|
  | |  |
Roubia, France
Entry 45 of 63 | show all | print this entry |
|
The south of France. My last excursion before setting up shop in Barcelona for a while. My friend, Beckett, and I had talked for a few months about a trip in late October to his aunt's house in a small village in the south of France for a week of relaxing and catching up. As the time approached, Beckett sent me an e-mail and informed me that we wouldn't in fact be staying at his aunt's place but rather had been upgraded to a chateau in a different village. It just so happened that his cousin and some friends were house sitting for a few months and invited us to come join the party. From a small cottage to a large chateau in the midst of vineyards, we had visions of a luxurious stay with sparklingly elegant accommodation with french maids attending to our every need and sipping great wine while soaking up the sun and splashing around an expansive pool.
What we ended up with was quite different. First of all, when we arrived the weather was chilly and overcast and managed to stay that way most of the trip. The last two days it rained and we barely saw the sun which finally managed to finally come out in it's full brilliance on the day we both happened to be leaving. The chateau was indeed rather large, 3 stories and more rooms than I would know what to do with, however, it was mostly unfurnished, quite run-down and visibly not finished. The story is that the man who bought the chateau bought it with the intent to put some good work into it to fix it up so him and his wife could live their happily ever after. Happily ever after turned into his wife running off with the electrician and it's easy to see that the electrician was occupied with things other than his job because throughout the house there were exposed wires and unfinished light fixtures left dangling loosely from the ceiling. The owner taking the unfortunate turn of events wants to sell the house given the bad omen, hence the house sitting gig for Beck's cousin. Along with the half-hearted electrical work there were only about 3 light bulbs throughout the entire chateau which rendered most of the place useless after sunset. We only ventured to the top floor once to have a look around but quickly left due to the eerie feel and dark, dingy surroundings. At night, we ensured the door to the stairs going to the top floor was securely locked to keep the boogie man out. Honestly, we joked all week that the house was haunted. The windows had wooden shutters and at any point in the night you could hear them squeaking or slamming against the house in the turbulent wind outside. I was glad that Beckett and I had to share a room because it could have been easy to be spooked by all the noise and creepiness. The whole time we were there was like a perfect horror movie script. We would be sitting at the table in one of the only two rooms we used and a draft would come through the house, you'd hear a window slam upstairs followed by the door right next to us slamming. To continue the suspense, we had a strong thunderstorm one night and lost power while cooking dinner, leaving us gathered around the table for candlelit conversation for about an hour. Just to supplement the strange aura around the place, the neighbors, who were I believe Muslim, had just had a child and as I suppose is their tradition of celebration, Beckett and I returned to the chateau one day to find the man of the house slaughtering a sheep in our yard. He had the sheep strung up on the tree outside our door and was cleaning, gutting and carving it and greeted us as if nothing was strange. The next day we returned and there were two more sheep chilling in our yard eating grass and when we went to go check them out we found an old man sitting in the shadows off to the side in silence just watching the sheep to make sure they didn't wander off, even though their back legs were tied together.
The house was weird and run down, but at least we had the pool to enjoy right? Wrong. The pool was a puddle of green moldy water filled with dirt and leaves. The grass in the yard was overgrown and shaggy. The greenhouse by the pool was rusted and all the windows were missing. Upon exploration of the rest of the property, we found an adjacent building attached to a garage of sorts, whose entire roof had caved in and was left as a pile of rubble. It was comical to recognize the drastic difference of what we had pictured in our minds versus what we actually were experiencing. I can still picture what I thought it was going to be beforehand. Night and day.
All that aside, we still had a great time and actually enjoyed laughing about all the quirks of the property. We entertained ourselves in many ways. We all played a few card games when the power allowed and the weather demanded it. We took a bike ride across the countryside with vineyards unfolding as far as we could see. We also took a trip to the neighboring town of Carcassone which has a massive and fully-intact castle. We wandered around the cobblestone streets of the castle interior and had some hot chocolate to fight off the brisk air. Despite our daily diversions, the feature event of each day was dinner and everyone took turns putting a meal together. We had some great meals including; quiche, potatoes, salads, soups, cured meats and; Beck and my contribution, Mexican night, featuring Beck's chili and my guacamole.
All in all it was a great trip and awesome to catch up with a great friend. It was definitely a trip I'll never forget and thankfully we all made it out alive. Not a very good horror movie script after all.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from France or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
5 votes 
