Some wine, some bread, always charming!

Hellooo

If you notice a difference in writing style in the following lines, it's because, for once, I, Sarah, am writing the blog. Well, look at that, Sarah is actually doing something other than Netflix, oh my, can you believe it! Let's see where this takes us... let's start with last week.

After spending two days in Castellan, we continued to Avignon and spent two nights at a free campsite, including free showers, drinking water, etc. However, there's not much else for free here. The prices for diesel, food, and restaurants in France are quite high, almost at Swiss levels. In addition to this, the average salary in France is around 1000 euros. No wonder the Yellow Vests are taking to the streets, protesting against high fuel prices, tax cuts, and minimum wages.

Our plan was to pick up Roxane, a colleague of mine, in Avignon and explore the city together. Roxane sacrificed her vacation to visit us. After two rounds around the old city walls, we realized that we wouldn't find a parking space for our eager bus in these crowded narrow streets, so we decided to go straight to Vaison la Romaine. We were too lazy to park outside the city and then walk or take the bus. In Vaison la Romaine, we met Steffi's godmother and godfather at their house in Provence. Also present were Steffi's cousin, his wife, his parents-in-law, and their two young children. Steffi, Roxane, and I spent three days together there, got lost on a hike, explored the town, ate a lot of salted butter baguettes, and drank local rosé wine.

On a cool Tuesday morning at 6:00 am, the three of us left the house. Roxane and I wanted to spend three days in Marseille, while Steffi wanted to work intensively on her distance learning at her godmother's place. She wanted to drive us with our van to the nearest bus station. Unfortunately, she couldn't drive us to Marseille or at least to Avignon, because... *sigh, shrug*. Normally, it would take a comfortable 1 hour and 40 minutes by car from Vaison la Romaine to Marseille. However, Roxane and I took FOUR hours with public transportation! FOUR HOURS! FOUR TRANSFERS! We really deserved that pain au chocolat at the Marseille train station!

To recover from our odyssey, we quickly wanted to find our Airbnb. After just three metro stations and dodging countless poop piles on the street, we made it. For the next three nights, we stayed in a small, bright one-room apartment with a kitchen and a large bathroom. On that day, we strolled through the noisy, chaotic city on foot, ate delicious Indian food, discovered an oriental market, and then had a wonderful dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant around the corner. Roxane and I are true food lovers, so delicious food is one of the most important things for us. We actually really wanted to try the famous bouillabaisse, but it was really expensive. Instead, the next day we tried the mussels at a restaurant at the old port, and they were wonderful. We took the hop-on-hop-off bus around the city. It was comfortable as we always stayed seated, observed the city, and listened to the information provided by the tourist bus. In the evening, we met an old friend of mine whom I had met during my trip to America a few years ago. It was nice to see her again and reminisce. On our last day, we wanted to go shopping. But as it usually goes when you want to go shopping, you can't find anything. Instead, we had a great time making jokes about hearing aids and Mr. Äbersold. We were not amused at a restaurant in what seemed to be a very upscale shopping center. The staff was so disorganized that it almost drove us crazy, seriously!

We sit there hungry. Terrace half empty (or half full, however you like it). Four waiters running around.

Waiter walks past us.

Waiter walks past us.

Waiter walks past us.

Waiter comes. We would like to have the menu. Of course, bien sûr, right away. Waiter leaves.

Waiter walks past us.

Waiter walks past us.

Waiter walks past us.

We practice patience.

Waiter comes by. Gives us the menus. Asks if we want something to drink. Roxane says: Je veux un cola et une eau plate, s'il vous plaît.

Waiter walks away.

We've decided on a menu.

We practice patience.

We practice patience.

We practice patience for 15 minutes.

Waiter brings a cola. Waiter leaves.

I miss my water. Hungry.

Waiter walks past us.

Waiter walks past us.

Waiter walks past us.

Excuse me? Yes? Where is my water? Yes, of course, I'll look in a moment, tututu.

I understood that as: Yes, it'll come soon.

Waiter walks past us.

Waiter walks past us.

Waiter walks past us.

No water. No order taken. We're angry and hungry.

We get up and leave.

Waiter sees us. Don't you want to eat anything?

No, forget it.

Hello? Who takes 20 minutes to bring water and take an order, seriously! When it comes to food, we don't mess around. And then having the audacity to ask if we want to eat something. Seriously? Why do you think we've been sitting in a restaurant for 30 minutes? After that, we sat grumpily in the next fancy burger place and enjoyed a delicious burger that immediately lifted our mood.

We said goodbye on Friday morning. Next time, we will see each other in Amsterdam in March, as we will all attend a concert together. We're really looking forward to it!

So here I am again, sitting on Steffi's godmother's couch. Today, we cleaned out our van a bit, and we'll give things we don't need to the godmother to take back to Switzerland. Filou is doing well, and every now and then, the godfather "accidentally" drops a piece of bread or salami for him. We'll stay here until Tuesday, and then we'll drive on towards Montpellier, where we'll meet two of Steffi's friends on Thursday. We're excited!

Cyaaaaaa

PS: Oh, I almost forgot! Something super embarrassing happened to Steffi today! But she said I'm not allowed to tell you... maybe I can convince her until the next blog post ;D