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Go up a small road lined with art galleries, cafés and souvenir shops, take a left, and you’ll find the gallery of Barry Blend, an English painter who has worked in Collioure for about 25 years. His wife, a native of the Netherlands, sits at a desk at the back of the gallery, surrounded by her husband’s distinctive, colorful paintings, which are reminiscent of the colorful town they are housed in.
Our first Sunday in France was spent on a day trip to Collioure. Before that Sunday morning, Collioure, like most other French-sounding words, meant nothing to me. Then we arrived, greeted by a small, bustling beachside town, towering green mountains to the right, historic churches to the left—and there, I discovered the definition of picturesque.
Michel Moly, the mayor of Collioure, generously took us on a walking tour of the town that day. The prevalence of art was striking—replicas of famous paintings dotting walls throughout the city, a bar holding around 1,000 pieces of art including a photo of the owner with Pablo Picasso. I didn’t know it then, but the significance of art in this small town would become my story.
When I set up the interview with Blend’s wife, Tineke, to discuss art in Collioure, I expected her to tell me about how artists go to Collioure because it’s brimming with inspiration, how the town lacks a preoccupation with wealth.
But this wasn’t the case.
The town has changed since she first came here and met Blend more than 20 years ago. Back then, Tineke said, artists only had to make enough money to pay the rent—and they were happy with that. But now, Tineke believes that art has become more of an industry in Collioure and artists create not for the sake of producing beautiful art, but for the money that tourists will pay for this beautiful art.
Disenchantment suddenly set over me as Tineke discussed the changes in Collioure with a tinge of sorrow in her voice. After my first visit to the town, I imagined it as a magical place for artists, an escape from the real world where people are constantly worrying about money.
But it turns out that my romantic vision of these artists is far from the reality of the situation, and that many of them are after money just like everyone else.
Maybe Collioure is turning into a commercial art Mecca, as Tineke posits. But even if this is true, there will still be the artists who come to Collioure because of the beauty and the light, and those who stay because of it.
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Earlier this week, I had the chance to interview the mayor of Collioure for my feature story. Throughout the interview, he gave me and my interpreter multiple suggestions of where we should go later that day— a well-known bar, the art museum and the grave of poet Antonio Machado.
I’m not a poetry fan. I always (accidentally) fell asleep when we read poems aloud in high school literature classes, and I’ve never sought a poem if it wasn’t for an academic assignment. But this man’s story intrigued me.
The mayor told us even though the Spanish poet died over 70 years ago, his grave is still frequented daily. Lovers of Machado’s work come to see his grave, to leave flowers and sometimes to even leave letters.
After stopping by the bar for another quick interview, my interpreter and I headed to the graveyard. The mayor didn’t tell us where exactly he was buried, but as we walked through the cemetery gates, we realized he didn’t need to. Only a few steps from the entrance was Machado’s grave, adorned with plaques and colorful flowers. A middle-aged woman knelt by the grave as her husband took photos with a point-and-shoot.
But this wasn’t the kind of photo you see people taking next to the Eiffel Tower, next to The Bean, next to the Tower of Pisa, smiles big and faces bright. No, this woman didn’t even look at the camera. Instead, she sadly scanned the grave, reading the inscriptions in a state of apparent sorrow.
Seeing this didn’t turn me into a poetry enthusiast or an instant admirer of Machado’s work. But it did remind me of the immortality of good writing, and that’s more than I could have asked for. Rest in peace, Antonio Machado.
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A man wearing sunglasses and a dusty blue shirt peers out from around a corner as I stand waiting for my partner to finish filming a video sequence for class.
“Bonjour,” he says. “Bonjour,” I reply with a smile. He begins to speak in rapid sentences, and I quickly interrupt to express that I can only speak a little bit of French. He continues to ask me questions anyway.
When I first made the decision to spend a month in the south of France this summer, I didn’t think about the language barrier. It didn’t hit me until only a few weeks before my departure that everyone would be speaking French—a language I studied in high school, but have mostly forgotten. Nervousness set in as I imagined the residents of my new temporary home shunning me for not speaking their language.
The first couple of days in Perpignan were predictably challenging. I could barely order a croissant, let alone partake in an actual conversation. Afraid to even try to speak in French for fear of humiliation, I clutched onto my miniature ““Just Enough French” handbook and eagerly awaited our first day of French class.
But the notion that my stay here would just be one instance of embarrassment after another, that Perpignan residents would openly detest me for not being able to speak French well, was wrong.
When I attempted to tell the man with the sunglasses that I was a student filming construction for a journalism class, he nodded and grinned and helped when I didn’t know a word. Though I couldn’t understand half of what he was saying to me, it was refreshing to speak the language and be able to laugh at my errors rather than run away, or revert to English, in shame.
Just as it’s hard for me to converse in French, it’s probably just as difficult for the people of Perpignan to communicate with someone who can hardly produce a sentence without making at least one mistake. But they go on talking anyway, and most of the time, they aren’t irritated or rude, but helpful and warm.
As two other English-speakers and I struggled over the pronunciation of numbers while splitting a check at dinner one night—the Spanish seis accidentally uttered instead of the French six, quinze confused for cinquante—the waiter didn’t roll his eyes. Rather, he kindly corrected us. With a smile. Luckily, those are universal.
Read more about Perpignan at inperpignan.net.
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A sip of wine, a sip of France
I was tipsy. It was barely even 1 p.m.
Before I left for France, everyone from my best friend to my middle-aged uncle told me to enjoy my trip, and more specifically, to enjoy the wine. I laughed it off and promised I would, but I never expected I would take their advice within an hour of arriving.
Back in America, daytime drinking is saved for special occasions— music festivals, football games, weddings. Tipping the bottle before 5 p.m. on just an ordinary day is considered a problem we call alcoholism.
So when I went to a wine sampling station for a scavenger hunt of the city on my first sunny day in Perpignan, I expected to just glance at the wine shop, scribble down the information we needed to get, and then move on. But when my group arrived and we were each handed a cup of white, a cup of red and a cup of rosé to try, I was shocked.
Here I was, 20 years old and openly drinking alcohol, albeit very small amounts, in the early afternoon. And it wasn’t trashy. Passersby weren’t casting judgmental looks in my direction, and they probably weren’t thinking, “Why is that girl who looks like she should be in middle school drinking?”
My journey to Perpignan was long and tiring, filled with delays and missed flights. Thanks to little sleep and little food, save for a miniature croissant, the wine hit me rather quickly. As everything became slightly fuzzy, I realized I should have considered my empty stomach and my exhaustion before imbibing what would typically be a harmless amount.
But I attempted to emulate the refined French, only occasionally stifling a giggle as I thought about how exciting this all was. How I was actually in France, a country I’ve admired for years thanks to Beauty and the Beast and Madeline and most importantly, the France Pavilion at Disney World. How the French can drink wine anytime they want and they can do it with poise because, well, they are the French.
This wine tasting gave me more than just a lighthearted experience to balance out my frustrating travels. It gave me a look at life in France. Maybe it’s taboo to drink before the evening in America because the way we drink isn’t sophisticated, isn’t dignified. We chug and we binge and we shout and we stumble. They sip and they chat and they quietly go on with their day, maybe a little more carefree.
For the first time since I left the Chicago airport, I felt like I was in the right place. It was barely after 1 p.m.
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TORONTO
ARRIVAL: 5:50 p.m., Thursday
Off the plane, then run run run to customs. I’m following a couple who will be going on a cruise through the Mediterranean. I follow them mostly because they look like they know where they are going, but also because the man has a dad-like moustache. Men with moustaches usually know what to do in situations like this.
Run run run to the gate. The couple was in line before me at customs, so they are already there. Moustache Man looks disappointed. I look out the window and the plane, the 5:50 p.m. to Barcelona, pulls away. Defeat.
I like Toronto. We had a lovely time together back in March; I was sad to say goodbye. So when I realize this is where I may be stuck for who knows how long, I’m not too worried. Canadians are nice, eh? Then, with a fellow traveler, destination Perpignan, I wait in line at the customer service desk. The customer service agents aren’t smiley and warm like the people I encountered on my spring break— they are cold and rather rude. They call the 12 of us who missed the flight The Barcelonas, like a bad band name, and tell us we require more time so they’ll have to take customers who have lesser requests first. Over an hour passes and for once in my life, I would give all the Andes in my too-heavy backpack to be on a plane.
After an hour and a half of sitting on the floor and staring at the people already at the desk, destination also Barcelona, trying to decipher their facial expressions—are they laughing because they got a plane or because Moustache Man said something funny?—it’s our turn. New destination: Copenhagen.
COPENHAGEN
ARRIVAL: 10:30 a.m., Friday
The first sight I see is a 7-Eleven. Just like home.
I don’t understand what their currency is but I pay 40 DK to get 30 minutes of comfort in the form of Gmail. The program director sent us an email, informing us we could take an 11:55 p.m. bus from the Barcelona Sants train station to Perpignan, making our ultimate arrival time 2:45 a.m., Saturday morning. Five to midnight is good. Hours to get lost and find our way and then because it’s me probably get lost again.
Last summer, I bookmarked a NYTimes article about Copenhagen. Biking and kayaking were among the activities listed on the slideshow’s captions. It seemed whimsical, I think. I like whimsical.
The city’s airport isn’t quite as whimsical as I made myself believe it would be, but it is airy and modern and quiet and clean. Calming, save the fact that the gate for the Barcelona 14:45 flight still hasn’t shown up on the screen.
After a couple hours in the quiet, we realize we are probably in the wrong place. I approach the cashier at the liquor store, a blond man who in another life was the lead singer of a Danish boy band. He smiles. Smiles are comforting. He also speaks English, and tells me where to go to get our boarding passes. Thank you, because I don’t know how to say thank you in your language but I would if I could because you would probably appreciate that.
Passport control is the bridge between the quiet area and the rest of the airport, and the airport transforms into a crowded, but not chaotic, mall. Walk walk walk to the transfers desk. The waiting area is decorated with potted trees, their leaves gracefully falling every few minutes. My computer is dying and if I try to read, my heavy eyelids will fall immediately, so I watch them.
We receive our boarding passes, gate A8.
The gate is mostly empty. Coupled chairs fill the area, dark blue seats with ocean blue backs. No middle armrest, so perfect for pre-departure cuddling. But as of right now, everyone at gate A8 is flying solo today. I like to think that everyone has someone to cuddle with though, or will have someone to cuddle with soon. Maybe the woman with the the-sun-is-in-my-eyes-get-out scowl is waiting to receive a text from her husband, who will be accompanying her on a business trip. Perhaps the bald man forcefully chewing his gum is meeting his long-lost lover, one he hasn’t seen in years, so finally said what the hell, I’m going to Barcelona to fall in love all over again. It could be that the disheveled man staring blankly out the smudged window is nursing a broken heart and is hoping Spain will do a better job than the vodka.
The emptiness, it’s eerie. And it’s 14:15, with no sign of boarding. The gate has changed. A18. Powerwalk powerwalk powerwalk. Flight is delayed anyway.
At a time I don’t remember, boarding begins. To Barcelona, por último.
BARCELONA
Arrival: 19:03 (I think), Friday
Voy a Perpignan. Dónde está el bús?
Lo siento, mi español es muy malo.
¡Gracias!
Over and over again. By 9 or 10, we find out the bus, the one we had been looking forward to as a solid form of transportation, is full. To a hotel for the night.
The hotel across the street is chic, but even if it wasn’t, I would be grateful for its possession of beds. Not wooden chairs or airport seats or cold floors, but actual beds.
But apparently, Spaniards—at least the ones staying here—don’t need privacy. The toilet is secluded in a tiny room with a door, while the shower sits adjacent to it with only a slightly tinted shower door, making your soothing shower a show for anyone to watch. At least anyone for me is another 20-year-old girl, so the lack of privacy doesn’t really bother me. Thanks, locker room showers, for preventing any naked-related awkwardness. Thanks.
I don’t think I’m tired until I put my head on the pillow. It’s almost midnight and we have to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to be at the train station for its 6 a.m. opening. I frantically wake up at 2:13 a.m. and stare at my phone’s clock, trying to decipher the numbers. 2:13… do I have to wake up now? Oh no, this is still in central time, isn’t it? Wait, what? That makes no sense. Oh, I can go back to sleep. Good.
BARCELONA SANTS STATION
ARRIVAL: 6:03 a.m., Saturday morning
Anticipated departure time: 9 a.m. To Perpignan, por último.
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My first email address was nanabird1991@aol.com. I would spend hours filling in the bodies of emails with stories, then saving them as drafts to go back to later. There was something about the feeling of my fingers tap-tapping on the keys, creating something that no one had created before. When I went through my ghost phase, I wrote horror stories and drew on books like How to Spot a Ghost and Ghosts of Key West for inspiration. It was strange. Really strange. But I was a little girl that giggled a lot and rarely got in trouble, so my parents weren’t overly concerned. Eventually, I shed my ghost obsession and moved on to fairies. Rose, Lily, Daisy. It was the made-up, the supernatural, that always appealed to me. Maybe I was bored with real life and wanted to think that there was more, or maybe I just had an overactive imagination. Who knows.
Now, I sit at a desk, on a computer, writing in the body of an email. Except now, I’m at a loss for words. I haven’t written fiction in over five years, besides some papers or projects for school. Despite the joy that it used to bring me, I can’t find myself to formulate stories like I did when I was younger. I’ll scribble down ideas in my notebook— “white shoes,” “dirty train seat,” “pumpkin patch.” But these ideas never come to fruition; they never evolve into anything more than a single sentence on a Word document. Before, I didn’t know what it meant to be a good writer. I didn’t care whether or not my story was interesting, whether or not it was lacking intelligence. All that mattered was that I was creating something, that the music from the tap-tapping was being translated into strings of words. Now, even if I know that no one is going to read the story that sits on my desktop about a girl dirtying her sparkling white shoes, I still can’t escape the feeling of “is this good enough?”
Maybe it was my naiveté that allowed me to write freely, as I know my imagination is still present. One day, maybe that force stopping me from writing after one sentence will retire. I hope so. -
The woman in the baby-pink button-down won’t stop saying “grapefruit.” She’s on the phone with someone—a friend she hasn’t seen since high school, I’m making up—and giving this person a list of her dietary needs. “Grapefruit juice,” she says harshly. After repeating it four times, her friend finally gets it. She goes on to talk about how she won’t drink soy milk but will have rice milk, she doesn’t like nuts but she will eat a quarter cup of cashews. I shouldn’t know this much about this crazy blond woman, but everyone else is still wiping away the sleep from their eyes and she is, somehow, more intriguing than the Keith Richards article I’m trying to read.
I can never decide if I like airports. Today, I do. Today, I like the anonymity. I like that the bulk of my talking today has only involved saying “hello” and “thank you,” that I can listen to an album the whole way through without the worry of being interrupted. I like that I can sit by the wall and stare out the window at the white, white, sky and gaze at the monstrous planes. I like that the nerves that typically envelop me prior to boarding a plane are (mostly) absent today, that being alone in this crowded airport, these crowded airports, is oddly soothing.
But now I’m home, and watching Whale Wars because I can’t remember what channel Food Network is. Serious problems, here.
