June 10th –
In the morning we took a taxi to the train station, but when we got there we weren’t quite sure where to get our tickets for the 11:20 train ride to Narbonne. There was supposed to be a machine to print off our tickets, but Will’s dad said it wouldn’t accept his credit card (although I’m not sure why one was needed since the tickets were already paid for). It turned out we needed to wait in a somewhat long line, and because of that we missed our train. We had to catch a different train, which wasn’t leaving until 1:20, so we had some lunch at the station while we waited.
It took two train rides to get to our final location, Narbonne. The first stop was in Montpellier, which was about three and a half hours. During the second train ride, two obnoxious men sat next to us. They were drinking wine from a Fanta bottle, and were asking people around them for a lighter and money. They tried talking to us, but Will’s dad tried to get rid of them by saying that he knows “only a few words” of French (clearly he was lying). Besides them, the ride went smoothly and around 6 pm we arrived in Narbonne.
We were greeted by Hervé and Katia, Will’s French friends who live close to Narbonne in a village called Montredon des Corbières. I had to do the French “cheeky kiss”, which was kind of strange for me, although Will did try to prepare me for it. We got ourselves a rental car (which is manual drive, by the way), and drove to the hotel we are staying at. After checking in and dropping off our luggage, we followed Hervé and Katia to their house.
The village they live in is very small, with only 800 people living in it. Their house is very cute, with a gate out front, and a nice view of the county side. We said hello to their two daughters, Camille and Manon. I think Camille is about 15 years old and Manon around 11. We sat around the table, had snacks, drinks, and then ate dinner. There was duck and pork filet mignon, but I just stuck with the pork that night.
I had an interesting cultural experience this night, because I was in a house with people who only spoke in French. Will and his dad would respond and have conversations with them in French, while I just sat there with not a clue as to what was being said. Luckily, I had Will there to translate for me whenever I asked. I’ve always known that Will was fluent in French, but I had never really heard him speak it much until this night. I loved listening to him talk to the family in French! I’m so jealous of him for being fluent in another language. If only I had the patience and dedication…
Even though I couldn’t contribute much to the conversation, I still had a lot of fun, and enjoyed the dinner and company. We stayed really late, and I was very tired by the time we got back to the hotel. We are here in Narbonne until Sunday, and I will enjoy the experience of spending time with an actual French family.
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