Blanche DuBois

A famous lady in a famous play once said famously, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." So begins the saga of my stay in France.

In airline travel, I have been blessed. I don't believe that, aside from one eight-hour delay in the Chicago O'Hare airport, I have ever been seriously delayed in a flight or that I have ever had an airline lose my luggage. Knock on wood, as they say. So my airline travel went fairly seamlessly. Sure, we had a delay in Atlanta, but it was nothing so disastrous that I missed a flight. In fact, as far as the "day" goes, the airline travel was probably the easiest.

As I got off the plane in Amsterdam, I met a couple (although, in retrospect I don't think they were "a couple," I think that they were two people flying together) from the states who were en route to my flight to Marseille. I tagged along with them as we went towards the gate, and they were kind enough to wait on me when the dutchman (not a flying dutchman, just a regular one) decided that my bag was the one he needed to search today.

As a side note: The Dutch are more passable for southern people than any other group I've encountered. Their english can imitate ours and they look surprisingly like us. Go figure, right?

On the flight from Amsterdam to Marseille, I conversed at length in franglais with a man from Portland, Oregon who does tech support for IBM. He and his wife were on their way to Aix for lunch, and I cordially turned down their offer for a ride. When everyone's a stranger, it's hard not to talk to strangers.

So, I landed in Marseille and took a bus to Aix en Provence. That seems to be the system if your flight lands in Marseille. Getting off the bus in Aix, I realized that I neither had a map nor a firm grasp of the layout of the city. So, I walked inside the Billets/Info station and asked the lady at the gate how to get to Lycée Vauvenargues, the school where I have had a room reserved for 3 months now.

She gave me bus directions which I probably should have taken, and a bus map with a teeny tiny map of the city on it. It was a beautiful day and I decided to walk across Centre Ville (that's "the center of town") to the school. That was relatively easy, although by the time I got to the school I was breathing hard and wanting water.

Then the frustrating bit began.

I went into the office of the lady with whom I had spoken on the phone to reserve a room in June. She tells me that all the rooms are full and that I have to go somewhere else. Now, since from my perspective I'd had a room reserved since June, that doesn't seem possible. I ask about what else I'm to do - I haven't been responding to all the e-mails asking for roommates since I was positive I had a room in my school. Well, I don't.

So, this lady kindly calls an organization designed to help pair English-speaking exchange students with host families, where a girl about my age is told by a frantic woman on the other side of the phone that there's an assistant and she doesn't have a place to stay and she's going to be thrown out on the street and she needs a roof over her head, etc. etc. etc. Lya, as it turns out the girl's name is, kindly - very kindly - informs me that in her home she is living with her Mother and her Brother, but that I'd be welcome to meet up with her and sort of "camp out" in their house until I can find another place to stay.

Off I go.

I was supposed to meet her at the "Place de la Mairie", which I couldn't find. The directions given to me by the lady at the school were to go down to the street, go left, and then go until I find someone else to ask. Which I did. And then I did again. And then I did again. Eventually, I get tired and sweaty and my luggage gets heavier and heavier. Eventually I run into Lya, who invites me into her home, gives me water, and lets me connect to the internet where I talked to my parents and my friend David who both guided me as to how to proceed.

Lya and I returned to Vauvenargues where she tried to have a polite conversation with the woman who had told me there were no more rooms (who proceeded to chew her out about how finding me housing is not her job and whatnot), and we sought out Mrs. Trotman, the incredibly kind english teacher at whose house I am now staying overnight.

So, when everyone is a stranger, and everyone is kind, I can honestly say I can depend on their kindness.