Goodbye Paris, Next Stop: Avignon!

6:10am. That’s when my alarm went off. Ugh, another early day. This day was even harder to get up, because I knew we weren’t doing anything of significance besides driving all day. We left the hotel at around 7:20am after having breakfast and set our course for Avignon, a quaint, sleepy little town in the south of France. We would only stay there for one night, mainly as a rest stop for the coach drivers who are governed by really strict driving laws in the EU. We had to stop literally every 2 hours for about 30 minutes just so the drivers could have a break. It made our full day of driving seem even longer.
I slept some on the bus because my Dramamine helped knock me out. When I wasn’t sleeping I was catching up on my journaling, and now I can proudly say that I am completely caught up to date!
When we arrived in Avignon at about 5pm, we checked into our hotel which unfortunately was without air conditioning for the night. Initially, most of us having grown up in Texas, were appalled and groaned at the thought of not having AC, but it actually wasn’t that bad. Although it was about 83 degrees when we got to Avignon, it cooled down significantly overnight, and Caitlin and I even slept with our Juliet balcony doors open to allow a breeze to flow through the room.

After putting our things down in our room, we set off exploring with most of the group. The town is absolutely gorgeous! It sits right on a river which had pretty blue water (unlike the Thames and Seine Rivers in London and Paris). What is most unique about the town is that it used to be the home of the Catholic Popes before Vatican City was formed. We walked around the exterior of the Palais de Papal (Palace of the Pope) and took lots of the pictures because it sits on top of a tall hill that gave us a great panoramic view of the whole Avignon area.


We then found a restaurant for dinner that was actually pretty nice. There was a group of 12 of us seeing as Dr. Mac and Mrs. Mac joined us! Today was their wedding anniversary, and they couldn’t have been more precious! While we were waiting on our ordered food to come to the table, the Mac’s went over to the carousel and were the only people there. They rode it and Michelle took pictures. When I get older, I want what they have, because just anyone looking at them can tell that their love is so pure! Precious!
However, dinner wasn’t as precious. The salad came with some weird meat on top of it. I didn’t try it but it looked to be snails or tuna fish. Oh and the egg on my salad smelled disgusting, so that was another major turnoff. My entrée was delicious however. I ordered chicken covered with mushrooms and mushrooms sauce. YUM! For dessert, most of us ordered gelato, which was delish!
After dinner, my presentation group got together to work on and practice our presentation considering we present tomorrow evening once we get to Nice. I think it should be pretty good, and funny as well. Pray I remember what I’m supposed to say!
Once we were finished, we headed down to sit next to the river where a lot of other people from our trip were. It was so beautiful. We were sitting next to this bridge that Avignon is famous for, and the way it was lit up at night was awesome! I took several pictures that turned out great. I think I’m going to enter one of them into the study abroad photo contest that A&M holds every year.

We went back to the hotel relatively early at 11ish. I then updated my blog and got it pretty much fully up to date! Since I had slept a few hours on the bus earlier that day, I wasn’t all that tired but I made myself got to bed at 1:30am. My head was asleep as soon as it hit the pillow pretty much. I guess I was more tired than I thought. This trip wears you out!!