(Sometimes my blog does baffling things. Today, it's deciding that no matter how many times I select black for my text, it will turn the text blue once I publish the post. I'm done fighting with it. I give up. I surrender. Blue, the text shall be. Dammit)
Monday morning, Misho and I were dropped off in the small town of Marols, where we were to meet our blabla car for Avignon.
I can't believe it's already over, I thought as I hugged and kissed my friends goodbye. What an absolutely gorgeous six days. It's hard to see them go. The people and the days.
Our blabla car driver, a cheerful woman named Christine who was traveling to Marseille with her daughter, was not heading into the city center of Avignon. After a bit of confusion, she dropped us off ten kilometers outside the city at a bus stop where bus #2 would take us to the center of Avignon.
Except it was the day after Easter. And there were no buses. Not a one. The French seem to take every opportunity to not work.
Cheers to that. But what is it with us and our abysmal luck with buses?
"Should we hitchhike?" I asked my Bulgarian.
"Guess so," my Bulgarian shrugged his shoulders.
We were just about to start asking drivers (in my nearly non-existent French) to give us a lift to the city center, when my phone rang.
"OH MY GOD, I'M GETTING A PHONE CALL!" was my very reasonable reaction.
When you spend most of the previous year without a working phone, getting a call can feel a tad disorienting. Like, "wait, you mean... people can contact me when I'm not connected to wifi at a cafe? I can receive messages at any time? I don't have to awkwardly work through a language barrier to ask a complete stranger if I can borrow their phone when something horrible comes up and I need help?"
The call was from Silviu, our host in Avignon.
"Did you get my couchsurfing message?" he asked.
"No, I didn't," I said, hoping that he hadn't sent me a last minute cancellation that I'd somehow missed.
If I fuck up couchsurfing for myself, it's one thing. But I'm responsible for Misho too. And I do NOT want to fuck anything up for him.
"I had just offered to come pick you up. You said you would be dropped off outside the city center, right?"
"Yes! And you caught us right before we started to hitch. There, uh... there aren't any buses today."
"You're already there?"
"Yeah, our blabla car was early."
"They always are. Okay, I can be there to pick you up in half an hour. Maybe you can move inside the shopping center and get a coffee or something?"
"Great! See you in half an hour, Silviu."
What amazing luck. Holy bananas. For all the lack of luck we have in buses, we make up for in nice people.
So after thirty minutes of eating scrumptious ice cream in a restaurant --
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| I send pictures like this to Matt. To torment him. Because the only ice cream available in Nepal looks like frozen dog turds. I'm a wonderful human being. |
-- Silviu arrived to pick us up. So we dumped our backpacks into his little car and squeezed ourselves in.
Fat Ellie. You take up more space than I do. How is that possible?
As we drove into town, Silviu started explaining Avignon's layout and history.
"The city center is surrounded by walls, so if you're inside the walls, you're inside the city center. It's as simple as that. I think it's one of the only cities in Europe with walls around the entire center. It's because Avignon used to be where the pope lived, so they built walls to keep the pope safe."
Of course they did.
Silviu parked the car and then led us through the labyrinthine city to his one bedroom flat inside the ancient walls. He introduced us to his girlfriend, a redhead named Cyrielle, and their adorable puppy.
"Do you want something to drink? Water, juice?"
Silviu and Cyrielle chatted with us for a while, gave us a spare set of keys and asked us to please not lose them.
"They've already been to Russia. A couchsurfer forgot she had them and took them to Russia with her. She had to mail them back. Another couchsurfer just... lost them. And we still can't find them."
"I'll be very careful, I promise," I reassured Silviu, pocketing the key.
Then our hosts took themselves out on a date and Misho and I napped on the L-shaped couch.
(I'm a firm believer that a day is incomplete without at least one nap)
When we woke, my Bulgarian and I took ourselves out on a walk.
The poor puppy was the only one who did not, unfortunately, go out on a walk. She remained curled up in a doughnut on her doggy bed, gazing at us with accusative, woebegone eyes.
I looked at her. Then at Fat Ellie, who smelled like 37 different countries and was rank with armpit sweat and must have seemed like incredible (delicious) company to the resentful puppy.
Eh... Fat Ellie can take care of herself.
Avignon entranced me. The sky was sunny, the day was warm, and a slight breeze ruffled the hair on the back of my neck. The city was quiet and peaceful, as few cars ventured into the narrow streets, abandoning them to pedestrians like Misho and me.
Could I live here? That's one of the main reasons I'm doing this trip around France, right? To find a place to live and study French next year. Could Avignon be that place?
Maybe. It's certainly got a lot going for it, I thought, eyes flicking here and there, trying to absorb as much as I could of this beautiful, old city.
The ornate balconies with crouching kitties and bits of green hanging over --
-- the hidden squares with cafes and ice cream shops --
-- the ribbons and flags strung between buildings across the narrow streets --
-- the unique street lamps and shuttered windows --
-- and walking through a tiny alley and randomly running into a Palais des Papes.
(And now the text is black again. I don't know why. I'm just accepting it)
Luce had sent Misho and me off with a gigantic hunk of cheese, a couple of apples, a pear or two, and the rest of Misho's kozunak. So with lunch and dinner sorted, we headed back home to Silviu's.
Thank god for Luce, I nibbled a piece of cheese and sighed in contentment. I do get tired of picnics... you know, after eleven months of them. But out of all the countries, France has the best picnic supplies.
"How did you like Avignon?" our hosts asked us when they returned that evening.
"I loved it!" I gushed. "The city is gorgeous. And the weather today was just perfect. Sunny. Not too hot, not too cold. A breeze. The wind felt so good."
"You like wind?" Silviu eyed me skeptically.
"I love wind," I confidently asserted.
Silviu just shook his head in bewilderment.
I DO love wind... my thoughts trailed off. Why do people always seem so perplexed when I tell them I enjoy wind?
The next day, I found out why Silviu had seemed so unconvinced. Our first afternoon in Avignon had been an anomaly. We had experienced a delightful gentle breeze. Our second day in Avignon was so windy that I felt as if I was back in Northern Ireland, facing the brutal, bludgeoning wind of Giant's Causeway. It was so cold and windy that after a failed attempt to get to a boulangerie on the other side of the Rhone River, we retreated to Silviu's flat. Where I drank coffee all afternoon, in a desperate attempt to restore some modicum of heat to my frozen body.
Misho did not drink coffee. I don't know how he survived.
I made risotto for our hosts that evening. When Misho cooks, he makes patatnik. When I cook, I make risotto. So when I start couchsurfing alone in just a few days, my hosts will be back down to one option.
Risotto.
Risotto, risotto, risotto.
I don't want my Bulgarian to leave. And neither would my couchsurfing hosts.
The next day was slightly warmer, but not enough to tempt me into lingering long outside. Especially now that I know how cold wind aggravates my sinusitis.
I hate having a "condition". Something I need to consistently worry about. Blurgh. Guess it makes me less guilty about staying inside and drinking tea.
So Misho and I spent most of the day in Silviu's flat. Except for the part wherein I tried to be an adult and walked over to the university to ask about their French as a Foreign Language program. But was disappointed to discover that no one on the entire campus seemed to speak an iota of English. Even at the International Relations Department. One woman eyed me condescendingly and told me, in French, "You should learn to speak French." The woman in the International Relations office just shrugged her shoulders and handed me a card with the university's website on it.
A website wherein all the information is in French. And not helpful.
"NO ENGLISH?!?" I exploded at no one in particular, as Misho and I walked the twenty minutes back to Silviu's, bodies braced against the cold wind. "What the hell? With whom, I wonder, do they INTERNATIONALLY RELATE? I'm not even mad. No. No, I'm not mad. I'm FLUMMOXED. I'm absolutely FLABBERGASTED. How can they, at a French UNIVERSITY, at the INTERNATIONAL Relations Department, NOT speak ENGLISH?"
Misho just looked at me with a mild smile and twinkling eyes. Which is what he does whenever I explode. Smiles. In amusement. And then I laugh. And explode again, because I like the smile.
"HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?"
Well, Avignon, it would be grand to live in you. But two things, please. a) You're not Ireland. Stop pretending to be, and b) please. Please, don't expect me to speak French before I've taken your French course. Find someone to speak English with me until I graduate. For the love of all things dairy.
That evening, Silviu and Cyrielle drove us to the other side of the Rhone. For a view of the iconic destroyed bridge, and for a stroll through Les Angeles, a small idyllic village across the river from Avignon.
Our hosts made us steak tartare when we returned to the flat, and while Cyrielle mixed the raw beef with onions and capers and mustard, Misho drew the couple's puppy. And put it in a helmet from one of Cyrielle's favorite video games. A game called Skyrim. I don't know what that means.
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| That is the face Puppy makes when a) you're eating and not sharing, or b) you're leaving. It's heart-wrenching. |
Yes... my future couchsurfing hosts will definitely suffer from the sad lack of Bulgarian. No patatnik AND no cool drawings. I'm going to feel like I have nothing valuable to offer... and I'm going to miss watching Misho give to people. I think one of the best things about traveling with another person is witnessing how they interact with others. Seeing what others draw out of them. I've learned so much about Misho on this trip because I've seen him interact with Diarmuid and Ger and Sarah and Silviu. Each one of them showed me something different about Misho. He shared a bit of himself -- his art, his cooking, his seemingly indefatigable knowledge of music and film and video games... and I'm going to miss sitting back and watching it happen. All that giving.
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