Lost and Hangry in France

This is exhausting.

It is exhausting to always be lost: to never know where you are going, how to get there, or what you will do when and/if you arrive.  It is exhausting to not understand the language, the signage, the train systems and the menus.  Some may call this "adventure" but we simply refer to it as being perpetually lost.

Let me start this simple rant (it's been nothing but positive posts so please, allow me this one ranting entry) off with our last day in Spain. Determined to see the Casa Mila de Pedrera before leaving, we spent our final evening in Barcelona walking through the bustling streets in search of the great Gaudi masterpiece.  Along the way we stumbled upon a pre-Carnaval parade, complete with community dance troupes, a hundred kids dressed as smurfs, and a "Come to London for a cheap abortion" entry.  Great fun.

Strangest parade entry we have ever seen!

Following the parade we asked a police officer to point us back in the right direction (as once again our so-called memorized directions were incomplete) of the Pedrera.  A short two blocks later we arrived.  It somehow seemed perfectly appropriate that this too was covered up for renovations - and I don't just mean scaffolding like the Familia - I mean top to bottom, covered with a large screen advertising a car.  I tried to force a laugh through my grimace. Then we walked a few blocks down the street and found another Gaudi gem.

What we should have seen (internet source)...

What we saw.

What we stumbled upon was more lovely than we could have imagined.

On the way home we stopped at a tapas bar and finally ordered proper tapas with our wine and beer.  They were decent, but what we assumed would cost roughly twelve Euros ended up being twenty-five so we were slightly disappointed.  Fortunately, on the way home we ran into another parade on our street complete with community dance troupes, a hundred kids dressed in Halloween costumes, and men in drag.  Very entertaining.

Pulpa, or octopus, at the tapas bar.

Parade number 2 - these are not the men in drag.

And that was our last night in Spain.  Barcelona was wonderful: colourful, artistic, welcoming, and English-friendly.  But it was time to move on to France, so that's just what we did.

We woke this morning at 6:30 a.m. to catch the 8:15 a.m. train to Marseille. We should have known what kind of a day we were in for when we stepped off the subway and went in the wrong direction, only to find out we couldn't get back into the tunnel with our single-ride tickets. Fortunately, all it cost was a little extra time and walking.

When we got to the ticket counter and asked to make our reservation we were informed that the train of which we spoke only ran in the summertime but there was no way we could have known.  Um, okay then.  The next train left at 9:15 a.m. and took us to Montpellier (about half-way), so we paid the thirty Euros for a first-class reservation in the hopes we could relax and de-stress in the first-class club room.  Guess what?  It was closed for renovation!

It turns out first class isn't much different than second class, other than costing twenty Euros more. So when we got to Montpellier we were set on getting second class.  Too bad.  The next couple of trains were full so we had to wait for the free regional train to come in four hours later.  No problem, we thought, we would just store our bags and explore the town.  Nope, no storage lockers.  So we walked to a little park and sat in the sun for four hours.  I did get to see a little brown bat feeding in broad daylight AND we went to the Linda McCartney photography retrospective (very cool!), so maybe it was meant to be.

Jim enjoying first class.

Montpellier

We squeezed our way onto the regional commuter train and for the three-hour ride to Marseille we sat silent among some of the smelliest, pushiest, rudest people we've come across yet.  Eau de B.O. is pretty popular in France.  The written directions to the hotel actually got us there and being the hangry little girl I was I demanded we get food.  We picked a little restaurant in the Old Port District that offered a three-course meal for fifteen Euros.  Great.  Two fish soups, one small seafood paella, one sole fillet, 2 small desserts, 1 five-Euro bottle of beer and a six-Euro (that's ten dollars) bottle of water later, we left the restaurant forty-five Euros poorer.

Stinky man on the regional train.

France had better step up its game!