Well it’s all been very successful so far!
The hardest part has been getting our luggage at Charles De Gaulle airport (90 minutes of “your luggage is going to be delivered to carousel 8 in ten minutes”, then “there’s been a change carousel 7, your luggage will be delivered shortly”, then back to 8, and finally 7 (all of these announcements coming in French) where half the bags were delivered, and then stopped with a message saying that was it, there were no more bags to be delivered, much to the consternation of the hundred people still waiting, before the rest finally coming out thirty minutes later with no explanation given.)
We then took a taxi van for an exhilarating ride through rush hour Paris to our train station before heading West on the TGV (AKA “very fast train”) to Guingamp, our home for the next two nights.
We’re staying in a lovely little family run hotel, ancient and quirky. We’ve been upgraded to the suite which is very palatial. The night of our arrival there was meant to be a very important football game in town but unfortunately it had to be cancelled just hours before kick off, something to do with the plane the team were flying in on. I’m not sure the full story, I heard the French word for “hill” and “fire” but surely if their team had been immolated in a burning inferno then people would be a bit more upset? Anyway, we strolled around the quaint little township for a couple of hours before having dinner in a local family run restaurant. I was extremely pleased to have survived the day with no naps, and even happier to sleep through the entire night, without any sort of chemical assistance apart from a very modest intake of ethanol.
We’ve had a rest day today. More local exploring, plus some gentle shopping. Well, my shopping has been very gentle – a couple of bras that prize function over attractiveness, and three super cheap vintage (ie thrift shop) summer dresses, bought because it was actually much warmer yesterday than my weather app led me to expect. Our companion, however, has really thrown herself into supporting the local economy – she is three pairs of shoes up on this morning, plus much pretty lingerie. To be fair, the latter minuscule scraps of lacy fabric certainly aren’t going to take up much room in her suitcase.
We’ve been complimented many times on our French, which is truly gratifying. I will feed this back to my French teacher. Hardly anyone has lapsed into English once they figure out our French is not as perfect as on first impression. Really the only one to do this was our waiter at lunch, who reverted to his own native working class north of England tongue as soon as he worked us out. Impudent swine. No tip for you my friend!
Face masks have been a rarity ever since we left New Zealand. I’ve been sneezing a bit today and have a very mild sore throat. I’ve brought a box of COVID rat tests but at this stage I’m just going to wait and see if it comes to nothing. Having COVID would be terribly inconvenient so I’m just going to ignore it and hope it goes away. It’s probably just hayfever, or maybe animal dander from all the dogs and cats around. Fingers crossed. If I can defeat jet lag, I can defeat a tiny spiked virus.
