A Day of Goodbyes 7/30/08

Wallet: Day 23
Shorts and T-shirt

Waking up at 11 has become all but standard over past week in France. We dined on deliciously fresh croissants and tea, per usual. Lauren has to catch a flight to Paris this morning so Coco, Ryan and Loyd went to drop her off. I stayed back to blog a bit. A few hours later it was Ryan’s turn o leave so I joined that trip to the airport. We nearly ran out of gas on the way but somehow made it. Once we left Coco went to fill up the tank. 100 Euro later, it was full, YIKES!

Coco’s mom fed us one last dinner and we bought a few groceries so we would have food for our 18 hour trek. Around 8 Coco took us to the Chateau where they buy their jugs of wine. We got a free tour even though Coco had never been. Inside they had HUGE containers of wine & valve that let out a liter of wine every 2 seconds. Powerful stuff.

Shortly thereafter we were on our to the “bus stop”, if you can call it that. What it was was more like a mass of disorganized people with luggage, just sitting around. A bus rolls up the curb, people flock towards it and then learn if it is the bus going where they need to go. From what I saw, at least 10 different destinations are served from this one corner. Twice, a bus would roll up, we would wait in line and find out it wasn’t going to Lisbon. Finally, our bus arrived – a full hour and a half late. We put our bags under the bus and boarded the packed, humid beast. Within minutes, both Loyd and I were asleep. So it’s off to Lisbon, where we will roll in around 3 PM tomorrow, a total of 18 hours of travel. So here is to it.