Happy Hannukah to all... Oh and I think it must be christmas around this time of year too. And what am I doing to celebrate this joyous coming together of religious drinking opportunities?
Well, it's a strange story.
I thought originally that I would be serving myself a big plate of cold turkey and morose potatoes on my own in my poorly heating new appartement in Toulouse but as it happened a kindly angel decided to pass by my text message inbox and glory shone all round. I found myself invited to Bordeaux to pass Xmas and New Year with the delightful girl I knew here in the summer (see posts from august for more details). What could be finer?
Filled with festive cheer I organised myself what is called a covoiturage which explains itself if you know that voiture is french for car. I turned out to be sharing a car with a guy who's girlfriend of three years ran out on him a week earlier taking their 4 month old daughter with her. Instead of an explanation, he received notice that she was taking court action to ensure he would never be allowed to see his daughter. What a christmas present huh?
So we discussed this at length, me trying to be sympathetic but also constructive in French, something that would have been hard in english but I think I more or less managed. This having sapped me of some of my festive cheer, I arrived to a Bordeaux that struck me as being grey and white, or at least sepia, after the all-pervasive pinkness and beauty of Toulouse. I was picked up by my hostess' mum (Ornella was still in bed when I arrived, and would be so for a good long while after I arrived).
When I did finally see her, I found her to be in less than cheery mood and it is for this reason that I find myself alone in a strange internet cafe instead of in the bosom of her family home. It's been a bit strained: Ornella hates christmas with a passion that she is unfortunately unable to hide. Her dad is permanently hospitalised as he has very advanced alzheimer's and her mum and her sister's dad divorced around a year ago making this the first christmas of separation for the family.
For the good of Ornella's little sister (aged around 12) he was invited on Xmas eve (this is when they celebrate here) but both Ornella and her mum can't stand to be around him so the atmosphere was a bit strange.
On top of this, Ornella seemed to have forgotten when she invited me that she has exams straight after the Xmas holidays and she is in the middle of some serious cramming. This means that not only has she no time to entertain me but my very presence seems something of a burden. This is absolutely the last thing I wanted. I can stand being on my own and I can even stand being told to go home, but hanging around in a sort of limbo trying not to get in anyone's way (my bed is in the living room so there's nowhere to 'hide') is my worst social nightmare.
Last night we went out with some friends of hers but sadly they're all girls who haven't seen eachother for a few precious gossip weeks so I was very much sidelined while they nattered at top-speed in french about people I didn't know. Not top.
Happily the night ended at Ornella's boyfriend(!)'s house and his friends were all guys and all really cool so my sense of social self-worth was salvaged as we finished off the night in a much more fun, general chit-chat kind of way.
I still find that it's really really important for me to be actively included in the conversation and that people take a specific interest in talking to me if I am to play any part in the evening at all. This is of course true in any language but last night I got the feeling that the girls wanted to talk to each other and if they talked to me it was just to explain in idiot tones whatever I was unable (or just too uninterested) to follow. I was more the booby prize if everyone else was in the loo or on the balcony smoking a cigarette.
But hey, it's hardly the end of the world. I'm not seriously complaining. It's just a bit dissappointing to be invited somewhere and then not made to feel welcome.
I'm scheduled to be staying until New Year, but I think I'll organise my route home earlier as it's still another four days to new year and that's just too long to be feeling like a burden.
We'll see how things go. It's certainly an important reminder, if one were needed, of the power of distance to make people seem better than they really are. The girl I once thought I might be in love with has turned out to be no more than a petulant teenager still fighting with her mum and making her feel bad in order to make herself feel better. It's not really a world I'm accustomed to any more.
Next time I'm staying at home (by which I mean Toulouse!). It takes a period of separation before you know you're really attached to a place, and so far this little journey is working wonders.
Long live La Ville Rose.
See you in 2007.
Rob
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
Sleep/Reflection/Recovery
I think the secret to 'successful' blogging, if such a concept exists, is to write when you have something to say. I would prescribe whatever the opposite of 'little and often' would be: 'lots and infrequently' has none of the same poetry to it but the point is clear.
I can scarcely, however, leave things as they were when last I wrote.
The evening following my last blog entry turned out to be a little bleak. I genuinely can't think of a time when I've felt more... more what actually? I think the word is empty. Like all the juice of my Rob-ness had been used up and I just had this big unwieldy body to drag about the place. I foolishly decided that the way to solve the spinning head and sick stomach I had after receiving the news that the last concrete opportunity I had lined up for finding a job had gone down the toilet of French indifference was to go and get drunk.
For those amongst you who have ever get drunk on an empty stomach and found it to be an unpleasant idea, I suggest you stay away from the drunk-on-an-empty-soul experience I had that night. It was not pretty. I sort of thought I was going to cry I one point but when I started, it turns out I was just on the verge of being sick. This is the least fun you can have with bodily fluids.
I've always thought the expression 'tomorrow is another day' was an expression for the feeble-minded or the original-thought-deprived but it turns out that it's virtually impossible to go to bed drunk, blue and nighttime-minded and wake up to a bright november day and feel the same as you did the night before.
In the same way that drunken exploits which seemed like a great idea at the time come back to you in horrifying technicolor as the actions of a different person, my mood of the previous night seemed like something unfortunate that had happened to someone else.
True, I was still in the same luckless, hopeless, hapless situation but it somehow didn't matter as much.
So the search goes on. The life of nothing-to-do continues but so does the social life that I've worked at building here. I have a regular French squeeze (she expressly told me I'm not allowed to use the word 'girlfriend' so I use the word squeeze out of pure spite!) and at the pub quiz we went to last night, my current housemate and I managed to muster up three genuine french friends without have pull them off the street.
To make matters Frencher, at the end of this week I shall be moving out of Jonny's spangly riverside appartment and into something altogether dingier, further out and much more french. I'll be living with two french girls called (disappointingly enough for those fans, like me, of sexy french names like Aurélie or Aurianne) Sophie and Claire.
They're both really nice but I've recently found out (had she been hiding it up until I signed the dotted line?!) that Claire is a heavily involved Christian. No problem with that of course, but I hope my lifestyle of sin and idleness doesn't upset her too much.
Maybe by the next time I write in this blog, I'll be redeemed, chaste and bound for the kingdom of heaven.
Or, much less feasibly, maybe I'll be in work.
Much remains to be seen.
Your newly re-juiced french correspondant,
Rob
I can scarcely, however, leave things as they were when last I wrote.
The evening following my last blog entry turned out to be a little bleak. I genuinely can't think of a time when I've felt more... more what actually? I think the word is empty. Like all the juice of my Rob-ness had been used up and I just had this big unwieldy body to drag about the place. I foolishly decided that the way to solve the spinning head and sick stomach I had after receiving the news that the last concrete opportunity I had lined up for finding a job had gone down the toilet of French indifference was to go and get drunk.
For those amongst you who have ever get drunk on an empty stomach and found it to be an unpleasant idea, I suggest you stay away from the drunk-on-an-empty-soul experience I had that night. It was not pretty. I sort of thought I was going to cry I one point but when I started, it turns out I was just on the verge of being sick. This is the least fun you can have with bodily fluids.
I've always thought the expression 'tomorrow is another day' was an expression for the feeble-minded or the original-thought-deprived but it turns out that it's virtually impossible to go to bed drunk, blue and nighttime-minded and wake up to a bright november day and feel the same as you did the night before.
In the same way that drunken exploits which seemed like a great idea at the time come back to you in horrifying technicolor as the actions of a different person, my mood of the previous night seemed like something unfortunate that had happened to someone else.
True, I was still in the same luckless, hopeless, hapless situation but it somehow didn't matter as much.
So the search goes on. The life of nothing-to-do continues but so does the social life that I've worked at building here. I have a regular French squeeze (she expressly told me I'm not allowed to use the word 'girlfriend' so I use the word squeeze out of pure spite!) and at the pub quiz we went to last night, my current housemate and I managed to muster up three genuine french friends without have pull them off the street.
To make matters Frencher, at the end of this week I shall be moving out of Jonny's spangly riverside appartment and into something altogether dingier, further out and much more french. I'll be living with two french girls called (disappointingly enough for those fans, like me, of sexy french names like Aurélie or Aurianne) Sophie and Claire.
They're both really nice but I've recently found out (had she been hiding it up until I signed the dotted line?!) that Claire is a heavily involved Christian. No problem with that of course, but I hope my lifestyle of sin and idleness doesn't upset her too much.
Maybe by the next time I write in this blog, I'll be redeemed, chaste and bound for the kingdom of heaven.
Or, much less feasibly, maybe I'll be in work.
Much remains to be seen.
Your newly re-juiced french correspondant,
Rob
Thursday, November 23, 2006
A man loses patience
What is the eventual fate of the universe? What happens to a body which is continously becoming more and more disordered according to the tirelessly destructive 2nd law of thermodynamics which states that any action that takes places in a universe which obeys the observable laws of physics can only create more disorder than it can order. This means that if something happens to bring form and order to a group of particles somewhere in the universe, the energy that was required to perform such a task will have come from a correspondingly disordering event. The overall sum of these two events always comes out negative. Whatever one does, disorder in the universe increases. So we can ask ourselves what the prospects are for such a universe. Not great.
What if the body that is in a constant state of increasing disorder was something closer to home; more personal?
What if that body were me, for example? What is the eventual outcome for a young man with no job who with every action he performs (paying for an hour's internet usage is an example) brings closer some kind of ultimate disorder. Some kind of endgame.
This sounds strange but I genuinely want to know.
My creditors are mounting up and the means with which I could potentially pay them back are whittling rapidly away. I owe my current housemate 700 euro for rent, I owe the landlord of my future housemates 550 euro for a deposit and I owe the pizzeria where I recently lost my job 7 euro 20 for an apparently underfunded till one shift.
Let me give you an example of what it is like looking for a job here:
I discover one night that Bar Basque, a hip student-frequented bar in the centre of town is looking for a barman. I speak that night with the direction who confirm this and ask me for a CV. I take in the CV the next day. The man says he'll call me in the week to organise an try-out. All is good.
8 days later and I have heard nothing. My french friends tell me I should go in and hassle them. I do this and the direction is not there. The barman tells me to come back in three days time. I wait three days.
I manage to see the direction and he tells me that yes, they are still looking, and can I do an try-out in... oooh, lets see... 9 days time. I'm frustrated but don't want to appear desperate so I agree. We exchange phone numbers and he tells me he'll call me if anything changes.
9 days later is today. I'm half an hour early for the try-out and I'm excited and a little scared. A quick preliminary chat with the direction is what I need to calm my nerves. 8 seconds in to this chat, the direction tells me that they hired someone on saturday and that they have a full team now. He apologises for having forgot to call me. Having had to pretend to be sorry many times, I recognise the signs.
I almost cry. Fortunately I know that if you speak slowly and in a measured manner you are less likely to do that thing when you voice cracks and suddenly you're crying and I talk slowly and calmly. I tell him that it's understandable that he forgot to call me; he's busy. I tell him it's not serious. I leave in a daze.
It might sound stupid to get so worked up about a job in a bar but it's just SO FUCKING TYPICAL of my experience here. I just can't fucking get anyone to take me seriously. And I'm serious: what happens to me when I inevitably run out of money. I've drained the not inconsiderable savings I amounted when I was in my old (real) job and I'm starting to run seriously out of resources. It almost makes me want to say that I just want to be in England where not absolutely everything turns to shit the instant your back is turned.
But I won't say that. That's not what I'm saying. I don't really know what I am saying for the moment. Just that when I add up all the politeness and friendly smiles I've had from potential employers here over the past two and a half months of almost constant searching, I'd happily trade it all in for one single honest yes or no.
Ok that's plenty of ranting for now. I'll leave you to get on with your lives in the peaceful tranquility of knowing that whatever your problems may be and however unjust your world appears, you know that there is someone, somewhere who's a thousand kilometres from home and is utterly failing to make, find or even visualise his fortune. A man who feels like he's learned the meaning of failure. A man who has spent months banging his head against a door, happily patiently and politely waiting for it to open only to discover that it's not a door at all - it's a brick wall.
Your faithful correspondant,
Rob
What if the body that is in a constant state of increasing disorder was something closer to home; more personal?
What if that body were me, for example? What is the eventual outcome for a young man with no job who with every action he performs (paying for an hour's internet usage is an example) brings closer some kind of ultimate disorder. Some kind of endgame.
This sounds strange but I genuinely want to know.
My creditors are mounting up and the means with which I could potentially pay them back are whittling rapidly away. I owe my current housemate 700 euro for rent, I owe the landlord of my future housemates 550 euro for a deposit and I owe the pizzeria where I recently lost my job 7 euro 20 for an apparently underfunded till one shift.
Let me give you an example of what it is like looking for a job here:
I discover one night that Bar Basque, a hip student-frequented bar in the centre of town is looking for a barman. I speak that night with the direction who confirm this and ask me for a CV. I take in the CV the next day. The man says he'll call me in the week to organise an try-out. All is good.
8 days later and I have heard nothing. My french friends tell me I should go in and hassle them. I do this and the direction is not there. The barman tells me to come back in three days time. I wait three days.
I manage to see the direction and he tells me that yes, they are still looking, and can I do an try-out in... oooh, lets see... 9 days time. I'm frustrated but don't want to appear desperate so I agree. We exchange phone numbers and he tells me he'll call me if anything changes.
9 days later is today. I'm half an hour early for the try-out and I'm excited and a little scared. A quick preliminary chat with the direction is what I need to calm my nerves. 8 seconds in to this chat, the direction tells me that they hired someone on saturday and that they have a full team now. He apologises for having forgot to call me. Having had to pretend to be sorry many times, I recognise the signs.
I almost cry. Fortunately I know that if you speak slowly and in a measured manner you are less likely to do that thing when you voice cracks and suddenly you're crying and I talk slowly and calmly. I tell him that it's understandable that he forgot to call me; he's busy. I tell him it's not serious. I leave in a daze.
It might sound stupid to get so worked up about a job in a bar but it's just SO FUCKING TYPICAL of my experience here. I just can't fucking get anyone to take me seriously. And I'm serious: what happens to me when I inevitably run out of money. I've drained the not inconsiderable savings I amounted when I was in my old (real) job and I'm starting to run seriously out of resources. It almost makes me want to say that I just want to be in England where not absolutely everything turns to shit the instant your back is turned.
But I won't say that. That's not what I'm saying. I don't really know what I am saying for the moment. Just that when I add up all the politeness and friendly smiles I've had from potential employers here over the past two and a half months of almost constant searching, I'd happily trade it all in for one single honest yes or no.
Ok that's plenty of ranting for now. I'll leave you to get on with your lives in the peaceful tranquility of knowing that whatever your problems may be and however unjust your world appears, you know that there is someone, somewhere who's a thousand kilometres from home and is utterly failing to make, find or even visualise his fortune. A man who feels like he's learned the meaning of failure. A man who has spent months banging his head against a door, happily patiently and politely waiting for it to open only to discover that it's not a door at all - it's a brick wall.
Your faithful correspondant,
Rob
Monday, October 30, 2006
Putain de merde....
Well, having just reread my last blog entry, it turns out that, in my assessment of my new state of living, I was sadly wrong about one key fact which is going to end up making a huge difference to my new-found "existence."
The extremely attentive amongst you will have spotted an incongruity (discrete but significant) between my assertions of last time and reality. Those of you who are really watching what's going on in France will have noticed that there were some riots in the Paris banlieux a while ago about the revokation of a certain right given to young people when they start a new job. The law previously stated that somebody gained all the rights to continuing employment, and hence an immunity to being sacked for being rubbish, as soon as they started a new job. This means that if you hire'em and they turn out to be cretins, it's your lookout for not having interviewed more thoroughly. Nickolas Sarkozy, if I followed the story correctly, spotted that this meant that basically no-one was able to get any jobs because employers were terrified of being lumbered with a dolt and he promply changed the law provoking demonstrations and riots throughout the country.
How do I know all of this fascinating polical info? And why am I writing about it here? Because, my good friends, my trusted and loved ones, I've just borne the brunt of this new law with a shocking and ruthless immediacy.
Yes, twenty minutes or so ago I was told that I could finish half an hour early, wash my uniform, and give, in cash, the 20 euro I owe from an apparently underfunded till the other day, and never expect to return bar to pick up the cheque for the work I'd managed to squeeze in in between getting and losing my first ever foreign job.
It followed a genuine day from hell in the pizzeria. It's a jour ferié here (bank holiday) and to make matters worse (or better depending on your point of view) it was sunny and at least 25 degrees in the shade. Hot hot hot. And the restaurant was an absolute zoo. I started the day serving outside on the terrace while there were no customers and was then, as usual, banished inside where the harm I would do was expected to be minimal.
Sadly we were so busy that both the terrace (25 tables, two experienced serveurs) and the main room (23 tables, me) were jam packed. It was way more than I could handle. I didn't stress and I generally believe that I either got most stuff right or was sufficiently charming and english to those tables I forgot about or muffed up the order of that it ended up not matter too much from the clients' point of view. My colleagues however were fuming as I ordered lamb instead of salad, spent fifteen minutes looking for a bottle of champagne that I'd never had anyone order before and, to top it all off, fall up the stairs (my shoes are impossibly slippery and entirely inappropriate but I haven't had any time off in which to buy new ones) while loaded with plates filled with greasy garlic mayonnaise and congealed lamb fat which, when flung far and wide across the restaurant by my flailing limbs covered everything in a fine, but lethal, covering of the industrial equivalent of a thousand banana skins.
I then spent the next twenty minutes looking for the brush, then looking for the mop, then mopping and brushing whilst trying to stem the flow of blood which leaked from the pesto-infested wound I'd inflicted upon myself during the incident.
After the end of his dabacle, I settled in to some post-lunch drinks serving on the terrace in an efficient, if extremely irritable and unfriendly manner. It was during this that I made what was to be my final mistake. I served beers to a group of danish businessmen who weren't eating. This contravened our licencing laws and my dragon/bitch/boss took her typical hands on hips, lips pursed approach to giving me the ensuing reproach:
(the following is roughly translated from the french)
Her:
Rob! What did you serve to table 301?
Me:
Err.. I don't know any more. Who is it...? Oh them. Er.... oh yeah, a cappucino, a cafe latte, a pschittt (the hilariously unfortunately named lemonade) and three large beers.
Her:
And do you find anything shocking in that list (I think that's what she said)?
Me:
Err... No. I served a lemonade because we have run out of Iced Tea.
Her:
The biers. You served alcohol to them and they're not eating?
Me:
Oh yeah. I forgot. Sorry. (The bluntness of this response indicates how many times I'd apologised to this dragon only to receive either a dismissive tut or a sorry's-not-good-enough type tirade)
Her:
Do you know that that act could cause this cafe to close?
Me: (tiring of her questioning but also partially thinking that I was getting into the french way of arguing)
I do now. Exit stage left to go and take another order.
This order was the last thing I ever did for Pizza Marzano, Place Du Capitole, Toulouse. I was fired straight afterwards.
The only mitigating factor in this tale of woe is that I was genuinely going to resign at the end of the shift anyway. It was as clear to me as it was to everybody else that I was incompentent and an easy whipping target for the others to boss about and do the shifts no-one else wanted to do (I was scheduled to do 10 straight closes in a row, 6 of them split shifts 12-3pm 6pm-1am. I was 6 days into this punishing regime) and it wasn't a long way from the life I'd wanted to lead when I made the decision to leave england.
The only difference between her solution to the problem and mine was that I was going to, out of good old english courtesy, offer to finish this marathon to give them time to replace me. She insisted I finish right away. Fine by me.
So where does this leave me? Square one? Square zero? I don't know. It's too early to say. What I do know is that it's back to the job market for me and back to wondering whether it's worth the pain to join a society that is collectively battling a mounting unemployment problem.
I'll write again when I get some ideas together.
Rob
The extremely attentive amongst you will have spotted an incongruity (discrete but significant) between my assertions of last time and reality. Those of you who are really watching what's going on in France will have noticed that there were some riots in the Paris banlieux a while ago about the revokation of a certain right given to young people when they start a new job. The law previously stated that somebody gained all the rights to continuing employment, and hence an immunity to being sacked for being rubbish, as soon as they started a new job. This means that if you hire'em and they turn out to be cretins, it's your lookout for not having interviewed more thoroughly. Nickolas Sarkozy, if I followed the story correctly, spotted that this meant that basically no-one was able to get any jobs because employers were terrified of being lumbered with a dolt and he promply changed the law provoking demonstrations and riots throughout the country.
How do I know all of this fascinating polical info? And why am I writing about it here? Because, my good friends, my trusted and loved ones, I've just borne the brunt of this new law with a shocking and ruthless immediacy.
Yes, twenty minutes or so ago I was told that I could finish half an hour early, wash my uniform, and give, in cash, the 20 euro I owe from an apparently underfunded till the other day, and never expect to return bar to pick up the cheque for the work I'd managed to squeeze in in between getting and losing my first ever foreign job.
It followed a genuine day from hell in the pizzeria. It's a jour ferié here (bank holiday) and to make matters worse (or better depending on your point of view) it was sunny and at least 25 degrees in the shade. Hot hot hot. And the restaurant was an absolute zoo. I started the day serving outside on the terrace while there were no customers and was then, as usual, banished inside where the harm I would do was expected to be minimal.
Sadly we were so busy that both the terrace (25 tables, two experienced serveurs) and the main room (23 tables, me) were jam packed. It was way more than I could handle. I didn't stress and I generally believe that I either got most stuff right or was sufficiently charming and english to those tables I forgot about or muffed up the order of that it ended up not matter too much from the clients' point of view. My colleagues however were fuming as I ordered lamb instead of salad, spent fifteen minutes looking for a bottle of champagne that I'd never had anyone order before and, to top it all off, fall up the stairs (my shoes are impossibly slippery and entirely inappropriate but I haven't had any time off in which to buy new ones) while loaded with plates filled with greasy garlic mayonnaise and congealed lamb fat which, when flung far and wide across the restaurant by my flailing limbs covered everything in a fine, but lethal, covering of the industrial equivalent of a thousand banana skins.
I then spent the next twenty minutes looking for the brush, then looking for the mop, then mopping and brushing whilst trying to stem the flow of blood which leaked from the pesto-infested wound I'd inflicted upon myself during the incident.
After the end of his dabacle, I settled in to some post-lunch drinks serving on the terrace in an efficient, if extremely irritable and unfriendly manner. It was during this that I made what was to be my final mistake. I served beers to a group of danish businessmen who weren't eating. This contravened our licencing laws and my dragon/bitch/boss took her typical hands on hips, lips pursed approach to giving me the ensuing reproach:
(the following is roughly translated from the french)
Her:
Rob! What did you serve to table 301?
Me:
Err.. I don't know any more. Who is it...? Oh them. Er.... oh yeah, a cappucino, a cafe latte, a pschittt (the hilariously unfortunately named lemonade) and three large beers.
Her:
And do you find anything shocking in that list (I think that's what she said)?
Me:
Err... No. I served a lemonade because we have run out of Iced Tea.
Her:
The biers. You served alcohol to them and they're not eating?
Me:
Oh yeah. I forgot. Sorry. (The bluntness of this response indicates how many times I'd apologised to this dragon only to receive either a dismissive tut or a sorry's-not-good-enough type tirade)
Her:
Do you know that that act could cause this cafe to close?
Me: (tiring of her questioning but also partially thinking that I was getting into the french way of arguing)
I do now. Exit stage left to go and take another order.
This order was the last thing I ever did for Pizza Marzano, Place Du Capitole, Toulouse. I was fired straight afterwards.
The only mitigating factor in this tale of woe is that I was genuinely going to resign at the end of the shift anyway. It was as clear to me as it was to everybody else that I was incompentent and an easy whipping target for the others to boss about and do the shifts no-one else wanted to do (I was scheduled to do 10 straight closes in a row, 6 of them split shifts 12-3pm 6pm-1am. I was 6 days into this punishing regime) and it wasn't a long way from the life I'd wanted to lead when I made the decision to leave england.
The only difference between her solution to the problem and mine was that I was going to, out of good old english courtesy, offer to finish this marathon to give them time to replace me. She insisted I finish right away. Fine by me.
So where does this leave me? Square one? Square zero? I don't know. It's too early to say. What I do know is that it's back to the job market for me and back to wondering whether it's worth the pain to join a society that is collectively battling a mounting unemployment problem.
I'll write again when I get some ideas together.
Rob
Friday, October 27, 2006
Lost in the mists of mundanity
It's been a while huh? Several of you have been kind enough to point it out and it's unbelievably nice to hear that there are people out there who actively want to know what's going on in France.
Things here are very different to what they were a week ago. My life is basically unrecognisable in one serious way: I have a job!
After what seems like an infinity of begging, hoping, waiting, cursing and planning to move to Paris, I started at the end of last week as a waiter in a Pizza Express right in the main square (Le Capitol for those in the know). It's tough as it's all in French and the fact that I lied about the amount of waitering experience I had is now blantanly obvious for all to see. Happily the french employment laws dictate that they have no choice but to stick with me until I'm good.
As I've heard (but never really believed) from everyone who's ever done it, it's complicated, tiring and confusing. At least, that which I understand (I work entirely in French of course) is complicated, tiring and confusing. All the rest I have no choice but to ignore and hope it will go away.
In all seriousness though, I'm over the moon to have finally established myself in France and I'm currently living purely off my tips for everything bar the rent and the occasional wild lunch-expenditure so life is pretty good. I'm once again, as I was at Caffe Nero, in a situation where my spectacularly low pay is not too much of an issue as I don't have 5 seconds spare in the week to spend any of it. It's marvellous.
There is even a french girl who started on the same day as me who's 26, attractive and an egyptologist when not a work. She's awesome and I'm going to make good efforts to befriend her.
It's not all sweetness and light however. My responsable is Italian and is not the sort to put up with any shit. And I am shit! I received the dressing-down of my life the day-before-yesterday after a busy shift where one fuck-up only lead to the next for me, and increased my level of general flusteredness and confusion. I did it all: Broke stuff, forgot to tell the kitchen that people had ordered their dinner, told the kitchen but got it wrong, forgot to charge people before they left, charged people but lost the resulting Visa slip and I even managed to lose the keys to the cellar meaning that we went without any stock for half a day until it was found in my locker. Oh dear. As occured when I first started at Caffe Nero, I've started having dreams where I'm at work and things are going badly then I will wake up and have to go to work all over again.
Still, yesterday was much better and I started being able to manage myself a little and work out what it was I was supposed to be doing. The volatile french staff seemed a lot happier with me by the end of the evening. It's always a bit difficult to tell though...
So, life goes on. I've traded exhausting but fun work with no time for socialising in one country, for the same in another. Except that every day that passes here I get a little better at the french language. Let's see... In the last few days I've learned useful phrases such as "clear table 21", "now sweep the main room", "fill the oil and vinegar containers" and "think carefully about what I've said to you and do better tomorrow". All marvellously self-improving.
I've had to quit school which is a shame. Life in the Alliance Francais is easy, comfortable and fun, but it was entirely incompatible with having a job. I got my money back for the last week though so it's all good.
Oh and last thing: This monday I passed an audition to be a member of Le Choeur Du Capitole De Toulouse which is a super-posh choir who sing in the main builing of town. I'm very excited and am currently plucking up the courage to ask work for the time off I need to rehearse. We'll see.
I'm currently feeling like the more I settle myself in to Toulouse and real life, the less I'll be using this blog as an outlet for those bottled up experiences and feeling I just had to tell someone, so if nothing appears to follow this entry for some time it doesn't mean I no longer care about my friends and family (mum, I'll call you soon!) it just means that I've reached the kind of equilibrium which is no longer interesting to read about, but represents a real kind of existence for me in a foreign country.
Love
Rob
Things here are very different to what they were a week ago. My life is basically unrecognisable in one serious way: I have a job!
After what seems like an infinity of begging, hoping, waiting, cursing and planning to move to Paris, I started at the end of last week as a waiter in a Pizza Express right in the main square (Le Capitol for those in the know). It's tough as it's all in French and the fact that I lied about the amount of waitering experience I had is now blantanly obvious for all to see. Happily the french employment laws dictate that they have no choice but to stick with me until I'm good.
As I've heard (but never really believed) from everyone who's ever done it, it's complicated, tiring and confusing. At least, that which I understand (I work entirely in French of course) is complicated, tiring and confusing. All the rest I have no choice but to ignore and hope it will go away.
In all seriousness though, I'm over the moon to have finally established myself in France and I'm currently living purely off my tips for everything bar the rent and the occasional wild lunch-expenditure so life is pretty good. I'm once again, as I was at Caffe Nero, in a situation where my spectacularly low pay is not too much of an issue as I don't have 5 seconds spare in the week to spend any of it. It's marvellous.
There is even a french girl who started on the same day as me who's 26, attractive and an egyptologist when not a work. She's awesome and I'm going to make good efforts to befriend her.
It's not all sweetness and light however. My responsable is Italian and is not the sort to put up with any shit. And I am shit! I received the dressing-down of my life the day-before-yesterday after a busy shift where one fuck-up only lead to the next for me, and increased my level of general flusteredness and confusion. I did it all: Broke stuff, forgot to tell the kitchen that people had ordered their dinner, told the kitchen but got it wrong, forgot to charge people before they left, charged people but lost the resulting Visa slip and I even managed to lose the keys to the cellar meaning that we went without any stock for half a day until it was found in my locker. Oh dear. As occured when I first started at Caffe Nero, I've started having dreams where I'm at work and things are going badly then I will wake up and have to go to work all over again.
Still, yesterday was much better and I started being able to manage myself a little and work out what it was I was supposed to be doing. The volatile french staff seemed a lot happier with me by the end of the evening. It's always a bit difficult to tell though...
So, life goes on. I've traded exhausting but fun work with no time for socialising in one country, for the same in another. Except that every day that passes here I get a little better at the french language. Let's see... In the last few days I've learned useful phrases such as "clear table 21", "now sweep the main room", "fill the oil and vinegar containers" and "think carefully about what I've said to you and do better tomorrow". All marvellously self-improving.
I've had to quit school which is a shame. Life in the Alliance Francais is easy, comfortable and fun, but it was entirely incompatible with having a job. I got my money back for the last week though so it's all good.
Oh and last thing: This monday I passed an audition to be a member of Le Choeur Du Capitole De Toulouse which is a super-posh choir who sing in the main builing of town. I'm very excited and am currently plucking up the courage to ask work for the time off I need to rehearse. We'll see.
I'm currently feeling like the more I settle myself in to Toulouse and real life, the less I'll be using this blog as an outlet for those bottled up experiences and feeling I just had to tell someone, so if nothing appears to follow this entry for some time it doesn't mean I no longer care about my friends and family (mum, I'll call you soon!) it just means that I've reached the kind of equilibrium which is no longer interesting to read about, but represents a real kind of existence for me in a foreign country.
Love
Rob
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Sanity and what I paid for it
Due to a gross technical problem at my exciting new flat, I write this blog entry from an internet cafe.
Still, I am, without further ado, moved in and life has taken on a whole new domesticity. Yesterday I had a hot shower and climbed into my grey jogging bottoms, having just pulled them out of the very bottom of my suitcase. It felt good. It felt like being at home.
Jonny, my housemate, is rarely at home so I have set myself up a little bachelors lifestyle of meagre evening meals, regular siestas and lots of reading. It's good and bad simultaneously. Those that know me well know that I thrive off interpersonal contact and that living alone is not my forté. Still, it's a far cry from the nowhere-to-live-nothing-to-do states of mid september.
I've started my new class at school and it's going swimmingly. The level is challenging without being demoralising which is just perfect.
Still no word on the job front though. It's incredible either way. Either McDonald's here take an unbelievably long time to process their job applications or they have some kind of shocking anti-foreigner employment policy. I have heard tell such facts as the latter of french enterprises before now so it wouldn't surprise me greatly.
To make things worse, I heard from the current girl of my dreams (I have to be careful what I say on this public forum as you never know who's reading, so I'll keep all references oblique and all phrases deliberately obtuse and slangy for the incomprehension of the gauls!) that a new joint has sprung up in the town she lives in which hankers after brits like me to serve the jars.
Sorry if you don't understand the following. It's written all in slang.
Who is this mysterious bird? She hangs out close to the briney (the place the posh plonk comes from) and is a real diamond. Wiley, Witty, and generally Way Out she's currently rocking my Top 40 and I suspect I hers (but I'm not 100%). The happy gospel is she's keen to come over for a jaunt soon. Needless to say my ticker leaped when I found out.
Ok, oblique stuff over. If you want an explanation, email me and I'll reveal all.
Those elsewhere wanting a good laugh should try and picture a tall ungainly youth, with limb co-ordination issues attempting to walk in a pair of shoes with well-oiled wheels on the underside. The people of Toulouse however have no need to imagine. They have the spectacle before their very eyes.
Yes it's true. I've taken my bike back to the hire-place and bought a pair of roller blades. I sort of thought it would be easy I think. It looks so damn easy after all. I put them on as soon as I was out of the shop and managed the slowest 200m of my life, overtaken by irate old hunchbacks with crippled legs and jaundice who cursed the slow-moving and unsightly obstacle.
It was amusing. For a bit. I changed back into my shoes after not very long. But, damn you, I'm determined to get it going even though I've no idea of the mode d'emploi.
I'll let you all know how I get on.
Rob
Still, I am, without further ado, moved in and life has taken on a whole new domesticity. Yesterday I had a hot shower and climbed into my grey jogging bottoms, having just pulled them out of the very bottom of my suitcase. It felt good. It felt like being at home.
Jonny, my housemate, is rarely at home so I have set myself up a little bachelors lifestyle of meagre evening meals, regular siestas and lots of reading. It's good and bad simultaneously. Those that know me well know that I thrive off interpersonal contact and that living alone is not my forté. Still, it's a far cry from the nowhere-to-live-nothing-to-do states of mid september.
I've started my new class at school and it's going swimmingly. The level is challenging without being demoralising which is just perfect.
Still no word on the job front though. It's incredible either way. Either McDonald's here take an unbelievably long time to process their job applications or they have some kind of shocking anti-foreigner employment policy. I have heard tell such facts as the latter of french enterprises before now so it wouldn't surprise me greatly.
To make things worse, I heard from the current girl of my dreams (I have to be careful what I say on this public forum as you never know who's reading, so I'll keep all references oblique and all phrases deliberately obtuse and slangy for the incomprehension of the gauls!) that a new joint has sprung up in the town she lives in which hankers after brits like me to serve the jars.
Sorry if you don't understand the following. It's written all in slang.
Who is this mysterious bird? She hangs out close to the briney (the place the posh plonk comes from) and is a real diamond. Wiley, Witty, and generally Way Out she's currently rocking my Top 40 and I suspect I hers (but I'm not 100%). The happy gospel is she's keen to come over for a jaunt soon. Needless to say my ticker leaped when I found out.
Ok, oblique stuff over. If you want an explanation, email me and I'll reveal all.
Those elsewhere wanting a good laugh should try and picture a tall ungainly youth, with limb co-ordination issues attempting to walk in a pair of shoes with well-oiled wheels on the underside. The people of Toulouse however have no need to imagine. They have the spectacle before their very eyes.
Yes it's true. I've taken my bike back to the hire-place and bought a pair of roller blades. I sort of thought it would be easy I think. It looks so damn easy after all. I put them on as soon as I was out of the shop and managed the slowest 200m of my life, overtaken by irate old hunchbacks with crippled legs and jaundice who cursed the slow-moving and unsightly obstacle.
It was amusing. For a bit. I changed back into my shoes after not very long. But, damn you, I'm determined to get it going even though I've no idea of the mode d'emploi.
I'll let you all know how I get on.
Rob
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Where it's at (no dj equipment will be mentioned in this blog entry)
For a refreshing change, here are some photos of me drunk in Toulouse. One even features me in a lift. I'll leave it to you to guess whichHave you ever noticed how funny it is to eat a banana? I found myself just now winding through the streets of Toulouse, lit for the first time in about 2 weeks in beautiful autumnal sunshine (the weather here has been terrifyingly english of late), riding high and no handed on my beautiful shiny bicycle which I am hiring for 2€ a day from the Toulouse city council, eating a banana in the 'pull off a section and pop it in the mouth' style unable to supress a small laugh and a grin as I watched the good people of france go about their day unbanana-ed. Imagine the joy of a man with a banana and a bike, viewing the general public who had none and you will be close to sharing the fun.
This anecdote, apropos of nothing, heralds in the latest edtion of my life in which an element of stability has finally been acheived. I mark it down here in unwithering digital posterity as a reminder of the difference between that which you imagine will make you happy and that which actually has the power to do so.
Things are going from good to still good at the Alliance Francaise. It's something of a drain of the savings, but infinitely worth it in it's capacity to give me a reason to get up in the morning (class starts at nine!) and a way of meeting lots of nice people (virtually all spanish and german, but hey) who have nothing to do but enjoy themselves and speak french. My routine is this: Get up and go to class, buying a croissant or a pain au chocolat en route (I've paid for breakfast in this mad house but my hostess doesn't feel the need to buy anything) where I remain until 12:30. I then go with a group of espagnophones (I may have made this word up, it means spanish and south american people) to what is luxuriously known as Le Restaurant Universitaire which is basically an uber-sized canteen serving up slop for the students at remarkable prices. Seriously though. The food is great. After lunch I slope into town to find a cafe with some folk and discuss aspects of the french language or just life in general with my co-students (this is where I get to do all my french speaking at the moment). Then it's siesta time from 4 till 6. Then I do my homework like a good boy, and then I go out to a bar. That's it. Every day! And it's great.
I'm going to do one more month I think, taking me to the end of Level 6 (of a possible 7 or 8 depending on the size of the current student population at the start of a given month) which, from what I've seen of those that are nearing the end of this level, will give me a good working knowledge of the language and, more importantly, an ability to actually understand what's being said to me, rather than just catching a general drift. This will be mighty fine.
I'm still waiting to hear from "the clown who don't frown" (I just thought of that. Maybe I should go into advertising...) about my forthcoming McEmployment but I spoke this weekend to the manager, who actually seems like a nice normal human being, unlike the manager of a McDo in the UK who I'm sure would not have the time for a pleasant chat with someone coming to his or her place of work with broken english asking for a job. He said that it's far from extraordinary to wait two or three weeks before hearing anything as the application form has to go off to some distant sorting office for processing, flavourising, odourising and putting into a bun. I wait patiently for my response.
What I should really do now is go back and read my previous post as I can't remember whether or not I've already said that I've found an appartment... but I have. I'm in serious danger of repeating myself here so skip ahead if you need to.
Twas a rainy day in the south-west of france. When it rains here it really goes for it. It's been hailing a few times to. This would never have happened if the french had said oui to the EU constitution... I was in the southern reaches of this city with the english friend who I met through a Cambridge friend who I stayed with for a week when I was first here (that seems like not only a different city but a whole different lifetime). You can see my post sometime around the start of August or end of July for full details and a photo! We went to the cinema which was showing a french film, in french, with no subtitles, which I found frankly selfish but I went along for the ride nonetheless (how do you write that? Is it hyphenated or different words or what? Any linguists out there...). When I returned to Jonny's superb glistening flat I was soaking wet and cold. I bemoaned the fact that I was finding it impossible to find anywhere to live and blah blah blah when out of the blue, in a voice that seemed not to understand the pain and anguish of the previous 20 fruitless days of searching, Jonny said "you can live here if you want". You can insert your own falling-off-chair style hyberbola of amazement here if you like but, needless to say, I was speechless. Here was an opportunity to live in perfect harmony in a super-swish flat with someone who I already know and who is fluent in french... safe.
Now I realise that this presents serious problems for my language-learning. I'll be living with an english guy who's been here for long enough to be over the excitement and to have started to have feelings of nostalgia for stuff like the BBC, but I really think that for 4 months or so, I could make my home life comfortable and pleasant in contrast to the hell of grease and noise that I'm sure will be McDo, and I have one week to make up my mind. Do I turn the offer down and carry on living with my fruitcake host "mother", vainly searching for a place that as far as I've seen doesn't exist. Do I bollocks. I said yes. In fact I said "yes please, that would be wonderful. Pluck me from my life of homelessness and obscurity and give me a place to be. A place with a double-bed and a fridge and a shower that works and cooker and a SENSE OF CONTROL OVER MY LIFE!". Or words to that effect.
So that's that. I'm moving in with an english guy on the first of October and there's nothing that anyone can do about it. You might as well save the condemning-to-monolingualism emails and instead write me that you think I've made a good decision and that I'm brave and handsome and great.
You don't have to do that of course...
All my lovin'
Rob
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Your oldest friend survives a terrorist attack and your self works at mcdonalds
There are some strange and unpleasant things in this world; that's nothing unusual, there's always horrible shit going down somewhere. The only thing that makes this horrible shit different is that it's happening to me and my nearest and dearest.
As many readers of this blog will know, my oldest friend was fortunate enough this week to be out of town on a day when terrorism struck small(ish) town Thailand, killing one of her friends and by the sounds of things really devastating the community. Her closing line in her email telling us she was ok ("Being poor but unharmed is fine by me" or words to that affect) really made me think about the world and how wierd it is that it's also so full of troubles. I mean, the problem with troubles is that they're so common and pervasive that you just don't notice anymore. But it is wierd when you think about it. We're all here just trying to breath, drink, eat and get laid and yet day in day out people are waging war on one another and blowing eachother up in the name of ideology. I realise this is extremely old news but have you ever had it where something you've always just known, you suddenly really know? Like, the simple fact of "I'm getting older". Suddenly one day you might really think about it and something just falls into place. Maybe it's just me.
So, in amongst all this devilry, suffering and loneliness, what have I done to alleviate my situation of being unemployed and homeless?
I've applied for a job in McDonalds.
Yes it's true. One day some small child will be able to say to another small child that his Dad works in McDonalds and he won't be just teasing. It'll be me. All five stars on my name-badge, flipping the finest burgers known to man and trying to chat up the woman who minces the cow eyeballs in the back room.
It's hardly my idea of a dream come true, but in a funny sort of way I think it's rather good. It's a job that's relatively easy, in French (est-ce que je peux prendre un BigMac et Fries s'il vous plait) that will pay reasonably and allow me to carry on my french classes in the mornings. Plus they've got these new natty McDonalds matching jeans and denim cap outfits that I've not seen before. Will they have my size I wonder....!
In more news today, I may be on the brink of moving in to the biggest cop-out of all time: A flat with an english housemate... Not only that but an english housemate I already know. It's a friend of a friend who I stayed with when last I was in Toulouse. It'll be rubbish for my french, but great for my life overall as the flat's super-swish, relatively central and not too costly. I think my time for living with french people will come, but maybe it's not quite yet. Perhaps once I've scaled all 8 levels of the Alliance Francais...
All my love to all those in safety and comfort as well as those in post-traumatic stress mode.
Your humble blog writer,
Rob (Pictured here drunk with language students in Toulouse. It's a good job you don't love me coz I'm handsome!)
Monday, September 11, 2006
Paying and Playing my way out of trouble
Eurgh. It's hard finding a job in France. In fact, at the moment at seems basically impossible. There are 4 english pubs in town, none of who want anyone, and my french is apparently laughably poor to any employer working in a francophone industry.
It's been a soul-wearing week or so of writing carefully crafted emails and texts in french and even a CV in french only to receive nothing or hastily written apologies in reply.
So here I am, almost 10 days in Toulouse
and no job, no appartment, no nothing.What about my lovely hosts, I hear you ask (seen left, drunk!). Well, the thing that's truely making me feel miserable at this moment is the fact that I ended up
grossly outstaying my welcome with this lovely couple. Shit. It came upon me suddenly, when one day Julien told me that we needed to talk about what my plans were for getting somewhere else to stay. He told me that it was important to Helena that I move out soon as she needed some space (the appartment, if you recall, is only one room). I'd sensed some coldness in the days preceding but thought it was just circumstantial. Maybe she was hung over or pissed off about something. But, no: She was sick of the sight of me on their couch every morning.I hurried into town and spent the day sending out emails to people on CouchSurfing.com desperately looking for somewhere to stay when Julien told me that they had someone else coming to stay that night and that it was ok for me to stay one more night but with 4 of us in the one room it was going to start getting really difficult. It was then I realised that I could never go back to Julien and Helena's place, unless it was to pick up my stuff and move out.
I couldn't believe that I'd allowed things to go sour between us, nor could I believe it was finding somewhere to stay. The one avenue I have, the other flatmates don't make up their mind until this Thursday (four days from now) and even then if I do get the place it doesn't start till the first of october, which is another 20 days away. I was in the shit.
So, I did what I always did in these situations: I payed and played my way out of trouble. I told Julien that, great news, I'd found somewhere to stay, and I booked myself into a hotel (42 euro a night, argh!). When I went round to get my stuff I was worried that things would be awkward but happily they had a load of friends over and helena seemed drunk, relaxed and happy to see me. I re-established my good relations with everyone by playing a selection of their favourite hits on the guitar and singing like a wild man, and everyone was back on my side.
Fine, but I'm not sure how many times I can buy and sing my way out of difficult situations like this. Certainly not forever. So what to do?
Well, just now I went and took a test at the Alliance Francais in the Toulouse central square (I think I may have written about the last test I did in Bordeaux) and came out with a flying 'Level 5 (Intermediate Stage 3)' of a mere possible 7. I'm 5/7ths of the way to being a french expert!
So the course starts tomorrow, and hopefully they can get me in with a host family too, which would be wonderful. So, hopefully, you're favourite Levy gets to fight another day. And it feels quite good that this time I didn't rely on the old Levy luck for things to just fall into place. I actually went and did something. It's starting to seem like the Levy Luck Broadcaster doesn't reach all the way to the south of France.
It seems that I may be on my own....
Rob
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Back in Toulouse
Ticket to ride
Something typically beautiful from Toulouse
I'm here again. Beautiful tranquil Toulouse. Although this time it's not quite so tranquil as the students are here. In fact that's an understatement.The town centre is a madness of bikes and cars and pedestrains encumbered with moving-in stuff and flyers for various clubs and bars. It's very cleary first-days-in-town time for a lot of people here.
Still, all remains charming and agreeable from what I have seen so far.
I am staying with a pair of mighty fine CouchSurfing hosts right in the centre of the city, who've given me a place to stay, loads of advice and help, and also plenty of great nights in. They're
all-round wonderful. Slightly heavy on the public displays of affection, but as I'm staying in their appartement which has only one room (see right) I really have no basis for complaint.It's been wonderful to have a base from which to go to find jobs, arrange meetings with prospective colocateurs (flatmates) and generally soak up some of la vie toulousienne.
He - 25, from Marseilles, plays spanish and french jazz style guitar, trained as a social worker but currently unemployed. She (sitting on the floor on the right on the photo below) - 30, from Brazil, curren
tly working hard for a doctorate in economics.
When I first arrived in Toulouse I met up with a Canadian girl who I'd met in the youth hostel in Montpellier and had gotten along with really well. I spent the night at her new flat and had an evening of vodka with blackcurrant syrup and mushroom crepes. All very wonderful and french, but I woke up in the morning with a nasty stomach ache. I was, apparently, only welcome for one night as she offered to take me down to the youth hostel that afternoon. However, they were full so I fell back on my old favourite, CouchSurfing.com. I was dropped off only about 500m from the flat, but I had all my stuff with me (a backpack, a frontpack, and my favourite 3 quid brown leather effect suitcase from a charity shop in Cambridge) and my state of health was rapidly deteriorating. I had intense pain in my stomach which I attributed to the vodka, aching in all my limbs which I attributed to the bags I was carrying, and was sweating profusely which I attributed to the 34 degree heat.
When I arrived at the 3rd floor flat, hot and sweaty, I thought I needed a shower and a lie down to feel right, but as I was brushing my teeth I vomited profusely into the sink. I then proceeded to spew about 5 more times into the toilet, reaquainting myself with the mushrooms from the night before, seemingly unchanged but coated in a black slime. It soon became clear I was properly ill. I apologised to my new hosts and cleaned out the sink, unblocking the plug with my fingers, and slept for the rest of the day.
Following a day entirely without food I began to feel better and commenced the search for flats and jobs.
My first effort at finding a flat was a little dispiriting. The place was way way out of town in a souless suburb and the three flatmates all worked together at the QuickBurger just across the highway; not exactly my idea of a free-living artisic flatshare. I persisted however, and have an interview tonight with 3 medical students in the centre of town. It sounds absolutely perfect as they speak a little english, but no so much that we'll be conversing in english all the time. My fingers are crosssed.
They're also crossed for a job I just applied for in a darling little place called cafe italiano or something where I just dropped in a CV and got chatting to a couple of the staff. All are super-friendly and were impressed with my level of french. The guy says he'll give me a call.
So: lots to hope for, and some to look forward to, as I may have a few weeks before I can move in to my potential new flat, so maybe a little more travelling? Who knows.
Love to all those thinking of me.
Rob
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
A made-up mind
How do I feel on this, my last day in Bordeaux? Well, it's raining pretty hard and has been cold and windy for a good few days, so the gods of weather are helping me not to feel too strong a sense of nostalgia for the place (I've been here 8 days now which in traveller's time is an epoch.
Yes it's true. I've made up my mind. I'm leaving bdx tomorrow, taking my beautiful mobylette home to Le-Puy-En-Velay and moving in earnest to Toulouse. It's yet another mammoth ride but strangely it will be my last. I feel like a suitor who has chosen someone pretty and homely over a filthy but intriguing punk with constant designs towards kleptomania but who could potentially be a lot of fun. C'est la vie.
I have just enough time left in bdx to tell a few amusing anecdotes and maybe create a couple more, so let's get on with a tale I like to call: The Disturbing Neighbour
There were three of us, couchsurfers all, staying in the appartment of the ex-boyfriend of our host, Ornella (see previous posts). We had met the guy upstairs once already; a silver-haired man of around fifty with an odd but vaguely smart dress sense and a bycicle in the hallway. He spoke good english and seemed friendly and helpful.
One afternoon as I was leaving the flat to head into town he was there on the landing and we started talking. He told me how nice it was to have youngsters in the place and how if he lived with people his own age the place would be dead. He said that if we wanted to have a party or anything then we were welcome and I thanked him for his generosity. He told me that he's a lawyer and used to live in a posh part of town but had had "a problem" and now lived in the moderate squalor of the appartment but was fine with the move. He asked me my name and told me his and all seemed very jolly.
We were by now out on the street and I could sense that the conversation was going to be one of those ones that don't end unless you force it. He seemed keen to keep on talking and I assumed he was lonely and in need of sociability. Fine. Things got a little rich though when he asked for my phone number. I said in a consiliatory tone that it wasn't necessary but wished him a pleasant afternoon. He quickly departed on his bike with a very hurried goodbye.
2 hours later I was back in the flat reading and relaxing when the buzzer went. The vioce told me it was Phillipe (the owner of the flat, understood to be away in Montreal) and that I should come down to help him do something with the bike in the hallway. I couldn't quite understand all the french but was amazed that the owner of the flat was back unexpectedly and hurried around the flat making things a bit tidier.
When I got downstairs however, it wasn't Phillipe at all, but Hugo and he was in a rage. He was pointing at the German guy's bike, locked to the staircase, and shouting in french and appeared to be in a furious state. His words were along the lines of:
"how can I put my bike away when this bloody bike is in my way. you need to move it right away. I have a very important appointment and how can I get to it if you don't move this bike. I promise I'll call the police if you don't move it right now....etc etc"
I tried to tell him that the bike wasn't mine and that there was nothing I could do but this only enraged him further and he was gesticulating wildly with his arms and shouting ever louder and faster. He told me again he was calling the police and got out his phone. I told him that it was a good idea to call the police and retreated upstairs to the flat, locking the door behind me.
Another hour or so passed in peace and I had forgotten about the strange incident when I heard a knock at the door. Fuck, I thought, he's here. He wants to kill me. So I sat very still and cursed the fact the I'd left the radio on as a giveaway to my presence in the flat. I thought if I just didn't answer he'd assume I was out and leave me alone.
The knocking persisted however, and eventually I resigned myself to opening the door.
I was surprised to find there, not Hugo, but three uniformed local police officers standing on the landing looking serious. They asked me if I was the owner of the mobylette downstairs and asked me if there had been a problem earlier on. I described to them the pleasant conversation, and the refusal to give my number, followed by the blind rage of earlier and they took my name, age and country of birth.
During my tale, two of the policemen ventured upstairs and were peering through the bannisters into Hugo's appartment and one of them started sniggering. He pointed at something to his colleague who in turn smiled wryly and shook his head. They came back downstairs and lead my interlocuter away saying "he's crazy. don't worry about anything". I asked if there was anything I could do but they seemed happy with what they'd seen and left.
What they saw up there in that appartment I'll never know, as I didn't venture upstairs to follow their gaze, but whatever it was was enough to convince the police that they were dealing with a madmen and convince me that we needed to keep our appartment door locked at all times.
Yes it's true. I've made up my mind. I'm leaving bdx tomorrow, taking my beautiful mobylette home to Le-Puy-En-Velay and moving in earnest to Toulouse. It's yet another mammoth ride but strangely it will be my last. I feel like a suitor who has chosen someone pretty and homely over a filthy but intriguing punk with constant designs towards kleptomania but who could potentially be a lot of fun. C'est la vie.
I have just enough time left in bdx to tell a few amusing anecdotes and maybe create a couple more, so let's get on with a tale I like to call: The Disturbing Neighbour
-+-+-
There were three of us, couchsurfers all, staying in the appartment of the ex-boyfriend of our host, Ornella (see previous posts). We had met the guy upstairs once already; a silver-haired man of around fifty with an odd but vaguely smart dress sense and a bycicle in the hallway. He spoke good english and seemed friendly and helpful.
One afternoon as I was leaving the flat to head into town he was there on the landing and we started talking. He told me how nice it was to have youngsters in the place and how if he lived with people his own age the place would be dead. He said that if we wanted to have a party or anything then we were welcome and I thanked him for his generosity. He told me that he's a lawyer and used to live in a posh part of town but had had "a problem" and now lived in the moderate squalor of the appartment but was fine with the move. He asked me my name and told me his and all seemed very jolly.
We were by now out on the street and I could sense that the conversation was going to be one of those ones that don't end unless you force it. He seemed keen to keep on talking and I assumed he was lonely and in need of sociability. Fine. Things got a little rich though when he asked for my phone number. I said in a consiliatory tone that it wasn't necessary but wished him a pleasant afternoon. He quickly departed on his bike with a very hurried goodbye.
2 hours later I was back in the flat reading and relaxing when the buzzer went. The vioce told me it was Phillipe (the owner of the flat, understood to be away in Montreal) and that I should come down to help him do something with the bike in the hallway. I couldn't quite understand all the french but was amazed that the owner of the flat was back unexpectedly and hurried around the flat making things a bit tidier.
When I got downstairs however, it wasn't Phillipe at all, but Hugo and he was in a rage. He was pointing at the German guy's bike, locked to the staircase, and shouting in french and appeared to be in a furious state. His words were along the lines of:
"how can I put my bike away when this bloody bike is in my way. you need to move it right away. I have a very important appointment and how can I get to it if you don't move this bike. I promise I'll call the police if you don't move it right now....etc etc"
I tried to tell him that the bike wasn't mine and that there was nothing I could do but this only enraged him further and he was gesticulating wildly with his arms and shouting ever louder and faster. He told me again he was calling the police and got out his phone. I told him that it was a good idea to call the police and retreated upstairs to the flat, locking the door behind me.
Another hour or so passed in peace and I had forgotten about the strange incident when I heard a knock at the door. Fuck, I thought, he's here. He wants to kill me. So I sat very still and cursed the fact the I'd left the radio on as a giveaway to my presence in the flat. I thought if I just didn't answer he'd assume I was out and leave me alone.
The knocking persisted however, and eventually I resigned myself to opening the door.
I was surprised to find there, not Hugo, but three uniformed local police officers standing on the landing looking serious. They asked me if I was the owner of the mobylette downstairs and asked me if there had been a problem earlier on. I described to them the pleasant conversation, and the refusal to give my number, followed by the blind rage of earlier and they took my name, age and country of birth.
During my tale, two of the policemen ventured upstairs and were peering through the bannisters into Hugo's appartment and one of them started sniggering. He pointed at something to his colleague who in turn smiled wryly and shook his head. They came back downstairs and lead my interlocuter away saying "he's crazy. don't worry about anything". I asked if there was anything I could do but they seemed happy with what they'd seen and left.
What they saw up there in that appartment I'll never know, as I didn't venture upstairs to follow their gaze, but whatever it was was enough to convince the police that they were dealing with a madmen and convince me that we needed to keep our appartment door locked at all times.
-+-+-
In other news, I have spent a wonderful evening at Ornella's mother's house enjoying fine french cuisine and not entirely understanding fine french conversation. We had an evening of music as one of Ornella's friends is a fine mezzo-soprano, Ornella plays the flute, Toni the German couchsurfer on his accordian, and I played the piano.
Also today, I experienced the joy of a fit of unstoppable giggles on my own, in a sophisticated cafe, whilst reading a paragraph from Love in the Time of Cholera. I'm reasonably sure that it ranks as the most I've ever laughed at a book, but I think some of the laughter may in part have been at the fact that I was laughing alone in public. A wonderful tonic on a drizzly afternoon.
Delights, delights. Next time in Toulouse?
Love from,
Rob
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Ev'rybody's learning how...
Ah the joys of CouchSurfing.I have been shown my temporary new flat by my new CouchSurfing host Ornella (she's on the left below, on the phone) and it's loverly. Pretty central and has a cool shower (my biggest priority in any place I'm staying) and with a beautiful double-matress on the floor replete with high-tog-rated double duvet and fluffy pillow that's the exact opposite of my previous Star-Wars-clad squalour in England. It means I'm getting first-rate accommodation in a private flat all of my own at a grand cost of nought. The flat also has a very well endowed window box (see left).
Me and the girls shown above went for a Japanese meal last night (believe it or not the first time I'd ever eaten sushi) and we had a great time, mostly in French, with Ornella inviting me to dinner with her mum on sunday and both girls imploring me to stay in Bordeaux. All very flattering but I'm concerned that my heart still belongs in Toulouse and that if I don't go there I'll be full of regrets, thinking of the atmosphere that so took hold of me when I was there.
Well, for now I feel like I'm going to stick in BDX for at least another two or three days as the evenings with Ornella are always so much fun. Tonight another CouchSurfer arrives: a German dude who is cycling around Europe playing his accordian on the streets for cash.And you thought fiction was strange....
Love,
Rob
oh p.s. I've trampled over yet another line I said I'd never cross and now have a YouTube account. I've got some vids on their that I took with my digital camera which are charming enough. It's here.
Some Bordeaulaise street scenesEspecially for you
This post is especially for you (you know who you are) if you have requested a photo of my beautiful, if rapidly degenerating, mobylette. Here it is.
For those who agree with my opinion that this is the greatest photo of an inanimate object ever taken anywhere in the world, I'd like to point out that it is in no way staged. My bike was genuinely resting right there with the quaint old sign and the flowers to be filled up at the following ancient melangeur which mixes my fuel with 4% oil (just the way she likes it).
For those who agree with my opinion that this is the greatest photo of an inanimate object ever taken anywhere in the world, I'd like to point out that it is in no way staged. My bike was genuinely resting right there with the quaint old sign and the flowers to be filled up at the following ancient melangeur which mixes my fuel with 4% oil (just the way she likes it).
Friday, August 25, 2006
Hugh Heffner and the young Bordelaise
You really ought to try CouchSurfing: Be you old or young, traveller or settler, wise man or dunce, CouchSurfing is cool.
Last night I met my latest host, Ornella (I think you can check her out here but don't blame me if it doesn't work) in a charmante little square in central Bordeaux. We had a drink or two and then met up with a couple of her friends.
She told me that she was sorry she couldn't put me up at her place but she did have the keys to a couple of her mates' flats that I could use at my leisure as long as I watered the cannabis plant that was growing in one of them. I, needless to say, said that this was fine.
So, she seems really cool. Popular type (which I wouldn't necessarily have attributed to people who list themselves as hosts on something like CouchSurfing. You would assume they're all lonely or wierd) very pretty, and outgoing. Speaks plenty of English but was also full of compliments for my french. Her friends were more of the same: outgoing, enthusiastic and friendly young girls. So that's all cool. We're going to hang out again tonight I think.
They all live a little way out of the centre and Ornella has just pranged her car (her fault apparently but the guy had no insurance so she escaped more-or-less scot free) so had to get the last bus home. I strolled home after our rendez-vous and as I was at the road that my hotel was on, I saw a dimly lit, super-smooth looking place with a pearl-white baby grand in the corner and an attractive bar-maid wearing only a bra. This combination of titilation and instrumentation was too much for my curiosity to bear to I attempted to get in.
It turned out that it was the sort of bar where the owner had to buzz you in after he'd gotten a good look at you. I was fortunate enough to pass whatever tests he was running on me.
When I got in, there was about 7 people in the bar: 1 Hugh Heffner-style silver fox of about 65 who was chain-smoking and drinking something golden off ice, one smooth piano player who was doing soulful renditions of jazz standards at the white delight, one attractive young gypsy-esque man in a sharp suit doing magic tricks with the barmaids vest-top and a cigarette and four youngish-to-not-so-young girls instantly recognisable as high-class rent girls (unusual levels of flesh on display, improbable levels of affinity for the silver-haired patron). There was a high level of touching-up of the girls occuring, but the place didn't seem overly threatening or seedy so I stayed for a Jack Daniels (11 euro a glass, but the shot was as long as the legs of the barmaid that served it to me) and a song or two.
I got chatting to the pianist and the magician and we were suddenly a small troup of normality in amongst the aging nymphs and punters (we had been joined by a man who looked like a builder and a Buster Merryfield lookalike who must have been his grandad). It was a cool night, and we talked about music (in french of course!) and the pianist let me sing one of the numbers (Fly me to the Moon - I did my best smoky cabaret singer impersonation) and play a little of my own. Great fun, and I insisted to the owner that I'd be back the following evening. I'm not sure that I will.
Last night I met my latest host, Ornella (I think you can check her out here but don't blame me if it doesn't work) in a charmante little square in central Bordeaux. We had a drink or two and then met up with a couple of her friends.
She told me that she was sorry she couldn't put me up at her place but she did have the keys to a couple of her mates' flats that I could use at my leisure as long as I watered the cannabis plant that was growing in one of them. I, needless to say, said that this was fine.
So, she seems really cool. Popular type (which I wouldn't necessarily have attributed to people who list themselves as hosts on something like CouchSurfing. You would assume they're all lonely or wierd) very pretty, and outgoing. Speaks plenty of English but was also full of compliments for my french. Her friends were more of the same: outgoing, enthusiastic and friendly young girls. So that's all cool. We're going to hang out again tonight I think.
They all live a little way out of the centre and Ornella has just pranged her car (her fault apparently but the guy had no insurance so she escaped more-or-less scot free) so had to get the last bus home. I strolled home after our rendez-vous and as I was at the road that my hotel was on, I saw a dimly lit, super-smooth looking place with a pearl-white baby grand in the corner and an attractive bar-maid wearing only a bra. This combination of titilation and instrumentation was too much for my curiosity to bear to I attempted to get in.
It turned out that it was the sort of bar where the owner had to buzz you in after he'd gotten a good look at you. I was fortunate enough to pass whatever tests he was running on me.
When I got in, there was about 7 people in the bar: 1 Hugh Heffner-style silver fox of about 65 who was chain-smoking and drinking something golden off ice, one smooth piano player who was doing soulful renditions of jazz standards at the white delight, one attractive young gypsy-esque man in a sharp suit doing magic tricks with the barmaids vest-top and a cigarette and four youngish-to-not-so-young girls instantly recognisable as high-class rent girls (unusual levels of flesh on display, improbable levels of affinity for the silver-haired patron). There was a high level of touching-up of the girls occuring, but the place didn't seem overly threatening or seedy so I stayed for a Jack Daniels (11 euro a glass, but the shot was as long as the legs of the barmaid that served it to me) and a song or two.
I got chatting to the pianist and the magician and we were suddenly a small troup of normality in amongst the aging nymphs and punters (we had been joined by a man who looked like a builder and a Buster Merryfield lookalike who must have been his grandad). It was a cool night, and we talked about music (in french of course!) and the pianist let me sing one of the numbers (Fly me to the Moon - I did my best smoky cabaret singer impersonation) and play a little of my own. Great fun, and I insisted to the owner that I'd be back the following evening. I'm not sure that I will.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Bordeaux night-life and the Alliance Francaise
Dude I'm tired. Seriously.
Last night I managed to coax a small but moderately willing troup of "youth" from the world's least friendly Youth Hostel to come out for a drink with me into town. It was cool, and I even met a girl that I'd spoken to at the Hostel in Montpellier (I'm starting to feel like I'm on a real backpacker's drag!) but the hostel closes at two so a lot of people lamed out and went home early.
Me and this one girl were blind with desire to find some late night fun so we decided to stay out past the curfew (shock!) and be locked out of the hostel for the night. This is not as serious as it sounds because the place opens again at five so we just had to make sure we could occupy ourselves till then.
Sadly the girl, as often happens with girls who seem totally normal at first meeting, turned out to be a mentalist and got super-grumpy about five minutes after we arrived at this -supercool- little club on the outskirts of town. It was just the sort of place I always like to think I'll find but never do: small, full of twenty-somthing locals, wildly and nuttily decorated and playing reasonable non-shit house music. I was in heaven. The chiquita I was with, however, looked like she'd just stepped out of a salon... OF MISERY! So I tried to cajole her into having a good time but it was clearly going nowhere.
We did successfully stay out till late enough to get in though, and now I'm suffering the consequences of a late night and a few too many rum and cokes.
All perfect preparation for what I've just done. I was wandering aimlessly about the streets (see most of the previous days of my life for similar activities) when I stumbled upon the Alliance Francaise, a world-wide group of zealots who are trying to spread the good name of GCSE-style French lessons across the globe. Needless to say I went in to check it out. Memories of French at Coleridge were still fresh in my mind like a rogue Tango in a Orangina despenser and I just had to take a swig.
The woman seemed remarkably keen to sign me up and was full of "what about next Monday? No? What about the Monday after that?" kind of talk familiar to desparate bachelors the globe over. Still, I did a test which was horribly reminiscent of my GCSE French exam where I forgot what the verb "to Have" was and had to just blather on about fruit and veg. It started easy and got really nasty by the end.
Stuff like this (all in French of course) -
Complete this sentence using the correct verbs and tenses:
If Julie had been born in the XVth Century ___________
If Pierre hadn't been two minutes late for the cinema ____________
etc etc.
Tough. Needless to say I bottled everything after about question 5 and just wrote pathetic excuses in French about how it was all too difficult.
Well, they're going to email me the results of my test at some point so we'll see what happens.
All this Alliance Francaise stuff and the crusade-like finding of nightlife is all really just to give me something to anchor me to this place. At the moment I still feel like I'm floating a bit. I heard this morning from my super-cool Canadian friend that she's going to stay in Toulouse for this year, and I'm thinking she's got a point. Still, Toulouse is relatively small and Bordeaux definitely has size on its side if nothing else. I'm going to try and find a choir. I think the town that can offer me the best choir is the one I'll marry.
Finding it is going to be tough though.
Rob
Last night I managed to coax a small but moderately willing troup of "youth" from the world's least friendly Youth Hostel to come out for a drink with me into town. It was cool, and I even met a girl that I'd spoken to at the Hostel in Montpellier (I'm starting to feel like I'm on a real backpacker's drag!) but the hostel closes at two so a lot of people lamed out and went home early.
Me and this one girl were blind with desire to find some late night fun so we decided to stay out past the curfew (shock!) and be locked out of the hostel for the night. This is not as serious as it sounds because the place opens again at five so we just had to make sure we could occupy ourselves till then.
Sadly the girl, as often happens with girls who seem totally normal at first meeting, turned out to be a mentalist and got super-grumpy about five minutes after we arrived at this -supercool- little club on the outskirts of town. It was just the sort of place I always like to think I'll find but never do: small, full of twenty-somthing locals, wildly and nuttily decorated and playing reasonable non-shit house music. I was in heaven. The chiquita I was with, however, looked like she'd just stepped out of a salon... OF MISERY! So I tried to cajole her into having a good time but it was clearly going nowhere.
We did successfully stay out till late enough to get in though, and now I'm suffering the consequences of a late night and a few too many rum and cokes.
All perfect preparation for what I've just done. I was wandering aimlessly about the streets (see most of the previous days of my life for similar activities) when I stumbled upon the Alliance Francaise, a world-wide group of zealots who are trying to spread the good name of GCSE-style French lessons across the globe. Needless to say I went in to check it out. Memories of French at Coleridge were still fresh in my mind like a rogue Tango in a Orangina despenser and I just had to take a swig.
The woman seemed remarkably keen to sign me up and was full of "what about next Monday? No? What about the Monday after that?" kind of talk familiar to desparate bachelors the globe over. Still, I did a test which was horribly reminiscent of my GCSE French exam where I forgot what the verb "to Have" was and had to just blather on about fruit and veg. It started easy and got really nasty by the end.
Stuff like this (all in French of course) -
Complete this sentence using the correct verbs and tenses:
If Julie had been born in the XVth Century ___________
If Pierre hadn't been two minutes late for the cinema ____________
etc etc.
Tough. Needless to say I bottled everything after about question 5 and just wrote pathetic excuses in French about how it was all too difficult.
Well, they're going to email me the results of my test at some point so we'll see what happens.
All this Alliance Francaise stuff and the crusade-like finding of nightlife is all really just to give me something to anchor me to this place. At the moment I still feel like I'm floating a bit. I heard this morning from my super-cool Canadian friend that she's going to stay in Toulouse for this year, and I'm thinking she's got a point. Still, Toulouse is relatively small and Bordeaux definitely has size on its side if nothing else. I'm going to try and find a choir. I think the town that can offer me the best choir is the one I'll marry.
Finding it is going to be tough though.
Rob
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
My new phone
Oh yeah,
I should probably say here as I'm currently running the risk of irritating people massively.
I've got a NEW PHONE NUMBER and IT'S A FRENCH ONE AND EVERYTHING!
This is very exciting for me. I have a +33 country code and a crazy number that starts with 06, and that you divide into groups of two instead of the classic 5-3-3 formation so beloved in england.
So here it is. Please use it to make me feel loved:
+33 (0) 6 70 40 41 56 (leave out the zero in brackets if calling from the UK)
or in our fave british format:
+33 (0) 670 404 156. Yeah bitches! It's shorter than an english mobile number. Prove if any were needed that you have to text it right now.
Love from,
Rob
I should probably say here as I'm currently running the risk of irritating people massively.
I've got a NEW PHONE NUMBER and IT'S A FRENCH ONE AND EVERYTHING!
This is very exciting for me. I have a +33 country code and a crazy number that starts with 06, and that you divide into groups of two instead of the classic 5-3-3 formation so beloved in england.
So here it is. Please use it to make me feel loved:
+33 (0) 6 70 40 41 56 (leave out the zero in brackets if calling from the UK)
or in our fave british format:
+33 (0) 670 404 156. Yeah bitches! It's shorter than an english mobile number. Prove if any were needed that you have to text it right now.
Love from,
Rob
First impressions of Bordeaux
Shit dude. I'm here. I made it.
According to my little pocket untearable waterproof tourist atlas of France, it's 480km from Toulouse to Bordeaux. I can tell you now that I felt every one.
It was a painful ride. My bag seemed to be filled with concrete and my shoulders ached from the strain of carrying it on the bike all day, not helped by the bouncy suspension on the oft-craggy D-roads of southern France.
On top of this it's been super-wierd getting back into my solitary mode of living. I've been sitting in restaurants hoplessly picturing my happy little group in Montpellier. Having fun sure does make being bored a lot harder.
On a similarly introspective note, my new home (for the next week or thereabouts) has a fabulous amount to live up to. As much as I may have said that Montpellier didn't match Toulouse for sheer atmosphere and generally coolitude, I did really enjoy and warm to the city and found some of the sweetest little places to drink dance and smoke sheesha in. This all makes it difficult for Bordeaux. Here are some first impressions:
According to my little pocket untearable waterproof tourist atlas of France, it's 480km from Toulouse to Bordeaux. I can tell you now that I felt every one.
It was a painful ride. My bag seemed to be filled with concrete and my shoulders ached from the strain of carrying it on the bike all day, not helped by the bouncy suspension on the oft-craggy D-roads of southern France.
On top of this it's been super-wierd getting back into my solitary mode of living. I've been sitting in restaurants hoplessly picturing my happy little group in Montpellier. Having fun sure does make being bored a lot harder.
On a similarly introspective note, my new home (for the next week or thereabouts) has a fabulous amount to live up to. As much as I may have said that Montpellier didn't match Toulouse for sheer atmosphere and generally coolitude, I did really enjoy and warm to the city and found some of the sweetest little places to drink dance and smoke sheesha in. This all makes it difficult for Bordeaux. Here are some first impressions:
- The hostel is large, and the man is scary and unfriendly. He seems pissed off to be there. My roommates don't speak any english (which i KNOW is a good thing, blah blah blah but it's nice to have an easy welcome to a new town and not have the stress of not having the faintest clue what someone is talking about even after the third repitition). The vending machine in the hall, when I asked for a delicious can of Orangina, gave me Orange Tango.
- Next to the hostel is what looks like an old defunct bingo hall (any of you who've ever been to the outskirts of Coventry will know the sort of thing I mean), populated by a large and hideous collection of ancient dudes who are professional piss artists and casual grafitti artists.
- I saw a whole, fresh, dead pidgeon on the piss-stained street just up from the Youth Hostel.
Still, I know what you're thinking (by which I mean: I know what I'm thinking, deep down). I've come to Bordeaux to see a real city. A real city ain't a real city without some good old city problems, and if grumpy receptionists, smelly tramps and a dead pidgeon aren't city problems then I'm fearful and scathing of those things that are. Can you tell I was brought up in leafy Cherry Hintonshire?
Ok, so. It's time to get out there into the real world, check out some deprivation, feel some shit, fight some motherfuckers if necessary, and earn myself the title of "one who knows Bordeaux a little".
Rock....
Friday, August 18, 2006
The genuine backpacker's existence
Christ, where am I? What am I doing here? Why does it feel like there's an angry whale pulsating in my head?
These aren't my questions of course, but the questions of a man who has woken up at 9, the kicking-out time of the hostel he's staying in, gnarled and gnarly after having gone to bed at four thirty pissed and happy. For the fourth consecutive time.
A man in fact very much like myself, earlier this morning.
Montpellier hostel, it turns out, has the same amount of life, sound people, drinking, smoking, talking, shouting and singing as the whole of the rest of southern France put together. It's been pretty wild. And very cool.
Life in the hostel has been a continuous stream of sad Au Revoirs and joyous Bonjours, a group of merry boozers constantly being ruptured and reformed by the ever moving tide of people coming and going. The reason I'm writing this now is because the last of the 'old guard' have finally moved on (by old guard I mean myself and anyone who arrived at the same time as or before me) and I'm left to wander the streets and wonder what went on all those hazy nights and what, if anything, it has all meant for the rest of my trip.
I still feel like Montpellier is too small for my plans. It's kind of a bit Cambridge-sized and everyone I've spoken to has told me in no uncertain terms that it's really hard to find work here. Still, it's made the rest of my journey same lame and monochrome which should kickstart me into demanding more from life and not settling for hanging out with either loser or, more likely, no-one but myself.
I suppose what I have learnt from having a week surrounded by cool people in a place I've come to consider my own, is that I need to settle down in a town as quickly as possible and get myself a job and a flat.
I also need to balance this against the need to choose my destination town correctly though.
Does this mean I should cut short my legendary moped journey, take the mighty steed back home and set out to genuinely seek my fortune, or should I continue on to Avignon, Marseille, Nice and maybe even Bordeaux in search of more fleeting fun and southern french knowledge.
At the moment I can't say, but it's important for me to remember that my time here in Montpellier has been made great by the people I've met (particularly notable are Hugh, Victoria from the Sheesha place, Mickael and the crazy German punks. The rest, you know who you are!) not by the city itself which is both horribly touristy and downright seedy in equal parts. Still though, the chefs of Montpellier sure make a fine kebab.
Speak soon,
love to all,
Rob
These aren't my questions of course, but the questions of a man who has woken up at 9, the kicking-out time of the hostel he's staying in, gnarled and gnarly after having gone to bed at four thirty pissed and happy. For the fourth consecutive time.
A man in fact very much like myself, earlier this morning.
Montpellier hostel, it turns out, has the same amount of life, sound people, drinking, smoking, talking, shouting and singing as the whole of the rest of southern France put together. It's been pretty wild. And very cool.
Life in the hostel has been a continuous stream of sad Au Revoirs and joyous Bonjours, a group of merry boozers constantly being ruptured and reformed by the ever moving tide of people coming and going. The reason I'm writing this now is because the last of the 'old guard' have finally moved on (by old guard I mean myself and anyone who arrived at the same time as or before me) and I'm left to wander the streets and wonder what went on all those hazy nights and what, if anything, it has all meant for the rest of my trip.
I still feel like Montpellier is too small for my plans. It's kind of a bit Cambridge-sized and everyone I've spoken to has told me in no uncertain terms that it's really hard to find work here. Still, it's made the rest of my journey same lame and monochrome which should kickstart me into demanding more from life and not settling for hanging out with either loser or, more likely, no-one but myself.
I suppose what I have learnt from having a week surrounded by cool people in a place I've come to consider my own, is that I need to settle down in a town as quickly as possible and get myself a job and a flat.
I also need to balance this against the need to choose my destination town correctly though.
Does this mean I should cut short my legendary moped journey, take the mighty steed back home and set out to genuinely seek my fortune, or should I continue on to Avignon, Marseille, Nice and maybe even Bordeaux in search of more fleeting fun and southern french knowledge.
At the moment I can't say, but it's important for me to remember that my time here in Montpellier has been made great by the people I've met (particularly notable are Hugh, Victoria from the Sheesha place, Mickael and the crazy German punks. The rest, you know who you are!) not by the city itself which is both horribly touristy and downright seedy in equal parts. Still though, the chefs of Montpellier sure make a fine kebab.
Speak soon,
love to all,
Rob
Monday, August 14, 2006
Montpellier: First experiences
Last night, after I left my vigilant post at blogger keeping everyone busy reading this drivel, I spent one of the strangest and most pleasant nights in a my whole trip.
After sleeping under the stars near the beach the previous night I felt ready for a night I felt good and ready for a comfy bed and a night in a proper town. I had also suffered the unpleasant side-effect not mentioned in Lonely Planet-style write-ups of sleeping outside: I had (and still have) mosquito bites all over the one thing that was left exposed to the elements: my face. I have three on my forehead, one on the bridge of my nose and a couple on my eyelids.
I'm not a pretty sight at the moment.
Still, I arrived in Montpellier in high spirits and followed signs for what I thought was the tourist office. I actually ended up being led to the parking for the tourist office which is a massive multi-storey entirely underground, and once you reach the barriers there's no turning back. So, I decided to manoeuvre the bike around the side of the barriers and get in. I left my bike there unlocked and without a ticket and headed out onto the main concourse, la Place de la Comedie (this turned out to be an extremely apt name as we shall learn later).
Following the previous night's lonely dining experience I was keen to get some food somewhere I wouldn't be the only person eating, and stumbling
upon a little courtyard just out of the centre, I discovered a pretty little place with some eating and, I was glad to notice, some cross-table chatting. The Mango Cafe turned out to be something of a delight, as I chatted to the Manager about his time in Thailand, which explained the Thai food on the menu (I had green curry. I was average. I guess the french palate isn't up to the spice). It also turned out that I was seated next to a couple of students from England who were nice but boring, but while I was speaking english to them it turned out that the waitress (pretty, sporty-looking, about 22) was also english. This turned out to be the first time that this many english people had ever been in the same place in Montpellier and was the source of much amazement. I got chatting to the waitress and she turned out to be really friendly and was telling me all about how she got a job and an appartment with her A-level french and gave me some good tips about getting established. She also gave me, much more importantly, her phone number and told me that she'd show me around the city on tuesday (tomorrow) and also invited me to be on her pub quiz team. Pub quiz! In Montpellier! You can imagine my delight...
After leaving the cafe I went, on the waitress's recommendation, to find a sheesha cafe which is apparently famed as being great. As it turned out, great was not the word. If I could design, from scratch, with as much budget and equipment as I needed and no regard to whether or not it would make money, I could not dream up a more perfect little place than the place I found myself in.
The beautiful girl behind the counter (who turned out to be Ukranian) invited me to take off my shoes and take a seat on one of the many leather cushions that lined three of the walls of the dark souk-like room. I ordered jasmine tea (what else!?) and a mint sheesha and these were cooked up and served with infallible style and pageantry. It was all very lovely. I got chatting to the girl and we talked all evening in french about proper stuff like music and festivals and living in France v. living in England or Spain.
I told her of my mobylette, hidden in the dark depths of the car park under the Place de la Comedie and she made a face and said that she thought it was pretty unsafe to leave it there (especially with the helmet right there on the handlebars) and told me of a place around the back of the pub she lived above which has a combination on the gate and where I could leave my bike. This sounded great so I paid and headed back to the car park. I found my mobylette there as I'd left it (I'd had my fingers crossed!) but when I lept on to start it it wouldn't go. Now regular readers of my blog may know that troubles starting this little machine are not uncommon and I thought the kickstart had packed up again. Knowing that the solution to a bike with no kickstart is to roll it down a hill, and being on the "top floor" of a deep subterranean car park I began rolling it down the ramps but to no avail. I was now on floor -4 which was dark and competely deserted and was nowhere nearer to starting my bike. I was in trouble (and out of breath from my efforts with the kickstarter). I headed upstairs to the security booth for help, mindful of the fact that didn't have a ticket for the car park as I'd entered illegally.
The guy appeared monumentally unimpressed with my tale of a broken moped but nonetheless followed me down to the -4th floor to inspect it. We had some midly humorous moments with him (late fourties, suited and booted) racing wildly down one of the ramps in an effort to get it started but the engine clearly wasn't firing. It was when he, in a last act of desperation, got down on his hands and knees to inspect the engine found the the cable connecting the timing with the spark plug was flying loose. It turned out that rather than nicking my bike which is what had been expected of the people of Montpellier someone had, in a hilarious prank, stolen a vital piece off the bike which made the engine fire. I was boned. Or was I? After a long haul up four sets of ramps the guy, who spoke no english at all, rootled around in his office for a long while before reimmerging with a paper clip and a much younger colleague who seemed to be saying that it didn't matter that the piece was missing. A lively debate followed in which the older security man invited the younger to try starting the machine as it was and much goading which I didn't follow. Anyway, following an heroic effort with a pair of pliers and this paper-clip, the older guy got the cable re-connected to the spark plug and stood back to admire his efforts. He gave the kickstart the mearest of tickles with his shoe and the engine lept into life. I was totally stunned. And incredibly thankful.
In a final stroke of luck the security booth was, for some reason, nowhere near the exit which was entirely unmanned and I was able to slip out the way I got in.
When I returned to the youth hostel after parking my bike in the Sheesha Cafe girl's courtyard and thanking her and her boyfriend for everything, I found the room in full swing with drinking and smoking and lots of lively chat in english. Me and the gay austrian catholics had been joined by two über-buff german beach dudes, an american guy, two dutch girls and an unidentified sleeping guy. All had brought sangria and beers and seemed to be having a great time. I, needless to say, joined in and didn't get to bed till late. Sweet.
Now to get some breakfast....
After sleeping under the stars near the beach the previous night I felt ready for a night I felt good and ready for a comfy bed and a night in a proper town. I had also suffered the unpleasant side-effect not mentioned in Lonely Planet-style write-ups of sleeping outside: I had (and still have) mosquito bites all over the one thing that was left exposed to the elements: my face. I have three on my forehead, one on the bridge of my nose and a couple on my eyelids.
I'm not a pretty sight at the moment.
Still, I arrived in Montpellier in high spirits and followed signs for what I thought was the tourist office. I actually ended up being led to the parking for the tourist office which is a massive multi-storey entirely underground, and once you reach the barriers there's no turning back. So, I decided to manoeuvre the bike around the side of the barriers and get in. I left my bike there unlocked and without a ticket and headed out onto the main concourse, la Place de la Comedie (this turned out to be an extremely apt name as we shall learn later).
Following the previous night's lonely dining experience I was keen to get some food somewhere I wouldn't be the only person eating, and stumbling
upon a little courtyard just out of the centre, I discovered a pretty little place with some eating and, I was glad to notice, some cross-table chatting. The Mango Cafe turned out to be something of a delight, as I chatted to the Manager about his time in Thailand, which explained the Thai food on the menu (I had green curry. I was average. I guess the french palate isn't up to the spice). It also turned out that I was seated next to a couple of students from England who were nice but boring, but while I was speaking english to them it turned out that the waitress (pretty, sporty-looking, about 22) was also english. This turned out to be the first time that this many english people had ever been in the same place in Montpellier and was the source of much amazement. I got chatting to the waitress and she turned out to be really friendly and was telling me all about how she got a job and an appartment with her A-level french and gave me some good tips about getting established. She also gave me, much more importantly, her phone number and told me that she'd show me around the city on tuesday (tomorrow) and also invited me to be on her pub quiz team. Pub quiz! In Montpellier! You can imagine my delight...After leaving the cafe I went, on the waitress's recommendation, to find a sheesha cafe which is apparently famed as being great. As it turned out, great was not the word. If I could design, from scratch, with as much budget and equipment as I needed and no regard to whether or not it would make money, I could not dream up a more perfect little place than the place I found myself in.
The beautiful girl behind the counter (who turned out to be Ukranian) invited me to take off my shoes and take a seat on one of the many leather cushions that lined three of the walls of the dark souk-like room. I ordered jasmine tea (what else!?) and a mint sheesha and these were cooked up and served with infallible style and pageantry. It was all very lovely. I got chatting to the girl and we talked all evening in french about proper stuff like music and festivals and living in France v. living in England or Spain.
I told her of my mobylette, hidden in the dark depths of the car park under the Place de la Comedie and she made a face and said that she thought it was pretty unsafe to leave it there (especially with the helmet right there on the handlebars) and told me of a place around the back of the pub she lived above which has a combination on the gate and where I could leave my bike. This sounded great so I paid and headed back to the car park. I found my mobylette there as I'd left it (I'd had my fingers crossed!) but when I lept on to start it it wouldn't go. Now regular readers of my blog may know that troubles starting this little machine are not uncommon and I thought the kickstart had packed up again. Knowing that the solution to a bike with no kickstart is to roll it down a hill, and being on the "top floor" of a deep subterranean car park I began rolling it down the ramps but to no avail. I was now on floor -4 which was dark and competely deserted and was nowhere nearer to starting my bike. I was in trouble (and out of breath from my efforts with the kickstarter). I headed upstairs to the security booth for help, mindful of the fact that didn't have a ticket for the car park as I'd entered illegally.
The guy appeared monumentally unimpressed with my tale of a broken moped but nonetheless followed me down to the -4th floor to inspect it. We had some midly humorous moments with him (late fourties, suited and booted) racing wildly down one of the ramps in an effort to get it started but the engine clearly wasn't firing. It was when he, in a last act of desperation, got down on his hands and knees to inspect the engine found the the cable connecting the timing with the spark plug was flying loose. It turned out that rather than nicking my bike which is what had been expected of the people of Montpellier someone had, in a hilarious prank, stolen a vital piece off the bike which made the engine fire. I was boned. Or was I? After a long haul up four sets of ramps the guy, who spoke no english at all, rootled around in his office for a long while before reimmerging with a paper clip and a much younger colleague who seemed to be saying that it didn't matter that the piece was missing. A lively debate followed in which the older security man invited the younger to try starting the machine as it was and much goading which I didn't follow. Anyway, following an heroic effort with a pair of pliers and this paper-clip, the older guy got the cable re-connected to the spark plug and stood back to admire his efforts. He gave the kickstart the mearest of tickles with his shoe and the engine lept into life. I was totally stunned. And incredibly thankful.
In a final stroke of luck the security booth was, for some reason, nowhere near the exit which was entirely unmanned and I was able to slip out the way I got in.
When I returned to the youth hostel after parking my bike in the Sheesha Cafe girl's courtyard and thanking her and her boyfriend for everything, I found the room in full swing with drinking and smoking and lots of lively chat in english. Me and the gay austrian catholics had been joined by two über-buff german beach dudes, an american guy, two dutch girls and an unidentified sleeping guy. All had brought sangria and beers and seemed to be having a great time. I, needless to say, joined in and didn't get to bed till late. Sweet.
Now to get some breakfast....
Sunday, August 13, 2006
A few general points about my plans
This post is just an update on what I'm actually planning to do, following the bit of soul-searching from earlier on.
Given the state of the middle-east at the moment, and the heartfelt advice from quite a few of my friends and readers, I've decided not to go to Israel this year.
I'm going to set up camp in the South of France (or possibly Barcelona) and try and get a job.
My general trek around the country has turned into a reconnaissance mission to find my future hometown. I have Toulouse, Montpellier, Avignon and Marseille amongst my top few.
Comments and emails about experiences in any of these places would be lovely. Thanks all.
Rob x x x
Given the state of the middle-east at the moment, and the heartfelt advice from quite a few of my friends and readers, I've decided not to go to Israel this year.
I'm going to set up camp in the South of France (or possibly Barcelona) and try and get a job.
My general trek around the country has turned into a reconnaissance mission to find my future hometown. I have Toulouse, Montpellier, Avignon and Marseille amongst my top few.
Comments and emails about experiences in any of these places would be lovely. Thanks all.
Rob x x x
Things go a bit wrong....
Toulouse, being a city-paradise of lovely people, wonderful architecture and great restaurants seems like a distant dream at the moment. My departure from Toulouse was punished by the gods by a rapid downturn in my fortunes.
Downturn in fortune 1:
Around 35km out of Toulouse; I was cruising along with a light heart and a feeling of indestructibility. I get a sudden brainflash: "Imagine what people in America would think about a man jetting around the south of France on a moped. It must seem so exotic to them!" which generally expanded to: "Imagine what anyone would think if they could see me now. Those with jobs, kids, urban deprivation issues, rising damp, falling stocks, problems of the heart, problems with their heart etc etc. I'm riding through the sunshine surrounded by extraordinary natural beauty without a care in the world. Sweet!"....
It was as I thought these thoughts that, with a severe jolt that made me think I was going to come off the moped and meet the tarmac, my drive belt snapped, sending bits of old rope and rubber scattering across the road. I pulled over in a cold sweat.
After some initial amateur attempts to repair my moped I saw that there was no way this beast was going anywhere until it got to a garage. I was 35 km from Toulouse and god-knows-how-far from the nearest habitation along the road ahead of me. I didn't cry.
I wheeled my lame duck along the road for a while until I spotted an ancient looking farm house that appeared to be uninhabited/uinhabitable. I freewheeled down the dirt track off the main road and was soon greeted by a very excited looking dog. The dog was followed by a woman in a car who, when I attempted to speak to her said "Parlez avec la madame" and waved me onwards towards the decrepit establishment.
There, amongst a host of chickens, ducks and ancient farmyard equipment sat an old lady of around 90 busily sunning herself and doing nothing. I explained my situation as best I could and asked if I could leave my mobylette there while I tried to get help (my French is sort of becoming usable!). I was greeted with an animated string of what sounded for all the world like grizzled Italian, spoken and full pace and with a face of what appeared to be disgust. I later realised that this must be the much-fabled, little-heard language of Occitane (an aside: I am currently in an area called Langue D'Oc, or language of Oc. This language is Occitane and the street signs are doubled in French and it. My contacts have told me that it is spoken by no-one, but perhaps there is a hidden, ancient generation of speakers).
Through a difficult series of hand gestures and total guess work I left my mobylette on the side of an old hay barn and made a rapid exit back onto the road to try my hand at some hitch-hiking. This proved suprisingly easy and fun and I got three lifts, first with a young IT consultant who spoke good English and took me all the way to the MBK garage in Castres (via a toy shop to buy a pokemon toy for his girlfriend!), second with an arabic French guy who talked to me about American politics, rolled me a cigarette and insisting on me taking a scrumpled old €5 note which he pressed into my hand as I got out the car after the lift, and finally a couple who were on their way to Labastide Rouairoux (the location of the llama farm) and took me all the way to the door. So within three hours of breaking down in the middle of nowhere I was back "home" with the English family and the llamas.
Downturn in fortune 2:
When I settled down with all my stuff and started telling this tale of woe, I noticed that of the shoes that I had strapped to the sides of my bag for the wearing of flip-flops, only one remained. I had lost one of my shoes somewhere during the hiking process. This constitutes a loss of around 5% of my total wordly possessions at the moment and was a bit of a blow.
It turned out that Graham and Renée had left a while back and they had a new helper, also an Australian, who seemed a little slow and dippy, but was reasonably hot. This proved too much for my fragile on-the-road body and I propositioned her one morning in an out-of-character brash style. She told me that she was bored and had nothing to do and I said that we should go up to her room and "fool around" for a while. She seemed to not understand what I was saying so I elaborated a little. This seem to come as quite a shock to her, and before we had a chance to resolve our differences of opinion as to whether or not this would be an acceptable way of passing half an hour or so, the 4-year-old burst in and told us she was making chocolate coins. This incident was not mentioned again for the two days I was there.
I managed to hire a hand who had a 4x4 to pick up the bike (where it had remained in the dodgy old farm. I assumed they would have either sold the parts for scrap or attempted to eat it somehow) and take it to the garage,and within 24 hours I was back on the road with a new drive belt, a new back brake, various adjusted bits and bobs and a brand new and exciting rear-view mirror thing stuck on the handlebars. A return to king of the world-dom.
Downturn in fortune 3:
Little did I realise as I got on the road for Agde, a little town on the coast on my way to Montpellier, that the massive (I mean unbelievably massive) amount of traffic queuing along all the major routes in the area that I merrily undertook along the hard shoulder was no normal amount of traffic. This was something else. This was "The 15th of August".
Apparently Le Quinze Aout is a famous thing in France where half the population are ending their holidays in the campsites, hotels, auberges and, in some desparate cases, roadsides of the south of France and the other half are arriving. It was gridlock in all directions.
This meant that when I arrived in Agde, all the hotels were complet (full) as were all the campsites and hostels and restaurants and roads in the area. I was screwed. I drove around on the bike looking for a place and accidentally stumbled onto the beach at around sunset. I had had no idea I was near the sea and it took me completely by surprise.
I managed to convince the old monsieur at a tiny campsite just of the beach to allow me to put a sleeping bag down on the grass near the toilets. He agreed in jovial fashion and then told me it was 14 euro 50 for the night (the price of a two-person camping place). I thought this was a bit rich and thought about sleeping on the beach but I had no water with me andI didn't fancy being washed away so I plumped for the costly spot of earth under the stars. I headed back into town for the loneliest one-man meal in the history of the world, while France celebrated and holidayed with their friends and family. Low point. On the plus side there was a live blues band playing and a crazy man doing the twist in a really sleazy wierd way, so I got to listen to awful covers of Stand By Me and Cocaine.
Downturn in fortune 4:
The skin on the sole of my foot has become so dry and hard from all the walking and mopedding with flip-flops on, that I have developed a massive fault-line in the ball of my foot that has split the land surrounding it all the way down to the core, and threatens to offer up lava-flows of blood every time I walk on it. Very painful. And I have no shoes.
Still, I'm here in Montpellier have have a bed in a very comfy and busy youth hostel just out the centre, where I'm sharing with, amongst others, a couple of gay catholic Austrians who seem very friendly (I'm not sure if they are actually gay, but they're camp in a way only German speakers can be. They have openly admitted to being catholic) and I've chatted to a nice Columbian girl already so things seem to be going my way a little. I have vowed to myself that I'm never going into the countryside again.
p.s. sorry no snaps this time. Forgot to bring my camera to the cyber-cafe. I've got some good'uns to show y'all.
Downturn in fortune 1:
Around 35km out of Toulouse; I was cruising along with a light heart and a feeling of indestructibility. I get a sudden brainflash: "Imagine what people in America would think about a man jetting around the south of France on a moped. It must seem so exotic to them!" which generally expanded to: "Imagine what anyone would think if they could see me now. Those with jobs, kids, urban deprivation issues, rising damp, falling stocks, problems of the heart, problems with their heart etc etc. I'm riding through the sunshine surrounded by extraordinary natural beauty without a care in the world. Sweet!"....
It was as I thought these thoughts that, with a severe jolt that made me think I was going to come off the moped and meet the tarmac, my drive belt snapped, sending bits of old rope and rubber scattering across the road. I pulled over in a cold sweat.
After some initial amateur attempts to repair my moped I saw that there was no way this beast was going anywhere until it got to a garage. I was 35 km from Toulouse and god-knows-how-far from the nearest habitation along the road ahead of me. I didn't cry.
I wheeled my lame duck along the road for a while until I spotted an ancient looking farm house that appeared to be uninhabited/uinhabitable. I freewheeled down the dirt track off the main road and was soon greeted by a very excited looking dog. The dog was followed by a woman in a car who, when I attempted to speak to her said "Parlez avec la madame" and waved me onwards towards the decrepit establishment.
There, amongst a host of chickens, ducks and ancient farmyard equipment sat an old lady of around 90 busily sunning herself and doing nothing. I explained my situation as best I could and asked if I could leave my mobylette there while I tried to get help (my French is sort of becoming usable!). I was greeted with an animated string of what sounded for all the world like grizzled Italian, spoken and full pace and with a face of what appeared to be disgust. I later realised that this must be the much-fabled, little-heard language of Occitane (an aside: I am currently in an area called Langue D'Oc, or language of Oc. This language is Occitane and the street signs are doubled in French and it. My contacts have told me that it is spoken by no-one, but perhaps there is a hidden, ancient generation of speakers).
Through a difficult series of hand gestures and total guess work I left my mobylette on the side of an old hay barn and made a rapid exit back onto the road to try my hand at some hitch-hiking. This proved suprisingly easy and fun and I got three lifts, first with a young IT consultant who spoke good English and took me all the way to the MBK garage in Castres (via a toy shop to buy a pokemon toy for his girlfriend!), second with an arabic French guy who talked to me about American politics, rolled me a cigarette and insisting on me taking a scrumpled old €5 note which he pressed into my hand as I got out the car after the lift, and finally a couple who were on their way to Labastide Rouairoux (the location of the llama farm) and took me all the way to the door. So within three hours of breaking down in the middle of nowhere I was back "home" with the English family and the llamas.
Downturn in fortune 2:
When I settled down with all my stuff and started telling this tale of woe, I noticed that of the shoes that I had strapped to the sides of my bag for the wearing of flip-flops, only one remained. I had lost one of my shoes somewhere during the hiking process. This constitutes a loss of around 5% of my total wordly possessions at the moment and was a bit of a blow.
It turned out that Graham and Renée had left a while back and they had a new helper, also an Australian, who seemed a little slow and dippy, but was reasonably hot. This proved too much for my fragile on-the-road body and I propositioned her one morning in an out-of-character brash style. She told me that she was bored and had nothing to do and I said that we should go up to her room and "fool around" for a while. She seemed to not understand what I was saying so I elaborated a little. This seem to come as quite a shock to her, and before we had a chance to resolve our differences of opinion as to whether or not this would be an acceptable way of passing half an hour or so, the 4-year-old burst in and told us she was making chocolate coins. This incident was not mentioned again for the two days I was there.
I managed to hire a hand who had a 4x4 to pick up the bike (where it had remained in the dodgy old farm. I assumed they would have either sold the parts for scrap or attempted to eat it somehow) and take it to the garage,and within 24 hours I was back on the road with a new drive belt, a new back brake, various adjusted bits and bobs and a brand new and exciting rear-view mirror thing stuck on the handlebars. A return to king of the world-dom.
Downturn in fortune 3:
Little did I realise as I got on the road for Agde, a little town on the coast on my way to Montpellier, that the massive (I mean unbelievably massive) amount of traffic queuing along all the major routes in the area that I merrily undertook along the hard shoulder was no normal amount of traffic. This was something else. This was "The 15th of August".
Apparently Le Quinze Aout is a famous thing in France where half the population are ending their holidays in the campsites, hotels, auberges and, in some desparate cases, roadsides of the south of France and the other half are arriving. It was gridlock in all directions.
This meant that when I arrived in Agde, all the hotels were complet (full) as were all the campsites and hostels and restaurants and roads in the area. I was screwed. I drove around on the bike looking for a place and accidentally stumbled onto the beach at around sunset. I had had no idea I was near the sea and it took me completely by surprise.
I managed to convince the old monsieur at a tiny campsite just of the beach to allow me to put a sleeping bag down on the grass near the toilets. He agreed in jovial fashion and then told me it was 14 euro 50 for the night (the price of a two-person camping place). I thought this was a bit rich and thought about sleeping on the beach but I had no water with me andI didn't fancy being washed away so I plumped for the costly spot of earth under the stars. I headed back into town for the loneliest one-man meal in the history of the world, while France celebrated and holidayed with their friends and family. Low point. On the plus side there was a live blues band playing and a crazy man doing the twist in a really sleazy wierd way, so I got to listen to awful covers of Stand By Me and Cocaine.
Downturn in fortune 4:
The skin on the sole of my foot has become so dry and hard from all the walking and mopedding with flip-flops on, that I have developed a massive fault-line in the ball of my foot that has split the land surrounding it all the way down to the core, and threatens to offer up lava-flows of blood every time I walk on it. Very painful. And I have no shoes.
Still, I'm here in Montpellier have have a bed in a very comfy and busy youth hostel just out the centre, where I'm sharing with, amongst others, a couple of gay catholic Austrians who seem very friendly (I'm not sure if they are actually gay, but they're camp in a way only German speakers can be. They have openly admitted to being catholic) and I've chatted to a nice Columbian girl already so things seem to be going my way a little. I have vowed to myself that I'm never going into the countryside again.
p.s. sorry no snaps this time. Forgot to bring my camera to the cyber-cafe. I've got some good'uns to show y'all.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Toulouse
Helen and Jonny in the classic Toulouse PoseOk, that's enough of my pyschological breakdown for now. Where am I?
Well, I finished up in Labastide and said a fond(ish) fairwell to my crazy host family and agreed to meet up with the wonderful Australians in Avignon if possible.
I lept aboard my trust mobylette and jetted in a mere four hours to Toulouse where I met the delightful Waterhouse and her old university friend Jonny who has lived here for two years working (as virtually every english person here does) at Airbus.
We had a fairly glorious few days of relaxation in the time Helen was here and she departed early this morning with a traditional Levy send-off of one eye open and a vaguely groaned "see yer...". In the intervening time we've sat in some fabulous spots with drinks, eat in some magically delicious restaurants and swum in a super-sized municipal pool. A few photographic highlights follow below:
Helen on Jonny's balcony
Us hanging out in a bar
A truely beautiful little restaurant called "Seventh Heaven"
Helen and Jonny framed by the Pont Neuf
The merry cyclists
An unfortunately named Toulousian boutique
Some mouth-wateringly beautiful (and typical) architecture
A snap of the single most charming object ever to appear in a park. It's an incredibly beautiful and complex carousel
Toulouse has proved itself to be a truely beautiful city (as opposed to one of those places where the cameras have to be strategically placed to capture the few impressive sights whilst obscuring the drudgery- London and Cambridge spring to mind) and one that is absolutely soaked with young happy and relaxed people having a good time and generally staying out of each other's way. I've never seen such a harmonious co-existence of a large population (outside of a uni campus). A walk along the river sees groups of teenagers drinking, people playing guitar or bongos, lovers having a leisurely snog and strollers of all ages enjoying the same space of earth without having to claim the territory as their own. We Brits could learn a lot from these people.
Virtually every café and restaurant (and there are hundreds, each one a little bijou one-off that would make Londoners weep with joy) is ram-packed from around 7 to about mignight with merry eaters and drinkers and the buskers who sometimes roam amongst them have their families with them, and seem genuinely well received as valid entertainment. It's beautiful.
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