Giverny

Emilie wanted to go on a small trip for her birthday, and she ended up picking Giverny as the location. Sarah, Becca, and I joined her on this little adventure. The day started bright and beautiful, and as (more or less) always we missed our train by just a little bit. To give us credit, we got there before the train left, but we didn’t have enough time to actually buy tickets for it. So, instead of going earlier in the day as planned, we ended up going on the 2:20 train. This was a blessing in disguise as it allowed us to grab a bite for lunch. It was an hour to get to Vernon where we caught a bus to Giverny.

When we got off the bus we just followed the crowd through the streets, and eventually found the main stretch of the town. Again (as in the first day going to Les Baux de Provence), we went on a jour férié, so the place was completely and utterly packed. We got in a line immediately thinking that it was the line to get into Monet’s house. In a way it was since his house was in the garden, but it was more or less good that we got into this line.


Since there were four of us we split up and took turns holding the place in line. First Emilie and Sarah went to see just how long the line was and buy ice cream for all of us. When they returned, Becca and I ventured off in the opposite direction and found free gardens to wander through and a magnificent poppy field (coquelicot). Becca went back a week later with her parents and apparently the field had gone into full bloom in only a week’s time. But it was still gorgeous while we were there even though only a few of the flowers had bloomed. After our little wander we went back and waited while Emilie and Sarah explored.



It eventually came down to the point when we would only have half an hour left in Giverny, and the line was still quite long. We gave up on trying to get in and just walked the periphery looking for a view in at least. While doing this, Sarah noticed the group entrance, and since it was so late in the day it turned out that they were letting in individuals as well. We got in that line instead, and then we decided to ask about getting to the front of the line. Sarah used her womanly wiles, and after explaining that we had to catch our train since the one after would take 3 hours to get back to Paris, the security guard helped us get through the line faster. We got our tickets, and then the real journey began.


We went immediately to the nymphéas area, and it was magnificent. There were all sorts of different flowers to look at, the bridges over the water were covered in wisteria, and they even had bamboo. One area also had cotton gum and it looked like there was a light snow cover on the ground.


We all took this in as quickly as possible while also snapping as many photos as we could. Somehow we managed to take a couple of group photos, and when we realized the time we hightailed our way out of the gardens. It was a bit of a maze to get back out, and we didn’t have any time to stop in the house at all. We hurried back to the bus and caught it just in time to actually still get a seat on the bus. I thought they would have stopped letting people on the bus once all of the seats were full, but no, they let people stand in the aisles.


Getting back to Paris was no hassle, and in all it was a good day that yielded a few amazing photos. The place was gorgeous, plain and simple.

More photos: link.

"Before seven years are past the English will lose a greater stake than they did at Orléans, for they will lose everything in France."

My last semester at Drury I took a course about Joan of Arc. Ever since I found out I got the job in France I have wanted to take a tour of France based on the life of Joan of Arc. I decided to wait until spring, and my first stop was Orléans.

Sarah said that she might join me on the trip, but I originally left the campus alone. When I got to the train station in Jouy, I received a call from her telling me that she just got up and she would try to get the next train. As long as she made that train, she was okay to still make the train from Paris to Orléans. I bought the tickets, and we met at the train station to start on the journey.

The train arrived in Orléans, and I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into. The station looked like it was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by buildings, and graffiti was everywhere. We followed the signs out of the train platforms only to find ourselves in a shopping mall! Definitely bizarre. There was an information booth in the mall, and we got ourselves a map of the city to accompany the print outs of the Joan sites I had brought with me.


We walked out of the mall and started walking down the main road – suddenly, I made my first Joan sighting of the day. It wasn’t anything big, just a coffee shop called Café Jeanne d’Arc. We went in, and Sarah bought a blood orange tea infusion that smelled wonderful.


After leaving the coffee shop we continued walking and it wasn’t long before I saw my first Joan of Arc statue in Orléans. It was in a main square, and I think I went a little bit overboard on taking photos of it at different angles.


From that square it wasn’t a far walk to the ‘Maison de Jeanne d’Arc,’ or the House of Joan of Arc. It was actually closed when we first arrived, and although admission was only one euro, we decided to wait until the evening since it would be free thanks to “La Nuit des Musées.”


We soon found the Rue de Bourgogne that Sarah had been looking for since she had read that it would be a nice street to walk down. We began walking, taking in the streets and checking out the restaurant menus. We decided on a Chinese place just next to the Rue de Bourgogne. The restaurant was very yellow, and we just had to take a couple of pictures to show that. The lunch was three courses, only 10 euros, and delicious!


From there we wandered back to Joan’s house, and then walked down Rue de Jeanne d’Arc. I also noticed a bakery called Jeanne d’Arc on our little walk down the road. We didn’t get very far before it started raining, and I realized that I had left my umbrella at the restaurant. Walking back through the rain wasn’t very bad since Sarah had her umbrella as well, and when I got back to the restaurant my umbrella was still there. I have a bad habit of leaving it in random buildings, I’ve found out!

Next, we headed to the cathedral in Orléans. It was neither the most nor the least impressive I have ever seen, but it was wonderful because there were a lot of Joan items around the area. This is the cathedral where Joan went to pray before going into battle. In front of the cathedral there were two monuments to her which included quotes from the trials that were held to determine her guilt. Inside the cathedral were stained glass windows that described her life’s journey. It was fun looking at each of them and determining what each window was depicting. There was also a statue of her holding her standard. I found a brochure inside the cathedral that listed all of the Joan statues in Orléans, and it actually contained a couple more statues than what I had originally known about before going to the city.


Right across from the cathedral was the tourism office, and outside of the office there was a cutout of Joan. So… How could I not?


Also nearby was the Hôtel de Ville where another very famous statue of Joan is. Again, I went overboard on photos. Since it was a Saturday, there were weddings going on all day, and I actually snuck in to take close up shots while a wedding party was still loitering and immediately before another wedding came out. We waited a few minutes just to see the happy couples, and the wedding that we saw was completely ridiculous – the outfits were so different, some modern, some not, and the bride was wearing bright orange. I’m not even sure who the groom was out of that group. The cool thing, though, is that the photographers take photos of the wedding party around the Joan statue. So if I were a real Joan fanatic (which I might be since I’m doing this little tour), I would want to get married in Orléans just to have the photos taken there ☺.


From there we walked back to Rue de Bourgogne and walked down a strip that we hadn’t seen yet, and found this little modern park area. It looked nice, but it also looked as though people had been trying to trash it – graffiti and both of the elevators taking you down to the other landing were out of order and they looked like someone had taken a gun or an ax to them. But it did provide a good view of the river from the upper landing.


There was another Joan statue across the river, close to the area where Joan was hurt during the battle. From older photos of the city, it looks like that statue was originally right at the bridge, but now it is down the street from it in its own little square.


Sarah and I were pretty beat after that, and we walked back to a café and both got smoothies as a refreshment. To kill time we went shopping a tiny bit and Sarah bought some clothes, then it was time to go back to Joan of Arc’s house!


The house was supposed to open at 6 for the event, but they didn’t open until quite a bit later. Apparently, one of the employees did not show up due to an emergency, and the one lady who was there didn’t want to open the house alone, which is completely understandable. We just waited a few minutes and pretty soon another employee showed up and we went inside the house. One of the employees told old legends that didn't really fit in with Joan of Arc, but it was still entertaining.

The house had a lot of statuettes of Joan, and general information about the hundred years’ war and how Joan saved France from the English. The house was the location where she stayed when she was staying in Orléans, and the army started fighting without her. When she found out, she quickly got ready, and a pageboy handed the standard to her out of a window as she was leaving the house. The house was recreated in the 1960s and has been a museum ever since. I’m not sure if that means that the floor plan is the same as it was in the 1400s or whether it was just built on the same location, but it is still pretty incredible that they have it there.


Out back, there was a well that had a figurine of Joan at the top of it. That was the last Joan of Arc item I found while I was in Orléans.


Overall I really enjoyed touring around the city in search of Joan of Arc items. It was sort of like a scavenger hunt where I had clues (or locations) of where I could find statues and other things, and it was an adventure to find them. It also allowed me to wander around different parts of the city from what I would normally want to explore. And while my trip to Orléans was more or less dedicated to the discovery of Joan in the city, there was the option to visit other places in the city as I came across them.

More photos: link.

A Room With a View

I’ve been going on a lot of day trips the last couple of months (Orléans, Giverny, Reims, Rouen, Mont St. Michel), and I’m going to write about all of them, but first I thought I’d just give you some insight into the daily happenings around here, and the not-so-daily things as well.

On the whole, the weather is starting to get better around here. So that means that I’m starting to get into Paris a little more often. I still don’t feel like I know it all that well, but I know it well enough to have a few local haunts. For instance, the people at the Crêperie Josselin now know our little group. We went there just last week, and we were greeted very warmly, and they gave us a lot of items on the house.

In France, on the first of May, there are vendors selling lilies of the valley all over the place. My friend Sarah wanted to get one, so Mandira bought her a bouquet in the Massy Palaiseau train station. And that resulted in the following photo:


Also, there was an event held on campus called the MBAT, or MBA Tournament. In this event, HEC invited other business schools to come participate in different sporting events, and then there was a party every night. The first night, the HEC cheerleaders (including Ayoola!) opened the event, and it was followed by the salsa competition. I couldn’t really see anything anyway, so I ended up spending the majority of the evening outside with Emilie sitting on the grass watching a lightning storm in the distance.


The next day Anna, Sarah, and I worked in the information booth for a few hours. We managed to help people get what they needed while we were there, and apparently it was one of the good things that people commented about that there were three people working. You see, there had been only one person working all day that day, and he was also the only person for afterwards and all day the next day. It sounded like the students that help organize this event just don’t get any sleep all weekend! They had three live bands playing that evening, and it didn’t seem like people were really that into it until the last band started playing covers of a lot of different songs. They played 3 songs originally by The Killers, which seemed a bit obsessive but I’m not complaining since I love that band!




The last day I just watched soccer for the majority of the time. It was raining, and somehow I ended up holding a borrowed umbrella, so I just went with it and used it until it stopped raining. That evening there was an event held in a club called Duplex, which coincidentally was the same club I went to my first week here. It turns out that there is a bowling alley in this club, so I spent a lot of the evening in there. It was rather crazy at the beginning, so after we finished our first game we wandered around a bit and danced, but I made it back to bowling eventually. Then we stayed until they closed up for the evening and we were forced to go back to the dance floor. The club had opened to the general public, and this guy that goes to HEC ended up joining us for a while. He was saying that I corrected his CV for him one time, which is entirely possible. We then got a shuttle back to campus, and we were told that it would be a private shuttle. Well… a group from Cambridge got on, too, and they were taken back to their hotel in Vélizy first. One of the guys was extremely chatty and kept hitting his head on the roof while sitting backwards in his seat. Every time the bus hit a bump, he would hit his head and yell out something like ‘Crikey!’ It was all rather entertaining. Then, he started trying to get us to go back to his hotel’s piano bar for a drink, to which I always responded ‘no,’ all the while looking back at my friends for support in that decision, but they just seemed to think it was funny and kept their mouths shut. I was the closest one sitting by this guy, and he started going on about what beautiful eyes I have. And after complimenting me, he would again ask about the piano bar, and saying what a shame it was that I wouldn’t come back. He was also talking about how one of his friends (who was more or less passed out a few rows in front of us) was a wonderful piano player, and he never knew it until this trip, and we should come back just to hear him play. At these moments I’m glad I stay sober so that I can fully recount how absurd it is. Anyways, after they got off the bus, Anna was talking about how he was such a sleaze because he was married – apparently he was wearing a ring. Wow. Why is it always the creepy ones that pursue me? Well, we finally got back to campus – arriving just behind the big bus full of HEC students that left quite a while after us.


So that was a lot of excitement for a few days, then it was back to the normal routine of working and just living. Another event was held on campus pretty soon afterwards called Jump HEC. It was a horse jumping competition that included some of the best horses from around Europe. It was just amazing to watch. As with anything of this sort there were a few mishaps of riders falling off of their horses, but no one was hurt and on the whole everything went smoothly. It is also fun to watch the interactions between the riders and their horses. Some of them got so mad whenever their horse spooked and didn’t want to go any further, and others just remained calm and let their horse get over the fear with kind encouragement. The first evening after leaving the competition, some friends and I decided to try to play Frisbee. My Frisbee was not very good, and it turned into a game of ‘chase the rolling disk.’ Becca went to go get a couple of her mini-rugby balls, and after throwing around the three items together we somehow ended up playing quick cricket, using the Frisbee as the bat and a rugby stress ball as the ball. Needless to say, it was ridiculous.


Sarah and I also went to a math festival in Paris. It was more of a math games festival, but it was really cool. We went to a talk about planetary rotation, and It seemed like there were no groundbreaking finds in it, but maybe I just missed it because it was in French… Anyways, there were a lot of cool games. It also reminded me of this strategic game that I really enjoy playing, so I looked it up online and found it. It’s now in my room, and I have played it a couple of times. The only thing it has shown me so far is that I need to work on my pattern recognition!


A couple of weekends ago there was Roland Garros, or the French Open for tennis. I didn’t go to the actual competition, but I spent a bit of time at the Hôtel de Ville watching it. The first time I went it seemed really nice, just people relaxing and watching the game on the giant screen. They also had a tennis court set up, and a ‘test your stroke speed’ booth set up, and other tennis-related things for kids. The second time I went it was for the last game. I was there with Mandira and Anna, and I made the stupid mistake of not bring ing a jacket or an umbrella. I say it was stupid because it cooled off a ton outside, and then the clouds started pouring down rain. At one point, before the heavy rain started, I went on a walk to stretch my legs, and then I ducked into a McDonald’s when it started raining. When it was over, I went back and stood under the tree cover on the side of the viewing area because as soon as I got back over there it had started raining again. Eventually I went and hid under a sleeping bag with Mandira and Anna, and while that helped with the wet, I was still freezing. But we stuck it out until the end, and rewarded our heroic efforts with coffee and pancakes at Breakfast in America.


More recently it came to the attention of the housing department on campus that they would be painting and doing other work in the building I lived in. They gave us one-week’s notice to move, and originally Anna and I would have had to move twice in order to get another apartment. And wouldn’t you know it, a couple of days after I sent an email noting how ridiculous it was, the same day I started moving stuff, the housing director comes up to Anna and I at lunch and says that an apartment has become available. So, ignoring the couple of bags I had already moved, I only had to move once in the end. After I was done with work on that Thursday I practically moved all of my belongings over to my new room. The layout is a bit different, but the basic idea remains the same – kitchen, bedroom, bedroom, bathroom.


There are downsides and perks to the new room. The major (hopefully only once a week) downside is that I am now directly across from the piano bar where the MBAs throw their bashes, and the music can get quite loud and stay that way for a while. The upside is that there is a swing right outside of the building along with a picnic table (where I’m writing right now, by the way), and I had been wanting to rearrange my furniture in my old room but it was a bit too small with the large desks to do it in a way that would be convenient, so I was given the opportunity to change things up a bit. And one of the original upsides was that Frank Junior Jr. lives right outside the adjacent building. However, after nearly all of the students moved off campus he disappeared, causing me to think that maybe someone took him home. I even bought him some cat food! But now I suppose it’ll go to the cats that hang out around the dumpsters, or last night there was another cat that let me pet her, so if I see her again hopefully the food won’t go to waste. Also, yes, nearly all of the students are gone from campus now. It seems that the only ones remaining are those who just graduated and are looking for jobs, MBA students, or us lowly interns. It feels so empty!


And this past weekend I spent some time in Paris at the Fête de la Musique. It is a yearly tradition that brings out tons of performers and the streets were just filled with every kind of music that you can imagine, as well as street vendors. I spent the majority of my time in the Marais walking around, and I saw things ranging from rock music, karaoke, reggae-ish, sing along, all the way to techno. At the techno, it was basically a dj set up and his friends dancing, and this little boy started dancing along with them. They picked him up and set him on top of one of the larger speakers, and when the music got to a climax he jumped up. After a couple of songs, his father came and took his hand and told him it was time to go, and he just started saying “Au revoir” to everyone. The karaoke also drew quite a crowd – the woman was singing from the apartment above an ice cream shop. A bit ridiculous, but what can you say?



Everything is definitely winding to a close here. Work is slow – there is no one coming to the CV clinics anymore, but we’re still required to be there in case anyone wants to come. And while the CRL work is still there, not many staff are coming in anymore. Today was actually the busiest I’ve been in a while there, but it was still empty for half of the time. Students are gone, and our little stagiaire group will be losing its first member Wednesday – Becca already finished working last week, and Mandira finished working today, although she’ll be sticking around for a while longer. When we moved buildings it really felt like we should be packing up to leave for good instead of just sticking around for another month. But I’m trying to travel more, and being a bit spontaneous at times. For example, I found really cheap tickets to Rouen last week, and just decided to go the next day. Sometimes traveling can be so expensive, but whenever you find those cheap tickets it makes you realize that as long as you are flexible about where you want to go, you can find cheap deals anywhere ☺.


Oh, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here yet, but I was accepted into a Masters program at the Universidad de Alcalá. So, after going home for a little under two months I’ll be popping back over to Europe for another 10-month stay. I’m also glad to say that I have friends on this side of the pond now since I can visit them or they can visit me, whichever works for me. And some of the trips I haven’t been on yet I’m not worried about rushing through them in the next four weeks. While I know I’ll be studying, I also know I’ll have a bit of time to do a little bit of traveling next year as well.

An Olive Grove Facing the Sea

It's about time I wrote about my trip with my mother. She came to visit me over my Easter break, and we had one heck of a time ;-). She arrived on a Wednesday, and I met her wearing a beret (I was just trying to look French, but she just thought it was cute). I had planned to take her into Paris if she was up to it, but after making it all the way back to campus, she was beat. I let the jet lag catch up with her, and let the night on the town wait.

On Thursday, I worked, then I took her to Versailles to see gardens at the Chateau. We also grabbed a bite to eat and just generally wandered a bit in the town. And then the time came to pack for our ten-day stay in Provence!


I only led us on one wrong turn while making it to the train station, which is not that bad if I do say so myself. We arrived in Avignon without any problems, and made our way to rent a car. My mom opted for the supplemental insurance, which I have got to tell you was a magnificent thing to do. But we'll get to that later.

My directions out of Avignon were a bit difficult to follow, especially since a lot of roads were not clearly marked. Somehow (a miracle, I think), we got out of Avignon on all of the right highways and even made it to our Bed and Breakfast just outside of Mouriès without any problems. We were early, so we just drove around in the town a bit and got oriented. When the time was right, we went to the B&B and checked in. We were the only guests on our first night, and I never really realized how a B&B worked. The owners were a bit crazy, as in overly hospitable. We were greeted with an aperitif, and they both recommended a restaurant to us, and they also made the reservations for us. To my surprise, the restaurant they recommended was in Les Baux de Provence, which is where I went when I was in Cannes with my study abroad group three years ago. I don’t know what it is about that place, but I think it is my favorite place in France. Oh, I love the ruins, it’s just great, but I’ll talk a lot about this location in this entry, so be ready!


The restaurant was actually at the entrance into Les Baux, so we didn’t get very far in looking around. The dinner, I will say, seemed rather mediocre, and the special was some garlic fish dish (which it turned out was the plat du jour everyday). After dinner we went back to our b&b and crashed.

I must admit that I’ve waited so long to write this entry, and I didn’t take the notes that I normally do, that I’ve forgotten in which order most things happened, or even everything that did happen. So I’ll just take it in strides and describe the main highlights of our trip. There was lots of sleep, and both my mom and I needed it.


One of the amazing things we just stumbled across on our journeys was a roman aqueduct. It was in ruins, and we drove past it once and noticed the signs. In Arles there was a traffic circle that had bits of a roman aqueduct in the center, and we wondered if it was related at all. We then drove past the signs for it again and decided to go in search of the aqueduct. There were a lot of bikers stopping and wandering around the aqueduct as well, and a few people had driven there. We walked along the ruins, and eventually came to this big drop off from a cliff. Most of the aqueduct was gone, but you could still see the base work for it and where it would have gone off in the distance. We also had some fun there taking a few pictures. I particularly liked this one of my mom peaking out from behind the arch.



Also on this drive towards Arles from our b&b there was an old abbey. We didn’t really stop by it, but it was very impressive looking and I took a couple of photos.



Since we were rather close to the water, we decided to spend a day in Marseilles. Getting there was hassle-free, and we even found a parking spot without any difficulties. We did the tourist thing and bought tickets for the little white trains that seem to frequent the cities in the south of France (and maybe everywhere else in the country, too). We hopped on the first one that took us to the top of the hill to Notre Dame de la Garde. It is the highest point in Marseilles, and the view was absolutely amazing. The sky wasn’t very clear (pollution or humidity, who knows?) but it was still worth the visit. We went up, down and all around. Inside the cathedral there was a nautical theme with boats hanging from the ceiling.






After the cathedral, we went and ate at a restaurant by the vieux port. Unfortunately, I got a bit of a sunburn sitting with my back to the sun, but I bought sunscreen immediately afterwards so it didn’t get any worse. The view onto the port while eating was wonderful, though.

After the lunch and the sunscreen, we jumped on the other petit train that went through another part of the city. This train didn’t really have a stopping point where you could go see a different part of the city, and it really wasn’t as great. At one point, a group of rowdy locals shouted some insulting comments about tourists and threw something at the train, but no harm done. All we really got out of this other train ride was another view of the city, which is good.

After the train we just walked around the shopping area a bit and then took off on a grand adventure back to our b&b. This time my travel sense was not as keen as it should have been, and I accidentally directed us towards Aix-en-Provence instead of Salon-en-Provence. No big deal, really, it just took us about 45 minutes out of our way, and we were able to see even more lovely French countryside ☺.


One of the days, my mother and I went to La Camargue and Stes. Marie de la Mer. The town was quaint and cute, and we ate lunch there. We ran through the water (well maybe, not run, but walked) and looked at all of the stuff the tide had carried to shore. There were actually a lot of remains of crabs along with other sea creatures. The water wasn’t very warm or else I would have dove into it. The beach was so beautiful.


After wandering the streets, we left the town in search of the pink flamingos. Horseback riding is really big there, but to be honest it looked rather boring – one of the groups I saw had all of the horses roped together and they were going along at a snail’s pace. We stopped on the side of the road and decided to walk around to try to see the flamingos a little bit closer. They were in the middle of a swamp like area, possibly rice fields, and they were actually flying from location to location. Something I didn’t know that they did was fly, and they were actually pretty good at it.



The most adventurous part of our journey was in Les Baux de Provence. I guess I needed a different kind of memory of it from just being good old fun, but I still experienced the fun side of it as well. The unfun part actually started early in the day, and it came in stages. Near Les Baux, there is a place called La Cathédrale d’Images that our B&B hosts had been pressuring us to go to. We decided to visit this place on the Monday after Easter, which was really NOT a good idea. You see, in France, that Monday is a holiday, and tout le monde ventures out into the world to see whatever tourist attractions they can. It was this way that day. The roads in this area are narrow (as anywhere in France), but it was seriously only comfortably wide enough for a car and a half. So imagine two way traffic, plus pedestrians walking down either side of the road since there are no sidewalks and there is a cliff face up on one side and down on the other. Then, imagine trying to drive this road… Luckily, we found a parking space right next to the Cathédrale, and got right in. The Cathédrale really isn’t a cathedral, it’s more of a huge room that has been carved out of solid rock. The interior is pitch black, and there are projectors set up so that there are images and videos playing on all of the walls. The exhibition while we were there was for Picasso. It was rather neat to walk through, and a very unique idea.


The problems started to come when we left the cathedral. Traffic had gotten even worse, and before we knew it our car had bumped mirrors with another car parked on the side of the road. We were only going between 5-10 miles per hour, and before we could even process that we had hit the other car, a group of pedestrians walked by and pushed the person closest to us into the car. Looking back, the person was glaring at us like it was our fault that his friend had pushed him into the car. Then, finally, we got to the parking lot for Les Baux. There were 3 cars in line, and while we were waiting one of the cars in front of us decided to give up. So they were backing up on a decline, and we were forced to go back, too, but didn’t realize it until the car in front of us nearly bashed into our car. About ten minutes later, we were in the parking lot. Going along very slowly, we wound up the side of the hill looking for a parking space. In one of these very narrow parking lots, we turned a corner, on an incline, and noticed a huge van coming down the hill. It was at a spot where it saw us, and saw that there was not enough room, and decided to come down anyway. My mom stopped our car, blocking their going down the hill, and they were blocking us going up, and looking at us like we could easily fit through. My mom cranked the wheel of the car, and started to go forward, and before you knew it we had hit the side of their van. They were in shock, and my mom decided to go in reverse to get away from them. We went back just a little bit, and the side panel popped back into place (revealing little to no damage), and she put her car in gear to go back up. But something went wrong with the steep hill… The car rolled backwards into another car that was parked in a spot where it should not have been. The people in the van by this time had gotten out of their own vehicle and were inspecting the damage, and looking at us like we were absolutely nuts. We decided we better get the security people there to help guide us through this, and I ran down the hill (literally). I was a bit crazy there for a while… Not good with that kind of conflict, I guess. I got the security, and they helped us give our information to the owners of the parked car, and in the meantime the van people decided we had worse things on our plate and that their damage was practically nothing. Also, after we ran into the second car, we decided it would be good to have the van owners drive our car to a parking spot since we were both a bit shaky. The people in the security office were very nice, and they even brought in the tourism director to speak with us. She offered us a free parking pass (how cool is that, have a wreck in the parking lot and get free parking!), and sent us on our way. To calm down a little bit my mom and I stopped at a café to get some ice cream. We decided to try to salvage our day, and went to the top of the hill to go into the castle ruins. We arrived at the top of the hill and were in line to get the tickets when my cell phone started to ring. It was the owner of the parked car we hit, and they wanted us to meet them at the bottom of the hill to fill out the insurance information. It turned out that they were German and spoke better English than French, so to be honest that worked out even better. They were very nice about it, and seemed grateful that we had even left our contact information. I guess that would be rare in the US, too, but when there is damage of that scale how can you not? After filling out all of the forms, we gave up the day for lost, and went back to the B&B.




We waited a couple of days before going back to Les Baux, and it was much better the second time around. Parking was nothing, and we even got into the castle rather quickly. I have always wanted to go into the castle again, and I have to say that it was the playground that I remembered it to be. Unfortunately mom stumbled a couple of times among the rocks, but I got to climb about like a little kid while she admired the view. The stairs up on one side are absolutely terrible, but they weren't as scary as the first time I attempted to climb them three years ago. So in all, I’ve decided to separate the two trips in my memory. I still love Les Baux, even though some unfortunate situations occurred there. And I would go back again.






A lot of time was also spent in the local markets. Two of the main ones we went to were in St. Remy de Provence and St. Martin de Crau. The former was rather filled with tourists, and the latter was more of a local market where you could buy clothes and household goods as well. My mother had a heyday in buying all of the tablecloths that she could! I bought a nice little hair clip that I had noticed at several other markets around Paris. There were also a couple of bullfights going on in the towns near us, but we didn’t go to any because, frankly, gore is not fun. We did however spend some time by the pool, go on drives around the countryside, and we found a nice little crêperie in a nearby town that we went to twice. My mother also had a heyday using me as her person interpreter with our hosts at the B&B. And our B&B experience was good overall, but definitely different than either of us had expected. We asked about going to a church service for Easter and just got blank stares, and then it was odd having to make conversation with these complete strangers every morning at breakfast. We also did a table d’hôtes, which included a 3-course meal and a full table of people, and while the food was good it just felt awkward. So, lesson for the future is that the Chambres d’Hôtes in France are good, but be ready to be chatty with your Hôtes. And they were also very compassionate when I took a somewhat bad stumble one day after reading by the pool. I hadn't noticed that there was a step that was less than 6 inches, and I was carrying a lot of electronics. My knee started swelling immediately, but after getting ice on it, everything was good. I still notice a bit of soreness in it (two months later!) especially when jogging. But the hosts made sure I was okay, and even gave us quite a bit of ice.




And so our trip was over. We drove back to Avignon to grab the train, and there were no difficulties with our accident, really, due to the supplemental insurance. We went back to Paris, and then back to Jouy. On my mom’s last day here I took her to my favorite crêperie in Paris, then we just walked around for a bit since she has already done the main tourist attractions. We grabbed some food to eat for dinner, and then headed to the hotel my mom had booked near her hotel. We just relaxed that evening and ordered a film in the room, and after a bit of hassle in the morning with flights that wouldn’t connect (she was booked to fly from Paris to Barcelona, then Madrid to the US, but nothing between Barcelona and Madrid), my mother was flying off away from Paris.

To see more photos: link.