Archive for October 7th, 2009

What a day.

It started out great — I woke up on time for my early train, and one of my new friends — Kristy — walked me to the train station in Nice. At 6 a.m. that train station area is kinda shady, with some vagrants loitering around the vacant sex shops and otherwise seedy premises. I fell asleep on the train, naturally, but set an alarm clock and got off at the correct stop in Avignon.

Getting from the TGV station to the village centre in Avignon was a breeze — I paid just 1.20 Euro for a shuttle bus and then locked my bulky bag in a safe at the train station. Then I headed into the quaint old town, where I saw church after church (big surprise?), and then found a BNP Paribas bank chain. That’s where shit hit the fan.

BNP Paribas has some sort of agreement with Bank of America, where you can use their ATMs at no extra fee. So being the frugal traveler that I am, I was more than happy to find that bank! But apparently, the bank was not happy to see me, and the ATM decided to manger ma carte (EAT my card). Then inside the branch, I was told that no technicians were available till later in the afternoon, but even if they were available, the bank could not give me my ATM card back because for some reason, this would be illegal by French law. They would have to go through some huge bureaucratic exchange process with Bank of America, which would take a while.

So yes, now I have no bank card. Which while incredibly annoying, is not the worst thing in the world that could happen because there are other ways of getting money. If this is the worst thing that happens along my travels, I’d say I’d be pretty lucky.

After this minor mishap, I made my way to the pope’s palace, where there was a second offshoot of the papacy in the Middle Ages. I’m trying to remember why exactly there were competing papacies in the Vatican City and in Avignon…so if someone wants to remind me? Anyway, the palace was huge but kind of stuffy, and there was a German high school class all over the place the whole time. One thing I do remember though was that the pope liked to have 95,000 loaves of bread. I don’t know if that was per day or per year or per what? But that sounded insanely selfish, when I’m assuming all the peasants in surrounding villages were paying him tithes and starving. Or maybe I’m wrong.

After the palace, I finally went to go walk on the “Pont d’Avignon” — the famous bridge in Avignon that is the subject of every middle school French student’s favorite song.

“Sur le pont d’Avignon,
L’on y danse, l’on y danse,
Sur le pont d’Avignon
L’on y danse tout en rond.”

I have to admit, it was kinda amazing to be on that little fairytale bridge and pretend I was a little girl dancing across it.

From Avignon, I hopped on an early afternoon train to Carcassonne, this really petite city with a humongous medieval castle that must have once acted as a fortress. Problem was, there was no where to store my luggage, and it was a 45-minute, partially uphill trek to the castle. Having Jess Dweck’s backpack has been really convenient, but having it on my back for 45 minutes straight was a bit difficult. It’s still sore!

When I finally did get to the foot of the castle though, I had my most interesting experience for the day. I was probably about to keel over from the weight of the bag when a man called out to me in English (accent, but I didn’t know what), asking whether or not the castle was still open. Moments later, he introduced himself as Archie, 37 years old, from Holland. He offered me to store my backpack in his car, and as collateral — so that I’d trust him — he’d let me carry his car key during our trip through the castle so that there was no way he could leave with my bag. I thought that was pretty damn fair, so I took him up on his offer, figuring, worse comes to worse, I lose some sweaty clothing (all my valuables were on me).

So we enjoyed the Carcassonne castle and its surroundings together, and meanwhile, I learned all about Archie. An avid traveler, Archie just got back three months ago from a long trip to India, which was preceded by a trip to Thailand. For the past three weeks or so, he bought a cheap car and has been driving all over France and Spain, site-seeing and living in his car — a small white car that features a huge happy face on the back-right-window.

How was Archie able to afford all these vacations? Well, he answered that question completely honestly. He has been growing, selling and using huge amounts of marijuana for years and years — since he was a teenager I think. Apparently, this business in Holland is extremely lucrative, and he was telling me how you can get so much farther financially by going into this business — all of his friends do it. He said he sticks to pot though because one of his friends ended up essentially terminally ill from a heroine addiction. He also just sold his business to another friend, so he has no idea what to occupy himself with when he gets back to Holland. In Archie’s opinion, marijuana seems to be the one thing that keeps The Netherlands’ economy relatively stable.

When we got back to his car, I retrieved my bag and didn’t end up accepting a ride from him — mostly because he said he smokes pot about five times per day, so I didn’t want to be a passenger in that vehicle. So we parted ways — he to go shower at the campgrounds and type another chapter in his unpublished book — and I to go back to the newer area of Carcassonne.  Don’t worry though, I did do my Sharon duty and advised Archie to stop smoking and doing any such drugs in the future. I wanted to upload a photo of Archie and his automobile here, but for some reason the Internet won’t let me — so check Facebook.

For the past hour and a half or so, and I guess for about the next hour, I’ll be sitting in this Carcassonne Internet cafe finishing up some writing and relaxing. This town seems to pretty much shut down at 6 p.m., and my train doesn’t leave until 11:40 or something I think (I probably should check that? haha). It’s an overnight train to Paris, and I’ll meet my new friend Sarah (who I met in Nice) in the city mid-day.

I hope I enjoy Paris as much as I did when I was 15! See my Facebook profile for updated photos of Nice, Saint Paul de Vence, Avignon et Carcassonne.