When I was in grade school, My aunt Bebbie promised me a trip anywhere I wanted in the world if I did well in school. It was to be a high school graduation present. Four years after graduation, I decided to take Bebbie up on this offer the week in between the rigor of my graduate summer courses and my Fall semester. A week's time would not be enough for me to even begin discovering the Motherland the way I would like to, and I wanted to go somewhere I knew for sure I'd enjoy, as I wouldn't be expecting another break like it until Christmas. Remembering that revisitng Marciac and taking pictures among the sunflowers was on my list of things to do, we set off from Dulles airport with my proficient French and Bebbie's proficient charades. It was an adventure to remember.
Flying out, our connecting flight was in London, and then from London we flew into Toulouse. Toulouse is about 3 hours away from Marciac, and about 2 hours away from the town next to Marciac in which we were staying. It just happened to work out that the week I had off from graduate school fell in the middle of the Marciac Jazz Festival. I hadn't been to the festival in nine years! As popular as it is in Southern France, finding a room in a town where there is only one hotel and few bed and breakfasts, we booked a place in Tarbes, which was 45 minutes away by car.
I had been too excited to sleep more than a couple hours on the plane before watching two movies on the screen on the back of the person in front of me's seat. I remember when everyone had to watch the same movie, and you couldn't rewind! Those days are apparently over...
About 9 hours after we took off from Dulles, I was more than happy to get out of my airline seat and reunite with my luggage. I turned my iPhone on, hoping to find some internet so that I could get directions from Toulouse to our hotel room. I recognized a wifi connection, but was not willing to start off my stay in France with paying for airline internet on my iPhone. So...Bebbie and I got the keys and a couple maps from National and went on our way. The maps ended up not being helpful at all, but we somehow managed to drive the entire two hours to Hotel De L'Avenue on nothing but green signs. After the nine hours of travelling, I could hardly keep my eyes open.
We pulled onto the street where our hotel was, and wondered where the "free" parking was that had been advertised on the hotel website. We made our own parking space when we saw a sign on the hotel door that said it was closed. CLOSED! We had made reservations...
I walked into this bookstore called Recup' Livres on the same street and asked them in my rusty French about the hotel. They let us use the phone, but they didn't answer. Then, they looked up some other local hotels to go to in case we were unable to get the hotel.
Then, my aunt and I remembered that in France (an whole bunch of other places in the world other than America), they take this two-hour break in the middle of the day. We had arrived towards the end of the break, and the main attendant at the hotel showed up soon after we had stumbled into the bookstore. I across the street to catch her attention, walking in with her as she looked for the reservation book. My aunt brought her bag, and we were shown to our room.
Wanting to save money, Bebbie and I chose a two-star hotel, and weren't expecting anything fancy. We opened the door to a quaint little room, a queen-sized bed with flower print bedding and little desk in the corner. The bathroom had wooden slide door, a bidet, and a toilet whose seat fell off when I tried to lift the seat. Bebbie and I laughed. The state of our hotel room became an ongoing joke the whole trip. We often referred to the free air conditioning (the window), our mini fridge (the windowsill), the safety deposit box (the closet), and the delightable room service (we couldn't find anything symbolic of that, lol).
Exploration of our room was about all we were up for after our long flight and drive to Tarbes. We napped the afternoon away and walked the town at night looking for a place to eat...
To be continued...Next Wednesday? :)
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