I scoured Caroline's quirky apartment on Friday afternoon, worried that after how at home Caroline had made me feel, I'd forget everything. Which is what had happened in Coleraine with Sarah.
Bourget. You will not abandon your things. You need them. Even though they make Ellie fat and your shoulders miserable, you can't always be leaving shit behind.
When I feel particularly comfortable with a host, my possessions have the tendency to, well... make themselves at home as well. I retrieved a small pair of scissors from the bathroom. A sock from under the collapsed futon. My set of watercolors from underneath a brown baguette bag on the coffee table.
That everything? I stood at the door for a moment longer, visualizing all the important things safely stowed in Fat Ellie. Then I sadly closed Caroline's door, wishing I'd had a week with the lovely little lady, and not just our three short days.
The good thing about this part of the trip is that I know I'll be back. When I fell in love with people and places in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, goodbyes were hard. Very hard. I didn't know if I'd see any of them again. And in reality, I don't know if I'll get to Bordeaux again... but the odds are pretty excellent that I will.
A gentle drizzle greeted me when I joined the bustle on the street below. I reached into Fat Ellie's front pocket and pulled out her mangled Osprey rain cover. And realized that my mustard colored rain jacket was stuffed into the depths of my backpack, and there wasn't a chance I'd be disemboweling her on the wet cobble in Place de la Victoire.
So. Ellie. You will be drier than me. Lucky you.
It was a twenty minute walk to the train station. About ten minutes in, I found myself flanked by a tall black fellow. Who said nothing. Just kept pace with me.
I hate it when they do that. Feels so creepy. Silent stalking.
"Osprey," the man said.
"What?" I looked over at the fellow beside me.
"Osprey."
"Osprey?" my forehead turned into a maze of confused wrinkles.
"Your backpack."
"Oh, Osprey!" I finally connected the dots.
What a random "in".
"It's a Welsh football team, isn't it?"
"Umm... No. It's a brand of outdoor gear in the US."
"Oh. I thought it was football."
"No..."
"And this cover is to keep it dry? to keep all your important documents safe?"
"Yes. My backpack is drier than I am," I shivered a bit in my thin, damp sweater.
"Where are you going?"
"A friend is taking me to the Basque Country today. I'm meeting him at the train station."
"You staying at a hostel?"
"No. With someone I met through a travel website."
"Okay. I'm going in here to get some food. Have a very good trip."
"Thanks," I said, pleasantly surprised at the surprisingly pleasant interaction. "What's your name?"
"Joseph. You?"
"Aimee."
"Have a good day, Joseph," I shook the fellow's hand and continued my walk to meet Max at the train station.
"I'm here," I texted Max from outside the train station. "Because I'm a compulsively early human being."
"I'm on the tram, gonna get there in 10m. Wait for me at the tram stop?"
I escaped the rain for a few minutes inside the station, then wandered outside to the tram.
"K, I'm waiting at the tram," I wrote my friend. As I waited for his response, I thought about how lovely it was to have someone else arrange things.
All I had to do was get to the train station. Max booked the blabla car. Max arranged for us to stay with his grandparents. Max is planning the weekend of events. This is great.
"Fuck, I meant at the airport," Max's text beeped on my phone. "What tram? There's no tram."
Are you KIDDING ME?
"... what?" I sent a much milder text than I felt. "Max. I thought you said we were meeting at the train station."
"I fucked up."
"I'm at the train station. What do we do?" I wrote, running through worst-case scenarios in my mind.
If he's really at the airport to meet the blabla car ride, then he probably won't have time to drop by here and pick me up. And there ain't NO way I'm getting to the airport at this point. So... I'll just head back to Caroline's. I'm sure she would take me back for a couple of days. Just... so unnecessary.
And then I caught sight of Max walking towards me with a devilish grin on his face. He tried to hug me. I tried to hit him.
"You asshole."
"You believed me!" he crowed.
"Well, you did some pretty excellent foreshadowing. You know, not meeting me at the tourist information on the first day. Sending me to meet your Czech couchsurfer because you were running late with work. How was I supposed to know this was any different?" I insisted, refusing to feel gullible.
We loaded our bags into the trunk of the blabla car and began our two hour journey south.
Max's brother picked us up from Bayonne and drove us to their mother's home in a nearby village. Where, thanks to Max, his mother had prepared duck breast for the evening's meal.
I love my life. Right now. I love my life right now.
After dinner, Max drove me to the much larger home of his grandparents. Where I lugged Ellie upstairs to one of the guest rooms and looked around at the quaint, clean space in delight. With its penguin pillows, penguin blankets, charming little beside lamps and a large window to let in the morning light.
Yeah. Things could definitely be worse.
Max made me eggs and bacon for breakfast the next day (this guy gets me). Then we lounged by the pool in papasan chairs in the sunshine.
"Do you like archery?" Max asked when the sun became unbearable.
"Archery?"
"Yeah."
"I can shoot a gun. But I've never tried a bow."
"Do you want to?"
"Why not?"
Max hit the target nine out of ten times. I hit the target/tree (I'm counting the tree as part of the target) one out of ten times.
"It doesn't make any sense!" I huffed as Max told me to aim down and left of the target. "Why would I aim there when I want to end up four feet to the right?"
Max's grandmother made a feast for lunch. A feast that under normal circumstances, I would not dare to finish. But under the vagabond circumstances of "who knows when I'm gonna have a Basque grandma cook for me again?" I eagerly devoured every course.
"Cafe?" Grandma asked as I stood to clear my plate.
"Oui, merci," I agreed. Coffee is a beverage to which I rarely say no. Then Grandma gave my butt an affectionate pat and went to make coffee.
"You're grandma just slapped my ass," I texted Max, giggling at the sentence I never thought I'd write.
After I'd finished my coffee, Max and I climbed into Max's mother's car and drove the short distance to Bayonne. Which is one of the most adorable, fairy tale cities in the history of cities.
The Basque Country is an area inhabited by (you guessed it) the Basque people, and it straddles the border of France and Spain on the Atlantic side.
Like Catalonia, the Basque Country is a nationalistic region that would very much prefer to be its own thing. Because like Catalonia, it has its own language, its own culture, its own cuisine.
But I can see why France and Spain wouldn't want to let go of this place...
It's... uh... pas mal.
Max bought us an ice cream to share, and we sat near a park, trying to eat the creamy dessert faster than the belligerent sun could melt it.
We returned to Max's mother's that night for dinner. Not a Basque dinner. An Aimee risotto dinner. Because Max has started to read my blog, and in doing so, discovered that I make risotto. And that I didn't make it for him.
"Aimeeeeeeeee. I. Love. Riosotto. If someone asks me, "what would you like me to cook for you?" I would always say risotto."
So my final night in the Basque Country, I prepared mushroom, bacon, bell pepper risotto for Max and his mother.
"You need any help?" my friend asked as I futzed around the kitchen, looking for knives, cutting boards and spices.
"You can turn on some music. And pour me some wine. To make it a proper experience."
I'm so ready to have my own kitchen. Where I can have a favorite wooden spoon, know how to use all the spices in the cupboard, and have a little herb garden outside. So I can always fry up sage leaves in butter or flood the dish with fresh thyme.
Soon, Bourget. That season of your life is coming soon. It definitely won't be a permanent season, but you'll stay in it until you're ready to leave -- not before. I think that's one aspect that's been so hard about the last few months of travel... nearly every place I've been, I think I ended up leaving before I wanted to. Zagreb. Sofia. Pokhara. Chiang Mai. I left because of a plane ticket. Not because my heart or intuition or whatever was telling me, "Bourget, you gotta get a move on. It's time to pack up Fat Ellie and hit the road."
Maybe that's a new goal for me. To stop buying plane tickets. Bus tickets. To stop contacting couchsurfing hosts a millennium in advance. So that I can stay in one place until it feels right to leave, and not before.
That. Is why I'm so tired.
"What do you want to do tomorrow?" Max asked before we turned in for the night.
"Well, what are my options?"
That is one of my least favorite questions. Just like when someone asks, "what would you like to drink?" I want options so I can make an informed decision. If there is wine, I will always choose wine. But if I'm not told that wine is an option, I'll just choose water. Because I don't want to be rude.
"Well... we could go to Biarritz," Max scrunched his nose in disdain. "Or we could go to Spain."
"Let's go to Spain."
Baha... I'm going to Spain tomorrow. Holy bananas.
So we packed up our bags the next day and drove south to Spain. Our blabla car ride from Bayonne to Bordeaux wasn't until eight forty pm, so we had the whole day to laze away in Spanish Basque Country.
"I think this is part of the Camino de Santiago. I'll get to walk here next October," I told Max as I gazed out at the ocean, grateful for the moment of respite from big cities.
French cities are gorgeous. But... but I'll never feel as at home in them as I do surrounded by flowers and water and mountains and fresh air.
I can function in big cities. But I think out in the boonies will be the only place I truly thrive.
We parked the car, got lost (Max insists he has an excellent sense of direction, but I'm beginning to think he's more like me. In that he just doesn't have one. Good or bad, it's simply not there), and then stood in line for a small boat that would carry us across to Spain.
Max bought us some tapas, and we perched on a table in the main walking street, watching people amble past with dogs, baby strollers, a lover on their arm.
If I weren't so set on living in France and learning to speak French... Spain... Spain would be very nice.
Back in Bordeaux that evening, Max kept me company until my bus left for Rennes at one forty in the morning.
Which sort of compensates for him not meeting me at the bus stop when I arrived. But not quite. I'll still hold that one against him. Because it's fun.
"See you in Paris next week," I smiled and hugged my friend.
"I'll miss you. See you next week," Max hugged me back.
Then I boarded the bus, a bit heavy with the knowledge that this was yet another city I was leaving too soon.
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