The Journey to Heaven

We are past the point of having travel woes...it is incredible how little planning we have done and yet are still alive and well. It all began the night I arrived in Marseille, we didn't have a place for the following night. As the day began we both new this but didn't think much about it carrying our optamistic theme that everything will be ok. Everything will work out. We'll be fine.  As the day grew into the night this tiny little detail became a pressing issue.  We had somewhat assumed there would be room in the hostel we were staying in for an extra night.  The long haired, swarthy (savy's words) night shift hostel front desk man assured us this was not the case.  We began searching the internet for other hostels in Marseille- all booked.  So we got creative and started looking at nearby cities and towns (worrying about how to get there would come later, all we wanted was a bed)..what about aix-en provence? Nope. Avignon? Nope. Then we started looking at seperate bookings..single beds in any hostel that we could possibly sleep at. nope.  So we/Savy sent out desperate e-mails pleading all the couch surfing host's in Marseille to please save us from our homelessness.  We went to bed with an uneasy anxt.. The following morning we got a single response from an unreviewed couch surfing host that seemed a bit questionable telling us to meet somewhere where he would pick us up and drive us to his friend's place.   Far too many things could go wrong in that process so we decided to thank the man for his offer but that we had changed our plans.  We would rather stay up all night at a safe pub than take the chance. Overhearing from the breakfast hall balcony the possibility of an opening, we raced down to the front desk and inquired about this possible opening.  It was our man Reme, the front desk worker that found our many previous trials, tribulations, and train wrecks (and we had only been there a day) to be comical . He searched his computer and found one bed, and a couple that had not called in yet and would possibly cancel. He assured us he could find us something and to go explore the city and come back at noon and he would have good news for us.  We did just that...only when we came back he had good and bad news. The couple called and were coming...uh oh. Buuuut another group cancelled. We had BEDS!!! Never been so excited in my life. Now...where would we stay the next night. Uhhhhh.

Having been put on Replay we spent the night the exact same way as the prior night.  We knew we had seen Marseille and were ready to move on.  We were thinking Aix, Nimes, or Avignon, or there's always Nice.  Nimes and Avignon sparked our interest based off the wiki site as they are filled with beautiful Roman ruins.  But of course...no openings.  The only opening we could find were in Nice.  We arrived at this conclusion around 8 and yet searched for three more hours to arrive at the exact same conclusion.  We were'n super [syched about Nice, as it seemed to be about the same as Marseille...but it was what we had so we went with it. Another anxious night passed, I agot up early and ran the port to see the city one last time before departing.  The cool breez off the Medeteranian kep tme going until I got a huge wif of raw fish...looking over to huge sharklike fish on ice...yuuummy.. I returned, packed up, and we headed to the metro.  By this time we were running late to catch our 9:15 train.

Struggling with the metro we arrived at the train station aaaabout 5 min before the scheduled departure. I have never been so excited to see a delay.  We could still make it. One miiiinore detail.  In ordering the pack of two eurorails....they had both come with my name on them. Biiig woops. Sooooo we went in to what looked like the information center (of course having no sign).  By now I had realized that despite my little understanding of French the people liked it if I just tried a little and started off the conversation with a little French. A for effort. So I told the lady where we were headed and a little about the problem at hand.  Once she saw the tickets, our passports, and our faces, she knew the problem at hand. She shook her head and asked if we bought them by the internet.  After answering yes, she said oh boy...looooong pause....there's nothing I can do. We stood longer awkardly trying to find anyway to beat the system and find a loophole.  She took us to another desk and translated for us.  The conclusion was to buy another ticket and refund the one we had. Not bad. Buuut they only sell 3, 4, and 5 country passes...we had a cheaper 2 country pass. They spoke for another 30 minutes or so before arriving at the exact same conclusion (deja vu).  Either way SAvannah was going to save her 4th ride for her trip from Madrid to Zafra where she was moving.  So she got her single ticket and we boarded the 12:15 train to Nice, hoping we would have better luck there.

The train ride took us along the seaside past rolling gro\een hills, old forgotten castles, and luxery seaside homes. We refused to let the woes of traveling get us down, but insisted to learn form our mistakes and plan ahead next time.  Screw this free spirited roaming...we need bookings and beds!  We agreed to first thing talk to the information desk and test our luck with the tickets once again. Overall everything is much more laid back everywhere in the world, the only problem being there is a muuuuch larger margin for error with such a lack of authority.  We as American's live with bumpers, protecting us from doing anything too wrong but also preventing us from learning how to survive without them.  Where it's almost impossible to board a plane going to the wrong place, it was completely viable to board a train going to the wrong place.  Which of course we had a little scare of but calmed down and deduced that we HAD to be going in the right direction.  The train pulled into the Nice station without us once having our tickets checked.  A waist of 22 euro for SAvannah but an empty ticket and thus extra ride on mine. lol

We entered the station and desperately searched for the hidden bathrooms.  Signs pointed to dead ends and eventually we gave up.  We went ahead to wait in line and talk to information.  We scoped out the nicest looking receptionist there and aimed for him.  Unfortunately we moved up in line and couldn't control our fate.  The second we saw the Ursela looking creature with buggy eyes stairing at us through her thick glasses we knew we were...well fucked. Pardon mon francais.  But we had no choice, as decided earlier I started off in french.  She quickly snapped " I speak English". We were in for it. Her black lip liner lining her thin shriveling lips made me want to vomit and her harsh snappy responses and tone made me want to punch her.  Her agression mad eus aggressive.  She went as far as to say we were stupid and that ordering the ticket online is useless and in fact that the eurorail tickets were useless.  I'm not sure what we were supposed to buy or how we were supposed to buy it in person from america...but we later concluded her problem was that we were american tourist and not the situation ofr the tickets.  She tested our faith in humanity.  We resisted the temptation and decided she was a single evil person and that the evergrowing number of gracious help we have recieved outweighed her evil self. We contu\inued to the tour guide center where they were much more open to people like ourselves.  We continued on and founf our wat to the tram and to our stop. Strangers on the bus wishing us "bon vacance!"

We got off on our stop and started the treck, up hill, to the circle on our map.  P.S. cities in France are not on the grid system.  Windy roads constantly change direction and roundabout feed into 5 even 6 streets at an intersection. Oh and there are very few road signs. Awesome! We hiked up a hill, asked a passer by, walked back down the hill and up another hill, asked another passer by who led us to her husband, the cutes old French man ever who spoke a little English.  He seemed as self conscious of his English as I was of my French.  His accent was surprisingly clear and he used vocabulary like angle and incline..we were impressed.  We thanked him and walked, yes, back down the hill, and back up our original hill. We took a few breaks on the trecherous "inclined hill", during which more cute old french men smiled at us and encouraged us to keep heading in the same direction.  One specifically said the word summit.  Summit is never a  good word. We rounded the corner and found the "summit".  The literal 75 degree rise up a long windy road.  We kept climbing convinced the next turn would reveal the infamous hostel. Nope and nope.   Until finally Yes!!! But no the front door was further. It was never ending....and then we were THERE. Panting, we drug ourselves up to the front desk.  I started off by quite a hill...from which the rediculously attractive australian front desk worker responded, you're brave to climb it.  What?!?!!!? There was another option? OMG I hate my life. He generously bought us two waters fromt he vending machine before taking us on a tour of the hostel.  Turn out the hostel is "famous" an old chapel revived into a hostel.  The walls were covered in stain glass.  Not to mention the cheap drinks and food cooked by a chef. Thus far we had survived off pasta, baguettes, and cheese.  This was Heaven. And we had arrived...

More to come on the city itself and the nightlife.  All I can say is this is home. I have always had the worst sense of direction. If I think go left go right and if I think go right go left... but here it is honestly perfect. I've come to the conclusion that my bad sense of direction was really just leading me to Nice. Maybe? No? Ok, whatever. But this is for sure in the right direction of what I'm looking for in life.  Love and miss you all!