Nott What You'd Expected...

Better Get a Bucket

If you haven't read Part I, my post on Avignon, please skip over this and follow the story chronologically. Otherwise, the suspense will be lost, and Avignon will feel painfully boring (aside from Presidential Cantidates and French Movie crews)....

We last left our hero (me) arriving at the train station en route to Marseille to meet up with Emily. Kate and all of her French speaking skills had left me hours before, and I had spent my time reading about Vietnam on the shores of the Rhone.

What happened next can only be described as the most awkward, disgusting, painful, jaw-dropping moments of my life. Hyperbole? Possibly. I'll try not to dissapoint.

Most of my feelings can be best encapsulated in the journal entry I wrote in my hard copy journal just hours following, so in an attempt to stay as close to the emotive verisimilatude as possible, here is a word for word retelling of my afternoon:

March 30, 2007 Avignon to Marseille (writing from the hostel, safe in Marseille)

"Hmmm.... If ever a scary episode in my life desrved a Merideth Grey-esque voice over with haunting music and dramatic slow motion camera angles, this would be it.

I said goodbye to Kate, read on the balcony, left the hotel and took a place by the river to finish The Things They Carried before making the trek from the bridge to the train station...

The first sign that things woutldn't go in my favor was the discovery that I, in fact, should have been at the other Avignon train station, a 20 minute bus ride away- My train was the 13:50 leaving from the TGV- however, I found that there was a slow train (Ter) leaving from this station in 4 minutes...

Fortunately (or so I thought at the time) the reservations desk informed me that I could use my ticket for this train and ride to Marseille just fine. Great.

I jumped on board, but found that most of the cars were full. One car, designed in the cabin-seating style was almost full, save for a spot in a car seated across from a very well dressed, be-beret-ed bald black guy, who was fast asleep, strewn about in a very awkward pose across the bench.

I settled in, glad to be onboard, and anxious to meet up with Emily. I started watching The Office (season 3 ) when suddenly....I'm queasy writing about this now.... The man jumped in his seat- he became rigid, his eyes bugging out and staring at me- almost in a way that one might scare another person, like when you wake up in the middle of a dream when you're falling- only the man wasn't waking up...

He launched full force into a seizure. Me. Him. Closed Cabin. Train to Marseille. France. Train full of French speaking foreigners (well, foreign to me at least)-
As he shook violently and slumped to the floor, his head slammed into the floor, and I immediately began to scream for help- SIR! SIR! SIR! I yelled, hoping he was kidding, playing around, anything- but no response.... I flung the door open and ran through the narrow hallway, screaming for help- (even now, I have no idea what the French word for Help is...)

Train workers, an older plump blonde woman in a sweater, a college student and I moved in to help... The old woman was amazingly calm, doing her best to readjust the man, asking questions as I mumbled in English to the college girl who translated for the rest of the crew...

Spectators filled the hallway, peaking their heads out, asking me questions in French as I dumbly gazed back at them in disbelief.

The stench of stomach acid and involuntary bowel evacuation filled my cabin, as I eyed my backpack, new jacket, and ipod, which was strewn over the seat in a haphazard, getmethefuckoutta here fashion.

The man, still on the ground, was leaking saliva as the sweatery woman stradled him and tried to get him to acknowledge her.

At the next stop, 20 minutes later, paramedics flooded the train and (again, queasy now) almost covered his sweaty, bile-drenched body with my new coat. The man rose to his feet, hobbled off the train, and the crowd dispersed.

I picked up my belongings and found a nearby cabin that smelled less like bowels and more like the old Chinese guy that was passed out against the window. I took a seat, and picked up where Michael Scott and the gang left off.... One of the spectators, who had knowingly watched me struggle through the ordeal was a 20 something bald-headed chav-like french guy, who was now sleeping across from me. Suddenly, he jolted awake, and judging by the look on his face afterwards, I must have reacted like hell-
He immediately burst out laughing, a long rope of snot flying out of his nose and landing on his shirt. Embarassed, he swiped it back up, and I laughed as I pretended not to notice. Jackass.

The fun continued when the train finally pulled into Marseille. Emily found me, and tugged on the back of my coat to get my attention. The two of us, unFrenched and clueless, wandered the train station looking for some semblence of hope for weary, confused travelers of our breed.

The guy working in the help desk directed us to the metro, where the nightmares continued.

Emily sat down, backpack in tow, and a stop later, was joined by......a creature of sorts.

His greasy red t shirt clung to his every fold... his joints were swollen, and his elbows were exagurrated- bulging and awkward. His hair was molded, carved of oil and dirt, while the smells he carried arrived in waves.

A plastic bag accompanied him- filled with rotting seafood, including two oysters that he played as castonettes- a beautiful duet to accompany his loud and deranged barking, a sound he only ceased with schitzophrenic yelps and angry growls.

He asked/yelled at Emily, correctly guessing that she was English, before moving his attention to the smartly dressed yet unprepared French girl sitting across from him.

She recieved most of the brunt of his assults, but the turning point arrived hwen he decided to show off one by one his unwashed, unenviable, indescribable parts. He slowly adjusted his pant leg, moving it up half-seductively and looking around the car...

He removed his shoe, and almost immediatly I became ill. Like, grab the toilet seat, convulse on the bathroom floor ill-

I glanced at his now-exposed bare foot, an appendage that for all intensive purposes, lacks the necessary requirements of appendages as they are known to the human race. Looking more like an old catcher's mit covered in blue cheese and riddled with what may be described as toe nails, it met what can only be described as a rotting column of kebab meet he called a leg at a junction of mangled scars and twisted skin.

Exit French girl. Exit me. Exit Emily. At this point, he put his foot up on the now vacant chair where French Girl had once sat, trapping Emily in a prison of filth and rotting flesh. No less than 6 people stood up, moved to the rear of the train, and prayed to God (if they believe in God here in France) to stop the train, or let them jump out.

The smell, now an orgy of rotting seafood, moldy flesh, old wine, and bad breath spilled out of the doors as we lunged for the platform.

After a bus ride and a walk to the hostel, all of the crap and filth and torture was rectified, as we stared head strong into the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.

posted by Kevin @ 12:30 PM