The Magnificent Macaron: Struggles of the Solo Traveler!

There are two ways I could tell you about my morning yesterday.

The first way: "I woke up slowly, bought a delicious quiche at a charming local bakery and enjoyed a lovely day in Aix-en-Provence!"

Here is the real way: I woke up later than I wanted because I was up until 2am imagining the fly in my room would fly into my nostril and up into my brain while I was sleeping.

It was too late to have breakfast on the terrace at my hotel so I was forced to find a bakery. I then felt guilty about how late it was so I hastily bought my ticket to Aix-en-Provence. Then I decided to see how far away the train station was from the shopping area my wonderful friend Kerry had suggested (Note the error in order of operations here). Ah yes, 3 hours walking. I bought the wrong ticket! Ok, no need to panic I will just explain this to the person at the train station. She probably speaks fluent English. We'll have a good laugh about it! I even imagined a scenario in which she was an American like me. She probably decided one day, "I'm moving to France!" And got a job as a ticket person at the train station.

Turns out she didn't speak one word of English. Wonderful. Ok well, still no need to panic, the ticket cost $20 so worst case scenario, I'll just buy a new ticket and call it a $20 mistake. I've had worse. I go to the ticket machine only to find they only take cards with security chips in them. I do not have a card with a security chip. My credit card company considers me insecure as it is. Cue tears starting to fill eyes. Again though, no need to panic the absolute worst case scenario is I don't go to a town in Provence that I wanted to go to. It's about as first world as a problem can be.

After standing around helplessly for several minutes I found an English speaking tourist information person who told me to just get on the train anyways and get off where I want. No one will notice or care. So I did.