Where is Brian? Part II

Ok, so when you last left me I was catching my breath on the train after a panicked sprint through the Barcelona metro….that probably ended in me knocking some little old Spanish woman over in my wake of sheer and utter confusion and exhaustion.

Luckily, I made it.

The train left at 8:25 and would arrive in Toulouse at around 5….giving me pretty much all day to reflect, listen to music, be quiet and alone (for the first time really in like 3 weeks) annnnnnd gaze out the window.

Passing through the Pyrenees and into the south of France almost seemed like the real start of this trip…. It was funny to realize that I was accomplishing the very same trip that, state side, was almost a year in the making after I met Olivier.

It’s funny how everything just clicks into place when it’s so right.

So outside the train window, I can tell you that I was speechless… the country side crossing the Spanish border and going into the south of France is unbelievable. Mediterranean. Rugged. Everything that people expect from southern Europe around the Mediterranean. There were vineyards hugging steep cliffs, yellow flowers growing in between the rocks, mountains and always to my right… the ocean.

My train ticket looked a little something like this: Barcelona-Cerbere, Cerbere-Narbonne, Narbonne-Toulouse… you can check it out on a map; it’s a pretty hefty hike…. But like I said earlier… considering Toulouse was…. Just... around… the…corner? I had to go.

Ok. So now we just passed Carcassonne in the train… it’s beautiful; guarded by medieval walls and surrounded by vineyards. All the other people except for one guy get off the train, leaving us by ourselves in the little… I guess, cabin.

This is what I love about traveling; people are generally sociable and will more often than not enjoy talking rather than remain completely and utterly awkward and silent.

So, we just talked, for the hour train ride from Carcassonne to Toulouse about France, the United States, politics, traveling….very light heartedly and politely, keen to hear the other person’s point of view.

In the end he suggested that we should “tutoyer” instead of “vousvoyer”…that for me, in French at least, with a perfect stranger, is a big compliment.

Arriving in Toulouse was hectic and Olivier had an appointment to set up for a theatre show he was organizing that would show case all the clubs on campus (of which there were cheerleaders….really bizarre considering there was no sports team… definitely made me smile when they got up for their show.)

The tour went something like this: Ok… so tonight I have a role for you to play in the show (ummmm, shit?) we have to get some food, and ps… these postcards are the most important sights in Toulouse, but whatever, and oh by the way, we have to catch THAT bus (500 meters away that we had to run to, trampling little French ladies instead of little Spanish ones in the process…. It was all very exciting for me…I’m sure Olivier was just freaking out about being late ☺

It’s nice when you’re some comfortable with someone that you can rush…and make them rush too.

So fast forward to later that evening; the show. Ok, so I have never preformed on stage before in my life… and my public speaking courses in high school were a far cry from being in front of about 100 or so French students at a university I had only arrived at 3 hours prior.

Hmmmmm…. Luckily the skit I was in was an English one… It was meant to showcase the English Debate club and some sort of foreign language Translation Club. Imbedded in it was this discourse about “where is Brian?” which apparently all French speakers learn when they are learning for the English the first time that “Brian is in the kitchen.” To play off of this I was supposed to bullshit about some nonsense about “Brian not being in the kitchen.” Reverting to logic…. Even though… in FRENCH grammatical rules “Brian is ALWAYS in the kitchen.”

I reread my lines about 5 million times because I was so nervous… did I mention I had leeway… to…improvise… if I wanted…?

So we get up there… and then…

“Wait… let me ask my colleague… WHERE IS BRIAN?”

Here we go.

“This is an eternal question that has been plaguing French students for centuries… Where is Brian… (I’m proud of this part) To understand the profound nature of such mysteries we must revert to the very essence our being… the very questions of our universe… What came first.. the chicken or the egg….to be or not to be… (and ready) How much would WOULD a would chuck chuck, if a wood chuck… could chuck… wood (I thank you.)

It was a hit… I… was… funny?

Ok so really it was a short, not that big of a deal of a skit BUT for me this was pretty cool, I always said I wanted to try something in theatre, I just never had the guts or courage. It was nice to hang out feeling seemingly useless as everyone prepared and deconstructed the show through the course of the weekend and even nicer to be part of the action.

Thanks, Olivier, for giving me that opportunity.

Halfway through I caught up with the other people from the trip to Tréminis…the most amazing thing happened… we just picked up where we left off. There were no questions asked; just “hey!!! You came! Great to see you again”…the day after, Anaïs, one of Olivier’s friends, gave me a lovely tour in Toulouse that consisted of a series of gastronomic activities, precise scheduling…chance encounters with random people who were keen to practice their English (“how do you say…il va pleuvoir…” “I know three phrases…Madison Square Garden, Wall Street… and pretty boy”), a walk along the Canal du Midi as it started to rain ANNNNDDDDDDD watching Les Poupées Russes (the sequel to L’auberge espagnole…needless to say I think that now I have a future, considering that, as I have mentioned before, a lot of what I have done here has been influenced by that film…)

It was very lovely to hang out, have some tea and enjoy the company of someone else. I mean, isn’t that what this is all about?

I hate being stuck making lists; how the hell am I going to describe ALL of this…especially since everything is so engrained in my memory.

Somehow, we (meaning me with Olivier being a really gracious host) that it would be cool to take a bike ride in the country; Olivier has a grandmother that lives in a small town outside the city of Albi which is another outside Toulouse.

We were young, motivated, ready to take on a little rain, BUT freaking exhausted.

The morning we spent literally lounging around the town and taking a little siesta on the banks of the river.

And then it began… the tour in bikes.

Keep in mind two things: a) I can’t remember the last time I rode a bike more than 5 minutes and b) we hade a VAGUE idea where we were going, the roads we were going to take and, like in Tréminis….not well armed with a decent map of the region.

All the makings of a good adventure if you ask me… right? I forgot to mention that the sky was getting miserably gray, of course, as soon as we left.

So we rode. The city quickly melted away into rolling hills and beautiful countryside (ps… rolling hills are beautiful… BUT they kill your legs..fyi. And all those nice descents downhill most of the time only mean that you’ll have a bigger one to climb.) I’m not complaining at all, it’s just to say that your perspective changes from the view outside a train window to real life actually traveling through what you’re looking at. No bother…it was amazing. We passed cows…. And open fields… and.. and…

I don’t even know how much we rode, Olivier’s grandmother said that probably by the end, trips to and from the train station along the Canal du Midi included… about 30 km. We ended up getting lost and having back trek over a heart attack hill…

Pulling into his grandmothers village made it all worth while. I can’t tell you how amazing and how thankful I am to have a friend who I can do random adventures with like that…. I think I said that already when talking about Tréminis… but it’s WELL worth mentioning again.

We were definitely rewarded at his grandmothers with some amazing food, warm hospitality and EVEN a ride back to the train station because it was raining too much by his grandmothers friend who informed us as we were passing the police station that she didn’t have a license.

Fun ride for sure. But seriously, for her to go out of her way…even if, it was kind of a illegal… totally adorable.

The last day, despite crummy weather, we headed to Carcassonne; that perfectly preserved walled medieval city that I had passed on the way in. One again, coming full circle; funny how so many trips end where they seem to begin.

Olivie’rs aunt picked us up at the station to take us back to his grandmothers for our first of two huge meals; one before our trip to the city and one after… complete with first and second plates, salads, bread, cheese, and locally produced wine. Oh… about the wine, it gets batter….just wait.

We pulled into a small French village about 20 minutes outside Carcassonne that was of course flanked by vineyards and more beautiful rolling hills. Now, Olivier’s family here owns and number of vineyards and produces wine. This. Was. The. Real. Deal.

After lunch and having our ears delightfully chatted off by Olivier’s aunt… we headed to Carcassonne… first however, I got a small tour of the vineyards. We took his grandmothers little old car up into the hills outside the village (messing up the catalytic convertor… the only part of a car I actually know because I got fucked up on mine back on Long Island two summers ago.. it’s not horrible, just makes an unpleasant noise) to do a little prospecting.

We didn’t say much, but I was and still am really touched; I don’t know if it was the symbolism of sharing part of his family like that or if I was just overwhelmed by the beauty of everything; but it’s something, like pretty much every minute of this trip starting in Barcelona, that I will never forget.

Carcassonne, we took a tour of the old ramparts and saw a number of the important sights…I’m sure Olivier has seen them a million times, but it was still very cool. My favorite part was after though when we just strolled around the city walls; the skys, after clearning, then raining, then clearing, then…winding…finally cleared up for good. We just talked… climbed up on some older ramparts that we probably shouldn’t have climbed on, and just took it all in.

Dinner was as exciting and full of chatter as lunch and I have to say that I really admire Olivier’s grandmother; a pretty tough woman that had to leave her family to work in the north and now, although hard of hearing, is still super sharp; when you’re young such people are really impressionable and help you to really revaluate your outlook on life.

I was just really trying to take it all in at this point.

It’s always so difficult to leave, say goodbye. Not knowing when you will be back and if you will ever see the people you encounter during such a trip is so hard, especially when you’re like me and get so attached. It’s hard to not look ahead to the future AND not be ruled by the past…it’s something I’m really working on as this Erasmus experience winds down. Train stations are so weird like that; the place where you are both so excited when you meet someone again after a long time but at the same time are sad when your paths part. In this case it was much easier to part on path than for Olivier because…well… his train was 2 hours late.

My overnight trip took me back to the very beginning of these two blog entries; I came full circle again, covering old ground (passing Nice again in the process) and tramping on some new…It’s called to think that I have no pretty much traveled throughout the south of France in a region that stretches all the way along the Mediterranean from the north of Italy all the way to Barcelona.

It doesn’t seem like a lot on the map, but you try it.

So there I was, exhausted in my apartment, just getting life back together and work my way through all my thoughts when… someone rang the doorbell.