Beaches Bathrooms and Boulle

Today we decided to hit up the beach again, only this time relying on only our own efforts. We made it there, well to a beach anyway, but it took us a little over an hour. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t use schedules or routes to plan ahead. It was colder today so we didn’t spend much time at the beach itself. After we ate and climbed the rock-pier thing we were ready to explore elsewhere. Unfortunately Annie had to go the bathroom, really bad. Now unlike the states, France is not known for having a plethora of public restroom facilities. When you do find one, you have to pay, and you may not have a toilet lid, a toilet at all (Turkish toilets I was told they call the holes in the ground), a toilet but no toilet paper, and often no sink or soap. Nevertheless, we searched. Much to our dismay there were none to be found. We walked for upwards of a half hour just looking for a restroom (restaurants and cafes either don’t have them or require that you be a paying customer to use them). Finally we found a sketchy public w.c. in the middle of a parking lot. By then, however, we were no where near our old bus stop. So we decided to just explore the area. We sat down at a quaint little café in the middle of this random coastal town and spent some time planning out our travels for the semester. We have to decide where to go on our 5 day break in Febuary, and it seems like most of the girls want to go to Greece or Italy or both (which would be amazing).
The afternoon was coming to a close we set off to find a bus stop. After some unsuccessful encounters with some locals we finally found one but the bus wouldn’t be there for another hour and half. So we searched out the Office of Tourism (signs were everywhere) which led us on a crazy roundabout mission to an office that was closed because it had relocated. We weren’t too discouraged, however, because in our efforts to find the office and ask for the easiest way back into the city, we stumbled upon 5 or so groups of old French men playing boulle (sp?), the French equivalent of botche (sp?) ball. They were so cute to watch, playing by the sailboat port even in the cold. I bet they come every Saturday, rain or shine. We asked if we could watch the group closest to us and they seemed delighted to have spectators. One man acted as almost an announcer for us. He kept making fun of one other old man in their group. Every time the other man would go he would say, “A 18 ans, il est le champion du monde! Voila le champion du monde! (At 18 yrs old he was the champion (boulle) player of the world. Watch the champion)” It was cool to watch, because this was a taste of the real France. The stuff you don’t see in the busy downtown area or in the smoky clubs. This is the France that makes you want to move here.