A U T U N
After literally having a spiritually enlightening experience at the top of the highest hill for miles in any direction, I headed back down the hill toward the hotel, much more at peace than on the trip up. I sat outside for a while, just sort of thinking to myself about life. It was nice, after having such a hectic last few days (with much more to come), I really had a moment to myself. I remember sitting for a while and looking up at the hot air balloons that passed by, and the occasional airplane. I remember thinking “I wonder how much this village has changed in the last, I don’t know, 1,400 years?” I mean of course France was on a feudal system back then, the population was different, politics and technology had changed, but the size of the village…it could not have changed that much. I headed back towards the room and snuck into the shower, though I didn’t really worry about waking Kyle because he was snoring anyway.
Later that morning (maybe around 8:30am, so not really later) after everybody was awake, a few of us headed up toward that bakery where that irresistible smell came from, and grabbed some croissants and quiche (and one for the road). Everybody in this village was so nice. The woman behind the counter knew we weren’t fluent in French by any means, but she was very patient with us. We gathered our belongings, and boarded the bus bound for Autun.
We arrived in the town of Autun, which by standards of the town we just came from, was much more like a city; in actuality, it was still fairly small however. Though, from what I remember, it had more of an inner city feel than it should have. We went to Autun Cathedral for most of the day, before being let off on our own.
Like the last evening, this one was relatively relaxing. We decided to make dinner a little cheaper (the first evening’s dinner was sort of pricey, well for college students anyway). I believe this may have been the first evening we tasted “kebab”, which turned into another one of the re-occurring themes of the trip. Pork, vegetables, fries, and any type of sauce you wanted, all wrapped together in a sort of pita bread, for a very cheap price. I can’t describe how many kebabs I had while in Europe, but just know that it was a lot, and I somewhat regret doing that to my body.
We hung out in Lisa, Kelli, and Jessi’s room for most of the evening, until dark and then headed to bed. Sleeping was sort of difficult, not so much because I had a lot on my mind, but because of the noise from outside. In addition to the traffic passing by the hotel, there seemed to be some sort of cat-fight going on. Normally, I could have slept through something like this, until projectiles got involved. It really sounded like one of the cats picked up one of those metal trashcans and through it at the other cat (If you don’t believe me, ask Kyle).