Today blew.

I wish it would snow.

I took a daytrip out to Auvers-Sur-Oise yesterday, and the weather was beautifully clear, but painfully hot.  I think it was over 30 celcius – maybe 30-35C? ...believe it or not, but today is hotter.  I don’t know the temperature, but I was sweating through my clothes by 7AM this morning.  The shower helped for about 5 minutes.  And my shoulders are burnt pretty good – I’ve not managed to burn anything really at all my entire trip thus far, but I wore my new dress yesterday, and it shows off the back of my shoulders, and next thing I knew, they were bright red.  I guess my arms are more tolerant to sunshine than my virgin upper body.  I suppose I have years of farmer’s tans to thank for that.  Anyhow, wearing my backpack today as I travel is excruciating.  Romain was kind enough to offer me some French medication for burns (I can’t remember the name, but the ingredient list has avocado oil in it, which I thought was odd.)  Anyhow, I applied it twice before I left this morning, and it’s helped a little, but the (now quite heavy) backpack straps on my shoulders hurts quite a bit. 

As I write this, I am on a train travelling to Clermont-Ferrand to see Violaine, a friend of mine I worked with in the arctic in 2008.  I’m sitting on the floor of the train, wondering consistently when I will either be kicked off the train for not having a reservation, or forced to pay extra because I don’t have a reservation.  Railpass or not, apparently I still need to reserve for trains that aren’t TGV trains (TGV trains are the super fast ones, and I am most certainly not on one of them) ...so this might be an interesting three and a half hour train ride – my bum hurts already and I’m only 20 minutes in.  Obviously, since I have no internet on the train, I’ll have finished the trip and be in Clermont-Ferrand by the time I am able to post this, so I might have extra added stuff at the bottom for things that happen later in the day.  I’m only doing this now to stave off the desire to pass out caused by the lack of air conditioning in this part of the train.  It is sweltering hot, and my poor arctic body is not used to it. 

Auvers-Sur-Oise yesterday was fantastic.  The weather was beautiful, and I managed to catch a direct train there – it’s a suburb of Paris, by the way – or it used to be.  Think of it like living in Vancouver and catching a one hour train out to...Langely, or Surrey, or Coquitlam, or something.   I make a point to stress the fact that the train was direct, because the train coming back into Paris was not, and it took me two hours to get back.

For those not in the know, Auvers-Sur-Oise is the resting place of Vincent Van Gogh and his brother, Théo – and home to his famous church painting (you know, the one I snapped a photo of in the Musée D’Orsay – that’s the L’Eligse Auvers-Sur-Oise ...and since I am mildly obsessed with him, of course I made the journey out to visit his grave, and see the church, and see the Auberge Ravoux – the place he lived in before he committed suicide.  I was annoyed that it cost me €6 just to see the room AND not be allowed to take photos, but damn it, I wanted to see it! 

Nothing else cost me money that day, though – except food, obviously – so it wasn’t a bad deal, I suppose.  I walked up a little road to the church, and took a few photos, I did not go in further than the threshold of the church, because service was just ending, and I didn’t want to rudely interrupt anyone with faith strong enough to actually attend church.  From the church, there was another little road with signs leading up to the Cemetérie, and it led me through picture-perfect yellow wheat fields filled with red poppies, and other little flowers.  I kept getting these stupid little bugs on me though, and they were freaking me out – some small little black wormy bug things that kept falling from under the trees and crawling on me – I spent all day yesterday killing them as I found them in various spots on my body.  I don’t think they bite, because I did not get any bites, but...they were creepy.  Je n’aime pas. 

It didn’t take me long to find the graves one I entered the cemetery – I had seen them in a documentary once, and so it was almost like I had been there before, visiting for a second time.  I recognized the church at the angle Van Gogh painted it at, and I recognized the corner of the cemetery where Vincent and Théo rested.  I picked him a little red poppy and put it on his tombstone, and I watered the flowers that somebody had planted there with the rest of the water in my bottle. 

From there, I just wandered around – I found a forest (a proper forest!) and more wheat fields, and even some chickens and a lizard.  I got thoroughly lost on some backstreet, and saw a plant that literally made me suck in my breath and forget to breathe altogether.  I still have to look it up, but some plants have, I guess, dopplegangers, and this plant is one of those.  One of them is perfectly harmless, and the other can cause blindness if the pollen so much as blows in the wind – I’m going to research it later. 

I found a shop that sells sorbet (crème glace sans lactose!) and my lunch consisted entirely of a little tub of sorbet and a pistachio brioche.  My god, I love brioche.  I need to learn how to make it when I get home...and then I will need to find people who will taste it!  I was very sunburned by then, and I spent the afternoon in a park in the shade reading the remainder of my novel I brought – I finished it, boo. =( ...I wasn’t able to go back to the apartment until 10:30 because Romain had viola practice, so when I got back to Paris I just wandered around.  I got hit on and momentarily stalked by a creepy dude – I had to round a block in order to lose him.  I walked past him on the street and he started talking to me, so I spoke too – and then he was asking me all sorts of questions like  what arrondíssement I was staying in, and what street, and where, and what I was doing for dinner, and I told him I was staying in the 11^th, but when he asked for more information, I told him he didn’t need to know, and that I had to go meet a friend for dinner (I lied) and I was going to be late if I didn’t hurry.  He didn’t leave me alone then, though – and started after me, so I rounded the block real quick and looped back, and then walked off in a different direction from where I had started from.  I was genuinely a little bit concerned for my well-being.  Obviously, I’m fine now. 

I found a pizza shop, which I thought was a godsend – NORMAL food, my goodness!  ...but all it did was upset my stomach.   I think I might swear off pizza – it hurts my stomach almost every time I eat it and I don’t know why, or why I keep persisting if all it does is upset my stomach.  That shit’s harder to give up than cheesecake was. 

The train superintendent (or whatever) guy has just come past, and I had to pay an extra €15 just to STAY on the train, what the hell. 

Overall though, Paris was good.  I didn’t see HALF of what I wanted to, but I got to do other interesting and fun things too – and Romain was a gracious and excellent host – I hope I didn’t annoy him terribly too much with my presence.  I’ll definitely have to come back to Paris one day and catch up on all the things I never got to see.  Obviously, when I write these things, I tend to leave out the more blasé parts about Paris  - how all the metro stations have the faint smell of stale urine, for instance – or precisely how difficult it is for me to communicate in French.  I know just enough French to get my point across, but not nearly enough to not sound like a moron doing it.  Par example, I mixed up two verb conjugates for two days before I realized.  So when I was trying to say “I have” I was saying “I go” ...I felt positively retarded when I remembered them properly.  I also don’t really mention how lonely it is to be unable to communicate to other people easily – it was an easier time in Paris, because it is so touristy, but not many people in France can actually converse in the English language.  I don’t really like that part, and I wish I had a better command of the French language to be able to say more, or to understand people when they speak fast.

Oh, and one more thing:  Mom, I spent TWO hours walking around Paris this morning trying to find a stupid little shop that I didn’t have the stupid address to, so that I could buy you a stupid little gift, and then when I finally found it, the gift I wanted to get was over-the-top stupid expensive...but I found something that I could afford, and you’ll really like.  And no, it’s not a coffee cup.  And no, I’m not telling you what it is.

Bon journée, peeps!  This is all you get for now - it took me 6 hours to get into Clermont-Ferrand, and now it's well past midnight as Violaine, Bruno, and myself went for dinner - oh, my train caught on fire, by the way.  Yeah, a good time was had by no one - a 3 hour train became a 6 hour train with no a/c, and we were stuck two hours at a stop who's name I don't recall.  Oh, did I mention my TRAIN caught on FIRE?  

Yeah.  More posts tomorrow.  Goodnight. 

PS: You can have pictures tomorrow.  Not of the train on fire though, I don't have any.