. . . not if ace reporter Indiana was there. Indy gives us the inside scoop of what was eaten, who paid, and who missed the boat on the PVS France trip.

By Junior Indy Behr

On April 6, nine Palm Valley students arrived at Palm Springs International Airport at 4 a.m. to begin a week-long journey through France. Levi, a fellow writer for the Bird on Fire, as well as myself, were part of these nine. Levi had several… incidents… during our trip. Despite their inconvenience, I knew all of them would help make a more interesting blog article, even if Levi had to sacrifice a terrarium, jar of jam, a river cruise in front of the Eiffel Tower as the sun set, and most importantly, our time. Just wait until you hear about flam. 

For our trip, we were chaperoned by MUS Assistant Head Mr. Killeen as well former Palm Valley Head of Middle School and French teacher Mrs. Mule. We got to the airport, and after not too long, before the sun had even risen, we were off to Salt Lake City, Utah. In Salt Lake, I got Starbucks for myself and three others, including Levi. Levi promptly judged me for ordering a small drink for myself despite me paying for his much larger beverage. I then reminded him his sizable drink and two sous-vide egg bites were more expensive than the rest of our order combined, which I covered, and yet he still had the audacity to judge my drink size. This sentiment would be repeated throughout the trip.

Then, we left Salt Lake City for Minneapolis, Minnesota. When we got to the Minneapolis airport, we were all hungry, and I took these same people to the Smack Shack and got several baskets of fried shrimp. Levi, of course, while enjoying the food I generously gave to him, mocked me for only drinking water. Then, we finished up and went to the gate and began by far our longest flight to Paris. Frankly, this was the best flight of my life. My section was in the middle where there were four seats, yet only one other person on the aisle joined me. So, I got to take my pillow out and lie down for almost the whole flight. I slept as we crossed the Atlantic. When we arrived, it was around 8 a.m., and we met our tour guide as soon as we exited the airport after going through customs (where Levi, of course, was stopped by French authorities and questioned). 

Our tour guide introduced himself as Froggie, which feels offensive in France, but I was not going to argue with him. We got on a bus where we first went to our hotel and dropped off our luggage, and then went back into Paris and to a cafe where we had coffee, which we certainly needed since we were already so jetlagged. Then we walked… and walked… and kept walking. We were exhausted by the end of this. We went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, but we were jetlagged and miserable. None of us were happy by this point.

Eventually, we made our way to Versailles where four of us, including Levi again, dined on beef tartare, duck confit, and escargot. We were taking our time before we had to return to the palace. Mr. Killeen found us and told us to hurry up. So we never got dessert…. The Versailles palace, to be quite honest, was not particularly fun because of how tired we were. The gardens were a little better. We walked some more, had some more coffee, and then, as soon as we reached the hotel, we slept.

The next day we walked more and went to the one and only Flam’s. Try approaching anyone who went to France and just say “flam.” They will roll their eyes and probably tell you a horrifying story. Long story short, flam is a flatbread style pizza with cheese, a savory cream sauce, and ham. It is sickening. Seriously, it is the worst thing I have ever tasted. They promised a mushroom variation, that actually was the same thing but with a couple slices of canned mushrooms. Then dessert. I didn’t even taste it, and, based on others’ opinions, I made the right call. It was the same thing, but instead it had melted chocolate and caramel, but still the savory cream sauce. We were on the metro towards the Eiffel Tower station when Levi realized he left his bag at Flam’s. Mrs. Mule and he both missed our river cruise and the Eiffel Tower as a result. 

The next day, we got up at around 5 a.m. and went to the train station to take the TGV high-speed train. I was excited, as I like high-speed rail so much I even wrote an article about it (See thebirdonfire.org). The TGV felt like a typical train until I looked out the window and saw how much faster we were going compared to a normal train. It was pretty cool to see, and unlike a lot of trains I have been on in the US, we did not stop once all the way from the top of France in Paris to the very south along the Mediterranean Sea. We were there in just over three hours.

We arrived in Avignon and took a bus into the city before we went to some big church. We then had some olives from a local market and strolled around the area. We were then given some free time. Levi, I, and some others went to a small cafe, and we ordered coffee and a plate of beef carpaccio (thinly pounded raw beef). It was very good, and then Jerry showed up after visiting the church, and ordered coffee and steak tartare (minced raw beef). Jerry ate a lot of tartare throughout the trip. After the cafe we went to our new hotel, and, because it was Easter Monday, everything around was closed, so the end of the day was not particularly exciting.

By the next day, we were once again on our bus continuing our tour. We continued exploring this new less urban part of France. We got to visit a lot of cool places that were way more laid back than the more populated areas we had seen previously. Visiting Monaco was pretty fun, though in hindsight I would’ve explored more rather than just visiting the aquarium. We spent our final day in Nice. We got to eat ice cream and have lunch, and then before dinner we went to the beach. 

The next morning, we got up at around 3 a.m. to get to the airport in Nice. On the first flight, which was only about an hour, we went from Nice to Amsterdam. Once we boarded, we could not take off for a long time because of some mechanical issues. Unfortunately, many pictures of me sleeping were taken. Once we got to Amsterdam, we had no time between flights. We jolted to the Customs line. Because people who are neither American nor EU Citizens like Jerry have to wait on a much longer queue than us, we had to wait a while, and then Levi got stopped because of how suspicious he appeared with a jar of jam that had way more liquid than is allowed. We finished going through Customs, and we ran, and I mean ran, to our gate. We just made it. They were already almost done with boarding by the time we got there. We returned to Salt Lake City for a couple hours, and flew to Palm Springs. It was a really fun trip, and I am glad I chose to go.