I'm back.
Yep that's right, I've managed to survive my sojurn to the French heartland. I flew from Leeds to Paris to rendezvous (not quite out of french mode yet) with an Engineer who was driving down from Belgium. As you would expect it takes an Englishman and a Belgian to sort out problems of French making. The drive from Paris to Niort (a town about 50Km east from La Rochelle) took us about 5 hours. We then discovred that our hotel wasn't in the town, but in a village about 15 minutes outside the town.
The village was called Coulon and basically consisted of restaurants and hotels. There are so many restaurants taht they all open on different days of the week so as to gaina decent amount of trade on an evening. I can imagine the village is heaving in the middle of summer. The hotel was right by the riverfront and as such we were treated to the local wildlife most mornings/evenings. Oh and the local wildlife appeared as speciallities in the local restaurants.
I managed to resist the temptation to try frogs and eels all week. I don't know how!
Overall the place was very nice and the job wasn't too difficult. I only had 7 people (and a limb) to cremate over the 3 days, so in between testing the machine and cremating there wasn't really much to except sit outside in the sunshine and read. It was a successful and fairly enjoyable trip, up until the Friday.
I was due to fly back to Leeds from Paris at 2pm on Friday. Unfortuantely the French were indulging in there favourite pasttime of striking that day. This time it was the Paris metro workers. This forced a lot more traffic onto the already overused ring road system. It took us 4 hours to get to Paris and another 2 - 2 1/2 hours to make our way around it! I was knackered and I hadn't even got on the aircraft.
I managed to make it home in Leeds by 4pm. Having managed to survive the rigours of French drivers and french food and yet to face the ultimate chalange for the week. Getting up the energy to unpack my cases and then repack for the weekend...
...to be continued.
Observation of the week. In all my travelling France over the week I only ever so 1 field of cows and 1 field of sheep!
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3 comments:
7 people and a limb?!
Frog-scoffage is so overrated.
I would comment about the limb but Amanda beat me to it. Sounds like you mostly had a good time, which is good. Darn Paris, though!
From CSI, or maybe first aid, I think each limb is 18% of your body. Maybe it was first aid, as burning the front of your arm or leg is 9% of your body, so the entire arm, front and back, is 18%.
So you cremated 7.18 people.
See, I can do maths too [wink]
The hotel was right by the riverfront and as such we were treated to the local wildlife most mornings/evenings. Oh and the local wildlife appeared as speciallities in the local restaurants.
Well if it does say "using local produce" on the menu, it might not mean "bought locally", but "nabbed from the river", I suppose...
As you would expect it takes an Englishman and a Belgian to sort out problems of French making.
Snigger. I'll keep this one quiet from the French girl at work. She has a tendency to go off on one at the oddest things (I'm wary of how open I am or what I say to be honest), and she'd probably not see the funny in this...
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