When I walked into my new room here in Aix-en-provence at 10:30pm, it had been twenty-three hours since I left my room back in Coquitlam. Considering I only got about four hours of sleep on the plane and four hours the night before (in order to be able to sleep on the plane), I’ve wanted to sleep all day. Now it’s midnight, I’m unpacked, and I’m wide awake.
We’ll say that my trip started yesterday when the plane started… then stopped. We were all ready to go waiting on the runway fifteen minutes early to take off. El capitano comes on and tells us maintenance wants to have a look at something, so we’re just going to pull back into the terminal. Murphy’s Law at its best, I suppose. An hour and forty-five minutes later, we were back on the runway for take-off. We made a stop in Calgary to pick up another 100 people, and while sleeping on the plane, I had a dream that we stopped again in Ottawa where I called a friend who ended up being too deathly sick to come see me. Strange dream.
The big debate when I was booking my ticket with Zoom Airlines was to go for “premier” or “economy”. Wait a minute, that wasn’t a debate. I’m a student. I booked the cheap flight. As it is, all that $200 difference gets you is a seat in one of the front ten rows; juice when the economy gets water; good-looking flight attendants in their twenties instead of the retired cops named Heidi that you’ll find in economy; a flamboyant pretty-boy asking you if you’re comfortable; a peppy, blond, twenty-something toothpick serving you moist towelettes with mini tongs; a little extra luggage allowance (I must admit, that would have been nice. Thanks for paying for that overweight luggage for me, mom!); and five inches of extra legroom.
I was a witness to all this “special treatment” that the premier seats were getting because I was in row eleven—right behind them! I should say “right behind”, because there was a big division between the premier and economy seats. If you’re following, you can see what this means: not only did I have a lucky five extra inches of legroom, I had a whole four extra feet!! I was also right there at the door for when the plane landed. I was the first one off and the first one through the maze-like chains set up to get to the passport officers while the others were stuck in the maze like lab rats.
Despite leaving almost two hours late, we miraculously arrived on time. I should clarify. We landed on time. It took us an hour to wind our way through the runways, park in the terminal, get off the plane, cram onto “busses” that were more like platforms on wheels, and be taken on a thirty-second drive to the terminal from where we could still see the others getting off our plane. I would have preferred the five-minute walk. Even with the abundance of legroom, my legs were extremely stiff.
After grabbing my bags, I took the CDGVAL, a train to get to another part of the airport where the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse [high speed]) train station was. I bought my ticket, and two hours later, after spotting a few camouflage-wearing nineteen year-olds (guys and girls!) patrolling with machine guns strapped to their chests, I hopped on the three-hour train to Aix. I followed that with a fifteen-minute bus ride to get downtown, and a walk to get to my residence. I ended up being turned around down the wrong street (a very nice street—I hope to do some exploring tomorrow!) and some Brazilian guy now living in Aix was kind enough to ask if he could help with directions. After figuring out that I was just heading the wrong direction on the right street, he insisted on helping me take my suitcases and walking me to the residence, and I insisted he not.
Thank goodness there was someone at the residence so I could get keys. When I couldn’t find anyone to even let me into the rez, I was starting to think which park bench looked the most comfortable. After thirty minutes talking to Everybody Loves Raymond’s older brother’s identical twin, Jean-Claude, I finally was handed the keys to my room. The conversation with him could have been a lot shorter, however, for one, he has a huge st-st-st-stutter, and secondly, he insisted on telling me every detail of every room that had yet to be filled. Basically, they’re all the exact same rooms, it just depends whether you want to be near a noisy doorway, or have bright neon lights glaring into your window from La Grande Casino across the street. (Those who visited my Leblanc room on a Friday night know why I chose the latter.) My only request was a room on one of the upper floors so that if I eat too much cheese here in France, at least I’ll work some of it off by climbing six flights of stairs every day. So I lugged my suitcases up those stairs to the fifth floor (apparently, French elevators don’t work at night), and entered my room.
It’s about 9m2 and it’s pretty bare. I will fix that. It’s got a sink in it (which is more than I can say for my Leblanc room) and a bidet. I’m not sure what I’m going to use that for considering the bathroom is down the hall. I had a teacher who told me to use it to do my laundry and then hang it out the window. Apparently that’s what all the students in France do because the laundry’s too bloody expensive. Did I mention that we’re supposed to keep toilet paper in our rooms and take it with us when we go to squat over the seatless co-ed toilets?! Nice, eh? The street I’m facing isn’t that busy. Once in a while you can hear a scooter buzz by, and the blue neon lights from the “Pasino” really aren’t that bad (I have no idea why they call it a Pasino instead of a Casino. If I find out, I’ll let you know.
Well, I’m excited. This is going to be a fun year. Writing this has also done the trick. I’m exhausted. I doubt any of my other posts will be this long. It has just been a long day.
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