Here we are at the last trip log for France and Barcelona. This one covers the day after the wedding, the following day and (briefly) the flight home.
Sunday – May 16th – Albi and Cordes
Charlotte and I wake at 9:45 to her sister Axelle knocking on the door and politely asking us if anyone had told us that we had to be out of the cabin by ten. No … no one had told us that! We leap out of bed and hastily pull on clothes, brush our teeth, and pack up. We’re walking out of the cabin just as an employee comes to check and make sure we’re walking out of the cabin. Good timing!
We’re meeting back at the reception venue for breakfast, so Charlotte and I hop into the car and head in that direction. We’re some of the first people to arrive, but Jerome and Eglantine are already there, getting things rolling. They have some leftover snacks from the wedding, and they’ve added big boxes of croissants, chocolate croissants (called chocolatines in south-western France, and pain au chocolat everywhere else), bread and fruit. They’ve also got pate, cheeses, ham, and a variety of juices and drinks. Pretty solid breakfast! Jerome is working on the coffee, much to everyone’s relief. Charlotte and I help bring stuff out to the tables, and from there everyone just kind of hangs around, eating and drinking, as more and more people show up.
Eventually most of Charlotte’s family moves out onto the steps — the sun is out for what feels like the first time in days and it’s actually warm enough to be outside. Someone finds a pack of balloons, and people spend time inflating those, bouncing them around with some of the kids. An inquisitive nine-year-old on Jerome’s side of the family spends quite some time asking Charlotte questions, many of which are about me being American and unable to speak French.
The party finally breaks apart sometime past noon. Charlotte and I want to go check into our hotel, take showers, and maybe take a nap. We’re staying at the old farmhouse where her parents are staying, for our final night in Albi. It’s a very cool place, and the interiors are modern and comfy (but cold — stone buildings really eat warmth). Charlotte naps while I take a shower, and then I mess around on the computer while she takes hers. We decide that we’re going to go to the nearby town of Cordes, which is built along the side of a hill and is really quite pretty, where we’ll find a cafe and spend a couple of hours reading and laptopping. Since we’re not planning on touring, I neglect to bring the camera. Oops!
That not-touring plan lasts until we get to the first cafe in Cordes, where the owner pisses Charlotte off by bitching when she asks for change to feed the parking meter (which wants €2.50 for two hours, on a Sunday, which is ridiculous to begin with). So we decide the hell with that cafe, and start into the town. This turns into an hour-long walk through the steep, winding streets of the town, checking out some amazing architecture and stopping in a few artisan and souveniere shops along the way. Not exactly the restful experience we’d been planning, but the town is amazing and we’re glad to have seen it. We stop at a cafe at the top of the hill, where Charlotte gets a tea and I have “un demi” — a 25cl glass of beer (about 8oz). We relax for a bit and the head back down to where we parked.
From there we head back to the hotel and have dinner at their “restaurant” (the owners of the place also do the cooking and serving). I had planned on bringing my laptop back there to use the internet for a bit (they don’t have in-room wifi), but that instead turns into Charlotte and I falling asleep at about 9:30 at night. I guess the wedding, coupled with the short sleep, coupled with the overall exhaustion that comes from having visited half a dozen towns in as many days, conspired to tire us out!
[Pictures from Day Nine]
Monday – May 17th – Albi to Barcelona
It’s my last day in France, and Charlotte’s last day in Albi. She’s headed with her parents northward, to their home in Fontainebleau, and then to Paris for her final exams. I’m headed back to Barcelona, to drop off the rental car and stay one last night at a hotel near the airport before flying out in the morning. We start the day off by having breakfast with her parents, along with Eglantine and Jerome. Coffee, juice, croissants, bread, butter, jam … mmm! We spend a good amount of time chatting and laughing before Eglantine and Jerome head off, while Charlotte and I go to pack up our stuff, and her parents pack up theirs. We load up the car and take a short walk together, checking out some of the grounds and stopping at a lilly pond to watch the frogs sunning themselves.
Allow me to be sentimental for a moment … Charlotte and I aren’t going to see each other for three and a half weeks, which is the longest we’ve been apart since we first met in person (when I flew to Paris to visit, came back and had to wait a month before her move to the US). Neither of us are thrilled about this, but we can’t afford for me to stay in France indefinitely, and honestly she needs the time to study without distraction, so that’s how it’s gotta be. We head back to the cars and say our goodbyes. As I’m typing this, she’s preparing for the second of her final exams, and I’ve still got 15 days to go before I see her again. Bleh!
From here on out, I’m on my own. I get in the car and head back toward Albi. I have a bunch of maps available, should I get lost, but it turns out not to be a problem: within ten minutes, I come to a roundabout with a sign pointing toward Toulouse. That puts me on a big highway, and from there I’ll spend the next four and a half hours following highway signs without trouble, all the way back to Barcelona, with a couple of stops along the way for gas, coffee, and diet coke.
The return trip takes me back past several of the cities we visited. I drive by the pink bricks of Toulouse, and later the walled old city of Carcassonne. It feels a little like visiting old friends. “Hey, how ya doing? Nice to see you again. I gotta run, but I’ll be back soon!” Then the highway takes me towards Narbonne, on the coast, before veering south and taking me past Perpignan and into the Pyrenees foothills. I can see the same snow-capped mountains, climbing the hill into Spain, that we saw coming down it eight days ago. I clear the toll booths and customs without problem, and bid France “au revoir” as the radio stations I’ve been flipping through (hunting for music I actually recognize) begin to switch from French to Spanish.
Finally I reach Barcelona, where I encounter a little bit of traffic (it’s just about 5:30 PM by now), but nothing too horrific, probably because I’m driving into the city and not out of it. I worry that I’ve missed a turn a few times, but each time just as I’m becoming convinced something’s gone terribly awry, I see another sign for the airport. Eventually I make my way on to a big highway pointed towards terminals one and two, from which I can see the hotel I’ll be staying at. As I exit to get to the hotel, I drive by the back of the Sixt Rental Car building where I need to drop off my car. Awesome. This whole trip has gone perfectly, from a driving standpoint.
Famous last words … I make it to the hotel and check in just fine, unloading the whole car in the process. Then I get back in so that I can make the short drive over to Sixt. However, the entire area I’m in is not only littered with one-way roads (a staple in Barcelona, even outside of the city where there’s plenty of space), but also under construction. For the next NINETY MINUTES, I drive my car around and around and around, getting on and off highways, trying surface road after surface road, hoping to get to the Sixt buildings. I see it from every angle. I am often within 100 yards of it. I just can’t get to it. I become frustrated, then angry, then absolutely enraged, then plaintative, and finally just kind of shocked and dismayed. At one point, I drive BACKWARDS down a one-way street four about an eighth of a mile, but there’s no entrance on that road. Argh!
I finally find my way into Sixt. The entrance was clear and obvious all along: all I had to do was IGNORE A DO NOT ENTER SIGN and turn onto a road that was marked as one way, but was actually two ways. Stupid me, right? After 90 minutes of driving, I finally drop off my car, and then walk back to the hotel. The walk takes three minutes. I go upstairs, get my laptop, go to the hotel bar, and order a well-deserved beer. It’s later than I expected, and I have to get up at six in the morning, so I don’t stick around too long — just enough to grab dinner and answer a few emails. Then it’s up to bed.
I’ll spare you most of the details of the flight back. It was an entirely unexciting trip, which is fine … generally I’m not looking for “exciting” on plane flights. My seat on the international flight had a power plug for my laptop, so I’m able to use it the entire time, which is great. Then I spend five hours in the Atlanta airport before hopping on a plane to Indy. My friend Gabe picks me up, and drops me off, where the cats are thrilled to see me and spend the next few hours climbing on top of me, while I sleep on the couch.
The Great European Tour of 2010 is over. It was a good time (except being sick), and we saw some amazing stuff. I’m really looking forward to getting back to Toulouse when it’s not freezing, rainy, and a national holiday. I also suspect I’ll be back to Carcassonne at some point, and probably Albi as well. Barcelona was fascinating and I could see spending more time there too. In all, Spain and Southern France left a very good impression. I’m glad I went, look forward to going back, and would recommend the trip to anyone. For now, though, I’m happy to be back in the land of large coffees and stuff that’s open late!
[No Pictures, Sorry!]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuse/sets/72157624140889212/€