My Walk Home

The office I work at is about a 40 minute walk from my apartement and since I don't have (nor do I want one!) a car, I tend to walk it. I have yet to take the bus or metro in Marseille because the weather has been so nice. But I know that my luck will soon run out. Today on my way home I experienced a bit of the "mistral" (mee-stral) the strong winds that sweep across southern France. Since its fall, all the leaves were blowing around and making little piles on the sidewalk. Piles so big that I wasn't sure if I should walk through them or not. You never know what could be inside one of those piles...broken glass, dog doo, garbage, a hole. These dry crumbly leaves and other bits of garbage were blowing around me as I walked. A plastic sandwich container sailed past me, narrowly missing the back of my leg. I'm sure it would have left a bruise it was going so fast! But the funniest thing about my walk home today was that for at least 5 minutes I got to listen to break dancing 80's music on a car radio. Traffic was backed up so at one point I was actually walking faster then the cars (now you see why I don't want a car). When the traffic moved up, this car would pass me. Then they'd hit another jam, and I'd catch up and walk past it. And we did this for a few more times so I was blessed to hear "come on, come on...lets go breakdancing...come on come on until the break of dawn..." in a real corny 80's tune. It was great (partly because it was in English and partly because it reminded me of my childhood.) No, I 'm not wanting to take up breakdancing. I'm not co-ordinated enough for it, anyways. But when I got home I wanted to brush the leaves of of my hair and rinse out my eyes. It was a dusty walk home...but at least I had some breakdancing music to serenade me!