I’m very tired and achy tonight. I fell asleep on the 10-min train ride home. It has been a long day, from getting up at 6:30am to coming home at 7:00pm. The day started with walking/running to the train station because no driver was available on Bolt or Uber and we got on the train with 1 minute to spare, and we walked around 2 towns, and I finally walked home barely feeling my own feet.

Late last night, we had this idea to do a day trip. Tourism Office suggested Gruissan which is a beach town, 30 min away by bus. Between Gruissan and Pézenas, I decided on Pézenas when I read that the town hosted Molière and his troupe in the 1650s . 17th century!! I studied Molière in my Seconde year (10th grade) in high school as introduction to classical literature, and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to walk the land that he walked. I know we studied Molière, in Tartuffe and The Misanthrope, but could barely remember the story.

Pézenas is a small historic town between Béziers and Montpellier, population of 8000. It has no train station, so one would have to train to Béziers and take Bus 656 from its Gare Routière. I hesitated this trip, because the timing of the train and bus need to be well-coordinated. But we decided to give it a shot. If we miss the bus, we can always spend time in Beziers.

Pézenas turned out to be one of the most interesting towns. Interesting because it’s such a well preserved medieval and Renaissance old town, with no modernisation and almost frozen in time. In the 19th century, the town was bypassed during the building of the main rail network. There is today no train station in Pézenas, and the only way to visit the town is through busses, cars, or velos.

I have to mention the lunch we had in Pézenas. Prices are lower than at big towns. The deboned stuffed quail was super tasty! And I will not mention what Steve ordered :(

We had 2 hours to spend in Béziers, so we ran through the town real quick to make it back to our train at 17:10. Everything was closed anyway on Monday.

I’ve been here 6 weeks now and my hair is showing its grey roots. I am determined to go natural with my hair. I even dumped the 2 boxes of hair coloring kit that I brought with me on this trip. Why was I so afraid to show my age? Was I vain? I understand that at a certain age, I could still mask or lie about my age. But now, I just feel that it’s time that I show the world who I am. I have lived long enough to wear my life openly. I am proud of my grey hair, and of the lines on my face. They are proof that I have lived.

The lines on my face
are not flaws,
but maps of every place I’ve been—
each joy, each sorrow,
each morning I chose to begin again.
The lines on my face
I do not hide them.
They are proof that I have lived,
and loved enough to leave a mark.

Oh well, my poem doesn’t rhyme.

I also bought a hat on this trip. I never dared to go out in hats before, besides baseball caps and gardening sun hats. Now I walk around town in hat, and don’t even think about it. Yeah to me!