Hervé and I left his apartment early Wednesday morning, hustling to the bus station with a backpack full of picnic goodies and an exhilarating sense of adventure.
Why is anything done spontaneously so much more fun? It almost feels illicit. Like, I shouldn't be allowed to have this much fun.
But I'm having it. Boy howdy. All the fun. Mont Saint-Michel, here we come.
The bus driver was an unabashedly abrupt French woman who said nothing, simply looked severe, until she screamed at two Asian tourists who switched seats.
"FRENCHFRENCHFRENCHFRENCHFRENCH!!!!!"
"What did she say?" I whispered wide-eyed to Hervé, impressed by the intensity of the crotchety bus driver.
"She told them to stay in their seats," Hervé translated, an amused smile playing on his lips.
Wow. She sure did. I would feel nervous getting off the bus at this point. My butt would just be glued to the seat.
We spent the journey talking about concerts and festivals around France. Hervé volunteers at several of them throughout the year, and promised to find me a position at one or two, as part of my continued cultural education.
I really ought to spend a year living close enough to this guy to take advantage of all these opportunities. A year of living next to Hervé would transform me from an abysmally uncultured person to a slightly sub-par cultured person.
At the end of the hour journey, the crabby bus driver made a lengthy announcement in French.
"She's saying when the last bus back to Rennes leaves and to not be late because no one will wait. And telling how to get to the free shuttle from the bus stop to Mont Saint-Michel," Hervé shook his head. "She knows that almost everyone in this bus is a tourist... but she still speaks in French."
Mont Saint-Michel is swarming with tourists. The tidal island commune with a population of fifty receives a modest three million visitors a year.
The tides around Mont Saint-Michel don't mess around. The difference between high tide and low tide can be as great as forty-six feet. Which still proves dangerous to the few madcap tourists who forgo the causeway and approach the island on the soggy sand.
In 709 B, the Archangel Michael kindly requested a church built in his honor on the tidal island. Archangels don't often request trivial things like hospitals, schools or pubs, but they definitely seem to enjoy a good church. So the Bishop of Avranches ordered the construction of a church to honor the heavenly adoration addict. Through the next few centuries, the church slowly grew bigger and grander. Until it was turned into a prison for unruly intellectuals during the French Revolution (so pretty much the same thing). It remained such until writers like Victor Hugo argued for the site's cultural significance. And that it should be maintained, not allowed to waste away like the "criminals" it contained.
Mont Saint-Michel is located in the Normandy region of France. This region was invaded by nine different kinds of Celts in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC (although I'm not entirely sure whom they invaded. Just that nine different kinds of Celts did the invading). The Celts, in turn, spent a good deal of time being attacked by the infamously pesky Romans. Who did their whole obnoxious road building/running water thing. Then the barbarians did their raiding thing and Saxon pirates destroyed coastal villages. Invited or not, Christianity popped up (as it always seems to do), followed in quick succession by a throng of marauding Germans (who probably weren't invited either). The Romans peaced-out and left the region between the River Sommes and the River Loire to a Frankish lord. |
| The flag of Normandy. I told Hervé it looked as if children had drawn the lions. Hervé is from Lower Normandy, and was properly indignant. |
I can't believe people actually live here. The location is incredible... but putting up with three million tourists every year?
That. Feels like one of the many definitions of hell.
My stomach grumbled. My stomach often grumbles in France, because French people don't believe in breakfast. They believe in snoozing under their blankets until the absolute last minute, then catapulting out of bed and heading off to work. Maybe getting an espresso on the way. Smoking a cigarette. Or seven.
HOW? How do they function in the morning with little-no food? I don't understand.
They have a two hour lunch break at noon, wherein they appease their grousing guts with cheese. Or, at least, I appease my grousing gut with cheese.
So Hervé and I picnicked. And napped in the sunshine. We could have played a game of Yam, but I didn't want to inflict another resounding defeat upon my host, so we did acro yoga instead.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking up stairs. Down stairs. Up stairs. Down stairs. Down stairs. Up stairs. Up stairs. Up stairs. Stairs. Stairs. Stairs...
Everyone who lives in this fucking commune must have thighs of steel. No wonder they weren't conquered by the English during the Hundred Years' War. Had nothing to do with the fortifications of the abbey. The Brits took one look at the Herculean thighs of everyone who lived here, and fled in terror.
We found an Asian tourist to take a picture of us in front of the abbey. The first picture she snapped included our faces, the Normandy flag Hervé had purchased, and absolutely nothing of the abbey.
"It's okay," Hervé smiled. "Thanks."
The Asian lady smiled back and thrust her iPhone at me, asking for a picture in return. I squatted down and made sure to include her face and the abbey behind her. I handed the phone back to her and waited for a sign of approval (Asians are notorious for wanting me to take several pictures at all angles), and the approval was more than I could have wished for.
The woman's face lit up. A smile stretched from corner to corner. Hervé and I could almost witness the "lightbulb" moment.
"Oh!" she exclaimed.
I laughed.
The woman delightedly pointed to the abbey and then back to her phone, as if I'd shrunk the abbey and Willy-Wonka'd it into her phone, Mike Teavee style.Then she grabbed Hervé's phone and spent the next minute blocking traffic, taking a proper picture of us with the abbey.
We laughed and thanked her for the photograph.
"I love moments like that," I mused to Hervé. "She just made my day. With how grateful she was for the picture I took and how she wanted to make sure that we got the picture we wanted. It didn't take much from her, but meant so much to me."
We left the commune walls and squelched through the sandy muck around the island.
At the end of our walk, we languished behind a line of fastidious children, waiting for out turn to wash the slimy sand off our feet.
A) I didn't know sand could feel slimy. It's weird.
B) I didn't know children could be this fastidious. Come on guys, you're like, eight years old. You're supposed to be filthy. You don't need to get every speck of sand out from under your toenails.
I'm such a grownup. Mind-chastising children.
We walked back to the bus stop. The final bus to Rennes left at five thirty, and I hoped that the other tourists who didn't speak French and didn't have an Hervé around wouldn't be late.
Back at Hervé's, my host went off to play indoor soccer and I drank wine, cider and ate leftover microwaved tartiflette. Providing a perfect ending to an idyllic day.
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