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🇫🇷 Routes in France
🇫🇷 Chemin de GENÈVE au Puy-en-V. (Geneva-Le Puy)
On My Way to the End of the World :]
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[QUOTE="sunflowerfunk, post: 1181578, member: 108399"] [B]Day 19 : Conditioner Confusion and Other Mundane Rest Day Things -Le Puy-en-Velay-[/B] I woke up this morning with a plan. I had a list, I would be checking it so many more times than twice, and I would start immediately. Imagine. First came the task of actually getting up and dressed and outside my tent, which brought me solidly to 10.30am. Then came grumbling, the realisation I need to charge my phone, general toiletries, showering, eating, becoming a person. Takes me a while, if I have time to waste. At midday, I finally felt ready to leave, so I went back into my tent, grabbed my wallet, and promptly fell asleep. First day with actually zero walking; I was taking advantage of it – plus, it was warmer than my sleeping bag. When I woke up an hour and a bit later, I had a momentary flash of panic. What if everything was shut now because of weird French hours? Luckily, the place I needed to get to wasn’t. Unluckily, it was an hours walk. At least I’d had practice! As I wandered (barefoot, of course) down the city streets and turned onto the quieter, winding roads of the suburbs, I went over my tasks for the day. 1. [I]I needed a new sleeping bag[/I]. This was the Big One; even if I only accomplished this today it will have been worth it. No more freezing nights. 2. [I]I needed new socks[/I]. Carrefour bargain socks weren’t cutting it, and the blisters were getting on my nerves. 3. [I]I needed a new walking shirt[/I]. Mine was cotton, unsuitable, stretched beyond belief, and just generally grotty. 4. [I]I needed some groceries and new toiletries[/I]. Self-explanatory – food and soap are generally valued pretty highly on backpacking trips. 5. [I]I needed a credencial[/I]. This one was lowest on the list because I [I]could[/I] just get it in the morning and save me the hassle,,,, or even wait till Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port if I needed. The French didn’t care! There were a few other little things I was looking out for; hand sanitiser, earbuds, maybe a water purifier, maybe a new mat, but those weren’t as important as my main five. Plus, I figured there’d be a pretty high chance of finding them anyway. Oh and a postcard + post office. Crucial! Busy day – if you can call it that. A busy seven hours might be a little more accurate; either way, I was glad to have something to do. I got the feeling booking two nights had been a little over-eager, considering I was already needling to keep walking. But for now, my walking would be confined to the Le Puy streets. I was not exactly what you would call a city guy; they stressed me out. Too many options, and noises, and people and things – there’s a reason I went for some of the more isolated routes on this Camino. I remember being fourteen and convinced that all I ever wanted in life was to move to Melbourne and have some shitty artsy old brick house in St. Kilda. How the hell did I change so quickly? Honestly, it was a little funny: calling Le Puy a city is probably a bit of a stretch, what with the 20,000 inhabitants. There were so many bigger – but it felt all-encompassing. I’d been feeling real country kid in the big city for m o n t h s now, basically since the second I flew out of Australia. My town has a thousand odd people and its own Coles; that’s a big goddamn town. I wasn’t even close to being rural, I’d been seaside basically my whole life, and that town [I]genuinely[/I] felt big. America had really been a tailspin, I can tell you that. Never felt more out of place in my l i f e. Anyway, incredibly distracted by everything in the world and rambling to yourself about population density, you’ll eventually make it to the Decathlon a way aways from town. It’s big, and blue, and French. And [I]air-conditioned[/I]. Positively soaking in the cold fake-smelling air, I wander through the aisles – but not for long. Boom! Sleeping bags :] There’s a wall of them, and I realise that I’m not great at decisions. Oh well! Take bets on how long I stay here and I’ll reveal it later, it’ll be like gambling just,,, nah it’ll just be gambling. Anyway!!!! Can you tell I get distracted on slower days?? The wall and I have a battle of wits for awhile, as I go back and forth and back and forth. There’s one that looks [I]perfect[/I], sleek and orange and navy, filled with down insulation, compact as all hell, feels incredible, comfort rating of -5*. All for the chic price of €200 which is not in a million years going to happen. I want to spend more than I did the first time, but I also want to [I]keep[/I] using it – I don’t know where I’ll be sleeping in Australia (Tassie doesn’t count) that’ll be even remotely close to -5* but I’ll give it a miss for now. Eventually, I settle on the runner up. Synthetic, again, but this time thicker, warmer. Supposedly I’ll be snug as a bug till it hits 0*, at which point I will most resolutely Not be sleeping outside so it’ll do me fine. It’s a little bulkier, but I’m planning to shave some things from my pack anyway. Oh, and what put the nail in the financial coffin? It’s yellow. I’ve never seen anything so perfect <33 1. [S]I needed a new sleeping bag[/S] Onto item number two : a new shirt. Turns out, outdoor stores generally have a bunch of those, and though I was tempted by some ‘fishing is for the GODS’ camo tees, they were €30 and the same material as my last one. Unfortunately, I’ll have to pass. Double unfortunately, they have a yellow shirt. For €35. Just over half of the sleeping bag. It’s merino and ,,, something, and, according to the French that is almost legible to me, it stops smells from sticking. I need it. But €35?? For o n e shirt?? In real money that’s like $60 – I was used to op-shop prices and occasionally a $20 splurge. It’d definitely be a leap! Wandering around, desperately trying to find something else, I realised all the absorbent hiking-style shirts were gone; it was the yellow, or a blue one, or a few with horrific textures that made my skin crawl. I left it to stew while I tried to find other things on my checklist. Hand sanitiser proved easy, as did socks, if you found the corner where they didn’t cost €20 a pair. Okay yeah, maybe I was a bit of a cheapie, but my god. I really loved walking, as it turns out, and it ends up being more expensive than anything else I would otherwise do!!! Aaa!! 2. [S]I needed new socks.[/S] Armed with that knowledge, I steeled myself and went to buy a yellow shirt :] I’ll keep this part short, both because I am aware of how boring this is, and also because I don’t know how to phrase anything and it was a Big Moment for me but! There ended up being quite limited sizing, and for the first time I fit into a standard range of clothing – [I]not[/I] the plus size. So woopwoop to getting fitter <33 Shocker that you have to move for that to happen; who knew?? 3. [S]I needed a new walking shirt.[/S] Frugality finally knocked down a peg, I battled the French self-checkout machines valiantly before being defeated with my very not-French debit card. After calling someone over and using brutal butchery of their native tongue to explain the problem, I was told the problem was purely that they needed a signature. Easy. But today, God felt a bit slapstick, because the pen didn’t work. Not a problem, here’s another. Nope. What about this one? Take a guess, mate. After a Mr. Bean sketch level of people offering pens that didn’t work, someone finally produced one that did, and I signed my sign and walked out. As I reorganised my things (having completely forgotten to get a bag), and begin the walk back to the Casino I passed earlier, I became very distracted by the whole signature thing. I’m going to divulge some information here and pray that no one attempts to steal my identity; my signature fucking rules. I made it up when I was somewhere around twelve in the German Consulate in Brisbane, where I was getting my passport renewed. German bureaucracy, hellscape, fire and death, y’know how it is. Anyway, we’re getting to the end, and the lady asks for my signature. [I]What[/I]? I’m twelve, why would I h a v e one of those? And so I look to my dad in a panic, and he comfortingly says, “just put the first thing that comes to mind”, trusting that he’s raised a child intelligent enough to know he does not mean [I]literally[/I] the first thing that comes to mind. Alas, that trust is most grievously misplaced. The first thing that pops into my head is ‘bookworm’, because I was a weird little child who spent all my time reading – to the point ‘no books to school’ had to become a rule because I’d forget to go to class – and that just felt funny. So down it went. [I]Bookworm[/I]. As my [I]legal signature[/I]. And the German passport lady was so confused, offered a chance at a better life; “that can be your test run!”. But nah, why would I change anything. Still oblivious to the fact that this was a very stupid idea, I confidently went, “no thanks :]”, while my dad laughed behind me. So yeah! I had the chance to change it when I turned eighteen, but I didn’t, just made it a little less legible so it wouldn’t be so easy to copy. That fucking rules. I love twelve year old me. And if anyone is brave enough to steal my identity and steal everything and look another functioning adult in the eyes and write down [I]bookworm[/I] you can fucking have it. On that note; we’re at the Casino now. I feel a bit bad that I’m giving you such a detailed rundown on a day where I’m going to two shops, but hey – future me will like reading the mundane, so you’ll just have to bear with me. So, the Casino. It’s [I]massive[/I]. It’s a huge shopping centre, and I really thought I’d like it but I just had my mundane shopping panic fit and bought some pesto and juice and Not a baguette because I’m an adult and like variation (they did not have any baguettes left). I also, and this gets it’s own paragraph, sorry, got conditioner. Now, as far as tasks go, ‘walk into the conditioner aisle and buy some conditioner’ does not rank anywhere near the top of ‘hard’. In fact, I’d argue in the grand scheme of things, it’s probably right at the bottom. But still, I find a way! Now, the first aisle [I]seems[/I] to be the shampoo/conditioner section – only there’s no conditioner. What? Okay, hang on, they must be in the next one. Bingo! These are all shampoo too???? Every single one says shampoo, and I’m s o confused. Shower gel I get, shampoo, yep – fuck is the conditioner? Already anticipating the answer, I translate conditioner into French; it’s basically the same word with a few more consonants. It also doesn’t exist in this Casino, apparently. After a few more rounds of delirious looking, I clock a teensy variation. Shampoo vs. Apres Shampoo. Conditioner in France is just ‘after shampoo’. That makes so much sense – I’m going to encourage gambling again, and say you should take a stab in dark at how long that took me to realise. 4. [S]I needed some groceries and new toiletries[/S] Anyway, small order of groceries and toiletries sorted, I was once more on my way; this time back to the campsite. After getting way lost again and emerging at a,,, new Lidl ? I bought some pain (leave me alone I like repetition), added it to my very lopsided shopping bag, and ended up back at the campsite. Had a lovely 6.00pm lunch, pain with pesto and tomatoes because why would I ever try new things when such perfect things [I]already[/I] exist?! Halfway through, I realised ‘oh shit the credencial’ and then ‘oh shit the postcards’ and then ‘oh shit a mat and water purifier and-‘ and then I made my brain be quiet <33 I could get the credencial in the morning, same with the cards, and the rest I’d just figure out later. For now, it was time to repack. Fully. I hauled my pack out, sorted everything into keep and ditch. Managed to cut a whole plastic shopping bags worth of stuff, minus the sleeping bag. Somehow, this new sleeping bag was bulky enough that you could not tell at [I]all[/I], which wasn’t reassuring. Oh also? My interpretation of ‘open flame’ did not count gas stoves – it seems that in Spain, they are also not allowed. It was taking up so much room and I [I]didn’t[/I] need it. 1.5-1 to me. Figuring it was fairly pricey and good quality (and tiny), I’d keep the actual stove bit tucked away till I finished, and use it on some other trips instead, but the general little pot/pan/cup setup I’d ditch. But not yet – I’d wait till a gîte or albergue with a ‘leave behind’ bin, so another walker could grab it if they wanted. Handy, even if not fully legal. Until then, it could just be dead weight – perfect. The sun sets as I perfect my packing list and test pack; everything fits, and it [I]just[/I] works. Once the pots are gone, I might finally have space for silly little trinkets, once I finally start passing places that have them! And the sweet sweet smell of cheap shitty pizza floats over to me. Of course – it’s pizza van day. Stomach turning at the thought of spending more money, I beat the shit out of my frugality and take the €9.70 pizza. Only, minor introvert hell ensues. My first pick is out – no worries, go for the second back-up choice I had, in case the first failed. Also gone; no fear, I have my third choice and how are they out of everything it’s only been open thirty minutes ?? Eventually the guy just kinda gestures to one of them and I go ‘oui’ to get me the hell out of this scenario, not reading what it says at all. Twenty minutes later, my pizza is done. It’s mushroom, pesto, olives and chicken. I can confidently say it was the worst pizza I’ve ever eaten. I have a great time reading long essay-adjacent eulogies of people who’ve died on the Camino, then go on a bit of a eulogy spiral and learn about the history, and good thing I’m equipped because the pizza hits me about an hour later and then I’m doubled over in the camp toilets regretting every decision that bought me to this point – but hey, at least if I die, I’ll have a few words ready. The All-Blacks play rugby with the French, and the Americans watch. I creepily watch the Americans through the window because their confusion is so funny. I’m listening to a Kiwi couple argue about the chapel on the hill (“All I’m saying, right, is who the fuck looks at a mountain and goes ‘i’m gonna bring up all them rocks’” / “Maybe it was to sort of like,, signify the religious power they held-” / “Yeah or maybe a bunch of shit-heads just wanted to fuck up a few poor people’s day by making them carry rocks up a mountain”), and the stars are out again. Also? I don’t like the Le Puy campsite (sorry). It’s too loud and crowded; I’ve been spoilt by all these nights in rural France. Tomorrow, I enter less-rural France. The Via Podiensis, more than double my last leg, which will bring me right to Spain’s doorstep. In just about a month (hopefully), I’ll have finished my journey across France. I was excited :] I was also fucking tired, which is impressive considering I did barely anything, but I won’t nitpick. And so, we meet again – and tomorrow I’ll greet you better, but tonight I need to sleep. All that nothing is exhausting, don’t you know <33 [HR][/HR] [B]Day 19 – September 8th[/B] Le Puy-en-Velay 10.2km (doesn’t count) ~ 363.7km total €148.97 (unfortunately does count) ~ €632.23 total [/QUOTE]
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