a little history-in-the-making so I offered a bit of sanding and was later picked to be the truck driver to transport the new vinyl floor for the store which is set to open sometime in mid-late September. I managed to score a pimp pair of cheap cotton shoes at the local Sunday morning market that will surely be my ticket to business class travel on the flight back to the States. ; ) Gratefully, we found perhaps the smoothest yerba mate ever from a local tea shop which should amply replenish our depleted supply from long hours of work in Italy. On our last night, Tajmahal dropped in with some home grown veggies and out-of-this-world potatoes. With time enough to catch up on whatever leftover responsibilities we had lingering from the States, we were able to pave the way for a proper holiday in Greece.