Lou Ann's EuroBlog

Bon jour!!

Sorry - I have no quote for you today. I forgot to bring the cool book with all of the inspiring travel quotes to the internet place. I'm sitting in a wonderful internet place in the 2nd floor above the tourist office in the small town just 1.5 km from the gite where we're staying. But ... I'm getting ahead of myself .......

First of all ... a message for Kate, referring to the comments from a couple of days ago. When I told Danny about my adventures in driving around the Paris metro area, and what you said (and my response) about being brought to tears, Danny said: "Tell Kate that I decided a few days ago that: 'There's no crying in France!!'" I told her that you would totally appreciate that movie quote since you're so into baseball. So ... new rule: "There's no crying in France!!"

Again, I won't catch up with myself today. Funky keyboard ... only one hour left before the shop closes for afternoon siesta ... and so on and so on ... I expect to get all caught up when I hit London next week as there is a 24/7 internet cafe across from the tube station near my hotel. :-)

Day Five (6/30/05) - Colmar to Orange
This day really was mostly about driving. (It has to happen at some point!) Thus, this may turn into more of a running stream of consciousness random writing.

I thought it was amusing that there was a restaurant across from my hotel that was called "The Buffalo Grill". I didn't stop in, because if they had "Buffalo Wings" on the menu, you know I would have kicked in my wing-arrogance and you would have heard all about it. I took a picture of the place, and ... don't ya' know ... I saw several more "Buffalo Grill"'s around the country. Must be a chain. Ugh!!

The thing that I quickly discovered about France that day is that they are more in love with their TOLL ROADS than is New York State. I know you're thinking, "How can that be!!?? New York tolls are the worst ANYWHERE!!" Well ... they've definitely got competition. I spent more than 25€ (that symbol means "Euro" ... I'll probably get into typing about Euros one of these days...) just on tolls. That doesn't include gasoline or food. Whew!! BUT ... for all of those Euros that I spent on tolls, the roads (equivalent to our interstates) were fabulous and extremely well kept up. The speed limit was usually 130km/h. That's about 80mph in American terms. The traffic moved well, and the roads were planned well, as they were always wider (more lanes) when there was more congestion. But I'm not so sure that I got my money's worth...

Along the way, I decided that if I was making good time, I'd stop at two of the "Beax Villages" that were close to the highway. The first, Pesmes, didn't seem to be worth it. But at least it broke up the driving for the day. The second, I stopped at for lunch. It's called Perouges. I found a sandwich shop on the outskirts of town. I could tell that the menu had a long list of sandwiches, and the man running the shop (who spoke a little English) and his friend (a little old Frenchman who seemed to be there for no reason other than to gab) were the only people there. So, instead of having him define the whole menu for me, I explained to him that I don't really like cheese, but other than that, I would trust him to make for me the sandwich of his choice. He seemed delighted with that opportunity, and went to work making me a sandwich with "canard" ... which turned out to be a sort of pate made from duck (the French word for "duck" is "canard") on a baguette and was really good!!

I ended up spending some time wandering the village, and it was gorgeous. I know that these "Beax Villages" seem to be hit or miss. But the ones that are truly "Beax" make it SO worth hitting all that I can find so that I don't mind so much the ones that are not so "Beax".

Now ... here's another interesting little quirk. In 2000, I was with a short-term missions group that went to Holland for a couple of weeks. In the Shipol Airport I stumbled upon a wonderful drink (I don't tend to do a lot of soda...) that I haven't been able to find in the States. It's made by Schweppes, and is just called "Lemon". It tastes like a carbonated lemonaide. Delicious!! I started looking for it when I arrived here ... and finally found it in the expressway rest stops. YUM!!! If anyone knows where to find this stuff in the States, PLEASE let me know!!!

Now, I have been staying in hotels from two local French chains that have very inexpensive hotels that are clean and neat. But I haven't been able to get the TV's to work. No big loss ... I just like the background noise, and tend to watch the news when I can. I figured that they were pay-TV's, and I wasn't about to pay to watch French TV. No way!! Well, that night in Orange, I figured out that French TV's turn ON by pressing the channel buttons (or channel up/down) and turn OFF by pressing the power button. I found a BBC news station (the only thing in English) and watched international news for the first time in 5 days. (Interestingly enough, the first channel that the TV hit when I figured out how to turn it on was 7th Heaven, which is one of my favorite shows. It was weird to hear it dubbed in French!!)

Well, au revoir for now! :-)