Well, well, well. What a way to wrap up the trip! There’s a reason “mayhem” is one of my blog tags, and now I have an impressive collection of examples to share with you!

After we finished dinner in Avignon, we walked by a fabulous building with a bouncer and a red carpet. TOO COOL for us…but it definitely caught our attention. Keep in mind it’s Halloween and while this isn’t a big holiday in Europe, people were rocking costumes for this event, whatever it wast. 

The details are a little fuzzy at this point. Maybe we talked to the concierge at our hotel and they mentioned something about the party being worth finding a way in. Or maybe we talked to the bouncer himself. What I do remember is somehow we met this lady on the street with an extra ticket and she waltzed right past the bouncer with us, made Jen her guest, and talked the ladies at the desk into selling me a ticket for this sold out rager! 

Neither Jen nor I were in costume. But coincidentally, I happened to be wearing my Burberry rain coat, and Jen had on a Burberry cape. Normally I dress like I just rolled out of bed but France has a way of nudging me to up my game. So here we were, the Burberry bitches!

The music was bumpin’ and so were the strobe lights. Tucked away in various spots of the building were spots to buy a cocktail or a bite to eat. Gin and tonics in the drawing room. Bao buns in the foyer. You get the idea. So we wandered around for a bit, feeling exhilarated and still thoroughly out of place. Eventually, we managed to thread our way around the crowd enough to feel like we’d seen everything (we hadn’t, haha), and then cut loose for the hotel. I guess all the excitement made us tired, haha!

The next morning, it was time for us to drive to Toulouse. Avignon to Toulouse is at least 4 hours with no stops. It was the cheapest city to fly into and we hadn’t seen a bit of it since we’d gone straight for Lauzerte upon landing. 

Our next hotel was right in the city center, perfect for doing a bit of sightseeing. The email confirmation gave instructions for how to reach the nearest parking garage, called Jean Jaures. So I typed that into Waze and off we went. 

We’d been driving for at least 45 mins when it hit me that perhaps we should NOT be heading towards Marseille. In a moment of panic, I took the phone out of it’s holder and asked Jen to check the map – were we going in the wrong direction? You KNOW we were! My heart sank, that devastating feeling when you realize one little mistake will cost you dearly. In this case, it added an extra two hours to an already long day of driving. 

Not wanting to make that same mistake in the future, we did a bit of research. It turns out that basically every single city in France has something named after Jean Jaures, because he’s a famous French Socialist leader who was assassinated in the early 1900s. And that’s how we ended up heading to a garage with the same exact name but in the wrong city!

This time we routed ourselves to the correct Jean Jaures garage, which involved taking the next exit and driving back in the opposite direction. To add insult to injury, it was a toll road so we had to pay double! 

Eventually, we arrived at our hotel, Le Grand Hôtel de l’Opera – defeated and in the dark.

Luckily, the man checking us in was friendly and charming, which lifted our moods. After a bit of witty banter, he upgraded us to a superior room with a balcony. It finally felt like the tides were turning! 

The next day we have breakfast at the hotel and start preparing to check out. Jen is in the midst of packing her bag when the strap that holds down the clothes gets stuck in the zipper. And it’s stuck BAD, right near where the zipper starts. It’s her brand new Louis Vuitton suitcase that she got for Christmas, and now there’s no way to close it. 

We are due to leave for the airport in just a few hours. 

We pulled. We jiggled. We swore. Nothing worked. 

Again, panic set in. I grabbed my phone and started googling. Luckily, there was an LV store about a 10-minute walk away, but it didn’t open for another 30 minutes. Sometimes these bougie stores want you to make an appointment, too. So we walked down to the lobby and lo and behold, our friend Alexandre from check-in was back to work! 

We showed him our ridiculous situation and since our French was terrible, we asked if he could call and make an appointment for us. Unfortunately, he got caught in an awful automated phone system and could never reach the actual store. 

In desperation, we asked for a trash bag for Jen’s things. It was a practical idea, but can you imagine boarding the plane with trash bag full of clothes?! We all started laughing about the irony of it all. 

Now our only option was to grab the suitcase and take it to the store and hope that someone could fix it. Fortunately, there was no line and they let us in immediately. Using broken French and a bunch of gestures, Jen explained what happened. The lady at the counter called down to a woman in the basement for assistance. 

Turns out this lady was a fixer extraordinaire. She took it back with her the basement and within a few minutes, emerged with unstuck bag. We were incredulous. How had she done it so quickly? She explained that she and another woman just wrenched that dang zipper right outta there, which is probably why they didn’t want us to witness it, haha! 

Feeling victorious, back to the hotel we went. Alexandre cheered our good fortune. 

It was nearing check-out time, so we finished packing and brought our bags down to the lobby. We still had a few hours to explore, and the bellhop stored our bags while we went out exploring. 

After shopping and wandering the city center, we needed a little pick-me-up. It was zippy outside but we’d worked up some heat so we decided to sit outside at a cafe. Jen ordered an Irish coffee and I got an espresso martini, with some croquettes to share. Sadly, the croquettes were gross. I took one bite and set them aside. 

A few minutes later, as our young waiter went to set my martini on the table, his tray tipped over and launched Jen’s Irish coffee into the air. 

I saw the whole thing in slow motion, whipped cream and coffee coming my way…but I was stunned into paralysis, or maybe it was just that my chair was was too tucked in for me to move. Either way, the end result was that I was literally covered FROM HEAD TO TOE in this sticky, boozy beverage. 

The people inside the restaurant were staring. People walking down the street were staring. I was just an absolute mess – sweater, jeans, bag, phone, and yes, my Burberry trench. All just a few hours before our flight!

I was determined to keep my cool though. After all, accidents happen. 

The assistant manager was mortified and apologetic. She offered to dry clean my coat, but I explained that we were heading back to Germany, so I would need to get reimbursed at a later date. This was out of the ordinary, so she checked with her boss for approval and then we traded contact info on WhatsApp. 

They brought us fresh drinks and thankfully none of those nasty croquettes, which were doused in coffee. I was not in a mood to linger so I slung my martini back in haste and then we made our way to the hotel, still shell-shocked from the experience. 

As we walked in the door, you could see the confusion and surprise register on Alexandre’s face as he noticed the state I was in. I can’t remember exactly what he said. Somehow he managed to convey concern, politeness, and a little humor at the same time. But I know deep down underneath that professional façade he was thinking “how on earth have you ladies managed to get yourselves into not just one, but TWO disasters in a single day?!”

I was sticky and wet and dying for a shower and a place to change. Keep in mind that we’d already checked out of our hotel room, so I was genuinely in a pickle. 

Alexandre came to our rescue yet again and gave us the key for another room where I could clean myself up. We still had the trash bag from Jen’s suitcase debacle and I shoved all my clothes in there, along with my coat and purse. Things were looking up!

Now we were ready to head to the airport. I’d set the GPS for a gas station near the rental car return. When we arrived, they were in the process of refilling the tanks. As usual, my credit card didn’t work at the pump, which meant I had to go inside to ask the man to put €40 on Pump 4. However, it turns out that they couldn’t do transactions like that with the refilling in process. Ugh! 

I searched for the next closest gas station and away we went. This time, the gas station was under construction. Thanks for nothing, Google!

After about 45 mins of driving around in the rain with no success, we finally hit paydirt at the third station we tried. It was sweet relief because my blood pressure was rising watching our buffer time diminish, minute by minute! Now we were at a Leclerc, and I was practically giddy that the pump accepted my card and I could fill the tank up without guessing how much gas (essence, in French) this rental could hold. 

Small wins, haha. 

By the time we got to the airport, we were understandably wiped. Our flights back to Stuttgart went off without a hitch and our husbands were waiting to pick us up. “How’d the trip go?” They asked…”well…let me tell you about today on the ride home!”

Overall, this first house hunting trip had been quite remarkable, but what a stressful day!