It all started when we stepped off the train and into the reality of signs marked only in French. Of the few French words I have learned, Sortie (exit), is one of them; therefore I followed the signs. That Sortie brought us to a deserted, ugly, completely non-French town that burned our expectations and left us walking aimlessly up the street in hopes of a helpful taxi. The aimless walking lead us to a SUV of men (whom I realized were drunk only after I got in the car) who wanted to take us to the nearest hotel. The nearest hotel was a lonely building in the midst of an abandoned area on the North side of Bordeaux with no restaurants, a dirty river, and only industrial plants for entertainment. We thought we had made a mistake, decided to cut our losses and take a tram to the center of Bordeaux and see if we could find some information about picking grapes. Our luck seemed to change...
The next morning, the receptionist/owner of the hotel we had determined must be going out of business (for our perception we were the only occupants of a room that night in the abandoned hotel in the middle of no where!) turned out to speak perfect English, had contacts with a nearby vineyard in the Medoc wine-making region, and was eager to help the lost, American travelers. After informing us the grape-picking, or Les Vendages as it is called here in France, doesn't start until the 15th of September, she suggested us making the short trip across the border to Barcelona for the weekend. "Would you like to go by train (expensive) or hitch-hiking?" she asked. My response, "So hitch-hiking is a possibility?" Some might say this may not have been the smartest move, but hey - when in Rome, right? So, we hitch-hiked.
After desperately standing at the corner of an intersection, a friendly telecommunications Frenchman drove us to the main highway entrance to Toulose. There, it didn't take long to meet a young married couple on their way back to their hometown of Toulouse who offered a ride in the back of their black, sleek car and with entertainment from 100s of favorite American bands all the way back to Bob Dylan and Elivs Presley! In Toulouse, we met the traditional semi-truck driver who carried us on to the truck stop at the highway split to Perignan, where a disabled women in a wheel chair opened her door for a free ride into the center of Perignan...Which is where I sit now, in a humble hostel amid the streets of a Mediterranean city in the South of France. I had a 2003 Bordeaux wine for only 15 euros tonight, sitting in an outdoor cafe, breathing in the fresh, clean air and admiring the beautiful, flowered apartment balconies of the European buildings.
Surprisingly, the rides were neither scary nor difficult to find! At each stop, we waited no more than 5 minutes for a someone to offer their free seats, and none of the drivers lived up to the legend of snooty Frenchman. Each spoke at least a little English, and all at least understood the most important English phrase when passing through traffic with inept drivers, "Bullshit!" The road trip was indescribably beautiful. To the South lay the Pyrenees, to the North lay the Alps, but here I was riding through the flat lands of South-Central France that oddly reminded me of Oklahoma. Lots of agriculture (especially grapes!) and rolling hills dyed with colors of yellow, brown and green - I wondered, isn't this the France everyone should see? So different from the bustling city of Paris, flooded with noses stuck in the air. The countryside - this is the real France, the simple France, the France that can remind you of Southern hospitality at home - however, this France has the Mediterranean sea that I get to visit tomorrow, and Oklahoma has... lake Grand Lake?
If it wouldn't have been for that wrong turn out the back door of the Train station, if it wouldn't have been for that crazy group of men taking us to the abandoned hotel; if it wouldn't have been for that owner who suggested hitch-hiking to Barcelona... where would I be now?
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