Just another manic Monday // Sur le Pont d'Avignon

Hilariously bad. A debacle. Miserable. Ridiculous. These are just a few of the ways that the first half of mine and Laura's Feria trip have been described. Again, so many memories and so much to tell. But first, some background info is necessary...

Plans

We had booked the flight to Barcelona on Ryanair about a month ago. We chose to fly in on Monday morning and fly out on Sunday morning because those were the cheapest flights within our time frame, but we knew 6 days in Barcelona would be too much, so we wanted to take a side-trip. For weeks, we figured we'd take a 2 day side-trip to either Valencia or Zaragoza (the 3rd and 5th biggest cities in Spain, respectively). But less than two weeks before take-off when we sat down to figure out logistics and finalize plans, we were torn: Valencia is bigger, on the coast, and known for paella, but Zaragoza was significantly cheaper to get to and has some major art museums. And that's when I threw out a crazy idea: why not go to France? The southernmost part of France is actually closer to Barcelona than Valencia and Zaragoza are, and that way I could see another country. (I admit, I was being selfish; Laura was going to hit Paris after the semester ends anyway.) So just for the fun of it, we searched the Eurolines website for buses to cities in southern France and found them afforable. And that's when things started spiraling out of control. Instead of sticking with southernmost France (like Perpignan or Toulouse), Laura suggested we go to Avignon because it was recommended in her Rick Steves' "Best of Europe" guidebook. I was all for it, but seeing that it would be a 7-hour bus ride, I suggested taking an overnight bus, thereby saving us precious sightseeing hours and money on lodging. She agreed and also suggested a side-trip from Avignon to the nearby town of Arles for a day, since her guidebook recommended both and said a day in each would suffice. And that's how our tame intranational vacation turned into an international adventure.

Expectations

RyanAir
It was the first time this semester that we'd be flying to our destination. As a budget airlines, I was never expecting first class service from Ryanair, but after hearing stories from several classmates who had flown on Ryanair before, I was downright terrified. I had heard horror stories about everything from being charged for bringing too much luggage to being mislead about check-in procedures and almost not being allowed to board the plane. Laura had done a quick Google search on complaints about Ryanair (don't ask me why) and the results were appalling. The previous week my mom had even told me that she had heard on the news that Ryanair would soon start charging passengers to use the bathrooms on flights; I almost invested in adult diapers. As a result of all these great reviews, we were expecting to be greeted by punches in the face and shipped to Barcelona in a flying cardboard box with homeless people as our flight attendants. All we hoped for was to get there alive, and we triple-checked everything from the weight of our backpacks to the instructions for checking in, knowing that Ryanair would take any opportunity to screw us over.

Eurolines
As Laura said, the webmaster of this pathetic excuse for a company deserves a prize. It's actually a brilliant business model because the website, one of the best European websites I've seen, makes you believe it's a quality company that you needn't think twice about choosing for your travel needs. Selecting travel dates and destinations and viewing travel costs were very straightforward, and after triple-checking that everything looked right, we bought the tickets. Well, actually Laura's laptop wasn't working, so I bought my ticket first, then she tried to buy the her ticket on my laptop. But when she tried to buy her ticket, the bus timings we had decided on weren't available. She sent the company an e-mail explaining the problem but to this day has not received a response. So she did the next best thing and bought tickets to and from Avignon with timings as close to mine as possible. However, this arrangement meant we would be separated for a few hours each time, waiting for each other in bus terminals. Also, poor Laura's timings on the return trip from Avignon to Barcelona had her leaving Avignon around 7 PM and arriving in Barcelona around 2:30 AM. Not exactly the kind of overnight timing we were aiming for. But we optimistically believed this would be a minor road bump on the way to enjoying a pleasant French town.

Barcelona
I had both high hopes for and extreme suspicion of Barcelona. Everyone I had talked to who had visited both Madrid and Barcelona said they liked Barcelona better, and considering I liked Madrid quite a bit, I was eager to see what Barcelona had in store. And obviously my hopes were high from the start since Barcelona has beaches. Yet in terms of safety, my expectations were about as low as for Morocco. Smart, sensible people I know were robbed in Barcelona, and Laura's guidebook claimed it was probably the place you're most likely to get pickpocketed in all of Europe. As in Morocco, we armed ourselves with Laura's money belt and my personal safety alarm and prayed for the best.

And so it begins...

The day started with Laura knocking on my door at 4:20 AM and me panicking at the realization that I had overslept my 3:45 alarm. We were planning to leave the apartment at 4:45, and being my paranoid (and slow) self, I had planned to shower, eat breakfast, and do a last-minute check of my packed backpack in an hour. I somehow did all of the above in record time, and we set off into the dark around 5 AM.

When we reached the Prado bus station, we realized that we had no idea exactly where the bus that would take us to the airport would come. The schedule listed the bus station as the location, but the bus station was closed, and there were dozens of little road-side bus stops in its vicinity. There were supposed to be buses every 15 minutes and we were hoping to catch the 5:15 bus, but 5:15 came and went. We desperately paced up and down the street outside the station, unable to find a stop for the airport bus. We couldn't call anyone for help because it was 5 AM and the only people we saw were men who were probably stumbling home drunk. I had a vision of having to take an overpriced taxi to the airport in order to avoid being late and screwed over by Ryanair. Finally we asked a bus driver who pointed us in the right direction- on a street that intersects the one the bus station is on. We caught the 5:30 bus just in time, arriving at a fairly deserted Sevilla airport before 6 and leaving us half an hour to kill before the check-in gate for our flight even opened. It was the first of many chunks of time we had to kill over the course of the next six days.

To our surprise, Ryanair was the smoothest part of our travels. Yes, it was pretty ghetto: our ticket was the piece of paper we had printed out when we booked the flight (we were never issued a real boarding pass), security didn't care about the 3-1-1 liquids rule (Laura got through with a zip-lock bag of liquids plus a full bottle of sunscreen), and the people who checked our tickets and passports at the beginning were the same people who checked them again at the gate where we boarded the plane. (We half expected them to run on the plane after us to be our flight attendants, but alas, that wasn't the case.) But the plane looked like your standard plane, the flight attendants were very pleasant (something we especially appreciated after three months in a country with a weak concept of customer service), and the most annoying part of the flight was that there were constant announcements on the PA system advertising food and perfumes. Very doable.

Upon arrival in the tiny, new Reus airport, we caught a bus to Barcelona. (Ryanair doesn't fly to Barcelona itself but to Reus, a small town 100 km from Barcelona whose sole purpose, as far as I can tell, is so budget airlines can get you close to Barcelona cheaply.) We bought round-trip tickets for this bus, since we'd need to take a bus back to Reus for our flight out on Sunday. The "ticket," like all the ones I've seen for buses in Spain, was a dinky receipt smaller than a playing card, so for the rest of the trip, I was paranoid about accidentally losing or ripping it up. Tip: if you ever visit Spain, bring a receipt printer and save money by printing your own own "bus tickets."

Finally in sunny Barcelona by noon, we decided to make our first day "museum day" and made our way from the bus station towards the Maritime Museum. First impressions from the streets of Barcelona: distances in Barcelona are much farther than they look on maps (whereas the opposite is true is Sevilla and even Madrid); Catalan (the regional language of Catalunya, the autonomous community in which Barcelona is located) is like an ungodly mix between Spanish and French; frankfurts and bikinis (types of sandwiches I'd never seen before) are sold everywhere; the dogs are uglier; the fashions and hairstyles are wackier; images of topless women abound; the population is ethnically diverse (although that may be inflated by tourists). An interesting city, to say the least, and completely unlike any other I've seen.

The Maritime Museum was under renovation so we could only go in certain parts, but it was worthwhile nonetheless. We learned about Barcelona's development as an important port city and the development of submarines.

I would make an excellent deep-sea diver, no?

Barcelona is full of eccentric, overpriced museums that we weren't interested in going to but wanted to see from the outside, so that's what we did next. In addition to the pictures below, there was supposedly a shoe museum with a giant shoe in front that we were never able to find.

The entrance to the Picasso Museum. I was disappointed, and I think Picasso would have been too.

Outside the Chocolate Museum. Also not that exciting, but...

We went inside the Chocolate Museum and pretended to be interested in buying tickets in order to get a look around the lobby. I snuck this picture of a sculpture of a chocolate horse-drawn carriage. Mmm... made me miss Food Network.

That's right, Museum of Erotica. Described in Laura's guidebook as "your typical European sex museum." Very helpful, since I know exactly what those are like.

After our museum tour, we were tired and wanted to hit the beach. But halfway through our trek there, we felt so exhausted that we saw a grassy patch where people were sprawled and collapsed there. With a couple guys singing and playing guitar nearby, it was a great power-nap.

When we woke up, the skies looked menacing so we nixed the beach plan and wandered to a nearby park to make our favorite travel food of all time: PB&J. Just as we were finishing up, the rain came down. Having nowhere to go, we huddled in the entryway of a municipal sports center and waited for the rain to stop. Note to self: for future travels, look up the locations and hours of public libraries so you have non-sketchy shelter in times of need.

By then it was around 8 PM and we decided to check out Port Vell, a modern waterfront harbor built for the 1992 Olympics held in Barcelona. A very contemporary looking wavy walkway called Rambla del Mar connects La Rambla (the most famous street in Barcelona, always bustling with tourists as well as locals) with Port Vell, and it's a great place to sit by the water (especially for those of us too lazy to make it to the beach). With vast amounts of time on our hands, we decided to check out the Maremagnum mall in Port Vell. What ensued was an hour in Claire's, reliving our cringe-worthy middle school fashion fads.

View of part of the coast from the Rambla del Mar. That building in the back is the World Trade Center.

Being grossly touristy, we snapped pictures in the Maremagnum mall as though we'd never seen anything like it before.

While the mall was fun, there is only so long one can spend in Claire's and H&M without buying anything, so we left around 9 PM. My bus to Avignon wasn't scheduled to leave until 11:45 PM, but it was getting dark and there was nothing open but bars and restaurants, so we decided to get dinner. We found a nice little pizza joint on La Rambla, where I had a delicious slice of goat cheese, walnut, and honey pizza. Beat that.

My dinner. Who said vegetarians can't be adventurous?

Despite our best attempts to dawdle, we left the restaurant around 10 PM and headed to the bus station. Earlier when we had arrived in Barcelona, we saw long lines outside the "International Departures" window at the bus station. Unsure whether the lines were to buy or confirm tickets, we asked someone and were informed that the lines were for people trying to buy tickets. Apparently people were waiting in lines for hours to get bus tickets northwards because their flights had been canceled due to the volcanic ash cloud. Feeling relieved that we had bought our tickets in advance, we arrived at the bus station with plenty of time to spare. The only thing we had to worry about (or so we thought) was trying to get Laura on my bus at 11:45. (Hers was scheduled to depart at 1:50 AM from the bus station on the other side of the city.) We debated whether it would be better to ask upfront about changing her bus or to just try to get on. As luck would have it, this was the first bus all semester that actually checked your reservation and exchanged your print-out confirmation for a "real" ticket. But none of this would matter for a couple hours.

Here begins the rant: First, while most bus stations are large buildings with indoor waiting areas and large covered areas with lanes for buses, Eurolines in Barcelona essentially operates out of a glorified trailer. There were three workers there and lines inched along. The international departure gate was closed at night. When we arrived and showed our tickets, instead of being directed to a line to check-in, we were told to hover in a general area outside with some French people until someone told us otherwise. 11:45 came and went. Laura and I started panicking, as we had no idea what we'd do for the night if the bus didn't show up. We started stress eating, making PB&J sandwiches right there in the sketchiest bus station on the planet. I grew hysterical from the combination of stress and sleep deprivation and laughed at everything, which turned out to be a positive coping mechanism since it prevented us from crying. I thought to myself that my parents would never have let me undertake this kind of travel plan if they knew the nitty-gritty of it. (I can write this now because it's over and I'm alive, of course.)

I took pictures in the bus station to get my mind off the stress of the situation, and because I figured that one day, we would laugh instead of cringe at these memories.

Around 12:30 AM our bus finally showed up, and I was allowed on along with the others, mostly French people. Laura was still in the station trying to convince the staff to let her on the bus. I peered out the window nervously, desperately wanting to sleep but waiting to see if Laura could get on. The French people around me talked and laughed, and I learned something new: when a large group of people near you are talking in a language you don't understand and laughing, you assume they're laughing at you and it's very intimidating. Close to 1 AM, a French man turned to me and asked what was going on with my friend. When I tried to explain, he replied, "We understand your situation but it's very selfish to hold up the whole bus when the rest of us waited in line for hours to get a ticket." Feeling the hatred of a dozen French, I tried to explain that I understood and was sorry and didn't think the delay was just because of us. Sure enough, around 1:30, Laura got on (after having been directed several different ways), but we didn't pull out of the station till almost 2 because of some issue with the bus driver. I was asleep before we left Barcelona, curled up across two seats as Laura made every effort to catch some z's across the aisle.

Little town, it's a quiet village

When I woke up, the sun had just risen and we rolling past the golden fields of southern France. Despite being slightly out of it, I thought the countryside with its occasional splotches of brown-shingled houses was undeniably beautiful. Because we had left Barcelona so late, we reached Avignon around 9 AM when the town was mostly awake instead of at a sleepy 7 AM as expected. We went first to the tourist office to pick up some maps and a "Passion Pass" that would give us discounts at tourist sights around the city. Then we stopped by our hostel, where we found out that the check-in time was noon. Until then, we decided to go cross one thing off our to-do list and headed towards the Tower of Philip the Fair. First impressions of Avignon: buildings are all beige/tan; there are lots of fancy clothing boutiques and shoe stores; all pharmacies advertise alternative medicine such as homeopathy; the word "snack" is used liberally; crepes are not as ubiquitous as I had hoped; people carrying baguettes really are everywhere; flowers are everywhere; the French don't deserve their stereotypes as rude snobs.

The way I will remember French streets: beige buildings with the only color, if any, being pale shutters; a sliver of clear blue sky above; and a pair of lovers in the corner.

After crossing the tiny town of Avignon to the tinier town of Villeneuve-les-Avignon across the river, we arrived at the Tower of Philip the Fair, which was built in 1307 to protect access to the Saint Benezet Bridge and has the narrowest spiral staircase I have ever seen. There we had our first of many awkward attempts to communicate in a mixture of French (our knowledge consisting of "bonjour," "merci," and the numbers 1 through 10) and pantomime. For a somewhat touristy town, we were surprised how few people spoke English or Spanish. (Laura told me I said, "Hablas Espanol?" in my sleep that night, which I thought was hilarious.) It was a shame we didn't know how to say "sorry" in French so we couldn't even apologize for our obnoxious failed attempts to communicate.

The Tower of Philip the Fair

Me up on the tower

After the tower, we set off in search of breakfast. We almost passed up a cute little bakery because it looked too expensive for our poor college student budgets, but we took a chance, peeked in, and fell in love. I got a pastry called a brioche and coffee. Fun fact: the French tend to use sugar cubes instead of spoons of granulated sugar!

The adorable little bakery where we had breakfast. (WARNING: The rest of this post makes excessive use of the words "cute" and "adorable.")

Immediately after breakfast, we checked into our hostel. Although it was a 4-person room, we had lucked out and got the room to ourselves. While I ran straight to the showers, Laura hit the bed. The shower was a unique experience involving scalding hot water that lasts for 30-seconds before you have to push the button again. Just after I finished showering, the fire alarm went off. Laura and I grumbled to each other about these nuisances, but deep down we were thankful to have showers and beds to sleep in that night. Poor Laura has trouble falling asleep in general (half her luggage on any given trip usually consists of gadgets to help her fall asleep) and especially on buses. We make an interesting pair: the insomniac and the narcoleptic. We've debated at length who has it worse and have come to the conclusion that both are curses from hell.

While Laura tried to continue napping, I went outside to take advantage of the beautiful day. It was in the high 70s and sunny without a cloud in sight. As I sat by the river, I decided I was probably some kind of photosynthetic organism in my past life because my well-being depends so much on sunlight.

Lounging on a bench outside our hostel, taking in the river, the bridge, and the perfect weather.

After Laura woke up, we went on a walking tour of the city. As we wandered, still cranky, sleep-deprived, and sick of buses, we decided to skip the trip to Arles and just spend both days in Avignon. This was a terrific decision as half the day was gone and there was still plenty to see and do.

Large and on the right: the Palace of the Popes. Smaller and on the left: the Avignon Cathedral. Both to be discussed later.

A cardinal's residence with a fancy Baroque facade built in 1619 and located directly across from the Palace of the Popes. At this time, southern France was primarily Protestant but Avignon was a Catholic stronghold.

View of the Pont d'Avignon from the Parc des Rochers des Doms (Avignon's park)

From the park, we went to the Saint Benezet Bridge (Le Pont Saint Benezet, also known at the Pont d'Avignon). Admission to the bridge included an audio-guide, which told the sad story of the bridge that had collapsed in parts over several centuries until a strong flood in 1668 put it out of use. Built during the 12th century, the bridge was important as it was the only one crossing the Rhone in the Middle Ages and contains chapels dedicated to Saint Benezet and Saint Nicholas. Today, only 4 of the original 22 arches are intact, and the bridge is more famous for the eponymous song than for its religious or historical significance. Next to the bridge, there was a little museum dedicated to the Pont d'Avignon song, full of panels describing the history of the song (it used to be a "pillow song," meaning a song played on a couple's wedding night) and sound clips of singers from over the years singing it. Thanks to this exhibition, I recognized the song from my piano-playing years and can guarantee it will be stuck in my head for years to come.

On the Pont d'Avignon

You better believe I rocked out on the Pont d'Avignon!

After the bridge, we continued through other parts of town, seeing a historic waterwheel, a trendy street called Rue des Teinturiers, and a bookstore so cute I half expected Belle from Beauty and the Beast to pop out. Around nightfall, we rewarded ourselves for our long (and in Laura's case, sleep deprived) day by eating ice cream and chatting on the banks of the Rhone River before turning in early for the night.

Instead of a scoop or two from an ice cream shop, being the economical people we are, we split a liter of coffee ice cream from a grocery store. That's right, a liter. Hey, four times the monthly recommended intake of ice cream for half the price; how could we pass it up?

Ev'ry day, like the one before

Starting the day with yet another nutritional PB&J breakfast, we checked out of the hostel and headed to the Palace of the Popes. For about a century beginning in 1309, Avignon served as the Catholic papacy's "home away from Rome" because of chaos in Rome. Construction of the palace began in 1335 under Pope Benedict XII on the site of the old bishop's palace of Avignon. (Notice a trend of important things being built on the former sites of other important things?) Under the next few popes, the palace was expanded and fortified and the interior was decorated with frescoes, tapestries, paintings, and sculptures. The popes departed Avignon to return to Rome in 1377, but this sparked the Papal Schism, in which antipopes lived there until 1403. (I love the concept of antipopes- it reminds me of antimatter except I can actually wrap my head around it!) With admission to the Palace of the Popes, we were given audioguides that provided very detailed (almost too detailed) explanations of the 20-plus rooms and the popes who occupied the palace.

In one of the many rooms of the palace

A model of the palace in one stage of its evolution

View of the plaza below from atop the palace

After over two hours meandering through the palace, we headed to the cathedral next door. After seeing so many enormous Spanish cathedrals with excessive amounts of gold leaf, this one was a nice change.

In the quaint Cathedral of Avignon. I'm standing at the back, so you can see how small (relatively speaking) it is.

After we were done walking through the cathedral, it was past noon and we were famished. We set off in search of a nice place where we could indulge in typical French food and found just what we were looking for: a tiny restaurant across from a shop called "La P'tite Boutique" with outdoor seating and a petite French waitress who said "voila" when she brought our food. (I had no idea that was an actual term in the French language and found it charming, much like when a man said "excusez-moi" to get by us in a souvenir shop that morning.) I discovered that the word for "vegetarian" must be pretty similar in French because it was easily understood, and I ordered quiche and crepes, both of which were heavenly.

Laura seated outside the adorable little restaurant where we ate a highly French lunch

Super happy with my spinach-and-cheese quiche

After lunch, we searched for Avignon's synagogue. For future travelers to Avignon (or for myself, because I can definitely see myself going back): the signs pointing to the synagogue are completely misleading. At a five-way intersection very close to the synagogue, there is a sign clearly pointing you down the wrong street. In any case, after going in circles a few times, we finally arrived at the synagogue. We were greeted by a very friendly English-speaking rabbi who handed us a pamphlet about the synagogue and the history of Jews in France. Avignon's Jews were nicknamed "the Pope's Jews" because the Pope offered them protection when they were expelled from France. There is also a plaque next to the Torah listing the Jews deported from Avignon to Auschwitz in 1942. This synagogue was founded in the 13th century but was completely rebuilt in the mid-19th century in a neoclassical Greek-temple style by a non-Jewish architect. As a result, it looks more like what I would expect of a Congress building than a synagogue, but I loved it.

Inside the synagogue

While trying to take a stealth picture of the rabbi, making it look like I was taking a picture of Laura instead, the kind rabbi offered to take a picture of both of us. This is it. What a generous fellow.

We had covered every touristy thing there was to see in Avignon, so we spent the last few hours of the sunny day in the park.

Adorable tricycles designed to look like horse-drawn carriages that children can rent and ride around the park. If I were a child in Avignon, I'd want to do this at least once a day.

Lounging in the park

Around 5 PM, we headed to the bus station, stopping for one last French pastry on the way and dreading going back to the land of olive oil and bocadillos. At the station, while Laura used quite possibly the most horrendous bathroom in all of Europe (a true honor, considering how many contenders there are), I tried to explain our bus ticket situation to the lady at the counter. She had trouble understanding me, but a kind French Canadian man happened to overhear the exchange and translated. The lady said we couldn't switch tickets, but we decided to try getting on the bus anyway, since this time there was no process of checking in to receive an actual ticket. When the bus arrived (fifteen minutes before it was supposed to depart- what a concept!) I waved my print-out in the driver's direction and got on! Although the timing wasn't ideal (it would have been better if Laura could have gotten on my later bus, but we didn't want to take a chance that might result in her being stuck in Avignon), we were ecstatic to have gotten on the same bus. Just when we had settled down from our excitement, a lady came on the bus checking people's tickets. Talk about false hope. She saw my ticket and instantly told me to get off the bus. I asked if I could go on this bus instead since I had paid the same price for my ticket, but she said all the seats were filled (which Laura later told me was a lie). I quickly handed my iPod to Laura (who needed it to attempt to fall asleep, since hers was almost out of charge) and yelled that I'd meet her at the Sants bus station in Barcelona as I got off the bus.

Alone in Avignon, I did what I do best: walked. I had about three hours to kill and I was afraid that if I sat somewhere, I'd fall asleep. So I walked across Avignon and crossed the river to Villeneuve-les-Avignon in search of a couple sights on the tourist map that we hadn't gotten to see. I found them (closed of course), applauded myself on my map-reading skills, snapped some pictures of their exteriors, and wandered back to Avignon.

My last glimpse of the Pont d'Avignon

Around 9:30, I was back near the bus station. I knew that the bus would pick us up from the roadside rather than the bus station because the station was closed at night, but I wasn't exactly sure where. After trying to ask a few people in the nearby train station who only spoke French, I wandered back outside to find a bunch of people with suitcases sitting on a curb. I asked a man there, "Habla Espanol?." He shook his head but asked me, "Barcelona?." I nodded, he nodded, and sure enough, around 10:30 my bus showed up. Once again, I was out before you could say "voila." We had spent two idyllic days in a picture-perfect French town, and if it weren't for the photographs, I might have thought it was a dream.