I am finally on my way to Provence, after not having my plane tickets until 6:00 am this morning and wondering if I ever get them. Now I am trying to pass time until my Sabena airlines flight departs from Arlanda airport (Stockholm). I am already in my vacation world, one that has no deadlines and responsibilities (other than the plane times and the luggage), the world that has many little curiosities and gadgetries.

Speaking of which, I spend my final minutes in front of a gadgety email-telephone and finger type a few emails to the 4 corners of the world, then almost miss embarking on my plane.

Brussels' airport is like a small intestine. As we pull in to our gate, I see my connecting plane, not more than 100 meters to my left on the next concourse. I have 45 minutes to traverse these 100 meters. BUT, if you are trying to get to an adjacent building, riding up and down an elevator in the building you are in would hardly help. I learn this lesson in orthogonality of the cartesian coordinates in the convoluted hallways of this airport. With 10 minutes to the departure of my connecting flight, having slow jogged for 35 minutes, I am not even in the right concourse yet.

The fact that this is the hometown of Tintin doesn't help matters, as I am inevitably sidetracked by the sight of numerous shirts, slippers, keychains and hats, all adorned by my favorite comic characters. I redirect the path of my slow jog to include a swift circumnavigation of the Tintin mementos shelf, painfully refrain from stopping and buying a souvenir at the cost of missing my already boarding plane, and jog on.

So, I get to the gate, and start looking for my swedish travel mates JoHakim, and this anonymous person we will call Analys. Based on my understanding of our organizational needs I would suspect them to be seated neatly in the first bus, if not tucked in their seats aboard the plane already. Sure enough, they are sitting promptly and attentively on the bus nearest the exits, and are beginning to worry if I have in fact failed to join them on this journey. After exchanging pleasantries during the bus ride on the tarmac, we retire each to our seats on the plane. I spend the following 2 hours staring at the white clouds around and the young green of the springy hills and valleys below.

Marseille is sunny and warm, and the landing is quite smooth. Luggage retrieval is trouble-free, well almost. I unzip my roller-case to hide my bulky raincoat from the public view in this balmy airport, and Analysa is thinking about helping me by lifting the luggage onto the cart. I manage to say, in increasing loudness, the words "NO", "STOP" and "WAIT" several times, but to no avail, as these words seem to fall into a (sound-proof) vortex somewhere between my universe and hers. She does not STOP or WAIT, and shortly thereafter, it is not only my raincoat that is in plain sight, but also my colorful underpants. Alas, no need for customs check.....

We do walk past about 30 uniformed personell who resemble customs people, but are more interested in their cigarettes than the horde of newly arrived passengers whizzing past them. We walk through the only available door to the outside world, which happens to say RED Zone, items to declare. This causes a momentary attack of the nerves in Analynd, who would seemingly prefer not to sneak out, but to climb through the construction zone that used to be Green- nothing to declare path. After half convincing her of adherence to the law, we (along with everyone else) ‘sneak’ out the Red way.

Analina tries her french and locates the bus to Aix, and we get on. Within 3 minutes JoHakim pulls out the mobile telephone to connect back to the world he is from, and also to call ahead and pre-organize a meeting time and place. This constant reachability and connectibility with mobile phones reminds me of the newborn and umbilical cords, and calling from the bus to say we are coming to the bus station, as opposed to calling from the station to say we are here seems overzealous to me. However, I am sure the hosts are on the same organizational level as my travel mates on the bus, so I save my chuckles to myself (until now), and listen on to the conversation (maybe it was with the answering machine):

- we are on the bus to Aix...yes...well...not exactly sure where we are...

I chime in ‘We just went past mcDonald’s’ (That should narrow our location down; we have passed 3 in the past 30 minutes).

....em...we should be there in about 15 minutes? (15 being totally randomly generated, as none of us have ever been on this patch of land before).

-...okay at the bus station...we’ll be there.

So will they meet us at the bus station?

Sure enough we are there some 15 minutes later, most prominantly displaying ourselves and our luggage on the edge of the bus terminal on an island between the street and the entrance to the station, a little like stranded sheep on a patch in the middle of a flooded field. Except maybe sheep on a field would not be so out of place. No, we are not sheep on a patch, not with our assortment of winter jackets, and 70’s most disco-funk luggage pieces. No, not sheep, but rather pink flamingos on a refrigerator, stranded in the middle of a flooded street.