Provencal Views

Sorry about the hiatus. I'll try to pump out some massive blogging. One of the less interesting stories is about searching for wifi spots to get gobs of work done, because, as some of you know, we rely on our Dell for phone as well as web and email. Essentially, the publication I'm writing for has me doing product reviews, which requires being on two 1.5-2 hour calls every evening, Mon-Thu., until Dec. 22, and then writing them at some point. I'm writing this right now, in between two Friday calls for a separate article. It's a hassle, causes the blog and the sightseeing to suffer, but it's great to be able to almost finance all our travels, so I won't complain. In fact, I'll rejoice! Yay! I'm kinda doing this stream of consciousness, hope it's not boring.

Chambery, after Rome, was a bust. It's mostly my fault. We chose Chambery because it'd make a good 2-day, Alpine stopover between Rome and Provence. So, we booked our hotel while in Rome. Staying in Italy, we had been able to miss the concurrent strikes of historical length going on in France and Germany. We did not, however, miss Black Friday, the one-day Italy transit system walkout, the first in a quarter-century. Trenitalia had been emboldened by its neighbors on tracks up north, and with the support of slacking cabbies, voted to throw the country into chaos. Not that it mattered to us, we just canceled our first of two nights in Chambery and Lisa let us stay another night in her apartment (see Rome post).

So, we left to Chambery, set to only see it for a few hours at night before heading to Provence.

The problem is I screwed up the directions on Google maps. I popped in the hotel's number and street, got the address, and we walked the mile from the train station to 66 Place de la Republique, only to learn from an excruciating halfhour of idoitic detective work that we were in the wrong town, that we needed to be at 66 Place de la Republique in the neighboring town in a hotel off the side of the expressway advertising itself as in Chambery. So, we paid the cab-fare and went to this pod of land containing the hotel and its parking lot, no food.

Tourist tip: don't do what we did.

We ate vending machine that night. Not the machine itself, actually, just some of its contents. If you think of this as the first night that we really "roughed it," it isn't so bad, but I had an awful stomach ache from excessive synthetic shortbread consumption (It was forty percent of my five course meal: two bags of potato chips, the two instances of the shortbread, and a chocolate bar. Annalise opted for the two-course prix fixe: bag of chips, some peanut M&M's).

We took another cab to the early morning train to Marseille. It was cold, and my stomach was being raked by bacteria from overly processed food. In Marseille, we took a bus to the small town of St. Maximin, to be transported by the co-owner of a B&B to an even tinier town called Bras. (French for "arm.")

I feel we're going to not do our time in Provence justice here in the blog: please know it was the best hotel/B&B we stayed at, but, going back to the subject opening this post, we really just wanted to relax from travel and to get work done. The two guys who owned the place were amazing, and the surrounding scenery was gorgeous and has subsequently added to our appreciation of van Gogh landscapes. Harald, the co-owner who picked us up, took us on a couple day trips, talked with us for hours over breakfast about European politics, let us buy stuff from his private fridge and cellar without mark-up, and waited with us for the bus when we left. He helped us with everything, and we hung out with him a good deal, forgetting that we were his customers. If you ever visit France, you'll probably go to Paris, but consider renting a car and staying at Fleur-du-cap instead. This way, you can relax, meet Harald and Joel, and see the Riviera, Nice, Avignon, Marseille, Verdun Canyon, Arles. In the same way that a professor makes or breaks a class, or a boss makes a job manageable or hell, the hotel you choose plays no small role in your travel experience. Harald and Joel and their Bed and Breakfast are, without a doubt, as good as they come.

Anyway, our stories from there aren't particularly remarkable. I got nervous I may have clogged the septic tank with Kleenex, and for that reason was glad to leave. There was also a small terrier in town that terrorized me, walking alongside my ankles barking hate. Everything was closed all the time, so we stayed in to break from the blur of sights, to be able to appreciate the upcoming ones more. In this respect, the trip was a total success.

By the way, I'd like to address the topic of my coat. My coat has suffered so much wind and rain the past ten years, and in the thirty years or so when it was Jeff's. But never has it been dealt the abuse that Annalise, and my family in general, has heaped upon it. I'm laying it out there now. What has my coat done to you? It has kept me sufficiently warm for five years at Carleton. What do you care if I wear it? How is this your business? Year in, year out, the criticism of my coat never stops, and Annalise is the worst. She says even a homeless man would reject it. I think even a homeless man would reject her, to protect the inner lining of his pysche. Anyone criticizing my jacket, I'll tell you what, your heart is like the neck part of my jacket: black from so much filth. Now that it's zipper's broke, I think I'll need to replace it, and I'll miss it much.

Anyway, we left Provence replenished from amazing croissants, coffee and company.

Pictures.