The French Connection and late night hitch hikers

NOTE: I apologize in advance. It seems my English is slowly deteriorating.

It was just about a couple weeks ago, when the advice of a new friend rang in my ear "You should make a couchsurfing account."

Couchsurfing.

I know I'm late to this party, but if you don't have an account yet, I highly reccomend it. I set up my account some time ago, and on this day I decided to add all of my details, photos, interests, and dreams. The website is a collection of people that share a few key passions: people, places, and ideas. Upon completion of my profile, I browsed through other couchsurfers in my city, and found many!

A particular profile caught my eye, and I decided to send a message to ask if they could show me around town. It was a profile of two young women, best friends, also fairly new to Aix. These women would later come to be called "The French Connection."

We set a date and a time for a meet-up, Thursday, October 9th, 8PM. The day approached with great anticipation, and it was 8:14 when the buzzer to the flat rang through the halls. I ran down the stairs to meet them, Babou and Momo*. I was instantly comfortable, I think it was their smiles. Babou speaks excellent english and Momo speaks very good english, so it was not hard for me at all to communicate, which is more of relief these days than I ever thought it would be.

We went to a bar on the Cours Mirabou, the Belle Epoch. The cool people in town that know what's happening, call it the BE. [;)] We had an amazing range of conversation! They were very curious about America and Americans and US law. We talked about the Bible and everything that makes it excellent outside of religion. We talked about stories from our lives and where we came from and what we liked about our new city. The girls even paid for my drink before they took me to the next bar.

I was truly touched by how I was instantly befriended by these two strangers. These two wonderful strangers, of whom I've grown very fond in this past week. They are both intelligent and fun, and they both have a special spark in their eyes that electrifies their smiles. The two of them together remind me of something I've been missing, a connection between good friends that feeds and feeds off of each other creating a special chemical in one's mind, which spreads through the body and effects even the way one moves, they way one speaks, the way one radiates. It's really quite a simple connection, a common one even, but the lack of that connection has done something terrible to me. It wasn't until this week that I realized the absolute deficiency of this fundamental chemical. It saddens me a little to realize this, makes me long for home, but at this realization, coupled with the fact that I know I cannot go home right now, it creates a certain resolve. And I feel this resolve is filling my sails with wind.

The following day Coline and I made our way over to Arles to see the Minitel Rose concert. You can read more about the concert over at Cheetah Love (the new music blog Keegan and I made). We carpooled with a gentlemen after he got out of school. The drive is just about an hour or so, maybe a little more. We arrived three hours before the start of the show and made our way around town. The town is much much smaller than Aix en Provence, which is a pretty small city... but Arles is beautiful nonetheless. It is an old Roman city which later became a French city which later became the home of Van Gogh for a couple of his most productive years. In the north of the city there is a giant Roman coliseum, still very well preserved! It was an incredible thing to see with my own eyes. I had no idea of this part of the city's history before I came, and when I saw this monolith, my jaw dropped. It was as if all those photos I had looked at my entire life, the image I had formed of what a coliseum would look like, jumped right out of my mind and manifested itself in front of me. Cool.

We drank some, and had some pizza before we made our way to the concert. The concert was great, and we went on our way as soon as the show ended, and the band failed to produce an encore for us. Before coming, I had tried to reach out to some people on the couchsurfing website to find a place to stay, but with no luck. And now it was a quarter past midnight and we had no where to stay. Anticipating this, we had scoped out a couple places to lay down a blanket in the city, the best of which proving to be a covered area on a playground. This was a backup plan however. We expected to meet someone at the show who had driven from Marseille to see the band. We made a sign "Aix/Marseille" and walked around asking. Repeatedly people told us to go stand by the freeway. Two very nice gentlemen stopped and talked to us for a while, urging us to go to the freeway entrance, and giving us directions.

It was 2AM when we found ourselves standing just before the freeway entrance. Horror stories flashed in my mind, and I slowly realized what I had talked myself into. However, with Coline at my side, I was not really afraid. And we didn't give up. And this fancy looking car stopped after just twenty minutes. In it was a middle aged man in a business suit, and, as it happened he lived in Aix! It was all but perfect luck. On the ride home he told us that he had never picked up hitch hikers before, and never thought he would, but tonight he was afraid he would fall asleep, and he liked how we smiled.

As I said earlier, it took just over an hour to drive between Aix and Arles, but when your driver has a fast car and doesn't mind pressing the peddle down a little, the distance seems to disappear. At an average speed of 155km/hr... the voyage is little more than half an hour. Before we knew it, we were safe at home in our own warm bed. Wonderful.

Babou and Momo call themselves the French Connection, I'm not sure why, but I'm sure that it fits them like a glove. I went out with them again tonight. It was 8P when I met them, but I learned that Momo would have to leave soon for a party. Momo's twin sister however, would stay, her name is Sushi*. The girls also reminded me that they were getting a couch surfer at midnight this evening! A girl from Sweden. I decided that I would stay with Babou and Sushi, and later we would meet up with Momo at the bustop to meet the girl.

We went back to Babou's flat and passed the time with Queen and the RHCP. They taught me how to make crepes. We talked about film and music. And we danced to Kasabian. I showed Babou the sprinkler and how to close the fridge (dance style). She taught me how to clean windows and the table.

The night continued, and we met the Swedish girl. She is very, very sweet and I believe you spell her name like this: Casja. She speaks near perfect English, and talked about many things. I think I am very interested in visiting Sweden now, and I think I may give it an advantageous priority.

This night was incredible. We went to the BE and then to a dance club. We danced the night away. And when I found myself at home I was filled with that chemical I'd felt a lack of. Though temporary, it was so great to catch a glimpse of it.

At this point, it is tuesday. Right now, I am sitting in a classroom with Babou and Casja, it is Art and Archeology of the Antiquities. It seems interesting, but my attention span is short for lectures in general, and lectures in French especially. Today, I am happy.

To close, I highly recommend Woody Allen's new film "Vicky Christina Barcelona." See it if you have a chance. Don't forget about me, someday I'll be home.

i dream of that fire in my body,
i love you all,
kisses,
jon

*Babou, Momo, Sushi... these are all nicknames. But they are the best kind of nicknames. I'm slowly working on getting the girls to call me Hawkeye Jon... ;-)