Kitchen: Before & After

Family Room: Before & After

Living Room: Before & After

Dining Room: Before & After

Master Bedroom: Before & After

France Tales: Hitchiking down the mountain in the rain

I am telling this story because when I recently had an abnormal 4 hour commute home one night in the rain, it made me think of this time when I was younger and wilder, lower maintenance and much more fun...

It was 1996 and I was spending my year abroad in France. For a long weekend in March, my friend M & I decided to go visit this religious place called Notre Dame de la Salette. I wasn't religieuse (religious), but you didn't have to ask me twice to spend a weekend in the Alpes. From where we were, you took a train to Lyon, then one to Grenoble, then a bus to the base of the mountain, and then another bus up. But the problem was that the bus up the mountain didn't start until April, so we had to faire le stop (hitchhike) up the mountain. A nice man with a baby son on his lap took us 1/2 way (he lived in a small village), and a cook at La Sallette took us the rest of the way. We felt quite super-cool (cool) as we jumped into these strangers cars.

Photo © Missionaries of La Salette

Aside from the cafeteria food and the dorm-like rooms, we couldn't be in a more beautiful place. Being up in the Alpes was surreal, it was hard to believe what you were seeing. Both days there we took walks all over the mountainside, going over mountains and looking down into valleys at small villages. It was like the Sound of Music -- M & I would walk about singing "The Hills are alive ..." very badly, but no one was around to hear us so we belted it out loud.
We decided not to hitchhike down the mountain when we had to leave. We had found a trail so we wanted to walk down. We started off with delusions of grandeur -- we had no idea how long this was going to take us, or what we might encounter along the way (it was after all sauvage (wild)). We just had our sacs à dos (backpack), some naiveté, and a whole lot of spunk to lead the way. 10 minutes into our trip it started raining, first a little then a lot. I had a coat with a hood, but M didn't, so she dug in her backpack to find something to put on her head and the first thing that came out was her Micky Mouse nightshirt which she proceeded to wrap around her head turban-style. Needless to say, I almost fell in the mud laughing.

We honestly tried to make the best of a bad situation (laughing as only 20 year olds with their parents thousands of miles away can do) but after a long while, we knew we had to find a road and hopefully the warmth of someone's dry voiture (car) to take us down the mountain. After a few people (cough, religious people who were coming from La Salette, cough) drove past us, the nicest couple in the world stopped to rescue us. And after we apologized profusely for being completely mouillé (wet) and getting their car wet, we jumped in -- but not before M realized her nightgown was still wrapped around her head. As she whipped it off, it got stuck in the car door and hung out the car as we sped off.

The nice couple took us all the way to Grenoble, even though we said we could take a bus. They actually wanted to take us all the way to Lyon (our train connection and their home), but we insisted. We got to Lyon early and caught an earlier train back to our host city -- a train which we didn't have reserved seats for and which was FULL. The only place to sit was in the couloir (hallway) of first class because it was carpeted. As we sat there with the rest of the student vagabonds, we looked at each other and said, "What's that smell?" Sniff. "Ohmigod," M said, "It's us. We smell like wet cat!" It was a long train ride when you're wet, cold, stink, and you're sitting on the floor in a train with a bunch of other people. Sometime in the middle of the night when we got home, we parted ways barely able to say anything to each other. Once at my host-family's apartment, I crashed into mon lit (my bed).

So whenever I get caught in the rain, feel damp and soaked, and plain miserable, I always think of this story and it makes me laugh.