A Day in the Life...

Yesterday's post was uber-lame. So today, come loyal readers, and witness the all out intensity that is TRAVELING SOLO.

8:45- Think about getting up

9:00- Get up, plan to leave by 9:45

10:10- Leave Hotel Splendid, head to downtown Avignon. Plan on catching 12:35 bus to Pont du Gard.

10:15- Eat breakfast consisting of pain au chocolat bought at local patisserie

10:20- Seduced by the pumping Euro-electronica beating out on the street from Zara and H&M, spend a while looking over all the stuff you cannot afford.

10:50- Aimlessly wander Avignon back streets for an hour or so, stopping in at cathedrals and river overviews.

11:50- Realize the bus to Pont du Gard leaves at 12:05

12:10- Resign self to spending the day in Avignon, purchase baguette from previously mentioned patisserie

12:20- Evading the "No Eating in room" directive, eat lunch in hotel room consisting of just purchased baguette, Nutella, Vanilla Coke, and gummy bears. Listen to either Rick Steves' whiny podcast on travel in Afghanistan, an old Edith Piaf record, or Led Zeppelin.

1:10- Head back downtown to visit the Palais des Papes (that's "Papal Palace")

1:20- After purchasing ticket, spend hour and a half wandering the immense and foreboding palace. Struggle to listen to audio guide, write stuff in notebook, and read palace map at the same time. Also, take too many photos of useless things.

3:05- Leave palace. Awkwardly take Rick's walking tour of the backstreets of Avignon. Sit in on a Bach rehearsal in a cool out of the way church. Try to blend in with the locals as you fumble with a ripped up guidebook, wear a baseball cap that doesn't involve the Yankees, take more useless photos, and carry a much too large European carry-all.

4:00- Sit down in café, order coffee, read assigned novel about working class British life in the 1950's.

5:00- Think about eating dinner, realize it's too early. Leave café.

5:15- Walk into wine shop populated by a large group of Japanese tourists. Chuckle as they attept to communicate via English to clearly amused French clerk. Pick out a cheap bottle of wine. Realize you don't have a corkscrew. Failing to know the French word for "corkscrew", say "Je voudrais un" and awkwardly point to one. Amused French clerk, hopefully giving you credit for trying, gets you the desired corkscrew from the back room.

5:40- Purchase dinner consisting of a kebab, possibly God's gift to the poor European traveling college student. Once again telling THE MAN off, eat it in your hotel room. More Vanilla Coke.

6:15- Do your first ever battle with a laundromat. Wash nasty ass clothes.

7:00- Bring semi-dry clothes back to hotel room, head off to train station

7:10- See how much it is to take a daytrip to Arles (€ 10). Go to bus station and see if there's a bus on Sunday to Pont du Gard (there is). Try and figure out what to do.

7:40- Go to internet café, write prosaic blog entry

Post Blog- Return to hotel room, watch The Empire Strikes Back on iPod, try new corkscrew, more Vanilla Coke and gummy bears

That was pretty much my Saturday here in Avignon. Like an idiot, I missed the bus to Pont du Gard. It was probably for the better though, as it was nasty and rainy all day. A good day to spend indoors. I toured the huge Papal Palace, which looks more like some sort of military stronghold (well, it is) than a palace for God's presence on Earth. It was cool though. I purchased my first what you would call souvenir today. It's a corkscrew. I know, sort of lame, but it's one of those ones that waiters always carry around. I think it's pretty cool. It's something sort of French. My attempts to curb spending have been going well, I think. Nutella comprises a major food group in my Euro diet, as well as Haribo gummy bears, which may be some sort of heavenly food. They still have Vanilla Coke here. It's a beautiful thing. People are well aware of my affinity for France and the French. Everything continues to be reinforced. I'd highly recommend going to France. Many of my Luther counterparts feel very uncomfortable in France, but I don't think I'd rather be anywhere else.

I'm having fun on my own. Of course I'm looking forward a lot to seeing friends on Monday, but it's nice to have a break. I've been doing a lot of reading and such. I bought a Lonely Planet guide to Istanbul, so I'm figuring out what I want to see in 3 weeks or whatever. Avignon is a really cool city too. Lots of stuff to see and do, so I don't really get bored. But like I said, it will be nice to see Emily and crew again on Monday.

I read other Luther people's blogs, and it seems like they make these grand statements about how travel is affecting them and such. I don't really think I have much to say about that. I don't think it has struck me yet. It is always a struggle to stave off being jaded. I mean, Roman ruins and medieval churches all start to run together as time goes on. The trick is to continually remind myself of the significance of each thing to the surrounding area, how it has affected people and society. It's hard, I'll tell you that. But it's ultimately rewarding, to take everything on it's own terms.

Final humorous situation of the past few days. Yesterday, as I was muddling about the Avignon tourist office, one of the French tourist officials (obviously impressed with my ninja master French skills) asked me, as a REAL ENGLISH SPEAKER, what I would call a "raspberry mash" on top of a cake. She thought it was porridge. I suggested jam, but I really have no idea. Thoughts? Whatever. Merci et au revoir!