Slacker

Yesterday I didn’t blog, and I feel like my day was just a little bit less fulfilling because of it. I’ve been really proud of myself for actually sticking to my commitment of doing a post per day, but there are just some occasions that merit a skip day.

I went to Avignon with Paymon yesterday. It was really beautiful and The Lord of the Rings dork in me kept thinking about how it looked like Gondor.  We spent most of our time within the city walls, and the whole place looked like a medieval kingdom. There was a lot of cream colored stone and big old trees with no leaves. Avignon is famous for lavender, so I’m sure the city’s even more beautiful when it’s in season. We went to the Palais des Papes, which was where the popes took up residence from 1309 until 1378. It was huge and incredible and for a pretty cheap price we got to go in and wander around on a self-guided tour with these giant devices that looked like old school cell phones. Each room or exhibit was numbered, and you typed in the number on your “cell phone” and got an explanation…or you could read the plaques, which pretty much gave you the same information.

We did a couple other museums and got to see a Botticelli, which was amazing. It was right there, just inches from my face. Completely exposed and out in the open with no glass protection or anything. I could have sneezed on it...although I'd probably have been tackled by the overzealous museum police. They literally followed us around through the rooms and exhibits to make sure we didn't do anything like that. I understand the need for them, but we were the only ones there, and the way they constantly kept within ten paces of us made the experience slightly uncomfortable.

The coolest thing we did was go out on the bridge (Le Pont d’Avignon). It’s a medieval bridge across the Rhône River. The right side was repeatedly washed away by floods, so after several reconstructions, they gave up on it and now it’s just half a bridge. Does anyone remember that song from high school French classes? Sur le pont d’Avignon, l’on y danse, l’on y danse? It’s just a silly little kid song, but it was stuck in my head all day and I knew that I had to go on the bridge or my day excursion wouldn’t have felt complete. And I did. I went on that bridge. I was sur le pont d’Avignon. 

After a full day of walking around I was exhausted and sunburned. We headed back to the train station only to discover our train was delayed by 40 minutes. We had a connection in Marseilles but assumed that we’d miss it since our first train was so late. I can’t decide if it was fortunate or unfortunate that our second one was also delayed and we managed to catch it. We rode for about an hour and then had to stop because of inclement weather. The tracks in Antibes (a city we were passing through) run right along the ocean and were flooded. So we had to wait for the tide to roll out or something.  2 hours later we finally start moving. And because we didn’t make it back to Nice until after 1:00am, none of the trams were still running, so we had to walk from the train station home in the rain.

Overall a fantastic day, minus the 7 hour return trip. Back to daily blogging!