2008- Avignon, France Pt.2

-Avignon-

We wake up at 9am...this is late for us! And eat breakfast of peanut butter and fruit while watching french cartoons in our hotel room.

Today we venture into the brick wall surrounding the center of the city. It's a really nice day again, sunny and bright. Our hotel is close enough to walk, and we begin to browse the cool, old streets with narrow passageways between buildings. Finding an internet cafe, we stop in to check our emails. 

Breads and pastries are huge in France, and people walk around in Avignon just eating a baguette- sort of like Albertans walking around eating their Tim Hortons donuts. And cigarettes- lots of people smoke here as well. The city is so picturesque. 

We are already having such a good time here, just moving at our own pace. 

Once finished checking the emails, we come across a common area where lots of little shops and buildings face into sort of a square. In the centre are tons of tables and chairs where people can sit and drink or eat...or smoke. As we begin to look around, we come up to a cafe and see our waiter from the previous day, Franck, with a couple of friends!

Here we are with Franckie at the cafe. Chelsie's eyes are closed. What can you do.


He recognizes us immediately, and motions for us to come over and sit with them. Franck buys us strawberry tea and introduces us to his 3 friends. Luckily they know a little more English than he does. We sit there for a while and try to talk. We manage to find out that a couple of them are in University. The friendliest one tells us his name is Robin. He is wearing a shirt that someone I know once called an "instant loser" shirt. I won't say who it was that coined this term (maybe his wife is even reading this), but I still find it hilarious to this day. It's a shirt something like this:

Why has it been deemed an instant loser shirt? Because no matter who puts it on, it turns you into an instant loser. That is the quick explanation anyway. Why is this important for me to mention? You'll see. It's really not that big of a deal here, just a funny part of the story.
One of my favourite pictures, just what you would hope to see in town on your travels!

Anyway, we talk there for a while, and then we move on to the common area. There is a pub nearby and Franck gets us fruity beer and white wine. We all sit at one of the tables, and more of their random friends start showing up. Some girls, some guys. One girl is talking to Robin at the end of the table crying her eyes out about her boyfriend that cheated on her. Some other tougher guys sit and smoke and ignore us. Soon the whole common area is filled with people at tables everywhere and they all just sit and hang out all afternoon. (Doesn't anyone have a job here??)

Chelsie and I are new to this whole late dinner thing in the country, and ask how they can wait until 9pm to eat! A girl brings out a small tub of candy and they all dig in, telling us that they just eat candy or snack until dinner time.

(Chelsie and Robin talking while in the common area):

Chels and I have our i-pods on us, and Franck wants to take a listen. He ends up liking some of the Kings of Leon songs I have on there. 

After who knows how long of sitting around, Robin and Franck offer to take us on a tour of the city. We didn't realize it, but apparently there are great things to see here!

*This is the part where everyone reading goes, "ummm...you're going to go with these guys and trust that they aren't going to take you somewhere unsafe??!", and thinks we are total idiots. To our defence, we feel that we have very good radar for something dangerous, and these guys are very non-threatening. And for the record, we were right.*

We follow the guys, and we walk out of the courtyard/common area where we were, and towards some very tall, old buildings. They are a creamy colour, and not your typical old relics. Where we head is the most beautiful part of Avignon, the Place du Palais (Pope's Palace) where the Pope once lived- as well as the cathedral by the river.

(The first picture is my photo of the Place du Palais, and the second is one off of google that gives you a better look at it all).

We walk around the walls, and the view is amazing. As we explore a part of the city we didn't even know was so historically important to the place, Robin informs us that he will have to be going. He had previously planned to go play vampire video games with another friend of his, and will not be coming back to hang out with us that evening. (I know, how did we figure out all that when neither of us can speak the language of the other. Somehow we just get better at the charades).
We are floored that he is going to go play video games when we are all having such a good time, and taking in this beautiful place. I guess it really is true that when you live somewhere beautiful, you will take it for granted, no matter how wonderful it is! His manner of dress is now clearer to us...it is a huge stereotype that guys that wear "instant loser" shirts are also gamers. He just solidified that for us now.
Notice him on the left and the shirt he is wearing. Hilarious!

We say goodbye to Robin, and Franckie tells us that there is a ferry that you can ride for free to cross the river. The river is not very wide, and the ride itself is about 10 minutes long.
Getting on, it's now late afternoon, and the sun is slowly setting. In true French style, the place is romantic without even trying. We begin to miss our significant others even more.

Speaking of significant others, it is not until now that Franckie discovers that we actually have significant others back in Canada. He is sad to hear this news!
We sit on the grass and talk about...well, whatever it is we talked about as we tried to communicate our stories to each others. Sometimes we all got it, and sometimes we just couldn't figure out what the other was saying, so we left it. Franckie does try to tell us that he is planning on coming to Canada in a few months, and will want to try and find us. We have a terrible time trying to tell him that we live in Edmonton, Alberta. We have no way of explaining that Alberta is a province in Canada, and we live in it's capital city. We give up trying to get him to understand this.

Eventually Chelsie and I get hungry, and want to find somewhere to eat. Of course, it's early for dinner here, according to the french, but Franckie understands where we are coming from and suggests we head to a restaurant nearby. He knows of a good Tapas place, and we head to a little hole-in-the-wall.
We all share a bottle of sangria, and eat a ton of tapas. Maybe my memory is wrong, but I recall Franckie finishing up most of those tapas, as some of them were less than appealing, and Chelsie couldn't eat over half of them because of being unsure of meat being in them. Most of them you couldn't even tell what were in them, which caused her to eat even less. Franckie told us apologetically that he couldn't buy us dinner though, which was fine with us, and we finished up with a cappuccino or two.

Now, I really don't know how to explain what happened after dinner. I want to say that Chelsie and Franckie got in a fight. But it was a pretend fight. Not a verbal fight, but a fist fight...but pretend. And how Franckie caught on to Chelsie's silliness is beyond me. They did some sort of "boxing" moves, and eventually it turned into him picking her up, putting her over his shoulder and spinning her around! Not to mention that when he had her up there, he slapped her bum while saying, "Nice ass!" and dipping her and telling her she had "beautiful eyes" (which is true).  It ended with laughter, and me taking the pictures, not believing what I was seeing-and also hoping anyone watching knew it was a joke too!

He walked us back our hotel, and we chatted with him outside for a while until the hotel manager came out and told us that we may be disturbing other guests, and should move our conversation. He was nice about it, and we moved away in front of another building. Franckie told us he was going to a friend's lake tomorrow, and wouldn't be working at the restaurant.
Eventually we said goodbye, and Franckie walked home (who knows how far away that was, he just pointed saying it was "over there"somewhere).

Chelsie and I turn in for the night, talking and laughing about our crazy day. We also note that people in Avignon (men included) kiss three times on the cheeks- as in your face! geez. And in Paris they kiss only twice when you greet one another.

Our time spent in Avignon has helped us feel less like tourists who just came and saw, but more like visitors that came and experienced the place- this is mostly due to meeting our french boy-friends and having them show us around.

Tomorrow we take a train to the town of Nice, France. It's about a 2 hour ride, and from Nice we go to Florence Italy. That train is an overnight train, because it is a very long trip, so we will sleep on it in little beds, and arrive in Italy the next day. This is a good plan, and we look forward to going to Italy! Little do we know what hell is in store for the next 48 hours...

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