The End of All Things (in France)

I remember the first blog update of this trip, all those days ago. I was sitting in Los Angeles International Airport, waiting for my flight to Paris. I guess everything does in fact come full circle, because I just got of my flight from Paris and now I’m waiting in LAX.

Now get the hell out.

The last few days have been such a blur, it’s hard for me to keep track that I’m no longer in France. I tried to check in my bags at the Southwest Airline counter, and I greeted the guy behind the counter with a smile and a “bonjour, monsieur.” He looked at me like I’m a crazy man (he’s probably not too far off).

So, since Orange, I’ve been traveling. I ended up having to take a horrible detour of a train ride to Marseille before heading home to Pau. So that added an extra 2 hours to a six hour train ride (was that Monday, or Tuesday? I’m not sure). Then, the train stopped on the tracks for a 45 minute delay, bringing the total train ride up to about 9 hours. Then, because of the delay, I had to catch a later train from Toulouse to Pau, which was the one that went the long way around, so the entire trip took 10 hours instead of 4.

When I returned to Pau with my 50lb duffel bag and my 30lb backpack, the busses weren’t running, so I got to hike the 2 miles to my hotel lugging all of that stuff. From the hotel I went back to see Stephanie and retrieve my second suitcase, and by the time I actually got settled into my hotel room for the night, it was already 1am.

That’s when I got the email that said my flight was not in fact at 11am the next morning, but at 7am, which meant I had to be at the airport around 5. So I resolved to stay up the extra couple of hours. Then, I realized there were no busses running that early in the morning, so I resolved to take a taxi. Then, I realized that the phone in my hotel room didn’t let me dial out to the taxi company, so I resolved to find a payphone. Then, I found out that there is no such thing in France as a payphone that doesn’t require a calling card, so I resolved to bash my head against a wall and see which would dent first (the wall, if you were wondering).

I was finally saved by my panic-stricken family and my cool-thinking cousin Sarah, who booked me a taxi from my hotel to the airport, all from the comfort of New York. So, now the ordeal of me trying to come home has become an international incident. Great.

Apart from the schedule change, the flights on Air France went off without a hitch. Well, okay, I had this stinky, weak-bladdered, no respect for personal space-type Frenchman sitting in the seat next to me all the way to Los Angeles. So that was pretty miserable. And the food on the plane was awful, except for a small dish of lamb and mashed potatoes (at least, I tell myself it was lamb and mashed potatoes, it really could have been anything). So my last real meal was McDonald’s for lunch in Marseille, which I believe was somewhere around 2:00 on the 20^th. I’m starving.

So naturally I wanted to check in my bags at Southwest and head up to the food court to grab a meal. But see, here’s the catch… I can’t check in my bags until 4 hours before my flight, so now I’m waiting for an hour and a half, and for some reason there’s no food until after you head through security. What the hell, LAX? Oh yeah, and about the lack of sleep. I’ve been lacking in the R&R department since Orange.

So by the time I get home at midnight tonight, my family’s probably going to be welcoming in an empty husk of what used to be Shelby. But, by then I’ll have internet, so if I’m still alive, I’ll probably post this and check in with Stephanie, who’s now alone in France for the holidays. Having been on my own for so much of this trip, I know how much that sucks. And she doesn’t even have awesome travel experiences to distract her, she’s stuck in Pau. And at this point I’m just rambling on to distract myself from the thought of food, so I’ll show some self-restraint and sign off for the day. See you all real soon!

UPDATE: Fantastic news everyone! My flight from LAX to Sacramento has been delayed, probably by an hour, but no one really knows for sure. I’ve not slept in forever! I want to cry!

It's My Party.

So what else is there to do on my last day in France (you know, home to everything medieval), than check out some Roman ruins? I’m in Orange, it’s my birthday, and tomorrow I start the long process of travelling home. But first, the Roman stuff.

But first this ass I ran into while in town.

There are only three Roman theatres in the world that still have their theatre wall (or backdrop) intact. One’s in Turkey, one’s in Syria, and the third… Orange you glad I didn’t say Italy? The city of Orange is lucky enough to boast the only “complete” Roman theatre in the West, which makes this city pretty unique.

I went to Rome and Pompeii, and I saw a lot of ruins, but I didn’t see a real, full-sized theater. Until now. And this thing is huge. The theatre, at its height, managed to hold 10,000 spectators, which likely outnumbered the actual population of the city.

We're going to throw you a play, and the WHOLE COUNTY'S invited!

The theatre survived mostly intact the barbarian invasion, and during the middle ages it became the site of a small slum of about 40 homes. In the mid-1800s, the government decided to begin restoring the theatre, and since then it has become world-renowned as a location for operas, plays, and concerts.

And a nasty nose-bleed section.

 The other Roman ruin in town is a triumphal arch. It was built by the 2^nd Gallic Legion to commemorate the general Germanicus (if I remember correctly, that’s Caligula’s dad), but was later re-dedicated to the emperor Titus.

Who cares if it was dedicated to the memory of someone else, it says TITUS now!

 So I guess that’s it. That’s the end of my grand tour of France. I’ll likely give a couple of updates on my travels home and how the family’s doing, but you’re not getting any more grand tales of discovery. Or are you…?

...on y danse, on y danse.

I woke up around 9:30 (which is amazing considering I was up watching TV [I can watch TV at this hotel!] until 3:00 and I have no alarm) and headed out into the city. I decided not to bring my coat, since it was a beautiful, sunny morning. I forgot to account for Le mistral, which is what the locals in Provence call the daily winds that blow down off of the Alps and into the Rhône valley. Today’s winds were pretty mild considering what le mistral could be. It is quite common to have 70mph gusts of freezing, icy winds. So anyway, I froze for the first half of the day. But besides that, this city is fantastic. It was so busy today that I forgot it was Sunday. If I ever decide to live in France, it will be in this city.

 I headed to the palais des papes, which is exactly what it sounds like. We’re about to head into history territory here, so bear with me. In 1305, the civil war in Rome between the Guelphs and the Gibellines resulted in the election of a French pope, who was called Clement V. Given the whole civil war thing going on in Italy, Clement started looking for a non-civil war ridden locale to move his curia to.

 In 1307, the king of France, Philip le Bel (a real bastard, as you’ll soon find out) arrested all of the Knights Templar in France. Since Clement was fond of the Templars (they did answer to the Pope after all), he decided to intervene and was finally forced to move to Avignon. At the time, Avignon wasn’t part of France, as Provence was pretty independent. The Papacy would end up staying in Avignon until 1417 in what is referred to as the “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy.” It would later be called “The Great Schism” when those naughty Italians elected their own extra pope, and the Germans, not to be outdone, followed suit and elected a third pope.

 So anyway, with so many new residents in Avignon (the Pope had his massive entourage which needed to live with him, and most of his entourage had their own entourages as well), Clement’s successors began the construction of a papal palace/fortress. Construction started in 1338 (just after those pesky French got distracted by the Hundred Years’ War), and continued being built by successive popes over the next twenty years.

 When you think about it, the speed at which the complex grew is mind-boggling. It’s bigger than most cathedrals and castles, which often took somewhere in the range of 50 to sixty years to complete. The palace is actually the largest gothic palace in the world, and it is pretty amazing.

Also, aside from the Hundred Years’ War causing construction problems, Avignon also suffered from a pesky little illness called the Black Death during the construction. Which reminds me of an entertaining anecdote: during the middle ages leading up to the Black Death, Avignon was so overcrowded and polluted that there were at least a dozen streets named after merde, which is the French word for “shit.”

So then I headed off to church. Notre Dame-des-Doms is a small church, but it packs a punch. It’s very colorful inside with a ton of sculptures and other great things to look at. But like I said, it’s small, and I don’t know much about it, so we’ll move on.

I headed back to my hotel room for a brief respite and to retrieve my jacket before walking to the next town over. I crossed over the Rhône in search of the Philip le Bel tower. And here’s the story of that: Avignon has this great bridge, called the St. Bezenet Bridge (most just call it the Pont d’Avignon). It was built across the widest part of the Rhône  river in the first decade of the 1200s, and then was promptly destroyed in the 1220s during the Albigensian crusade.

 The bridge was rebuilt, but it was periodically destroyed by flooding on the river. It kept getting rebuilt until the 1700s, when the people of Avignon finally said “screw this” and left it in its half-destroyed state. But before that, it was an important crossing on one of the largest rivers in Europe. And as I’ve said, Philip “the Fair” was kind of a douchebag. Not content with having control of the land across the river from Avignon, he built this tower in order to control the bridge itself.

 The eastern bank of the Rhône River marked the boundary of France, so Philip did everything he could to gain more and more influence in the city. When the river flooded and submerged large parts of the city, Philip even collected taxes from the people whose homes were destroyed, as his reign was extended “into the city.” This tower, easily visible from the Pope’s palace, was a stark reminder of the French intention to control the city.

 Beyond the tower is a fortress built at around the same time that I had never heard of until today. Everyone knows about the Philip le Bel tower, but a castle is out there too? Jeez. Who knew? The problem? It was a hell of a walk up and down several large hills to get there, and I got there with little time to spare before closing time. From the outside, the castle is magnificent, perched atop a small mountain, controlling the Rhône valley for miles around, and built very tall and very robustly.

 From the inside, it wasn’t so impressive. It’s apparently only the southern side that is built so stout (the other sides give way to pretty sheer cliff faces, so bigger walls weren’t as necessary), and much of it is in ruins.

 That front wall and its towers provided ample entertainment, though. Within many of the rooms are obvious signs of medieval life: a small watch-house with a tiny fireplace, latrines hidden away in side rooms, and medieval graffiti on the floors (including the medieval equivalent of tic-tac-toe).

 Finally, I walked back into Avignon and got some dinner before heading back to the hotel to Skype with Mom and my sister. That’s when a great day turned sour. My grandmother died last night, which as you can imagine, really sucks. But honestly, I’ve been preparing myself for it for years at this point, so it didn’t hit me too hard.  She had kept enough of her mind intact to realize that she had lost most of it to Alzheimer’s, and she was pretty miserable about it. So I like to believe she’s in a better place, or failing that at least that she’s at peace. Rest in peace, Grandma, you deserve it. And everyone else, hang in there. I’ll be home soon, I promise.

Sur le Pont d'Avignon...

Today’s been a long day. I woke up at 6:30 so I could go do the last of my laundry right when the Laundromat opened. I spent the rest of my morning finishing up the housecleaning, which has me pretty freaking pissed off right now. After everything—I even got on my hands and knees to scrub the floor with a towel because I don’t have a mop—they’re saying that the room’s not clean enough and they’re going to have to charge me for it. I did absolutely everything they said to do, as best as I could anyway (they refused to provide the promised cleaning supplies). I think they just had it out for me. Which is ridiculous, because I’m not even in one of the cockroach infested rooms (yes, about half the building’s having cockroach problems). So, I think the only thing I can really do is say: C’est dingue ça!

I headed down to the train station a little early to see off Emily and Alejandra to Paris, which is hilarious because I ended up hauling so much baggage. At one point I had my 50lb duffel bag on my back, my 20lb backpack on my chest, and Alejandra’s two 50lb suitcases (one in each hand) as I tried to leap over a puddle. Emily took a picture or two, hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands on them. They almost didn’t make it onto their train. More accurately, Emily and all of their luggage almost didn’t make it onto the train. They conductors closed all of the doors immediately after Alejandra climbed on board. It took a little work, but we got them to open them again.

So, they were gone. I’m probably never going to be seeing Alejandra again, or Jennifer, probably not Elizabeth either. Stephanie I will see again, at least briefly. She has my other suitcase so that I don’t have to drag it all over the place with me. Speaking of dragging stuff all over the place, how the hell did I carry this duffle bag around for 2 weeks in Normandy? I know it’s heavier now than it was then, but seriously, this is freaking ridiculous.

Some weird church (at least I think it's a church) in Beziers.

 So, after a six hour train ride, I arrived in Avignon. I walked into town at around 8pm, looking for some breakfast (yep, that was my first meal today, hopefully USAC will find out that I was so busy cleaning my room I nearly starved to death). I told myself that I’d skip heading out to the two main sites to see in Avignon and leave them for tomorrow. Well, I lied to myself. Dear god, the papal palace is amazing. The bridge, is much less so, but hey, it’s famous too.

Much more fortress looking than palatial.

 I got a kebab for dinner, which is probably something I’m going to miss when I get back to the States. Kebab stands are really quite helpful here in France, and they’re pretty good eats despite how un-hygienic they seem. Get ready for a history-leaden post whenever I actually manage to get the next (and past two) blog posts up, it’s going to be a fun one: I’m in Avignon!