Travelling- Introductory Chapter 1

She looked outside. The alluring lavender fields, stretching across the sunlit landscape in the south of France, merged with the surrounding countryside into a unique, picturesque scenery filled with purple, blue and white strokes. The sun had risen and the tiny mockingbirds had left their nest to sing once again a soothing, beautiful tune. She wished she was there, sitting on a large trunk that had fallen during the winter, singing with them.

She was abruptly awakened by this beautiful dream. The beautiful smell of lavender around her had given way to an unpleasant intruder, the smell of someone passing through the hallway. He wore strong cologne and made her dizzy.

Annoyed, she took out her sketchbook, a souvenir of all the marvellous, iconic places she had been to and concentrated on creating as perfect a representation of these fields as possible. She was so absorbed in her drawing that she did not notice the tunnels the train went through or the stations it stopped in.

When she finished, the clock said it was nearly 12 o'clock. She had spent 3 hours working but it was worth it. The painting lying in front of her was a masterpiece, something made out of her own hands that had become greater than her, a picture depicting the beauty of nature as only she saw it. She let the painting to dry.

She went to the restaurant-wagon to have her lunch. The tasteful creations of the chefs of the train had left her impressed. Foods from all over the world. On the menu, there were pizzas with many different ingredients, tasty spaghetti bolognaise and carbonara, lasagna. There was her favourite food, Moules avec frites as well as pieces of sushi that seemed very fresh and who were presented in many different varieties, ones that left the mouth with a sweet taste, others that were sour and ones that made one's tongue burn. Fois Gras freshly made only some hours ago that, as the French ladies in the train remarked, tasted heavenly. She herself had never tasted but here lay before her countless choices for her lunch.

She hesitated between so many choices. A kind, French lady sat opposite her. They did not talk much as she was not much of a talkative person but the French woman gave her a useful piece of advice:

"Whenever you hesitate, try the local cuisine. This will teach you what you're going into. In the far north of the country, the food filled with fat, beer and butter may hint at the fact that it is cold in there so people have to eat a lot of fat they take from meat and butter and less so from fish or vegetables. If you don't like the cuisine, you're probably not going to like the people. You see, it is the traditional food for a reason"

She found this very useful advice. This woman was certainly a fine woman and she hoped to see more of her in the upcoming days.

"Have you ever been to Provence, madame? What is it like?" she asked, curious about the place she was going to

"Well, I know for one thing that it has a wonderful coastline, a lot of beautiful perfumes and a wonderful film festival, the Cannes Film Festival, one of the most famous in the world. The French Riviera, just like any other Riviera, is a wonderful place to visit but for the locals, the cities are a bit too tourist-oriented"

"That is very interesting. I hope to visit every place in here but even the experience of travelling is beautiful, don't you agree?"

The waiter came up to them. They had to order. Well, now was the moment where she would discover the taste of the French South.

She decided to try some traditional French foods instead of mixing various cuisines. She asked for a bouillabaisse, a ratatouille along with some meat and a soufflé chocolat for dessert. It seemed like a lot to her but the food was so tasteful that she herself didn't even realise when she ate the large plate of fish soup, the vegetable stew, the meat and, when the dessert was brought before her, she realised she was not hungry anymore.

She was surely going to love the Riviera.

She asked for a tourist guide to attractions in Nice and Cannes to be brought to her cabin as soon as possible and went back to her cabin. Inside her bag was a beautiful notebook where she wrote all of her thoughts and things that happened to her, her diary. She had the most wonderful impressions from her stay in the train the past few days. She took out a pen and, after reassuring herself that nobody was watching her and that her thoughts would be revealed to nobody, she started writing.