peyronnel’s tangled streets: my 73-hour love-hate with a town that forgets to smile
it’s 2:47 am. i checked the weather app through my cracked phone screen and it said 23.18°C, feels like 23.96°C, which i guess is fair since the humidity’s at 92% and clinging to everything like a bad hug. the thermostat inside the hostel reads the same, but the real story is outside. *marché de Freiburg smells like stale bread and better debt. i’ve been here 72 hours and i still hear murmurs in three languages i can’t place.
someone at the boulangerie screamed today about the grisette that only opens tuesdays. another grumpy old man pointed at the road and said “voici les araignées” as a spider crawls up his glass. i told my roommate he was mad-she said no, that’s just how locals do. rue Saint-Voir-pluie has a staircase that leads nowhere, and i spent 40 minutes there last night pretending it’s a secret path to a wine cellar. it’s down. it’s dry. it’s boring.
felt like a burnout. ferme d’écureuil had 2-star on Yelp because the lady who sells truffles thinks her spores are gold. parc de la Paix? i Googled it. it’s a patch of grass with a bench missing. someone told me that about the foam bar-someone-that it served moscato from 5am-7am. tried it. they carded me. i hated it here after that.
walked past Diep riverbank and found a mural of a churro monster eating a phone. artist had his easel set up near le Phare du Monde, which closed in 2020 but still has a velvet rope out front. frontal. locals don’t care. on Yelp, the freegan movement has a 1-star because someone wrote ‘no snacks after 11pm.’ that’s not a review. it’s a warning. i spent €8 on a croque monsieur at Le Bistrot des Filles de l’Èvre and it was okay. the waitress stared at me for 12 minutes when i asked for tap water.
ate ratatouille at Place des Marchés and the eggplant tasted like regret. 2288829 on my phone payment app rejected the bill. ghost village? maybe. drive to Vesoul through the countryside and the GPS starts screaming in German. if you get tossed out at Party Central, Metz is just a short drive away. not sure if i’d believe her if she weren’t high.
temperature today is the kind of lie that makes you regret Googling climate data. pro tip: never trust a concierge who mentions ‘street artists’ in an 85-year-old museum. go find hillarious instead. sheep farmers out here talk like they own the Pyrénées. wildflowers in the fields are just weeds pretending.
found a scavenger hunt postcard in the bathroom of my Airbnb. it has geocaching coordinates near the train station. something a local warned me about: the bridge tollbooth charges candles on Tuesdays. probably a scam. drive safely, they said. i’m driving tonight. also plotting to steal this churro mural* as decor. my balcony view is terrible.
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