Arles

For about 50 euros, Andrew and I hopped on a tram to Arles. We thought we were being smart when we left the hotel by checking the weather and dressing accordingly. Today did turn out to be warm, but not till a few hours after we left. The four hour train ride was miserably cold. I brought my Netbook so we could watch a movie on the trip up, so at least we weren’t bored, just really cold.

Currently, Andrew and I are sitting on a bench at the Gare waiting for the train to Marseille. We’re an hour early so I’m killing time by writing this while a French bee harasses Andrew who discovered that it’s “just as annoying as its American brother.” On our way here, he tried to ask a woman where the train station was saying, “ou est la gare?” She just starting laughing and didn’t even respond. He thinks she might have thought he asked, “ou est la guerre?” which means, “where is the war?”

While we were roaming around Arles, we went to see an old Roman Arena where the gladiators used to fight. Now it’s used for non violent bullfighting, where they don’t kill the bull. Nothing was going on today so we just explored the arena admiring the impressive architecture which was still intact after 2,000 years. We took lots of pictures and one very amusing video of me crawling through this tiny whole in the wall. I think it used to be some sort of prison. It was a depressing little room and smelled like poop. Andrew didn’t think it smelled all that bad but that’s not saying much… Andrew is re-watching the video for the 10^th time now and he’s still giggling. I’ll probably upload it because it shows the inside of the arena which was very cool.

After, we went to the Theatre Antique which was falling apart. During the middle ages, the French began taking the stones from the theater after the Romans had cleared out. Looking at the pictures, that place would’ve been pretty sweet if they didn’t mess it up. We tried to string a few pictures together to get the whole theater but it didn’t really work. I ended up taking a little nap in the stands as Andrew looked up other funtivities for us to do. We searched for Van Gogh’s house but failed. So, defeated and a bit hungry, we ventured through the small streets till we reached the Forum Square. There were lots restaurants with outdoor seating. It was nice and awkward standing at the entrance of three different restaurants debating whether we should just sit or wait to be seated. France is weird that way. When we tried to get breakfast this morning, we didn’t realize it was just a thing they give you. In the US, we’re used to ordering from a menu of different things but here, they just give you coffee, croissants and bread with butter and jam. It was very confusing and took us two restaurants and a friendly interpreter to figure it out. We still haven’t figured out how to tip waiters correctly so we just tip them what we would if we were in the U.S. Hopefully it’s not far off from that.

Andrew seems to have bad luck when it comes to walking. Only he would step in gum while leaving the plane. Today he almost fell off the raised sidewalk because he tripped. The sidewalk was pretty high too it would’ve hurt a lot. He mainly trips over his abuses flip flops as you will see in some of the videos he has taken.

I’ve been practicing my French a lot speaking to waitresses and ticket booth workers. Andrew refuses to speak any French besides “oui” and “gare” which gets annoying.