Avignon : Did V kiss the dude?

Avignon is the cultural capital of France. The theater festival is world famous.

We signed up for “Daughters of Rhone”, organized by office de tourism. A French women who lived in Tibet’s French colony also signed up for this tour. The tour which was scheduled to begin at 10:30 AM, didn’t start until noon, as the whereabouts of the tour guide was unknown. We then found out that there was a disconnect b/n the tourism office and the tour guide on the tour’s starting location. “Daughters of Rhone” started at the St Benezet Bridge, outside the fort, where our tour guide was waiting. Apparently, some personnel in the tourism office were not updated. Finally, at noon we were dropped off to the starting location by an office de tourism personnel.

Our tour guide, Sophie, was absolutely amazing! She told us all kinds of fascinating stories, history, and facts. She had some documents on her to corroborate the stories. The 2 hour tour, exceeded the time limit and kept on going. There was no end in sight and we were starting to get restless. Venu was subtly sending her messages that we didn’t want the history lessons anymore. She coolly dismissed it saying it was men’s natural tendency to do so. OOPS!
When she expressed her intentions to give us a tour of Notre dame, we set our foot down and plainly declined it. While parting we asked her for recommendations on restaurants and the Provencal dishes. She walked with us to the restaurant, still giving us history lessons and explained to us the French menu.

She was very pleased, when we invited her to lunch with us. During the course of our conversation we found out that, dear Sophie didn’t have anything to do in the afternoon (and we were punished with history lessons for that). She said, for a girl like her Avignon was mind numbingly boring. All action is when the tourists start pouring in. She seemed be concerned about the fact that her boyfriend, who is in the French navy, was moving to the base in Tahiti for 2 yrs. She wanted to move with him, but then what would she do in Tahiti for 2 yrs , She questioned herself.

“Women in France usually don’t drink bear” She said, in response to my order of chilled Heineken. They drink Monaco (She didn’t know how it got the name), which is a concoction of beer, lime juice and fruit syrup. Unlike beer it is sweet and thus appealing to the women’s palate. After tasting Monaco, I decided to stick with beer. Well…I want beer to taste like beer , not like some fruit juice!.

We spent all afternoon chatting with Sophie. We talked about France, French people, food, wine, culture, Sophie’s Indian friend and his arranged marriage to a naïve girl in India! We parted after huggin & exchanging contact information

Tourism office gave us free tickets to the Pope Palais as they made us wait all morning.
After touring the Pope Palais, we headed to rent a motorbike for the next day. The shopkeeper at the rentals, told us proudly that he was in Madras, for a music festival 20 Fu**ing yrs ago!

Did V kiss the “DUDE”?
After taking a break at the hotel, we decide take a romantic walk on the bank of river Rhone before dinner. On our way, a big man dressed like a women whose name I don’t know, but would like to call him “The Dude”, stopped us. The carousal was running with loud music behind him. People had gathered to see “The Dude” and suddenly , we were put on the spot by him. He started blowing his whistle in front of us, making funny gestures. For reasons unknown (My best guess is the rhone valley wine we had earlier!) Venu started whistling with his mouth, louder than the “The Dude”. The crowd was cheering them on!. Then the “The Dude” stopped to ask Venu if he could hug and kiss him. To my surprise,Venu was like “yeah ,sure why not”. I was dumbfounded when they hugged , and kissed right on the mouth! I crowd burst out in laughter! Recovering quickly I joined the crowd in laughter with my face red! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget this. Just hoping ,I wont get nightmares about this.