Blunders, Bloopers and Blatant Stupidity

 Blunders, Bloopers and Blatant Stupidity
As I reveal to you some of our more ludicrous moments, I'll randomly insert  photographs we took as we toodled around the country. Where possible I'll identify the location of the site. If some of you are familiar with the area, and feel I've erred in identifying the location, I apologize. The rest of you won't have any idea whether I'm right or not ;-) so just enjoy the photos.

This street is very typical of those found in the medieval towns and villages we visited. The streets are narrow, not much more than alleys in some cases, the buildings attached to the adjoining houses on either side. Often the back sides of the houses are without doors or windows, built almost like fortress walls (in fact many of them are fortress walls) for protection in a region that experienced recurring invasions, religious and secular wars.
 

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The instructions for entering our little French abode, Libellule, in Neffies, were to open a lock box with a secret code, and extract the key. With that key we were supposed to then open the mail box for the key to the house.

I'd forgotten the second step of the instructions, so we stood with a 21^st century key in our hands trying to find a hole in an 18^th century door into which we could insert the key. Nothing seemed to fit.

A very nice gentleman offered his assistance and we tried to explain with gestures and shrugs, not immediately able to remember out how to say in our halting, not yet well-practiced French that nous ne pouvons pas trouver le trou into which le clef would fit.

Eventually we realized that the only trou into which le clef would fit belonged to le boite aux lettres.

Upon opening the latter we found two keys, one about 6” long and another about 4.5” long, each weighing a pound apiece I'm sure, one for the lower door and one for the upper door to the house (see my first entry on the blog for a photo of these keys).

Finally, nous sommes arriver!!!

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 Situated on the edge of a river and nestled between two hills, Roquebrun is one of the more picturesque villages we've encountered. That said, the cluster of tile-roofed houses rising up the side of a hill is very typical of most of the medieval towns in the south of France.

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As civilized human beings and as parents, both Gill and I have done our fair share of laundry in our days. In the process we've been introduced to a variety of methods of doing so – hand-washing or machine washing, primarily, since neither of us is old enough to have beaten clothing against a rock.

However we met our match with the small washing equipment in our Libellule home in France.

We were faced with one piece of equipment new to us. Lifting the top lid of the machine we saw a steel drum that appeared to have no opening through which to place our clothing. With clever deduction and a pushing on the drum, we managed to turn it and reveal a latched opening.

Into that opening we tossed some laundry detergent followed by our clothing, and turned on the machine. It made a turning noise, but there was not the customary gush of water we all anticipate when using a clothes washer.

To our shock, we realized we'd put everything into the CLOTHES DRYER.

Quickly we turned off the machine, scooped out whatever we could of the detergent (luckily of the dry variety) and counted on the filter to remove the rest.

There appears to be no harm done to the machine, but this will go down in our individual personal histories as one of the stupidest things we've every done.

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 This area, with the weirdly eroded rock formations, is called Cirque de Moureze. This photo just doesn't do justice to how strange these formations are. 

 

 Same area, different view. Perhaps this photo more clearly shows the extent of the erosion.

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Shopping and Dining France

The three best meals we had in France were at Les Goutailles in Neffies. Their crown roast of lamb was amazing; I ordered it on two separate occasions. Delicious.

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Store hours are problematic; in fact, the hours of operation of complete towns are problematic. It's been three weeks and we're still confused.

Neffies schedule is this: the epicerie is open from 7:30 to 11:30 and then 4:00 to 7:30.

The bistro is open from 12:30 to 2:00, then it closes to reopen at 7:00 p.m.

So if you're hungry in the afternoon you're S-O-L between the hours of 11:30 and 12:30 because NOBODY is open, and if you're hungry between 2:00 and 4:00 you're S-O-L because the bistro is closed until 7:00 and the epicerie isn't open for another two hours.

You could die from hunger ;-)

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 View of the cemetary in Neffies; most of the graves here date back hundreds of years.

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One day went to Pezanas to do some shopping, totally forgetting that the stores there are open from 7:30 to 12:00 and then 3:00 to 7:00 or something like that - lazy sods - and it seems the restaurants don't open until 12:30.

So we arrived in the shopping area around noon – duuhhhh! There were only a couple of shops open - mainly the chocolate factory, and no restaurants.

The next time we went to Pezanas it was Monday and the whole town was closed.

Each town appears to have different opening and closing hours but I think you have to live here a long time to sort it all out. Peter Tanner, our landlord, tells me restaurants in Montpellier don't open until 8:00 p.m. How is a poor foreigner supposed to work this all out.

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 In Nimes we found this old/new reproduction of a Roman building. It was very convincing and fooled us until we read the small print.

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Again, in Pezanas, though almost everything in town was closed, we found a Spanish/French restaurant (or French/Spanish) restaurant.

We ordered each a plate of assorted stuff thinking we could share, and a baked Camembert appetizer. We got Gill's plate and the appetizer together (I thought the server believed I'd ordered the cheese as an entre).

The brie was delicious, but the cold cuts on the plate Gill ordered took a lot of chewing and the options were either salty-rubbery or more-salty-rubbery.

After we'd finished that stuff the server arrives with my plate - two eggs barely cooked, I mean so sunny side up they were blinding, some blood sausage that was a little too clotty for my liking, a piece of chipotle sausage the colour of a cirrhotic liver and bacon so unbelievably tough you couldn't chew it.

We asked them to flip the eggs over and cook them on the other side; this created a major problem that we just couldn't figure out - something about the eggs being cooked on a plank and they couldn't turn them over.

Anyway, I guess they dug a frying pan out of the closet because they managed to cook the suckers.

We were both pretty stuffed by this time and Gill couldn't do the egg, so I got rid of them, cut up the sausages and spread them around and attempted to chew up parts of the bacon; didn't want to offend the cook.

It was the most disastrous meal (by a very long shot) of the whole trip.

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View of the Canal de Midi built during Louis 14th's reign by Pierre Paul Riquet to connect the Atlantic on the west coast of France, to Sete on the Mediterranean, allowing French traders to avoid sailing around hostile Spain, the Barbary pirates and the English. In return for funding the construction, Riquet's family was granted the right to collect tolls in perpetuity.

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We arrived in Sete on the Mediterranean, looking for a good seafood meal. It was around noon and we were starving. The whole wharf of restaurants was closed.

We started up a side street and found a Tapas, i.e. Greek/French, or French/Greek. We had little fried fishes about 2” long, shrimp with tiny strands of spaghetti-looking stuff, but actually mashed potato strands (very good, by the way), and some dreadful fried calamari.

Probably the second worst meal we had in France.

After dinner we returned to the wharf and faced about 25 seafood restaurants open for business and bustling with activity.

We returned a week later at the right time, in the right place, and satisfied our urge for seafood.

Driving in France

 This is not intended as a warning about driving in France, but situated in front of the Church of St. Vincent du Thongues in Pouzolles is probably the most spectacular crucifix I've ever seen. The figure is blood red.

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French drivers, while in general are courteous, do share one characteristic that drives Gill and I nuts – a tendency to drive right up your ass no matter how fast your going, or how slow, whether you're driving the speed limit or exceeding it.

We do all the normal things to encourage them to pass us, i.e. slow down or move to the right, but just like puppies they're right on our heels.

When we turn off the road to get free of them, darned if they don't follow us around the corner.

The exception is the large highways (I'd say 'interstates' but I'm not sure that applies here) where they whiz past, well exceeding the speed limits and making your hair fly backwards like you're on a roller coaster.

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  On the road to Beziers, a picturesque olive grove wit the refinery in the middle of the photo.  

  

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 There are several traffic signs we have yet to figure out, but we have mastered the roundabouts (or carre-four) quite skillfully, have figured out the signage from town to town, though we do find it somewhat lacking in explication since you're almost in certain towns before you find the sign leading to it.

They don't give you the next town on the signs, but regularly give the one that's 50 km down the road. When you get within 50km of the town, the name suddenly disappears from the signs. We often go round and round the roundabout looking for the missing name, knowing that its within a stone's throw of where we are.

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Another of the vineyards that border most of the highways in this area. 

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We've made several trips to Sete, on the Mediterranean; some of them were even planned.

As it happens, the off-ramp that goes to Pezenas which we must use to get to Neffies when returning from many of our januts, is the last one before the ramp to Sete which is 20K further.

The primary problem is the HUGE trucks who appear to have to drive in the right lane, unless passing.

This means if you decide to pass the slower-moving trucks, the long caravans of these vehicles can totally block out your view of signposts telling you that the next off-ramp is yours.

Luckily, Sete is a nice place to visit.

The liberty tree planted in honour of the men who died in the revolution, planted in the courtyard in the town center in  front of the Mairie, in Neffies.

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The number signs for the secondary highways are rarely on the signposts on the carre-fours so you must guess the highway and hope for confirmation when you get on it, and the sign appears.

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We got a parking ticket!!!! We still haven't figured out why. We checked all the area as we usually do for hidden signs. The French like to trick us foreigners by making the signage as elusive as possible. But after our lovely outing in Narbonne (see information in the Churches section) we found the sucker attached to our windshield.

Now we have to find a way to pay it since we don't have a bank account in France and we haven't figured out where else to pay.

We were going to stop police officers on the street (they're few and far between here, likewise police cars; this must be a law-abiding country) and ask them how to go about paying, but were afraid our halting French could possibly make them think we were trying to bribe them to make it go away.

We decided to give the money to Hertz Rental and let them pay the ticket. They would have a bank account and, after all, the car does belong to them.

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Gas stations are problematic. Many of them don't take VISA. Those that do don't always have a simple system for using it.

As example: After a couple of days of extensive driving around southern France we realized our little Ford Fusion wonder car needed a drink.

We pulled into a gas station, figured out which gaz was diesel and which was sans plomb. I inserted my VISA card into the machine, which spun and turned and displayed various instructions that gave me the impression that my carte had been approved.

I cheerfully pumped gas until the auto was au plein (which here apparently means pregnant), screwed on the gas cap, hopped into the car and proceeded towards the exit. I was rather annoyed that the machine proved reluctant to give me a receipt for our accounts.

As I was about to turn onto the street, I noticed that the attendant in a glass kiosk at the edge of the lot was waving frantically at me, screaming, il faut payer...ici...il faut payer. I thought I'd already paid.

Turns out I'd been approved to pump the gas but hadn't actually paid for it.

We parted on friendly terms, the attendant and I; he/she (I wasn't sure which) with l'argent and moi avec le recu. We were both happy.

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My usual view of Gill, 10-15 paces ahead of me just itching for the next sight ahead on our journey.

I hope you found my little blog interesting.

We're leaving Neffies tomorrow, Thursday the 22nd of March. We'll stop in Carcassone on the way to Toulouse, spend overnight in Toulouse then fly out of here on Saturday at 6:45 in the morning. Hope we don't sleep in and miss the flight.

Love Mom/Gramma/Awnty/Gramma Num Num