A Brief but Exciting Excursion on the Wrong Bus. And Wine.

A little town in Provence that I am in love with.

The magical ochre forests! This is where we lost Pam, our professor. No, "Pam" is not a French name - she is from England.

Here I am holding up an old Roman bridge all by myself.

Tuesday evening, around seven I got on the bus at the same bus stop I usually use after school, surrounded by punk French middle schoolers who all look like they're about twenty and who all smoke already. The following is an account of my train of thoughts on this bus after I had hopped aboard:

Hey. These people are not my bus people.
This driver is not my bus driver. This route is not my bus route.
Oh. I'm on the wrong bus. Cool. Well, at least I'm hopefully going in the right direction - it feels like I am - and maybe I can find another stop near the house and walk. Oh, wait - no, I'm not going in the right direction. This is interesting. I'm not in the city at all anymore. I'm in a part of the country that I've never been.
Ok. Huh. What to do now.
Yeah. Time to get off this bus.

I got off and was stranded for awhile, but luckily managed to re-find the same bus I had just dismounted, which was then headed back toward the city, and - after smiling cheerily at the same driver I had just bid bonsoir to fifteen minutes before - I rode back to the centre-ville and found the correct bus to go home. If it all sounds slightly ridiculous, that's because it was. Darn the stupid French autobus. Every time, I think I've mastered the system, I go and take the wrong bus into the wrong part of the country and wander around lost again for awhile.

This evening we had our first "Degustation de vin" class - wine-tasting. And yes, we call this school here. I love the French.

I have a new favorite wine. Though normally I prefer red, (perhaps this is because of my hearty Hungarian blood) it is a white wine. It is made from the grape called Muscat noir - no idea what this is in English - but it has a slight orangey color, and it tastes like fall and warm caramel. I know, I know - I sound like a true wine connoisseur. All that vocab I learned this evening put to good work now - it tastes like "fall" and "caramel" and is "orangey." It is apparently similar to a port wine, and comes from the Provence region. Delicious. Someone in the class put it very well: "I just want to go to sleep in this wine." Me too.

We tasted four different kinds of wine. The class got out around seven fifteen, too early to have had dinner yet, and yet lunch for all of us was six or seven hours before. We did not eat anything during the class. The noise level increased considerably as the class went on, and we were all a bit tipsy and giggly as we said goodbye to the professor. When I got home, I eagerly told my host dad that I have a new favorite wine. He told me a couple weeks ago that he is "happy to have someone to drink with", since my host mom isn't too partial to alcohol. He excitedly opened up a random cabinet in the living room, which, I then discovered, is full of wine! Woo! Though I was already lightheaded and in need of food, he poured me another small glass.

"Was it like this?" he asked.
I drank some. More of that caramel orangey loveliness. I finished the glass quickly.
"Yep. Yep. Definitely like that."

It was a good evening.

Some things I miss from the States:
Football (americain.) Tall, syrupy flavored drinks named things like "soy hazelnut mocha" or "pumkin spice latte." Brothers. Being able to easily watch the presidential debates on TV, at times other than three in the morning. Roommate. My notebooks filled with writing and notes. Linfield.

Still, these are just things that I miss, not things that I feel miserable about. Walking home from the bus stop tonight, the fall stars were very marvelous to look at. I was very, very content.