Sunday, 29th October 2006
As I came home late the extra hour at night was very helpful. In the morning (7:30 am) my host S. drove me to the motorway junction Genova-Ovest (there’s a little room for hitching at the slip road from the petrol station). I first tried with a sign saying Savona but after 20 min switched to F for France and got a ride in a few minutes with a young Italian couple. They drove me for about 100km and I’m pretty sure they told me their names but unfortunately I totally forgot them. While he was driving, she (also a philosophy student, like A.) talked to me in Italian and tried to illustrate with gestures what she felt I might not understand :-) Very cute :-) We stopped in Imperia to buy petrol, it cost 1.433€ per litre (more than in Genoa), and they weren’t very happy when they saw the price 1.254€ at the next service area, where they dropped me :-|
I changed a couple of Italian cars and a French woman going on a trip to Les Baux-de-Provence and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (her son really wants to become a teacher, the main reason being a lot of holidays…), getting about halfway of my planned route for today. I asked one or two drivers for a ride and then attacked a young van driver with my lousy German (he had German license plates), but he rather replied in English :-) It appeared I was very lucky as J. actually goes all the way to Toulouse! And as we started in English we continued in the same language, although he’s lived in France since childhood, so I could have practiced my French. We talked mostly about our studies (he’s a post-graduate law student), but we were also quiet for long periods and as I woke up early, I also dozed off for a while. He was going to a friend in Toulouse but didn’t know the town very well. Fortunately I had printed out maps of Toulouse from Viamichelin in 6 different scales, focused on the city centre (my HC host lives right in the centre), so I navigated to the Matabiau train station where J. was meeting his friend and a Czech girl. Maybe we could go for a drink but I wanted to have enough time for everything, so I just said goodbye and looked for my place for the night. B. was surprised I didn’t call him that I’m lost but just came directly to his house :-)
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