(one of the many deserted beaches in Corsica)
Ok, initially everything went well. We got to Toulon, took a boat to Corsica. I slept on the disgusting floor because the seats were so awful; we should have paid more for a room.
The problems came in Corsica. It is impossible to get around Corsica because the transport system there is terrible. It is the product of monopoly; each route is monopolised by a bus company, so they can afford to have horrible timings and only make one trip/day.
I know my mom is gonna kill me for this, but we rented a Peugeot 207 for one day for 93 euros (cheap because it was shared between 4 of us).
I didn't drive on the big road because I am underaged to do so (must be above 25), so Nelson (my friend's boyfriend) did all the driving while I did the directing since all the signs are in french and since I was the only other person with a driving license.
The huge problem came when we wanted to return the car; the rental shop was CLOSED. We really panicked then, and I started calling every possible number I could that was printed on the rental slip, to no avail. Next thing I did was to find other car rental companies for help, and we caught the salesperson at Hertz before they closed.
Like the typical french treatment, she was telling me she's Hertz not Europcar and hence she couldn't help us. After some persuasion (french people like to make you admit that you made a mistake, that you're an idiot), she gave me the number for Europcar at the airport.
Soooo.. we rushed to the airport to return the car. While all this was happening, my 3 friends were close to clueless what was happening because every conversation I had was in french, and I was only giving commands without explaining what was going on because I was really panicking.
Well, we managed to return the car, and we missed our boat back to Toulon. When I realized we missed the boat, I wanted to scream. It was one crazy event followed by another. So we stayed another night in Corsica (we packed 4 people in a 3 person room; the guy slept on the single bed while we 3 girls squeezed on a queen sized bed).
The next day, we took a boat to Nice instead (we got our tickets refunded!), and from Nice, took a train to Marseilles, then back to Lyon. We managed to spend 3 hours in Nice and 1 hour in Marseilles, instead of the planned 8 hours in Marseilles.
As if all the action in one day wasn't enough, on the tram back, the ticket checkers came onto our train! Thank goodness I spotted them before the train doors opened, and ran to composte tickets for my friend and I before the dudes got in. Damn, my eyes are really very sharp nowadays. First Barcelona (with the bag-almost-got-stolen incident), now the ticket checkers.
Ok more pictures from my crazy holiday after I finish with my 3 week bagpacking posts.
PS happy mothers day!
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