August Shutdowns

 I tell you what.  Life in Southern France in the summer is so hard.  Having fun with friends...going to towns like Avignon...jumping around in lavender fields...I'm really suffering over here.

Just to show you how hard life in August in Southern France can be, let me tell you about Aix.  I went with some friends to get away for the weekend, enjoy some burritos, and they were going to see an English movie while I perused the English bookshop.

I arrived on the bus from Marseille, and hopped over onto the local bus out to Mr. and Mrs. X's house.  It went around and around, and I noticed that it wasn't going the normal route.  30 minutes later, I was right back at the bus stop where I'd gotten on.  I hopped off and asked someone why the bus went a different route.  In total frustration, she said, "They've changed ALL the bus routes!  Everything's new. Nobody knows the new routes yet."

Oh man.  I had NO IDEA how to get out to the house besides that bus.  So for maybe only the 3rd time in all my years in France, I took a taxi.  Ouch.  Instead of the 1 euro bus ride, I paid 10 euros.  Egads.  Once there, I checked their mail, and they had a friendly letter from the bus company explaining the new routes...and it included one free ticket included to use to get to know the new routes.  Thanks...but I'd rather they reimburse me the 10 euros it cost me for that taxi!

I walked down to the bus stop, found out the new bus numbers, went back to the house, and looked up the routes online.  I was set to head back into town.

My friends and I were greeted by this sign at the burrito shop.  Let me translate for you: "NO BURRITO FOR YOU."  Boca Loca took a vacation!  The audacity!  Don't they know that they are the main form of gastronomical bliss that we Americans seek out when in Aix?

 So we walked from there over to Crepes à Go-Go, hoping for a good and tasty crepe in place of our beloved burrito.  This is what greeted us: "NO CREPES FOR YOU."  They must have gone on vacation with Boca Loca.

Now, I do have another back up should those two places fail: The Bagel Story.  You who know me well know that I love me some bagels.  But my friends weren't up for trying to find the bagel shop to find it a third strike out.  So we decided to just go to what was open.  We saw a place on the main strip that called itself an Irish pub, and we thought--fish and chips sounds perfect.

Honestly, I have no idea why they called themselves an Irish pub.  There was only one thing on the menu that was Irish: fish and chips.  The rest was French.  So we ordered the fish and chips, and this is what we got.  Let me translate again: "NO FISH FOR YOU."

 Those are fried shrimp.  Well.  It was good, and I ate the whole thing.  But it was not Irish fish and chips.  It was not even fish.  But it was good.  We had a good laugh over that.

The English movie...also didn't happen.  Turns out that Brave isn't showing in English anywhere in Marseille or Aix.  Animated films in original language are tough to come by, since kids (who go see animated films) usually can't understand the English nor read the subtitles fast enough to keep up.  So...we hung out at the English bookstore.  I was happy with that.

Life in Aix in August is just so rough.  Really.  You should feel bad for me.