July 29: Oui, Oui!

Not a moment too soon, I have arrived in France.  It may sound weird to you, but I feel like I’m traveling again.  I had never stopped travelling—technically—but it felt like I had.  England was feeling all too familiar, and without a concrete destination to walk towards, I was lacking purpose.  Not to mention the last few days which I’ve spent “resting”, which is really hard to do, because it feels more like wasting time than resting.  I did do some things:  I saw two movies (Despicable Me 2 and The Wolverine; I have now met my yearly movie theater quota.  By the way, I loved them both.  I’d like to say that each speaks to a different side of my personality…)  I got a haircut.  Now I don’t have that “matted” look anymore, as the hairdresser termed it; and I went to Bath for a couple of days.

Visiting the Roman baths was worth the long bus ride—it was by far the best museum/ interactive exhibit I’ve been to.

It also made me miss living in the “hot springs neighborhood” of Busan, (which is how my old neighborhood, Oncheonjang, would be directly translated to.  Living in a spa neighborhood made the bitter Korean winters much more bearable, as in my third year I pretty much shunned my shower during the winter and did all my bathing in the bathhouse.  And if you’ve never been in a Korean or Japanese bathhouse before, learning to be comfortable bathing naked with a bunch of other women is one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.)

Back to France.  After Bath I needed to go back to Poole to catch the ferry to St. Malo in the morning.  I wonderful couchsurfer, Tom, pulled through for me, and although he couldn’t host me, he passed me off to another wonderful family who had just recently decided to start hosting.  After a little chit-chat in their orange dining room, Daisey led me back to the “shed” where there was a comfy bed, and I fell fast asleep.  Too soon it was time to wake up, and they drove me to the doorstep of the ferry terminal, which I am so grateful for, since that saved me an early morning bus journey.  The beauty of couchsurfing.

The ferry wasn’t as long as I thought it would be, only 5 hours total, but my ticket said 9 hours which had me believing that I was going to do a lot of reading that day.  Then I was informed that we’d be stopping in Guernsey for 4 hours, and yes, that was the first I’d heard of Guernsey.  I’m embarrassed to say I wasn’t quite sure upon disembarking whether Guernsey was in the U.K. or France.  (It’s in the U.K.)  In fact, I was handed these beautiful Guernsey pound notes in change after buying a Guernsey ice cream (that’s for you Rachel).  I said, “Oh, WOW THESE ARE SO COOL!” and the ice cream lady replied by saying, “thank you!”

Guernsey pounds

Only two hours away from Guernsey we arrived in St. Malo, where my travelling met a bit of a hitch when I couldn’t contact my couchsurfer and hadn’t received an email for a few days.  After telephoning unsuccessfully I decided to find another place to stay, which had me walking around St. Malo for about 3 hours looking for WiFi and then walking to a youth hostel (full) and finally a campsite.  (I just kept repeating my mantra: it always gets better, it always gets better.)

This is when I start speaking French.  Or “French”.  Some strange sounds have been coming out of my mouth, which some endearing Frenchpeople have been pretending to understand.  And then they say things back, which makes me think that these weird sounds are actually words; however, sometimes I say words which I was positive were French, but apparently not, and we just look at each other with awkward misunderstanding.  In that case I just yelp a big French-sounding “Hohn, HOHN!” and we move on like nothing happened.

But really, France has me excited.  After a bit of a worrisome search for accommodation yesterday, today could not have gone smoother, considering the amount of information I had (little).

I decided to hitchhike from St. Malo to Tours, where I’m starting the Camino, and only four cars, five hours, and 320 kilometers later I was there!  It must have been the smoothest hitch-experience I’ve had, and took less time than it would if I had tried public transportation.  It included a nice seaman who drove me to a better spot in St. Malo in which to wait for cars (I love when people do that); a couple of young ladies heading to Rennes on a shopping trip; a technician for Mercedes driving to Paris for work, who didn’t mind when I continuously dozed off; and a chatty guy heading to Tours for work (I want to say he was a vending machine repairman?  But there’s my French for ya), who probably gave me the equivalent of an hours French lesson through his patient listening.  But then again, we were stuck in a car together.  Miraculously, although he spoke no English, we talked about quite a lot, which is definitely a confidence booster.  He had even been to Portland!

Making things even smoother, he dropped me off right at the tourist information center in Tours, and much to my delight, inside was a “Walking Specialist” who lit up when I said I was starting the Camino and needed a guide book or map (I said that in French!  Wah!).  He selected one for me, and I bought my Pilgrim Passport, and headed off to the Cathedral to pay it a visit and get a stamp in my passport.

Only 5km down the Camino, and there’s a nice campsite.  A full day of travel, yet I hardly felt stressed.  Not only that, but now I feel in the company of others.  Although I’m good at being alone, I need to talk to people, and have those people understand what I’m doing.  That’s why it was good to talk to couchsurfers Julie and Tom and Daisey (hey guys!), because couchsurfers generally don’t think crazy trips are weird, they think they’re awesome.  That’s the same reason it’s good to be on the Camino, because I’ve already met other pilgrims (although they’re bikers) and that makes me feel like I’m walking with people, although I’m not actually walking with them at all.  It’s the feeling of common purpose, camaraderie, meaningful social interaction, in which I’m lacking.  Greatly.  Come talk to me.

Buen Camino!