Pork fat

Hey all,

Found myself a mobile internet key, which took a bit of doing – first I went to Orange, was waiting for ages – there seemed to be some kind of queue system with no line that completely excluded me, so went to another place – this was better:service – but he assured me none of the models worked with linux, but I wrote all the numbers down, came back to the hotel, did a bit of research and found that at least one of them worked out of the box, ie, you just plug it in. Went back to the shop and asked for that model – the guy went out the back, found they did not have it in stock despite being advertised on the shelf, so went back to the hotel again, googled a bit more, found another that worked out of the box, back to the shop – success. Have now got mobile broadband, so where there is a cell network in France I can get online – it is expensive compared to Italy, where at least one company gives you unlimited for 10EU a month (no contract). Here it will cost me twice that for 12 hours I think – anyway, the modem came with four hours, so that will get me started – not entirely sure how to recharge it when I run out – the pamphlet it came with seems (as far as I can tell) to say that I need to use some weird MS only program it comes with, which I can't install. Some dude online reckons it just directs you to a website when you get low. Hopefully the dude online is right. If he is wrong, then I will only get four hours once I leave the hotel – so if I suddenly go silent in the next couple of weeks there are three options: 1. I am out of range and can't get a signal. 2. I ran out of my four hours and can't recharge. 3. I am dead and being eaten by wild pigs, which supposedly run rampant on the island of Corsica, spreading terror wherever they go.

Got a couple of 1:60000 maps that cover the Island and the GR20 – 1:25000 is what you are supposed to use by I would have needed about eight, which would have cost me 84EU (yes – they were 10.50 each), and been about as thick as a phone book. So 1:60000 will have to do. Figured out how to get to the town near where the walk starts, where I will have to figure out how to get another bus to another town where it actually starts – one of the buses leaves tomorrow at 10:30, which might be pushing it – the other at 5:30PM, which would mean another night in a hopefully cheaper hotel in another town. Finally I spent hours packing my old pack just to see if the undoable vibe it was giving me was in my head – it wasn't – then repacked the new one, which is a bit better – still borderline, but there is about 3kg of food which will disappear, and another 3kg of water which will disappear each day – so at least it will get lighter. Sorry to bore you with details, but am becoming obsessed with weight now that I will have my bag on my back non-stop for two weeks – getting extreme – squeezing out excess toothpaste, cutting out the pages that I need from the Corsica guidebook and chucking the rest. But still not giving up on laptop or Solzhenitsyn's “In the First Circle” - although imagine I will be chucking that away as I read it too, an inch or so of paper at a time. Two weeks, that is, assuming I don't bail – apparently half the people that start pull out after the first couple of stages.

Photos: The ferry pulling in last night. Some cool stairs while I was looking for a hotel, also last night. Sitting down for a coffee today (the cigars here are just as cheap as Italy, joy), then: ice-cream. Not as good as Italy, but cheaper, and I like the little bowl they give you with it. That said, I had to endure a more than usually ridiculous display of incomprehension when ordering it. First I apologised, saying “Sorry, I don't speak French” - which is only fair – it is not my country. Then I pointed at the flavour I wanted first, and carefully pronounced it: “Vanilla.” I was treated to a look of exaggerated confusion – perhaps I was an alien – he then pointed at another flavour on the other side of the glass partition, raised his eyebrows – would this make me happy or would I like him to take me to his leader? Really was not in the mood so just stared at him till he made one of those intuitive leaps human beings are capable of and scooped out the vanilla. Finally, dinner: Pork, lots of pork fat, a pork snag made mainly of pork fat, chips soaked in port fat, a bit of salad on the side for the sake of convention. There was also a basket of bread to soak up any of the pork fat I missed the first time around. I figure I will work it off in the next few days.

Cheers, B.

PS – the Corsicans have a desire to be independent – there are knives everywhere – the most common brand is “Vendetta.” Cool. I might buy one at some point – hopefully it will be better than the Italian pocket-knife.