Nice, France

“Ask for the number nine” Steve presses, urging me towards the bus which is preparing to depart the underpass where we have been sheltering. “nine, I don’t know nine” I insist “Une, Deu, Twua, Cat, Sanc, Sies, ummm, Nope”. As the bus departs Steve glares at me and together we search the gloomy streets for a taxi.

Had it just been the case of a missing bus at a Nice underpass(The city was Nice, the underpass was anything but) this trip might have looked normal, but amusingly the past two days have been those of confused backpacking as we made our way to France for the ACT.

Two nights ago and we first reached France and the coastal town of Cebere aboard a battered commuter train. Our brief three hour stay was quite boring and mentionable only for the sheer dodgyness we encountered upon exiting from the darkened station. From brightly lit train it was but twenty steps before a darkness of flickering street lights and murmuring shadows took over. For ages we navigated through foul tunnels and water filled streets to the waterfront and a bench. With no sea view to speak of and the bars shooing out their last patrons we retreated. Later in the station and with my laptop offering salvation from the doldrums, we watched Good Morning Vietnam in the fringes of freight yards while Doberman pinchers looked at our shins with longing.

All this effort and the ACT exam hall looks deserted, thin sheets of rainwater forming in the carpark and no possible test takers in sight. After five minutes the rusted steel gates popped automatically open and a mousy looking teacher hurried us inside, the garish pink of the painted concrete making me feel like a child in Disney land. And it almost was for I was the only student enrolled for the ACT and enjoyed the relaxed test taking environment in which I flourish. Alone in the schools I.T room the whole production to get there seemed such a anticlimax and I felt almost relaxed with the test (until I came to the math section, of course).
Now we are heading through Italy, the sea cloudy as our train ploughs along the Riviera the test done and my stomach rumbling in time to the beat of train against track.