SPRING BREAK MEGA-UPDATE: v.France and back

Time was running out. We had a plane to catch. And no viable way of getting to the airport in the dark hours of the Roman night.

But then we learned that there was a bus to the airport from the Anganina stop. My plan to follow the people with luggage worked well, and we went through a rat maze of tunnels until we emerged at a bus stop. There was a bus coming at 6:45, and we made it. After several agonizing stops in the countryside, we made it to the airport thirty minutes before our flight left. Woohoo! We were going to France.

Fast forward, and bienvenue. France was overcast, cold and windy, but at least it wasn’t raining. I was ecstatic to be in a country where I could read all the advertisements and warning signs. Two and a half years of Arabic hasn’t helped with most of the billboards, but my high school French still serves me well (merci, Mlle Williams et Mme Fulton).

Marseilles is a city apparently without hostels, so we chose the cheapest hotel on hostelworld.com (which was actually cheaper than our hostel in Rome due to it being Holy Week). Hotel Louisiana was about 2 minutes from the airport, and offered a free 24-hour shuttle to and fro. Pretty quaint little place. We had our own bedroom and bathroom, and the hotel had its own restaurant. No menu, though, so I had to translate for the waitress, whose English was probably on par with my French, but it all went okay. Good thing I paid attention during the food unit in 8^th grade.

Daniel was not doing so well, so he went straight to bed despite it being barely noon. Me, never being one to skimp on sleep, followed suit, and so did Kiana for the most part. Punctuated by a few brief stints checking my mail on Daniel’s computer, I slept as long as he did: almost a straight 24 hours. It made up for the lack of sleep I had been getting in Cairo, had gotten so far on the trip, and probably would get in the future.

The next day Daniel and I hit up Marseille. We had to take a bus, and then the metro, but it was worth it. A photogenic port town known for its seafood and African flair, we enjoyed wandering around the waterfront, eating the famous bouillabaisse soup and scrambling to the top of Fort St. Nicholas at the mouth of the bay. The weather was a lot better, so we sat on a bench for awhile and looked out at the beach—where were all those topless sun bathers we’d heard about?!—and enjoyed the sun. We headed back to our hotel, grabbed dinner again, and spent some time watching the French version of Fear Factor.

We went to Aix-en-Province the next day, for one reason and one reason only. No, it wasn’t the quaint provincial village feel we sought, nor the larger youth contingent there due to its university. It was something much more important, something we had been missing in Cairo, something so integral to our existence that to not attain it could be the difference between life and death:

They were showing 300 in English.

Of course, we traversed the city beforehand, giddy with excitement about our imminent movie/awe fest. We got lunch at a bistro, where I got a salad (another running theme) and Daniel got probably the worst duck paté I’ve ever tasted. Oh well. At least there was toast. But it really didn’t matter, because WE WERE SEEING 300. We killed time, bought Daniel some headphones, explored Aix-en-Provence, and then showed up ridiculously early just to be the only people there for the film, save a really smelly guy who came late and sat in the back.

I don’t really need to comment on the movie. Go see it.

We took a bus back to our hotel and prepared for another early wake up call, tempered a bit this time by our proximity to the airport. Back to Rome, where this time it wasn’t raining. As it was the day before Easter, all the hostels in the city were either booked or around €90 a night. We ended up at a wonderful, huge hostel far outside the city, where my only concern was how to get back to Ciampino Airport the next morning for our 6am flight: the Metro closed at 9pm and opened at 5:30am; the train station closed by 1am and the first and only potential bus we could take was at 4:30am; and we were in the middle of nowhere where catching a taxi at 4:30am probably wouldn’t be easy. Luckily, the wonderful people at our hostel arranged a taxi pickup in the morning, which, although expensive, alleviated my fears of missing our flight back to Barca.

Daniel and I sat out in a café for awhile—he did more Econ, I read Kafka—until we could check into the hostel, after which we—you guessed it—showered and napped. After that we hit the Trastevere, one of my favorite parts of Rome, saw some street performers, grabbed some coffee, and walked through Campo di Fiori back to the Spanish Steps, where we caught the last Metro (only 9pm!) back to our hostel. We hit a great restaurant in the ‘burbs of Rome, where I had Papardelle and he had a steak, and we both had ice cream, and we were both very, very happy.

We made it to the airport that morning after almost 5 hours of beautiful, beautiful sleep, quite on-time for our flight back to Barcelona. Not much to report there, besides that I wasn’t feeling too well but got better as the morning progressed, and my pen exploded on the plane.

Back to Spain, and this time we didn’t confuse any passport control officials. We Metro’d to our hostel, Gothic Point, a sister hostel to our previous one on the sea. The power was out for some reason, so we couldn’t check in. No worries; we dropped our bags in the luggage room and headed out to see the Sagrada Famillia, an amazing and funky cathedral designed by Gaudi which is still under construction. Daniel and I had a decent lunch across the street from our hostel, and sat for awhile and swapped stories.

We then went to hook up with the same group of AUC friends we had seen the first night; almost all of us were staying in the same room! We met some of them early in the day, and took the Metro to the outskirts of Barcelona to see a castle and the Magic Fountain. We took a tram halfway and climbed the rest, and spent a long time at the top looking out over the coast and the entire town of Barcelona. Daniel played with some cannons. Good times.

Our plan was to meet the rest of the group at 8pm in front of the aforementioned flower market, and like almost everything else on this trip, it fell into place. We had some more paella—something I plan on attempting to make when I go home—and then hit up the Dunkin Donuts across the street for some less traditional Spanish fare. Faaantastic.

That night we went out to a sangria bar and then back to Jamboree, the only club we could find that didn’t play house. It was still good. We wanted to get some sleep, so we headed back to the hostel early by European standards (read: 3:30am). Our motivation for waking up was the free breakfast, but I think a week of only sleeping for four hours at a time had gotten to me: I was awake by 8:45. Breakfast done with, we headed out to Parc Güell, another showcase for Gaudi’s crazy designs. It was way, way, way up on a hill, accessible by steep narrow streets tucked in between homes, punctuated by very welcome escalators. The park has the longest bench in the world. I sat on it.

We then went back to the city proper, and I had my second important cultural experience (after 300): I ate at Subway. I had really, really missed my 6” turkey on wheat. We stocked up on gummi candy and picked up our stuff at the hostel. To get to the airport, there was a bus at Plaça Catalunya, the major square in Barcelona. Finding it took a bit of time; standing in the long line to get on one of them took even longer. It was familiar by then, looking at my watch and wondering if we were actually going to make it to the airport in time, but, as usual, we did.

Leaving Barcelona was hard, I’ll admit. The streets were clean, wide and quiet. They had Subway. There was salad, and paella. And I could relax everywhere I went, free of the hassle of Egypt. So sitting there, eating my fresh fruit, looking at my gate…thank goodness my parents were arriving in Cairo the next day, or I might be working on my Spanish at the moment.

The flight back to Cairo wasn’t as baller as the flight to Spain, but it was predominately AUC kids and empty enough that most of us could take at least three seats to ourselves. I watched The Queen, slept a bit, and landed in Cairo reluctantly ready to haggle for the first time in a week and a half.

In less than 24 hours, I would return to almost the same spot to: be yelled at by at least three police officers for having the audacity to want to go to the arrivals gate by taxi, be told it was impossible to go to the arrivals gate period, be told I could go to the gate only if I had come in by bus, be screamed at in English to “COME HERE!!!” (To come where? The ground under my feet, of course.), take a shuttle filled with men who whispered at me, and, oh yeah, pick up my parents from the airport.

Welcome to Cairo.

…I miss Europe. But I don’t miss the exchange rate. Damn.