An American Girl in Avignon

May 29th
Again, I apologize for the delayed entries, but I have a life to live! I have been back in the good old US of A for a week now, and although this will not have the same effect as it would have if I had posted overseas, I wanted to finish recording my crazy European spring - even if it meant waiting until I got home to update. Well, here it is: my last few weeks in France! We’ll just pretend I was writing it at the time for all intensive purposes: :)
Tomorrow night I am going to the group of twenty’s last excursion in Marseille, a city conveniently situated next to the Mediterranean and the setting of all of the books we have been reading in class. Also famous for its soap and soccer (football) team, Marseille was guaranteed to be everyone’s favorite trip together. Save the best for last.
But of course, when one is France, plans change and random things happen all of the time. It’s uncontrollable, unexplainable, yet oh so enjoyable. Whether wise or not, we decided to go out and celebrate that we had to be on the bus early in the morning (I am kidding), by going to the opening of a new Pirate-themed shooter joint in town. The newly opened Avignon hotspot was appropriately situated in-between the two shady snack kebabs wedged in the wall by that infamous Barcelona bus station. In order to even get there, you have to be coat checked before walking up a set of non-working escalators next to the hangout joint of the poster kids for Avignon’s most-wanted. Oh, France…
Most of our group of twenty was there to try out the hangout that boasted flavors ranging from apple vanilla, to caramel, mango, and my favorite, coffee, of course! The newspaper’s front page feature item also boasted martinis. Since I was feeling a little adventurous, this was pirate-themed, I decided to order a caramel brûlée, without knowing what it was. Although I knew that the word “brûlée” is “burnt” in French, I had no clue that they were going to light my beverage on fire! The worker torched the thing! Was I really supposed to drink that? Sakinah and I, no questions asked, downed them at a lightning-fast speed through a straw! I was worried about it burning my mouth, but it tasted just like crème brûlée: warm and smooth going down your throat. Surprisingly, no after-math burning effect.
Not wanting our night to end, Sakinah called our French friend Thomas, and we decided to meet up with him and his Australian friend Chris at the Irish pub at the Rue de la Republique.
When we arrived, I could not believe how wild it was!!! I had never seen O’Neill’s this crazy in my two month stay. There were guys dancing – sans pants – on the counter and people doing the wave while watching soccer. There was also a mini-mosh pit, to which Rachel said, “Well, since I haven’t done anything crazy at O’Neill’s for a while...” proceeded to jump in.
Not wanting to be left out. Sakinah and I sat on the floor in this train of a mosh-pit-on the ground (I guess that is how the French people do it.) Basically, you line up back to back and pass the person over your head. It was insane! The whole time I was thinking, “What am I doing with my life right now? What is going on?” Sometimes, it’s better not to ask or know. I NEVER know what is going on in France (at least with what we are doing at night), and I just stopped caring and asking questions, and just go with it!
Anyway, so in the midst of the wild mosh pit-diving, male boxer-bar dancing atmosphere, Sakinah and I were having a great time with Thomas and his Australian friend just talking, well, more like shouting, over the music. Since Thomas studied abroad in Australia for a year, his English was excellent, and he even helped us with our French. Funny story how exactly Sakinah met him, but I will just keep that information confidential.
To make a long story short, we all had a really good time, and although we wished we could have stayed out longer, we went back to our house to attempt to get some sleep before our weekend in Marseille. I just ended up taking a shower at some early hour of the morning before crashing to bed. This is about the time I remembered that we were going HIKING for half of the day. I predict a disaster coming along…oh, and we still had to go to the supermarket at 7 in the morning and buy lunch for the day. Lovely.
Okay so, continued disaster: it is 3:30 in the morning. My phone is mysteriously MIA. I can’t see anything because in order to do that, I would have to turn on the light, and therefore wake up a soundly sleeping Martine who would then proceed to be very, very angry with me. How on Earth was I going to get up after a night of no sleep, and no alarm? Oh mon Dieu. I searched through Sakinah and Katie’s room in the pitch black darkness for my phone without success. I prayed to God that by some miracle I would wake up in the morning without an alarm clock. (It wouldn’t be until the next morning that I found my missing phone on the desk. Martine had moved it because MLC (Monsieur le Chat…Mr. Cat) had been trying to chew on it all afternoon.) I am a firm believer in miracles, because only God himself could have allowed me to wake up the next morning. Which, I did.