The Adventure Begins!

Despite a series of misadventures, I made it to France.  Getting through Dutch customs took much longer than it should have (why schedule ALL your connecting flights at the same time KLM?) and many of us had to really hoof it – just so we could wait for 20 minutes on the tarmac.  It was really the trains that were my undoing.  I tried to trade in my ticket at Bordeaux for an earlier train to Les Eyzies (properly pronounced “le ee-ZAY” I was corrected), but decided the 20 euro fee was a bit steep, so I ended up waiting around for three hours, looking for a cheap cell phone. Nothing in the train station, and the nearby shops were a little seedy – I wanted something like a TracPhone that was pre-paid and all they had were random single phones, the kind that looked like they had just been pawned and between by bad French and the shop keeper’s bad English, I was less and less convinced they would even work. C’est la vie, as they say.

The real fun came when I got to Perigeuex (late, by the way) and discovered that there was some sort of disruption on the rail lines and everything was running at least 5 minutes late.  That turned to 15 minutes. Then 50 minutes.  The station shops were closing, I couldn’t use my credit card on the French phones to let anyone know where I was, and I wondered should I drop the 50 euros for a taxi or wait it out? There was a teen-age boy and a grandmotherly looking woman pacing the platform as well. Surely, SNCF (the French rail company) wouldn’t leave a kid, a babushka, and an American teacher stranded overnight, right? RIGHT????

An hour and ten minutes later, our train arrived (full of tourists not even trying to fit in).

At least I knew I was fitting in as several people tried to ask me things en francais – only to be told that I am a French language butcher and they should run. I did not know that Yves (my landlord) would be there to meet me and it was nice to not have to parade my bags through town past all the bistros and restaurants at the height of the dinner crowd. It was a quick drive to the gite (cottage) that I am renting from Yves and his wife, Evelyne.  It’s verrrrrrrry relaxed here.  No one is  rushing about and I have to force myself to “fit in” that way.  For those of you who know me, that may be a bigger challenge than not speaking French.