Avignon, centre-ville

My train stops in Avignon at 11am on the dot and without further ado I am debarking with pink baggage in tow. The city is familiar and not as crowded as it'll get; two years ago, you could barely walk down the street it was so glutted and clogged with excursionist traffic. What's strange, and you can already see it: despite the danger of absent-minded encounters between tourists and mini-autos (the French are famously negligent drivers,) none of the roads are blocked off and cars and small children go hither and thither at will with seeming total freedom and summertime abandon. It's a bit shocking after witnessing not a few close calls between wobbly, stiletto-heeled Parisians, navigating narrow cobble-stoned pathways and little fast cars attempting to do the same, though few seem concerned for their likely and potentially hazardous interaction. Intrepid, I make my way towards the Porte de la République and enter through its breach into the walled Medieval city.

Rue de la République is the main drag for the city of Avignon, running from the train station to the Place de l'Horloge whose plaza is the terminus of the aforementioned rue. The plaza is large, vaguely rectangular and swollen with people, bordered as it is on all sides by cafés, serving as voyeuristic ports for the many tourists who like to stay near the Palais des Papes, just up the road. My flat is on Rue des Grottes very nearby, so I veer off at the S.W. corner of the Place de l'Horloge to take the side streets, which are relatively uncongested and easier to navigate, though they pose the opposite difficulty of being impossibly circuitous and narrow. Traffic is barely restricted in Avignon and many of the roads are so narrow as to pose a legitimate threat to pedestrians whose only refuge is a quarter foot of sidewalk or to press oneself against the niche of some medieval doorway. I am a bit lost and the right fore-wheel on my luggage has been so badly damaged en-route that it no longer spins. This means I have to drag it down the cobblestone street and hope it keeps its form well-enough to get me to my apartment. Luckily, a young man, Florian - I later learn - of exactly 18 years-old (tomorrow, the 6th, is his 19th birthday,) offers his help and together we make our way to the aforementioned Rue des Grottes and up the stone stairway, leading to the platform landing of my apartment complex. Less luckily, no one is here.

Neither Audrey, the real-estate agent, nor Mme. Nicolas, the owner of the apartment, are waiting to meet me and no one is answering my repeated buzzing of the apartment door. Florian offers me his phone, but I have neither Audrey nor Mme. Nicolas' phone number. I do, however, have the number of my friend Jean-François who had originally put me in contact with Audrey and a quick phone call and complaint to him should solve the problem. Only thing is, he's not answering. Florian is embarrassed for me, and my french is quickly losing speed. We wait. I try to speak with him, but it's difficult. Desperately, I ask anyone who comes by if they know Mme. Nicolas and after a few wayfarers apologize for my distress and one woman, outright ignores me as she enters the building, another woman opens the door for us to at least wait in the building's air-conditioned interior. And I decide to call Jeff again, this time from my own phone, figuring that he might have ignored my previous call, not recognizing Florian's number. This time he answered and after explaining my current circumstances gave me Audrey's number for me to quickly call her and resolve the issue. The number, however, was the wrong number and Florian and I returned to waiting. It is at that point that Philipe Montoya, the building's super, arrives, which is a good thing because Florian has to go; he works at the bank. Philipe is able to phone Audrey but she cannot be here till 3p and so Philipe stashes my bags in his office and another man, Dominique, offers to take me for a sandwich and a glass of rosé.

3pm rolls around and Audrey arrives, lets me in, shows me around and I, in a radical state of exhaustion, rather than meeting Jeff and our friend Amélie for drinks and a show, fall dead asleep.

[describe apartment: picture?]