The first week in France
26 August 2021
Well, where to start? We’ve been in France for a bit more than a week, and I feel like we only just came up for air.
To say it’s been hard is an understatement.
Long days, not a lot of sleep, and trying to administer a bunch of things in a different country and different language has been exhausting.
Things we thought would be easy, or done, or both turned out to be neither: No solar panels and no 220 charger for our batteries, so there’s precious little power, and what we do have we need to reserve for Ian’s laptop; Wifi is hard to come by and our dongle is expensive to use; The boys haven’t been able to connect with their friends, and are not allowed to play games until we have a power source and figure out our wifi.
However: our boat is as beautiful as we hoped, food and weather have been gorgeous, and La Rochelle is amazing!
Here’s what we’ve been up to:
Day 1 (21st): Land in Paris and get our rental car. Surprised by the fact that no one in French customs cares what we bought in on our three overloaded luggage trollies, and Immigration does not ask to see our Covid certificates. Confusion over the way French people write their “1”s leads us to embarrass ourselves by telling the clerk in the office that our key does not work. Drive to Chartres, check in to the hotel and fall into bed.
Day 2 (22nd) Awake in Chartres, home of the oldest cathedral in France, confusingly called Notre Dame. Walk around the medieval city centre, including the Cathedral. Reminded of our 2017 Paris trip in one of the delightful narrow alleys which, like Paris’, reek of piss. Leave Chartres for Nantes. Check in to our AirB’nB, a ‘renovated’ 1970’s houseboat on the river in the centre of Nantes. Horrified to discover that, for the low price of $180 Euros ($225 CAD), there is no toilet, rather a plastic garbage bag in a bucket and a ladle for pine shavings in another bucket. Couldn’t leave quickly enough.
Day 3 (23rd) Drive from Nantes to La Rochelle. French highways are confusing. Many wrong exits and u-turns required. On the way we stop at McDo for lunch and surprise the clerk by asking for a cheeseburger sans fromage (Cooper doesn’t like fake cheese). We also discover that French McNuggets are far superior to Canadian ones. And, without a French Covid QR code, you can’t even go in to order takeaway. Check in at the hotel. On the desk in the room is a notice that it is not permitted to eat in the room. We go to the grocery, buy baguettes, meat and cheese, and eat in the park.
Day 4 (24th) We wander around the waterfront, and have a lunch of baguette and meat and cheese in the park. We get to see the boat! She is beautiful. We celebrate with a supper of baguette and meat and cheese in the park.
Day 5 (25th) We get to move on to the boat! We lug all our stuff, some from Canada, some from a shopping trip to the Hyper U, on to the boat and start putting things away. Kids are ecstatic that there is a reprieve from all the baguette meat and cheese. Fall into bed exhausted at 1 am. Sleep like the dead until 7.
