Les vacances actuelles.

A real vacation.

My half-brother Eli has keys to a small apartment in a small town called Sete on the French Riviera. I am stopping here for a few days to relax before I continue on to Florence to see my cousin Nate (Justin's brother). It has been less than a week since I arrived in Paris, but by the end of yesterday, I was feeling overwhelmed, and in need of an escape. Hopefully Sete will be my escape.

I woke up on the train, just a few minutes before we arrived in Montpellier, where I would switch trains for Sete. It was wet and gray outside. Up until today, I have enjoyed wonderful French weather — every day in Paris has been sunny and warm. On Sunday, there were stormclouds looming, but by the time they settled over the city, Justin and I had returned to the apartment for the evening, and we watched from the window as the sudden and torrential rain fell on the unlucky few caught outside. At around ten o'clock we walked to the corner pharmacy across already drying sidewalks, with that wonderful damp city smell in our nostrils.

But this afternoon in Montpellier there was a slow and steady rain. I had an hour and change to kill before my train to Sete, and I didn't want to kill it dans la gare, so I headed out into the weather. As I did, a young man approached me and asked me for money. He even had a flyer to hand out that explained his plight, I think. First I shook my head "no", unconvincingly, and he kept asking, so I said "Je ne comprends pas" — "I don't understand." He just stood there and said something about needing to eat something. I really didn't want to, but goddammit if I didn't give him a Euro coin!

Now, let me try to describe this young man. First, I'll describe the panhandlers in the States. They can be young or old, but they all look like shit, right? I mean, they are unshaven, wearing dirty clothes, and clearly have slept outside for at least a few nights in a row. Yet they don't push — they usually are polite, and if you decline to help them, they often say "God Bless" and move on. There are a few rude ones, but it is obvious that they are a little unhinged.

Here in France, the panhandlers are different. They look like everyone else, and they have elaborate pitches. Thursday night on the metro, a woman got on the train, dressed normally, and immediately launched into a loud spiel as she slowly walked down the aisle – "Messieurs et mesdames, s'il vous plait, blah blah blah..." I didn't understand most of the words, but I got the message. As for this young man in Montpellier, he was clean and dressed just fine, wearing a nice black patent leather jacket, with no stubble to hide the slightly smug look on his face as he worked me. A few minutes later I passed him outside la gare, and he grinned at me like he had gotten the best of this sucker. Which he had.

A foul mood was settling. I bought un sandwich crudités (hard-boiled egg, tomato, lettuce, and mayonnaise) and took the local tram two stops to a strange commercial complex called Antigone; it was the only thing I could remember mentioned at the web page I read about Montpellier. The complex is built in a strange faux-Greco-Roman style, with arches and columns, but clearly modern, laid out on both sides of a straight line, with large plazas with names like Place Thessalie or Place Zeus, and ridiculous fountains that do routines with their spouts. I didn't take any pictures of them or of the architecture because they were both silly, but I did take a picture of a hair salon called "Hair Santa", because that is even sillier. I have no idea what "Hair Santa" means to them. I'll have to ask someone. At the end of the complex was an enormous swimming center, with a couple Olympic-sized pools and a big digital display that told, among other things, the current temperature of each pool. I was impressed.

When I got back to la gare, I was behind two American girls on the escalator, and behind them at the ticket counter. After we had bought our tickets, I approached them and asked, in what I assumed was very American English, where they were from. "The United States," they responded in unison. I said "Me too. California." One was from Wisconsin and the other from Minnesota, and they had both just finished semesters in Europe (in Madrid and London). We chatted a little bit before one girl asked me, "When's your train?" They had a few hours to kill before they were off to Cassis, so we got lunch and talked a bit more. I told them that I had an empty apartment in Sete all to myself, and wouldn't they rather spend the night in comfortable, free beds and spend the next day lounging on a beach? So we all journeyed to Sete together, had a nice dinner, went back to the apartment, opened a couple of bottles of wine, and had a grand old time, the kind of time three young Americans have when they are drunk and together in Europe. The next day we flitted off to Rome, where we stayed for a week in the same hotel room. I proposed, she said yes, we bought a little villa outside of Marseille, and we are very happy. The kids are learning French and English equally well, she teaches at the local grade school, and I get by playing in the jazz club in town. It is a simple and wonderful life.

On the train to Sete, alone, I sat and wondered why, when she asked me when my train left, I said "Twenty minutes", instead of eating the 5 euro train ticket and having a second lunch with them. Wisconsin looked slightly disappointed, but she followed Minnesota off to find lunch, and I went to the platform to wait for my train. Oh well. I hope they made it to Cassis.

Sete is a harbor town on a strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and a small body of water called le Bassin de Thau. A hill bulges up there — the centre de ville is at the east base of the hill, and the apartment is on the south face, in a neighborhood called La Corniche. I took the bus up there, and found the apartment easily. It is modest, unstylish, and perfect. The balcony overlooks the Mediterranean horizon, there is a comfortable bed, and there is plenty of beer and wine to drink. (Unless I find someone to drink with, I doubt I'll uncork any wine, but I had to crack open a beer to drink while I journal and listen to Dave Brubeck. I had to.) I hung my wet clothes out on the balcony, lay down, and drifted off. Three hours later, at seven o'clock, I woke up and found that the rain had followed me from Montpellier to Sete. My clothes were much wetter now.

Up at the main square of La Corniche, all the restaurants were closed. I asked the clerk of the hotel on the square, and he told me that most everyone was home preparing to watch the presidential debate between Nikolas Sarkosy and Segolène Royal, which would begin at nine. People shutting down their businesses to watch a political debate? Absolutely fantastic. We talked for a few minutes about the election. He said that he was going to vote for Sarkosy, while I admitted that most of my friends were supporting Segolène, though I tried to keep myself out of it.

I was getting rather hungry, so he pointed out one restaurant that was open, as well as the casino across the street, and I chose the restaurant. The menu was more difficult than I had expected. Six different kinds of poissons, and I didn't know any of the words except for Thon (Tuna). And I didn't want tuna. I asked for a suggestion, but the waiter only narrowed it down to two: lou et dorade. (Now I can't find the word "lou" in the dictionary, so I think that I am misremembering it. Still.) He actually brought out a plate with two dead fish for me to choose from. They looked pretty much the same; I picked the flatter one. When it came back, it looked the same, but with some vegetables around it. If you are reading this and you are my mother, you know how squibbly I get looking at a whole dead fish on my plate, with its clouded eyeballs and mouth slightly agape, as if it were killed mid-complaint. Give me a filet and let's pretend that this never had a pulse or a thought of what to do. All this to say that the meal was not what I might have chosen, but I ate it and it tasted good. As it turns out, the fish was "dorade". My dictionary tells me now that "dorade" is "goldfish". Goldfish? It certainly didn't look like a goldfish, either a cracker-sized pet in a bowl or a big, whiskered, dappled showpiece in a pond. It definitely wasn't gold. Hmm.

After dinner, I stopped again in the hotel and watched the last hour of the Sarkosy-Royal debate. Frederic the clerk was the only other person who watched more than a minute or two. I actually understood about 10-15% of what they were saying, which was more than I expected. Phrases jumped out at me — nuclear power, education, Darfur. I laughed out loud when Segolène paraphrased Sarkosy's slogan "Ensemble, tous devient possible" ("Together, everything will become possible) to attack him, partially because I've been doing the same thing for the last week in Paris to make jokes ("Avec le chocolat, tous devient possible!"). And Sarkosy kept saying something about the way a president should act, apparently implying that Segolène didn't have the character to fill the role. The rest was just impressions I got from their body language and tone of voice. Honestly, compared to our American politicians, I was impressed with both of them. Of course, if I didn't speak English, Elmer Fudd might sound eloquent. Afterwards, Frederic and I talked a little more about politics, struggling to find words that I understood in French. When my conversation partner has the time to wait for me, I really enjoy trying. Otherwise, I feel like I am holding them up, and it's not so fun. I remember what it's like to clerk at a hotel, though, so I'm sure Frederic was glad to have someone to talk to.

When I judged that we had exhausted the limits of my vocabulary, I excused myself and walked back to the apartment. It is too dark to see the ocean, so I am listening to music, writing this, and finishing my beer. When I have caught up on my journal, or fatigue has caught up to me, I will go to bed. Hopefully when I get up, the sun will be shining like I imagine it does here, and I will stroll along the beach and imagine a time when the world ended just past that horizon.