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| Pre-adventure question of the evening: Is gazpacho meant to be drunk or spooned? |
The sign at the railroad tracks said, "Danger de
mort." Danger of death seemed a little stronger than "don't cross the
tracks," as we had been told the sign would say. We had also been told to
cross the tracks anyway, after walking down the dark road nestled in the midst
of pine trees. As we paused before crossing, after determining that this was
indeed the path we had been told to follow, I quipped, “Maybe this is our first
travel adventure.” I later decided I’d spoken too soon. I meant to be only
joking.
No death was in sight, so we stepped across to the barely
distinguishable path on the other side that appeared aimed at the road we could
see below. Brooke and Brad were only intending to walk me to the bus stop so I
could return home to Aix-en-Provence’s centre ville while they remained behind to recover from
their cross-Atlantic flight in the closest hotel they could find to Aix in the
midst of France’s vacation month. Thus, the footwear Brooke wore to dinner at the hotel didn’t
rank very high on the adventure footwear meter, and she could count the stones
through her thin, treadless soles as we tried to avoid sliding down the carpet
of loose rocks.
We reached the road, spotted the designated round-about to
our right, and as we approached it, finally saw a covered bus stop shelter.
Great. Everything’s going according to plan.
We walked closer. Bus #4 was featured along with several
others on the side of the shelter. Great. This is the stop we were looking for.
We arrived at the shelter and leaned in even closer to
squintingly read the bus times in the dim light of a streetlight. Uh oh. The
last bus was scheduled for 9:07. Um, what time is it? Brad answered. 9:17 pm.
Hmmm... We began searching all the other bus schedules. Is there anything
headed in the right direction that’s still running?
Then suddenly bus #4 entered the roundabout! Salvation!
Buses here do occasionally run late. It’s a good thing when it works in your
favor. The driver stopped. “Vous allez à centre ville?” I asked hopefully. He
shook his head no. He was going in the opposite direction from centre ville. I
stepped off the bus dejectedly.
We decided to call the hotel to see if there were any other
bus stops nearby. The reception worker who answered knew who I was right away
and said she would just pick me up and drive me to the next stop. Great!
A few minutes later she arrived, and Brad and Brooke and I
parted ways. I settled into the passenger seat and automatically pulled the
seatbelt over me. Peggy (I eventually learned her name, though not how to spell
it) took the car out of park, and as I groped for the seatbelt buckle, the
beeping seatbelt warning indicated I hadn’t found it yet. “Please buckle your
seatbelt,” Peggy said. I gathered it was less about my safety and more about
making that noise stop.
She took me to a major shopping center nearby that she later
told me closed at 10 pm, so she expected the buses there would run later. I
hopped out to check the schedules, and at first I thought we were in luck. But
I had momentarily forgotten that 20:00 was only 8 pm, not 10 pm. Another quick scan
produced the sad news: No more buses for the night.
I was still too far outside of Aix to walk there. So it
seemed my only option now was an expensive taxi. I asked Peggy if she knew how
I could call one. She reached for her phone, saying she would call for me. But then
she stopped. “I will take you to Aix. I’m not going to leave you here.” “Are
you sure?” I asked, adding “I can give you money for gas.” “I’m not doing it
for the money,” she replied.
So I gratefully climbed back into her car and tried to get the
belt buckled before the beeping noise started but wasn’t successful. Again, “please
buckle the seatbelt,” said matter-of-factly. After I successfully maneuvered
the belt, I finally introduced myself and asked her name. She was on her way
home from work and lived in the opposite direction from Aix, so her good deed
wasn’t even on her route home.
I learned that Peggy is from this part of France, but at one
point a while ago for two years she worked on the Royal Caribbean cruise line
operating from Miami. She had started out working in the bar, but the Jamaican
guys, whose English was hard for her to understand, didn’t like working with a woman.
When I asked whether it was fun to work on the cruise ship, her answer was
mixed as she noted that it was very hard work: 15-hour days, 7 days a week.
She also told me about her two-month road-trip in a rental
car up I-95 from Miami to Niagara Falls and then back south again on a variety
of roads. What a great trip! She enjoyed it. We discussed how very big America
is. And then we were suddenly at the roundabout in Aix on the east edge of the
Gare Routière (bus station), south of the Rotunde, where she asked if she could
drop me because there was an easy route home for her from this spot. Of course!
I unbuckled my belt, so I could hop out quickly and not
detain her any longer, but then she drove further around the circle. So I
clicked it back into place for a few more seconds until she had actually
stopped. This time I managed to do it before she said anything about the belt.
As I hopped out, aware that “merci beaucoup” in French or “thank
you so much” in English were both insufficient for her kindness, she noted in a
friendly fashion, “Maybe I’ll see you at the hotel tomorrow.”
Here’s hoping all of our travel adventures turn out so well!
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| The gorgeous moon as I walked the rest of the way home. |
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