Whats Spanish for Stars?

The first rule of trains.  Something will either be fucked up or it will get fucked up.  Every single time.

I'm up early, I'm super packed and ready to go. I get to the station an hour before my train leaves.  So far so good.  I have even figured out, by watching the others, where on the platform I need to stand. This is important because the train only stops long enough to let people off and let people on. You don't want to be on the wrong end of the platform.  I get to my seat, number 23, an aisle seat, oh well, it's only 3 hours.  The guy in the window seat is gesturing to me and pointing a the black hand bag in my seat. OK, it's nice, but it's doesn't match my shoes.  Turns out the train people book him and his wife both for seat 24.  Well being the ambassador of goodwill for America (you're all welcome) I found another seat.  But what this means is that from now on, at every stop, I'm looking over my sholder waiting for someone to start yelling at me in French. I'm pretty pissed off at this point in the trip, so words will be exchanged; international incident will ensue.  The conductor comes by and the couple start saying French things to him, he shrugs and walks away.  OK then.  And of course you know the couple is going way past my stop, so no freaking way I'm getting my seat.  As things go, it was stressful, but I didn't get kicked out of my seat until we were about 45 minutes from Arles (stop pronouncing the "s") so I just stood in the passage way by the door, counting the minutes before the conductor walked by and yelled at me in French and I punched him.

Towns are funny.  They are like people.  You generaly know if your going to like them right away.  Something about them makes you comfortable, even though you just met.  The only other town I've had this instant shine to was Fort Bragg. Good things happen right away. This town is what I was looking for, it's eveything Toulouse was not.  It's quaint, charming, with tons of history, and more importantly enough Van Gogh suvinoirs to fill the small coluisum in Arles (don't say the "s"); built in the days when this was a Roman outpost. It's very touristy here, but that's OK beacuse it means most of the restaurants have English menus, and the people don't try to avoid English.

I droped my bag at the Hotel and went to explore a bit.  I'm trying to find the tourist office to pick up my Van Gogh walking map.  It tells you how to find some of the very spots where he created his famous paintings in Arles ("s" is silent).  They of course are out of the English maps, "Would you like French" asks the women sweetly, "NO" I yell out too loudly, "do you have Spanish?"