(Read the text in italics with French accent.)
Two days to get there, just to see a big middle finger of the local policeman first thing in the morning. We camped in the place where I used to wake up every day two years before, yet it felt like a completely different world. Less magical, more hostile. The policeman stopped his car next to us, as we carried a big trash bag. He told us not to throw it away in the wineyards, as if that wasn’t obvious. He seemed determined to find some problem. When he asked what we were doing there, and we told him that we were looking for work on vendange, he laughed. He said that there was no work on vendange, that his son wasn’t able to find any. If his son, a proper French young man wasn’t able to find a job, how could we, the lowly scum from Tchécoslovaquie, if that’s still even a thing. We thanked him for the encouragement, and left when he started talking about some Syndicat, and how they controlled all the jobs in the area. Definitely legit.
To be honest, that day wasn’t good for finding work. It was Friday, sun was blasting 35 degrees centigrade on our heads, we were sweaty, stinky, tired and disillusioned. The few places we visited told us to come later. Okay, but what to do until later? A hard question with an easy answer, when you have a car. Drive 100 or so kilometres to the nearest beach, and just forget about everything for the weekend.
Even now this seems more reasonable than listening to petty rural police officers, or hear one job refusal after another. The nearest beach was in the Camargue natural reserve, and we drove through swampy forest the last few kilometers. If there wasn’t the deep-blue Mediterranean waiting for us on the other side, we might’ve given up. When we arrived, it was all we ever wanted and a little more on top. Burning sandy beach, calm waves to cool down, a salt pen next door which gave a feeling of isolation.
The other visitors were leaving when the sun was setting, and we set up our tents. There were no petty rural police officers here, nor there was any syndicat to worry about. Just the sea, salt in the air and seagulls above. A poroper vacation on a trip which wasn’t supposed to be a vacation.
Next morning, after breakfast, we enjoyed the sea a little bit more, but then decided to move on. Even though the place was nice, it was far away from any shops, and we were already running low on food and water.
When we were still home, K’s father told us to check the oil after a thousand or so kilometers, and pour in a little, just in case. The oil indeed seemed a little bit too low. Being the responsible young people we were, we did as advised. We could’ve been responsible, but we knew nothing about cars. Instead of a few small jugs, we poured in half a liter of the black, slimey liquid. It wasn’t obvious to us, that it’s a little bit too much. We realised how we fucked up only after the dipstick showed more than double of the allowed maximum.
Now, we were still stranded on a remote beach, so we had to be crafty. The only way to release the excessive oil was to open the valve on the bottom of the vehicle. We spent more than an hour trying to do this with R, not moving the screw a single inch. With troubled conscience, we started the car, kept the engine running for a while, and then we drove off, carefully. The first few hours were stressful. We wanted to go to the nearest garage to get it fixed, but after few hours we forgot about the whole affair. The car seemed to manage the excessive oil just fine. Now it was our job to manage the excessive time we had on our hands. We went to the beach in Sète, where we spent the rest of the weekend, doing whatever people do on a beach. We also found a job on Monday, when we returned to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, showing a middle finger to the policeman and the Syndicat.