A Turnaround Twelve Hours in Chicago

At 4:30 am the train pulled into Chicago’s Union Station, fourteen hours late, meaning an unexpected and weary day in Chicago until the next train east at 9:30 pm. Not surprisingly, my traveling companion and I were exhausted and uncomfortable. We had been assured for more than ten hours that Amtrak would put us up in a hotel and rebook our travel home. Being hyper vigilant about bed bugs I always check the online Bed Bug Registry prior to booking accommodations. Blurry-eyed (without enough reading glasses to read everything on my cell-phone screen), very hungry (I ran out of food around seventeen hours prior), and grumpy to my core, I scanned bed bug reports and, sure enough, the hotel we had been comped had fourteen bug alerts. I start Googling the hotels that showed zero reports and they were all fully booked.

My companion was equally exhausted, but less concerned about bed bug contamination than I was so we were at odds. Finally I proclaimed that she could go to the hotel without any luggage (she didn't), but that I was going to stay at the station and wait the forty-five minutes until the lounge for sleeping-car travelers opened up. I felt like I was on a camping trip where it starts pouring, the tent leaks, and you’re having car problems….you are so uncomfortable you just want it to all go away (especially since the expectation was that we would be spending a whole night (instead of a partial morning) in a comfortable hotel bed (sans bugs). Expectations mixed with no sleep and low-blood-sugar made for tender and trigger-cranky emotions.

My companion decided to fly home due to work commitments (our new scheduled arrival home was a minimum 24-hours later than originally planned.) My day had grim prospects. I thought likely I would spend it curled up on a stained, lumpy love seat in the windowless lounge room of Union Station, dozing on and off, hopefully not visibly drooling. I didn’t have motivation for much else, but the love seat was less than appealing, so I mustered my last shred of energy and headed off to Whole Foods, not far from the train station. This was slow-shopping in the extreme. My daze was reminiscent of how I used to feel after working a twelve-hour shift all night at the hospital. I was working hard at concentrating and was slightly aware that I looked like someone on drugs or newly homeless (after three and a half days on a train from California I was doing a good imitation). Then I slowed down even more when I realized I had nothing to do for twelve hours. S-l-o-w shopping. If my companion had stayed she would have killed me.

After stocking for two more full days of travel, I settled into the cafe area and ate, which fortified me enough to think about spending my day outside of the station.

I knew I would be a horrible companion in that I needed every ounce of reserve to function and couldn’t expend any on niceties or social interaction, so I did not contact the handful of people I know in Chicago. It was sunny, with a slight breeze and perfect temp, so off I went to explore. Since not all my cylinders were firing, I took a water taxi to Navy Pier, where I boarded a larger boat for an architectural tour of Chicago. This was the perfect solution for the worn-down traveler: I was sitting outside, soaking in the sun, but learning things about the “windy” city: the bridge designs are from Paris, the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) can sway three feet in any direction at upper stories; and, the Haymarket Riot, a tragic event in labor history resulting in the hanging of union organizers, took place in downtown Chicago.

After the informative and, for me, therapeutic boat ride, I wandered around the shoreline and city beach, then made my way towards a day spa where I had booked a massage. Exploring the neighborhoods on the way, I stumbled onto Local Root, a local-foods restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating in the Streeterville neighborhood of the city. I had plenty of time before my appointment, so I savored a full, fresh meal for the first time in four days. While vegetarians will find a number of things to eat, the menu is heavy on meat and fish. My salad of local greens and pickled onions was delicious (the pickled onions were especially good) and went well with my perfectly cooked grass-fed burger. Chicago’s tap water tastes heavily of chlorine and has other known contaminants in it, so I would recommend ordering bottled water (although I would rather see restaurants doing their own in-house filtration of tap water).

Next stop on my grim-day-turned-fabulous, was the Allyu Spa located along the Riverwalk in the River North area. The large, airy, Buddhist-inspired day spa offers a range of massage and spa therapies as well as a far-infrared sauna. There is a meditation/relaxation sanctuary where you can wait before and after your therapy, as well as outside seating along the river. From start to finish Allyu was what this weary traveler needed.

The sad love seat where I might have spent my day was still at the train station when I returned, waiting for some other desperate traveler. My message to them—you have options.



Full Disclosure: no businesses listed here had any knowledge that I would be writing about them and provided zero comp benefits.

Green Day In NYC

PART I
The train from Vermont to New York City is neither high-speed or even regular-speed, but tragically a slow-speed, making public transit between bucolic Vermont and New York City limited and difficult. Fortunately the Dartmouth Coach has started a daily service to New York City making the trip not just easy, but luxurious.

After arriving and  relieving myself of my bags, I set off to enjoy the afternoon - a glorious September day in Manhattan - sunny, with a slight breeze and bright blue sky.

My first stop was Kitchen Arts & Letters. If you are a cook or foodie who loves books this is your spot. Floor to ceiling cookbooks, wine guides, food memoirs, books about kitchen design, nutrition and food storage cover this not very large store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. You can find DVDs of Julia Child’s television show that I vividly remember watching as a young girl on New York’s Channel 13. I was really too young to appreciate the knowledge she was imparting, but coming from a home where no one cooked anything except frozen fish sticks and grilled-cheese sandwiches, I marveled at her kitchen prowess, her voice (which I loved) and found her comforting - like a relative I should have had but didn’t.

Kitchen Arts & Letters has two full shelves of books about the politics of food - not just the more well known books like Food, Inc. (which if you haven’t, you should read - or see the film), but a variety of lesser known but no less important titles.  They also have books for travelers - books highlighting food in different countries as well as right there in New York such as a guide to New York Markets (very useful). Beyond the cookbooks and wine guides, the serious cook will find out-of-print and foreign books available as well.

Next stop was the Idlewild independent bookstore, already a favorite haunt of mine, not just because they sell my Traveling Naturally Guides, but also because they are a specialized store focused on one of my favorite subjects - travel. Organized by country, Idlewild sells not only an excellent selection of guidebooks, but also literature from each country. People living in the city can take advantage of their ten-week language immersion courses concentrating on conversation.

Out of Idlewild I headed west on 19th street to 9th Avenue. I could have stopped at any number of restaurants and shops along the way. When I was a kid in New York, West 14th up through the 20s was not such a great area. Now it is a happening scene. Beautiful tree-lined residential streets are mixed with interesting, often trendy, stores and eateries.

Instead of getting distracted, I kept my focus. I was on the search for olive-oil pouring spouts for a Spanish olive oil tasting I am hosting next week and a cook-extraordinaire, cookbook-writer friend of mine had tipped me off to a kitchen supply store in the Chelsea Market on 9th and 15th St.

The Chelsea Market, a former Nabisco factory, was transformed in 1997 into foodie heaven. Specialty, gourmet and green eateries dot the refurbished factory intermixed with stores selling  books, liquor, housewares, and gifts. The Oreos may be gone but there are plenty of devilishly delicious treats to eat at almost every turn.

Chelsea Market Baskets offers an eclectic selection of baskets, gourmet treats, chocolates, housewares and baby items. I was delighted to see they carried three favorite products of mine. LA Organic olive oils from Cordoba, Spain (not Los Angeles as the name might imply); Askinosie chocolate made in small-batches with organic sugar and goat milk – it is incredible!; and Q Tonic, the best tonic water I have found made with organic agave syrup (no sugar or high fructose corn syrup) and real quinine.

I did not shop at Dickson’s Farmstand meats, but went in to survey the organic offerings. Set up as an old fashioned butcher shop, Dickson’s sells organic and local meats including beef, lamb, pork, goat and poultry, all raised without hormones, animal by-products and prophylactic antibiotics. If you want fully organic ask for which meats are certified........


continued tomorrow in Part 2...

In and Out of Barcelona By Train

Barcelona and Madrid are the two main train and plane hubs in Spain. I have found myself living on either side of Barcelona the last two winters and so have used the Barcelona trains extensively. Below are a few tricks and tips I have learned that should be useful to travelers entering or leaving Barcelona by train. 

There are two train stations in Barcelona -  Estacio de Franca in Catalan (de Francia in Spanish) and Estacio Sants. Sants is the newer station with most of the train traffic including the high speed AVE.

Franca is the old station with marble floors and a grand feeling although much smaller than Sants and with fewer tracks. The overnight trains to Paris, Zurich and Milan leave from Franca. Franca has no stores or services to speak of except ticket windows, an information desk and rest rooms.

The bathrooms have been renovated since I wrote the Green Earth Guide: Traveling Naturally in Spain and now do have toilet paper and toilet seats, but take note and get your toilet paper on the way in as it is only in the entry of the bathroom, not in the stalls.  The sinks are automated all-in-one wash and dry and the stalls now don bright pink doors. 

If you have to wait or have a layover at Franca be prepared with food especially if you have luggage, as there is nothing to eat in the station- not even a newsstand - so be prepared with reading material as well. There used to be a large café/bar at one end of the station but that is closed for renovation with no indication of when it will reopen. The left luggage (consigna) has been closed for years at Franca due to security issues. 

The station is covered but open air, so while lovely in the warmer months, it can be chilly in the winter. In the evening the one heated room is where the information area is with seven or so comfortable chairs, usually filled with travelers waiting for the overnight trains to Europe which leave between 7:00 and 9:00pm.

In stark contrast the Barcelona Sants station is a new large complex complete with shops and food options, and a metro accessible from within the station. If you have luggage you don’t want to lug around, you can leave it at the Consigna (Left-Luggage) lockers at Sants. 

There is a convenient train that runs between the two stations for 1.40 (at writing time). You need to buy a specific ticket at one of the machines for the Rodalies (commuter) trains. The trip only takes twelve minutes between the stations and is definitely the fastest, easiest and cheapest means between the two. The trains run regularly - every fifteen minutes or so. 

To buy your tickets from Sants TO Franca - go to the machines down by tracks 13-14 in the Sants station. At the machine you can choose your language and then must search for your destination (Barcelona de Franca) which will be on the second page of options. At Sants you enter the tracks with your ticket via a turnstile much like the metro so it both gains you entry and validates the ticket.

At Franca there is a machine to the right of the ticket counter near to the security checkpoint. The same thing holds true here – buying your ticket from Franca TO Sants you will have to click on the yellow “other destinations” button to find Barcelona Sants in the middle of the second page of destination options. At Franca you MUST validate your ticket in one of the machines in the hallway where security is prior to boarding the train AND you will need your ticket to exit at Sants so hold onto it. 

If you have a lot of time between trains and are not too encumbered by luggage you can take the metro to the old part of the city and stroll through the streets and up Las Ramblas stopping to have a meal or snack. The fresh squeezed fruit juices at La Boqueria market are especially refreshing for travelers. If you are starting at Franca, I would take the metro one stop to Jaume 1 and then wind my way over to Las Ramblas through the back streets. From Sants, if you don’t want to bother switching metro lines, take the green line L3 to Liceu which will let you out right on Las Ramblas.

For more information about the overnight train see the post Dinner in Paris, Breakfast in Barcelona.

Dinner in Paris, Breakfast in Barcelona

I have very fond memories of traveling by train as a child, especially overnight trains. White linen tablecloths with china and glassware in the dining cars, and “club cars” where I invariably met other children to play cards with or I-Spy as we stared out of the windows. My memories do not include gross bathrooms splattered with urine, nor miniscule compartments too small for luggage. Since I was smaller then it may be that indeed the compartments were tiny and I just didn’t notice, but I do believe the bathrooms were much cleaner. 

Train travel is still my preferred form of transport, although I will admit to being disappointed on many trains since I hold a high standard from my youth. Certainly a pet peeve of mine is the condition and lack of toilets, especially on overnight trains. Why are they gross now and not forty years ago? People frequented them just as much I am sure.

That said I am happy to report that the overnight train between Paris and Barcelona (and Madrid) is still alive and busy even with dirt-cheap flights available on low-cost airlines. I suspect that if you can afford to travel in Grand Class or First class that the compartment size and toilet facilities are better than those in tourist class.

A word of warning, if you are traveling in tourist class you will be four people to a “room”, which is the size of a large closet. Whoever designed these train cars forgot that people traveling twelve hours or more between major cities might be accompanied with large luggage. There is no luggage storage in the “rooms” or on the train car, so the four people must navigate around the luggage that takes up what limited space there is between the fold-down beds. The toilets are abysmal and inevitably at least one ends up unusable - flooded or plugged.

You might think that these complaints would make it so that I would never travel by overnight train. Not so. I still love the train the best, but simply pine for a slightly more comfortable experience. 

The Paris Barcelona route (there is a separate Paris-Madrid route) runs every night, and the timing of it is such that you can have dinner in Paris, albeit a not too late dinner, and breakfast in Barcelona. I did just that, having gone to Paris for the weekend. I had an early dinner at a favorite organic foods restaurant in the St. Germain area of Paris consisting of a wonderful salad, and then rosemary roasted organic chicken leg with vegetables. Fortunately the Phtyo-Bar is open every day from noon to 11:30 pm so it doesn’t matter what day you are traveling. My meal was followed by a lovely stroll along the Seine and by Notre Dame, then onto the Metro to take me to Gare Paris-Austerlitz for the 8:30 pm (20:30) train to Barcelona. Gare Austerlitz is not far from the Paris Grand Mosque and that is a wonderful place to have tea.

For novices to overnight train travel, you may be surprised when the steward asks you to hand over not only your ticket but also your passport or residence card - this is to avoid having to wake everyone up at 5 am for the border check. As unnerving as it is to hand over your most significant form of identification, everyone does it and there never seems to be a problem.

The train arrives at Barcelona Estacio de Franca at 8:24 am - or close to then. If Barcelona is merely a layover you will likely have to make your way to the other train station in Barcelona, Estacio Sants -- this can be done by train or metro (metro stop is the yellow line Barceloneta around the corner from the train station -take one stop to Jaume 1 for the old part).

In any case, if you are eager for breakfast you can walk or take the metro to the old part of Barcelona - El Raval and Barri Gotic areas. Stroll through La Boqueria market and pick up some delicious fresh pressed fruit juice - there is a wide variety to choose from: Kiwi, Coconut, Mango (my favorite), orange, strawberry, and more.

There are any number of cafes and restaurants to eat at near or along Las Ramblas. A fun and airy restaurant with outdoor seating just one block west of Las Ramblas, north of La Boqueria is Bar Lobo. Here you can order organic coffee or tea, fresh fruit, juices and  smoothies, as well as the “Jane Fonda” breakfast (yogurt, muesli, fruit and organic tea), the “Churchill” (bacon, eggs & café con leche (coffee with milk)), or little sandwiches made on baguette bread. The restaurant has the feel of a loft and much of the food prep is done in the center so visible to all patrons. Bar Lobo, c/ Xucla 8 (on the corner of c/ Pintor Fortuny), Barcelona; open Monday to Saturday from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm.

If you are not in the mood for a full on breakfast you can walk three blocks west on Pintor Fortuny and then up the street Doctor Dou to the Reykjavik Bakery - see Searching for Good Breads post. If you want non-bakery goods you can cross the street and find one of the Veritas natural food stores with produce and other groceries. Barcelona Reykjavik Bakery, Doctor Dou, 12 (Raval), open Monday to Saturday 10:00 am to 9:30 pm.

If you are indeed continuing on to Estacio Sants you can pick up the green line metro at Liceu (no switching) on Las Ramblas or the red line at Plaza Catalunya (you will need to switch at Espanya for the green line).

And enjoy being able to have dinner in Paris and breakfast in Barcelona!

Bon appetit, ¡buen apetito!

A Las Ramblas note: If you take pictures of any of the Living Statues along Las Ramblas please leave money in their containers - this is how they earn their living and some will chase you down if you don’t.

Santiago de Compostela

A good way to ruin a nice city is to try driving in it at rush hour, which is just what I had to do in Santiago. Between having a small inadequate map and hitting rush hour, I spent over an hour driving around congested Santiago trying to find the train station, which I had assumed, as had the rental car clerk, would be well signposted, but not so.

Once the car was returned (an adorable 2-door Citroen that got incredible mileage), I was able to hoof around Santiago and see the main sites, which were about the only part of Santiago I had not yet seen from the car. The cathedral sits on an impressive, massive Praza (the Galicians say Praza instead of Plaza) de Obradoiro where all “caminos” to Santiago converge. It was virtually empty on the February evening when I was there, but I could imagine it filled with throngs of all sorts of pilgrims in the warmer months. It was sort of thrilling to think of the thousands of pilgrims for centuries who have landed on that square.

I found a health food store and bought some fruit for my train journey back east and wandered around the city until it neared my 10:00pm train departure time.

The overnight train from Santiago to Madrid was possibly one of my most uncomfortable nights I have ever spent. I think the car I was in came out of some dead train-car storage facility by some mean-spirited train personnel. The seats were not designed to recline, nor did they have movable armrests so I was stuck with a hard-edged metal arm rest in the middle of the two seats so even though I was lucky enough not to have anyone sitting next to me I could not curl up and lay cross ways on the seats without metal objects jabbing me at every turn. This as a head’s up to travelers – it may be worth springing for the extra 50 euros for the berth if you are making that journey.

Heading West

I much prefer the train to the bus and the little, narrow-gauge train I am on, chugs along, designed as a local route to haul workers and minerals. It is a wonderful way to see the countryside as the train often goes through areas with no roads. My feet are happy for the rest of the many hours long ride as they are sore and one has a blister the size of my thumb from hours pounding the pavement scouting out the health food stores and sites of my destinations.
The woman at the Bilbao Post office thought I was a pilgrim on the road to Santiago as I was donned with my double-pack look, one on the front and the other on my back. I let her believe this as I am on my way to Santiago and it will take me two days to reach it, and then will do my own walking pilgrimage at the end of the world, in Fisterra. In her brief kindness I caught a glimpse of the camaraderie, solidarity (a word the Spaniards love and use a lot), and compassion that camino travelers encounter all the time.

The train I am on follows various camino routes. This is mountainous terrain (I am told that Spain is second only to Switzerland in most mountainous country in Europe) and I am most grateful to not be on a bus, which even if you are not prone to car-sickness, can make you woozy as they twist and turn around the sometimes hairpin curves of the mountain roads.
The train snakes its way through the Picos de Europa mountains, farmland, forests, with tiny glimpses of the ocean. Makes you feel as though you could be walking or biking through the bucolic setting.

So I am on the regional FEVE trains making my way from Bilbao west to Santander, through the regions of Cantabrias and Asturias, referred to as the "green" coast because it is so lush, with my final destination in the region of Galicia in northwestern most Spain.

Off to Southern Spain

I am on the first train this Sunday morning from Flaca to Barcelona. I am not sure I will make it past Barcelona today due to ticketing issues. It turns out that you can only purchase tickets over the RENFE (Spanish Rail) Web site or phone if you have either American Express or Spanish credit cards, otherwise, no ticket. And on the Web site you will not be told this so I spent hours and days frustratingly trying to purchase a ticket to no avail. However, I had no problem at the Barcelona Sants Station as it was not too busy when I arrived.

So now I am on the AVE – Spain’s fast train – to points south – destination today is Malaga. I have temporarily traded in Orwell’s excellent Homage to Catalonia for the 940-page tome, Don Quixote. Required school reading for Spaniards, this translation by Edith Grossman was recommended to me by my Spanish friend, Anabel, an artist and creative professor of Spanish literature.

The train ride is smooth, and while fast, not too fast to see the sweeping landscape of Spain complete with miles of olive trees, clay-tile roofs, and windmills.

After six hours I arrived at Malaga’s RENFE train station, an airy, new, facility full of activity on this Sunday afternoon. I walked the roughly 1km to my hostal, modest but sufficient and cheap (26 euro/night) on the third floor of a building that sits on a refurbished shopping street adjacent to the old town. Thankfully my room is not on the street side.

Spanish cities hum in the evening, so I took advantage of that and headed off to the Picasso Museum – open until 8:00pm on Sundays. I was amazed to see a line outside since this is considered the off-season for Malaga, but found out, once inside, that it was a free-entry day so people were taking advantage of it. The museum has an open courtyard in the middle and the exhibition rooms display some of Picasso’s lesser-known work.

After poking around the old town a bit, I wandered back past the Museum to La Teteria, a café advertising medicinal teas, coffee, chocolate and other treats. I chose an outdoor table under the awning tucked against the building where I partook of a pina (pineapple) “sorbete” – some divine fresh fruit juice drink that I downed immediately, and an infusion of “digestivo” herbal tea. I savored my warm tea as the sun went down, the wind picked up, and the orange-glow streetlamps came on making it feel that the sunset was lingering. People were out and about and I made my way through some different old lanes to the pedestrian street where my hostal is located to settle in for some free wifi and what I hope will be a good sleep.


Picasso Museum in Malaga - www.museopicassomalaga.org
La Teteria, San Agustin, 9, Malaga; Tel 650 656 560; www.la-teteria.com

Portland, Oregon Gets the Green Thumbs Up

The overnight train from California to Portland is comfortable and easy. It leaves California in the evening so you get a whole day of visiting and touring in. You must have reservations. I boarded in San Jose after visiting the Santa Cruz, Carmel, and Monterey areas. I did not have a sleeper but rather a reclining seat (actually two seats since the train was not full). The Amtrak train is called the Coast Starlight and the cost is $79 from San Jose to Portland, Oregon - about a nineteen-hour ride. Not only is the carbon footprint much smaller by train than by air travel, but the scenery is not to believed! Once you wake up in the daylight in northern California you see Mt Shasta, and then onto the farm and wild lands of Oregon including Klamath Lake.

Portland is a fun and easy city - really not large at all by city standards and very accessible. Bikers predominate, while the public bus system – Tri-Met –seems too go everywhere and offers user-friendly web sites and maps for navigating the city ($2.30/ride).

There is no sales tax in Oregon, which is quite noticeable if you have just come from California or points east. The city is designed in a grid with the river as its center – so there is Northwest, Southwest, Northeast and Southeast. The east to west dividing line is the river; the north south line is Burnside Ave., making it very easy to navigate.

Portland is a green traveler’s delight. Bike paths are everywhere, as is public transport, and there are loads of wonderful local foods and stores. Book lovers shouldn’t miss Powell’s Books. The main store takes up a full city block and you will need the free store maps that are provided at the counters to guide you. Powell’s sells new and used books intermixed and it is all somewhat overwhelming, but fabulous – booklovers will feel like kids in a candy store. There are smaller Powell’s outlets around the city including one at the airport. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W. Burnside Street (in the Pearl District), Downtown Portland; Tel: 503-228-4651; www.powells.com. Open 9am to 1pm everyday.

You can walk through the Japanese Gardens that sit on a hill on the western edge of the city. You can also visit the Chinese Garden which encompasses a city block in the middle of Chinatown, creating a magical quality as you leave the city behind when you walk through the gates. You can enjoy the delicious and varied tea options at the Tao of Tea café in the gardens or go to their other restaurant on Belmont Street – a fabulous teahouse and eatery with what seems like hundreds of tea varieties. They serve delicious, vegetarian Indian food, with a store next door where you can purchase the organic teas (www.tulsiorganics.com). The Tao of Tea, 3430 SE Belmont Street, Portland; 503-736-0119; www.taooftea.com
Portland Japanese Garden, www.japanesegarden.com
Portland Classical Chinese Garden, NW Third & Everett, Portland; Tel: 503-228-8131; www.portlandchinesegarden.org

If you are in the mood for Yoga, studios abound. In the Pearl District you can go to Yoga Pearl. Open seven days a week with full daily schedules offering different types of Yoga and Pilates starting as early as 6am and ending as late as 8:30pm. There is also a Holistic Wellness Center where you can make appointments for massage therapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Naturopathic medicine and Cranialsacral therapy. Here you can also find the Blossoming Lotus raw foods café to refuel after yoga or walking the city. Yoga Pearl, 925 NW Davis, Portland; Tel: 503-525-9642; www.yogapearl.com

For foot massages you can treat yourself to the innovative services at the Barefoot Sage where you can indulge yourself by sitting in large puffy couches while you soak your feet and drink tea and try one of the various foot and leg massages offered. The Barefoot Sage, 1844 SE Hawthorne, Portland; 503239-7116; www.thebarefootsage.com

Marseille - There and Gone

Well I went to Marseille and left.
The metro and buses are clean. The Gare St Charles train station is virtually glistening. The city is huge - France's second largest - but without the charm of Paris. In its favor it has a very diverse population.
The hostel however, was gruesome - definitely not recommended. It is not in the city - it is a 10 minute metro ride to a 10 minute bus ride plus a short walk that seems long if you are toting any luggage. The cinder block structure is relatively clean, but very dark and grim. The group bathrooms leave something to be desired. The extremely competent, but overworked woman who works evenings was on duty by herself so everything took longer or required waiting thirty minutes. There is no wifi and the internet is cumbersome - it took a while for her to connect one of the two decrepit computers to the internet. She told me the owner wasn't interested in getting wifi (I think maybe he is just too cheap). She then designated me an id and password which was only for the one time use. You pay when you are finished, which was pretty quickly since typing was excruciating. I had to think way too hard and type so slowly since just about every letter is in a different place on the French keyboard.
The room was small, but adequate - enough beds for four, but only three of us. There was one young French woman and an older French woman with white hair - although she was probably my age. When I first arrived she was typing furiously, copying a hand written magnum opus that took her hours of particularly noisy keyboarding. When she was done with that - completed while I was on the internet - I returned to find the Apple blaring the worst English-language pop music. I don't know in what country or planet she found this selection but truly the most pathetic lyrics and bad bubble gum music I have ever heard. She thought it was wonderful. I don't know what the young French girl thought - she was reading and seemed to be ignoring everything. When I tuned in the computer was singing, “ Come to the Butterfly lounge… big girls you are beautiful, big girls you are beautiful, big girls you are….” get the idea?
I was so tired I could barely move from hauling my two back-packs all afternoon. I crawled into bed while she played the delightful music until about 10:30. I put my eye mask on and my arm over my face and practiced giving into the whole experience. She finally turned out the light - the young French girl had long ago put her arm over her head- and I thought we were good for the night.
Somebody had other ideas. Somewhere by my head a late night construction project started, or dance lessons, or a washing machine knocking against a wall - I will never know. The loud beating went on and on, then stopped and I thought ahhh, relief, only to have it start again. As if this weren't enough, the acoustics of the cinder block made the noise travel throughout the hostel, so even though its location was in a quiet suburb of Marseille, it was far noisier than the in-town Nice hostel (which was amazingly quiet in the bedrooms). There was hooting and hollering, loud footsteps, showers, and at some point a scream that sounded like a woman was being murdered (lovely) and then after a pause, laughter. Some joke.
As I am working on diving into the full experience, bed number two with the other middle aged woman was harrumphing, heavy sighing, grunting and her noise actually woke me up more times than all the other as I was able to put my New Yorker skills to work for me - that is after contemplating three times whether I should get up and complain to the overworked girl at the desk. I thought better of this once I realized that all complaining would get me was out of bed and my horizontal position - there was nothing she was going to be able to do. The pounding, and did I mention constant water trickling noise and toilet flushing (I think we were right underneath the 2nd floor bathrooms) went on until the wee hours of the night and I dozed in and out for most of it except hearing the loud whispered complaints of my roommate. The night was short as at 6:30 or so the young French girl got up. She was quiet as these things go, but in the hostel rooms every noise is amplified- the crinkle of plastic, zippers and Velcro are all especially loud.
Having already made up my mind to vacate this morning, I got up, used the marginal facilities - the toilet I used had a make-shift flush mechanism - a large piece of wire to pull - and went to use the internet to line up my next accommodations. Well, the young man at the desk didn't know how to do that, could I come back later?....getting more frustrated by the minute…then another young man who can set up the internet (talk about unnecessary complicated systems) came along and wouldn't you know it - he didn't really know how to set up the internet. He pulled out a loose-leaf binder with the instructions - well then they asked me for my passport! To use their crummy computers for 5 minutes of internet time for a total of maybe 1 euro. I had left everything in my room to quickly email about accommodations. I just said, “No, forget it” - how hard can it be to write one email!
The Nice hostel was like the George V compared to this! They had free wifi if you had your own computer, and if not, an inexpensive and simple system to use their computers. Ah Merde!
I had already packed my bags, so was back out in a flash to check out (the hostels keep your hostel member card when you check in as some sort of security deposit). Well now they couldn't find my card. What was my name? What room had I been in? Was it a paper or plastic card? Can you say I-N-C-O-M-P-E-T-E-N-T? I was ready to run, not walk to the bus. I had no idea where I would sleep, but only knew it would not be there. I was not offered a refund on the rest of my stay and decided to not even ask as that might have taken the rest of the day to sort out. I figured I would email in the evening when at least the competent woman would be on duty.
Whew. Now the bus and metro into the train station. I put my heavy large pack into a storage locker - thank god they had them - and purchased a ticket to Avignon. The truth is I had only chosen Marseille as a base camp to explore Provence. I never had an interest in Marseille per se, but it was the only hostel open this time of year in the area. Once I realized how far from the train the hostel was, it made more sense for me to make my base in the heart of Provence - not to mention the above mentioned short-comings of the hostel.
With just under two hours before my train, I took the metro two stops to the Vieux Port - the old port. Here the fish market was just getting started - talk about fresh - fish never have smelled so good and the boats were pulled up behind the vendor stalls. Some of the fish were so fresh they were still jumping!
From here I went to the tourist information office and got myself a map, and walked up the main boulevard. I had hoped to find the Arab markets I had read about, but there was no activity this morning. I wandered through a few back streets, found the rue des Arts - full of small artists studios/ateliers then made my way back to the metro. At the train station I went out the upper entrance for a full view of the city - quite impressive, and felt that was all I needed of Marseille.
Now I am happy to report that I found a darling little stone Hotel du Parc on a backstreet in Avignon with a private room and double bed. The shared bath in the hallway is like the Taj compared to last night and I have a large window looking into a little garden. Needless to say I cried when I walked in - too perfect and squeaking by in terms of budget.
Avignon (one of the gates into the walled city in photo above) is a delight and I have spent the afternoon wandering the back streets and finding the natural restaurants and health food stores. I had a plentiful and delicious lunch at the Kafezen Bio mini café (16 rue Henri Fabre) - a large bowl of soup (almost too much to finish) and a large salad made with organic and vegetarian ingredients for 6 euros. Next I stumbled onto a crammed-full art store with the most darling French owners - we played charades about some pastel crayons in the window.
Next I found the beautiful Terre de Saveurs - a natural foods restaurant that I will try for lunch before I leave. I am now happily at a great little cyber café where I can use my own computer - relief.
Off to explore some more before I return to my sweet, sweet room. Au revoir for now.