French Alliteration: Pierre and the Purple Papillon Bus

There are few things as relaxing as collapsing onto your own bed after a 10 day odyssey through 4 cities in 3 countries with an average of 6 miles walked daily, 2 to 3 lectures a day, and a total of more than 20 hours spent riding in a pastel purple charter bus. Right now all I can think about is my bed. Well, mostly the fact that it is my bed.

That’s right, at long last, I have finally arrived in Strasbourg, and am sitting in what will, for all intensive purposes, be my room for the next 4 months. And it’s not bad. I moved in with my host family just a few hours ago, and while I’ve only seen a tiny fraction of the city, I think I’m gonna like it here. But more on all that in a later post (I promise it will come in a few days, just as soon as I'm actually settled in!). 

Now let’s get back to something worthy of discussion right now: Pierre and the Purple Papillon Bus. Title of a bilingual French and English children’s book or my main mode of transport for the last 10 days?

Yup, it’s the latter (though I do seriously think it would make an excellent children’s book). We rode around in a pastel purple bus covered in butterflies (papillon means butterfly in French) driven by a 300 pound French man named Pierre who managed to maneuver the bus around tight corners and into alleys where I never dreamed busses could go.

Did I find irony and amusement in this? You betcha. Every time I got on. 

Now you may wonder: is that really so strange? Charter busses often have funny designs on them, and maybe there are a lot of oddly colored busses in Western Europe. Well, after 10 days of travel across many roads and tourist hotspots, I can safely tell you our bus stood out like a sore thumb. That did make it quite easy to find though, so that’s a plus. However, there was always that slight unavoidable cringe you felt when standing on a crowded Parisian street and the purple papillon bus drove up. We weren’t just that group of obviously American college kids, we were that group of obviously American college kids getting on the gaudiest tourist bus in Paris. It was at once both a point of pride and shame. But I did grow to have a certain fondness for that purple papillon bus. But mostly for Pierre. Which is why it seems fitting that my post to close out the traveling seminar part of my study abroad experience should be an ode to Pierre.

I have this theory that Pierre moonlights as a getaway car driver for heists across Europe. He’s far too good at his job to be just a bus driver. No one has that much dexterity behind the wheel by accident. And the way he’s always just sitting there calmly, amused by us Americans, but never saying anything--it’s not actually the language barrier between him not knowing any English and us not being particularly good at French like he wants us to assume, Pierre is actually fluent in 10 languages and 14 distinct regional dialects found across Europe. Oh, and he has a photographic memory so keeps perfect mental map of all the major cities of Europe, including back alleys and a mental record of what the maximum size vehicle is that can fit down each street. 

I swear, there’s definitely more to Pierre and the Purple Papillon Bus than meets the eye. I can’t say I will miss the hours spent riding around in that bus, but I do say goodbye to Pierre and the bus with a certain degree of affection.

Now that I've written it out, I think maybe this story would make a better action movie than children’s book. Pierre would be a pretty stellar action hero. Either way, neither story is being written tonight. At long last my journey of more miles than I have the mental capacity to attempt to calculate right now is over, and the next adventure starts in the morning.

Right now?

Bedtime.