I drove myself to Aix-en-Provence. Completely alone. I must be a crazy person. I don't even like to drive to Roanoke when I'm at home. And it was dark. And the road signs are in French. And did I mention I'm driving a manual car?
Everything went incredibly smoothly until I reached the second toll booth. I inserted my ticket as instructed and went to plug in my credit card. "Rejected, please try again." I tried again. "Maybe you have your card in the wrong direction, please try again." So again, I tried. "Rejected!" The previously kind woman's voice on the automatic machine is now getting louder and more angry. So I try my credit cards from the US. Of course they don't work. I finally caved and pushed the intercom button. A man climbed out of his booth and made his way over to me. I'm pretty sure he was rolling his eyes. I wonder how many times this happens per day. He explained that the machine doesn't take cards like mine, and pointed at some tiny blip on the sign that shows my card as one that is not accepted. Only, it doesn't look like my card so how would I ever have known? But he took cash so I made it through the barrier.
Once in Aix, it was simple to find the parking garage. It's a beast of a garage. Huge with arrows pointing in all directions. But it wasn't too bad. I parked and went into town.
Then I was really lost. I walked in a circle for a few minutes but saw no signs of the theatre and it was really cold. I resorted to asking a woman about to cross the road if she could point me in the right direction. I now love Aix because, and I'm basing this impression on only one person, its people are so nice. Not only did she tell me how to get there, she went in completely the wrong direction for her in order to walk me to it. She said I'd be lost for hours if she didn't. We had a good conversation in French and I'm getting really excited that I can talk to these people, at least somewhat. She dropped me off and she was right. I never would have found it on my own.
So, despite all the obstacles, I got there in one piece. What would have caused me to attempt this dicey venture? One word: Baroque.
I found out the day before that there would be a Baroque concert by the Orchestre Francais des Jeunes Baroque. Basically, it was a concert by people aged 16 to 30 playing Charpentier, Purcell, Vivaldi, Locatelli, Bach, and Bach's second son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. I must have still been on a high from seeing Avignon that made me decide to go.
I haven't often been on the listening side of a classical concert seeing as I'd much rather be playing (violin if you don't know). But this was awesome. I was pretty far away so I couldn't see everything exactly, but I know that at least some of the musicians were sporting real Baroque instruments. And the Vivaldi was unlike any Vivaldi I'd heard before. I love Vivaldi!
The conductor was really funny. I understood a lot of what he said even though it was in French. That made me happy. When I didn't understand, I followed the crowd's cues and pretended, i.e. laugh when they do, clap when they do, etc... The only time I didn't give in to the mob mentality was when they clapped so long at the end that the conductor had to come back onstage at least six times. I drew the line after I'd been clapping for what seemed like ten minutes straight. It was almost 11:00 and I'd almost fallen asleep at the end.
Then it was time to make my way home. What I love about driving around midnight is that there are hardly any cars on the road. This was fortunate since I found myself dumped onto the wrong highway going a way I didn't want to be going. (Haha, reading through this the 50th time for editing purposes, I just thought of how funny it is that I can get on the wrong road and end up somewhere I "don't want to be" like Nice or Cannes or something equally as awesome. *contented sigh* Europe is great!) I panicked for half a second before I remembered how well marked their roads are here. I just followed the signs back to Aix and somehow made my way back through the center of town and onto the familiar highway that I was supposed to be on. From there I was home free.
I'll admit, I tested the speed limit just a little. The signs said 110 kilometers/hour. I felt comfortable at 90 and even then I felt slightly daredevil-ish. At one point, when the road was clear, I tried 110. Wow, that speed can take your breath away, at least at night when all you can see are the little white dotty lines on the road.
I arrived home at exactly midnight and sat in the car for a minute jamming with a song I liked on the radio. Then I stepped out of the car and suddenly considered the adventures of the night and thought, with amazememt and some pride, "What did I just do?"
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