August 14th, 1998 (8th and Final Day)
"Le jour du départ" ...going home.At 8.00am we are out of our beds and take quietly and a bit sadly our last breakfast. Packed the rest of our stuff and turned in the keys.
Oh well...I really felt at home here, I'm going to miss this sweet little
village!
Lotje and I decide to yet again do another nostalgic walk, well.. RLC is a
bow shot large,
so after 5 minutes we were already done.
10.55am The taxi arrives on the parking to drive us to Carcassonne. Normally I'm ALWAYS glad to leave for home when I'm on vacation, but this is the first time that I really feel regret to leave... During the taxi ride to Carcassonne I enjoyed for the last time the truly unique landscape.
01.00pm
We're already on the train heading to "Paris Austerlitz"
The cast (how I like to call it) from this 8 hour train ride, is totally
different then on the day we left:
3 Germans, 1 German/French, 1 French
Weird! After having to speak French for an entire week (yes! even to the
dogs and cats in RLC, and not to forget the "chicken with attitude" which I
found!!! See adjoining picture)
I had great difficulty of speaking German, I think I've had all
language opportunities by now, knowing that our hostess in RLC is originally
English.
Least of my expectations, the day turned out to be rather fun, and passed
very quickly.
I read a bit in Henry Lincoln’s' Key to the Sacred Pattern, because strangely
enough I had regained my interest in the mystery!
I even succeeded in making the French SOCIOLOGY Student next to me
interested in the mystery.
Before I knew it, both of us were reading and discussing the Graphic Novel I
tagged along from RLC.
Bérenger Saunière in a nutshell!
After having finished the Graphic Novel, the both of us were heading to a
corridor in the train to smoke a cigarette.
There in that corridor, happened what I think is the ideal conclusion to my mysterious journey. I got the man very interested in the mystery (very suspiciously QUICKLY interested in the mystery), so I told him in short what had happened to me the past week and what a disgust I had eventually got about all this mystery.
He told me this:
"Il ya VRAIMENT quelque chose là.
Tous ce que vous avez vécu cette semaine, vous devez le laisser mûrir.
...tu verra.
I'l n'ya pas de coincidences"
"There is REALLY something there.
Everything you lived through this week, you have to give it the time to let
it mature in your mind.
...you'll see.
There's no such thing as a coincidence."
and I said:
"I think you're right..."