Roadtrip

After two days of Pre-TM we had to leave Paris.  So with Oscar from Iceland, Phoung from Vietnam and French Jeremy who was behind the wheel, we headed south for an 8-hour road trip to Sete for the Alliance TM.   After cruising along the now familiar Parisian boulevards, we were in the outskirts of the city passing by open meadows and rolling green fields before we start ascending to the rugged mountains of the Massif Central region.  Snow covered the mountainsides and it was very cold.  These mountains are connected by viaducs.  Along the way, we have to cross the Viaduct Du Millau, the tallest bridge in the world, and we had to get out of the car for this rare photo opportunity.  So we parked it at the foot of a hill and proceeded to run towards the lookout for a fabulous sight of the whole bridge.  At this time, I left my beanie in the car which proved to be disastrous.  The wind blew and cold penetrated my ears giving me a splitting headache instantly.  We ran back towards the car and turned on the heater.  Man, I never knew cold until that time!  It was already passed 6 in the evening and we stopped at an intersection in the City of Toulouse that gave us a dilemma: The signs indicated that Sete and Barcelona are almost equidistant.  Sete meant the start of TM and Barcelona offered a night of partying.  Hmmm, tempting but no!  That night we hit Sete.

Sete, “the singular island” is traversed by many canals and is fondly called “Venice of Languedoc” and “Small Naples”.  It is situated at the foot of Mont St-Clair and on the south-eastern hub of the Bassin de Thau, an enclosed salt water lake.  To its other side lies the Mediterranean.  Sete is just an hour and a half away from the borders of Italy, Andorra and Spain.  It is very close to the more famous cities of Nice, Montpellier, Marseille and Cannes, and Monte Carlo in the Principality of Monaco.  When we arrived it was dinner time and the other participants were already munching on French cooking.  My colleagues in the car greeted friends as we moved towards the back.  Unbeknownst to us, we were seated in the long table with the freshly elected officers of Alliance.  I thought I knew very little of the people sitting there, but little did I know…..

I shook their hands except one who was seated farthest and on the opposite side of the table. He was obviously grinning at me.  I thought he was just being friendly.  I went over and shook his hand.  But he hugged me and said, “Jun how are you?”  I looked at him closely.  It was Roman, a German friend I met 5 years ago in Seoul, Korea.  At the time, he was a long-haired volunteer, but here, 5 years hence, he is the president of the biggest and most influential network in the workcamp movement, and clean-cut too.  I was so fired up meeting him again and we shook hands for the longest time.