FRIDAY, March 7th. Where do I start? For about a month, Matt had been trying to purchase train tickets to Beziers, a city on the coast of Southern France. Here is a map, with the red dot representing Beziers. Matt did not serve in this particular area. However, the Farrands, a couple from Aix-en-Provence, moved here. Our traveling purpose was not to see beautiful Beziers, but rather visit these dear friends, Greg and Jolaine Farrands.
Matt and Greg are the closest of friends and visiting them was a priority since we arrived in France. However, OuiGo, a miserable company to work with, will not accept American credit cards. Why? No clue. But it is very frustrating. As the days passed by our tickets became more and more expensive. €40/person up to €95/person. But visiting Greg and Jolaine was an opportunity we did not want to miss. Matt ended up borrowing a French credit card from an individual at work and paying him in cash. Finally. We got our tickets!
The day came to leave, Friday, March 7th, and Matt and I packed our bags and headed out to Marne la Vasse, the train station by Disneyland. We got off the metro to catch the RER. The RER was delayed. Very delayed. By the time we arrived at Marne la Vasse it was 12:26, our train had left at 12:22. We arranged for other tickets and ended up on a direct train to Beziers.
This next high-speed train did not leave until 4:00pm and it left from Gare du Lyon, inside Paris instead of from the suburbs. We rode the RER and metro back to our apartment, ate lunch, watched some Parks & Rec and the next thing we knew we were running late for our 2nd train!! At this point there was no excuse and we really felt like idiots. Matt has longer legs than me so he was slightly jogging, I however was full on sprinting. I sprinted from our apartment to the metro, sprinted for our transfer, and sprinted to our train. We made it with 4 minutes before the train would depart. Phew. What a relief! I thought…….then we tried to scan our new tickets and they would not scan. We called over a train agent and she helped us scan them. Even she had to try at least 10 times to make them scan. By this point we did not know how much time we had but we still had to find our seats…….on car number SEVENTEEN. Are you kidding me? We again started running. This time we ran along our train that would soon depart, counting the cars as we passed. We finally came to car #17 and stepped on with a huge sigh of relief. We stowed away our backpacks and sat down. No sooner did we take our seats and the train started moving. We spent the first 20 minutes of the train ride fanning our red faces and removing coats, scarves, and sweaters, still in disbelief that we had made it and in even more disbelief that we had come so close to missing our second train of the day. I think/hope we actually learned our lesson.
As for the train ride, it was lovely. Taking a high-speed train through France is an experience worth repeating. The countryside we passed was beautiful and it was fun to add yet another mode of transportation to our adventure. I slept part of the way, blogged part of the way, and listened to music while watching the landscape pass the rest of the way.
We got off the train and to Matt’s surprise they had changed the layout of the train station. It used to be covered. And the tiles used to be different. And there used to be a store right there. And….we had gotten off at the wrong station. We laughed and then ran back to the platform and caught the next train. We had only got off one stop early but it added to the idea that something was really working against us visiting Beziers. But believe it or not, we made it. Greg was patiently waiting for us and greeted us both with big hugs. He is awesome.
He drove us back to their beautiful home just outside Beziers in Montady. Jolaine was helping her mother for the past week and would not arrive until the following morning. However, she did have everything prepared for our arrival. Greg had a delicious dinner prepared for us and by the time we finished it was around 11:00 pm. I enjoyed listening to and watching Matt and Greg interact but my eyelids started to get heavy around 11:45. I excused myself and went to bed. Matt stayed up talking with Greg until 2:00 am! Like I said, they really are such great friends.
SATURDAY, March 8th, started out early with a visit to the train station to pick up Jolaine! Her bright pink sweater can brighten up any one’s day. She was recently approved to care for elderly people in her home. The elderly people will live in her home and she will provide 24/7 care. It is something that her mother currently does and Jolaine is now starting it in her own home. They are such kind, caring people. We stopped at the bank and then headed to Cap d’Agde. We went to a neat market and walked along the dock. The weather was wonderful!
We ate lunch at a Chinese buffet with all you can eat ice cream.
I took the all-you-can-eat-ice-cream part a little too seriously and think Greg and Jolaine thought I was a little crazy. After lunch, we drove to Carcassonne. This was a really fun city to visit with Matthew. He was so happy to be back in his mission. Carcassonne was his first area and he filled the afternoon with stories from this place. “One time, we met this guy on that bench…” “I always wondered what this building was…” “My apartment was the top left window.” And he went on and on. Seeing him so happy to be sharing this made me equally happy to be able to experience it. Matt absolutely loved his mission. And visiting the South with him and the Farrands made for one awesome weekend. While in Carcassonne, we visited the famous castle. It was fun to walk the grounds and even more fun to eat a Nutella crepe! Those things never get old.
Below is a picture outside of the church building in Carcassonne.
That evening we ate a yummy salad and baguette dinner. Then we had the lucky opportunity to watch Greg and Jolaine’s wedding video! They are such a sweet couple. You can just tell how much they love each other. Their wedding video was an impressive 2+ hours long (they fast forwarded through parts of it). It is easy to see that they cherish their marriage and each other. I am so grateful I had the opportunity of getting to know them over this weekend and that they would open their home to Matthew and I.
SUNDAY, March 9th, after a yummy french breakfast (oh, how I miss those!), we went to church. In Beziers, there is a small branch that meets for church.
I quickly realized I was no longer in the Paris. This was due not only to the fact that there were only 2 other women in Relief Society but neither of them spoke any English! We tried to communicate but were not having much success when Jolaine came downstairs to grab something for Primary. Or maybe she was just checking on me. Either way, she saved the day and asked if I would like to attend Primary instead of Relief Society. I readily agreed. I sat in the corner and observed Jolaine give a fabulosu primary lesson (even though I could only understand 20% of it, she had each of the kids hanging on her every word.) For the second hour, Matt and I attended Greg’s primary lesson. It was equally good. The third hour was sacrament meeting and my sweet husband whispered the translation in my ear. He’s one smart guy.
One of the Elder’s serving in the Beziers branch was Elder Smith. Matt could not pass up the opportunity to take a picture while wearing this Elder’s nametag. The poor Elder said he felt naked without it and snatched it back right after the photo was taken. It was pretty funny.
After church, we went back to the Farrands beautiful home and enjoyed a delicious lunch outside. The sun felt so good! A curious cat came up to the table investigating what we were up to and my sweet husband splashed it in the face with a glass of water. I have never seen a cat get so spooked and jump so high. We all had a good laugh.
After great food and even better conversation, we packed up our things and went to the train station. Greg and Jolaine dropped us of as close as they could to the train. Our sadness of saying goodbye was helped a little bit when they told us they would meet us in Aix-en-Provence at the end of our trip. We looked forward to that and said goodbye. They treated us so well the entire weekend!
We arrived safely back in Paris that evening feeling very grateful for the good friends we had spent time with that weekend.
Smiths Go Euro 