I'm back!! Apologies for my month-long disappearance avid readers! If I'd known I wouldn't have any internet for a month I may not have gone in first place... felt incredibly cut off from the land of the living. Anyway, I have finally arrived in Cherbourg and thankfully have internet, phone signal, shops, TV, English people, etc...
So far I've discovered that I've missed the following things:
- Robin Williams apparent suicide
- Brangelina's wedding
- The Ice Bucket Challenge craze. Seriously, what the heck!? (Oh, and don't bother trying to nominate me people, it's not going to happen...)
- Terror alerts are going on in UK
I'm sure I've missed more than that but if I have I don't know it!
To make it easier for me to catch up on these blog posts, I'll just post stuff about the past month in small chunks, probably scheduled for dates in August, else I'll get really confused! So just scroll downwards for that! I also have lots to tell about my trip here and all about my arrival too!
Enjoy!
Showing posts with label Vosges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vosges. Show all posts
Friday, 29 August 2014
Thursday, 28 August 2014
Mon Évasion de Vosges
Getting out of there was pretty stressful. Despite agreeing to me leaving on Friday 29th August in the original emails, Helene was very reluctant to let me leave as planned. The closer we got to the day it was planned for me to leave, the more worried I got. Helene had refused to let me buy a train ticket saying that she didn't know when we would finish, and that I couldn't leave until we had. As I hadn't actually been anywhere outside of the house where I would have been able to find internet or a train ticket boutique either, I was starting to feel more and more trapped!
The Monday of the week I was due to leave, my Cherbourg family tried to contact me. Limited signal made this pretty tricky so I arranged to call them back the next day, and in the mean time try to get a definitive answer about time/day I would be able to leave from Helene.
I called Fran and Charly on Tuesday evening. I'd had no luck getting a clear answer from Helene but she definitely didn't want me to leave until at least Saturday. I tried explaining that she had agreed for me to leave on Friday but to no avail - she just told me I had definitely said the 30th (now I have internet again, I checked the emails. They confirm that she agreed to me leaving on Friday 29th!). Helene had offered, should it happen to coincide with the day/time I planned to go, to drop me off 'somewhere near Paris' on her way back home to Laval, but she was very vague about this and so I wasn't sure about taking my chances with that.
After a chat about train times with Fran, it was agreed that the train I had originally planned to get on (11:04am from Epinal on Friday 29th) would be best however Helene wasn't being clear about whether she would take me to the train station. Not only that, but she also said that we were an hour away from Epinal and that it would be very inconvenient for her. Fran asked me to find out where Helene had planned to drop me off in Paris to see if they would be able to arrange to pick me up/have a friend collect me/something similar. However when I went to ask Helene she continued to be vague and wouldn't give a clear answer, or a time that she would be able to drop me off. Fran decided that Helene was actually being really difficult and said that they'd speak to her instead.
I put Helene on the phone with Charly who spoke to her in French. I didn't get much from the conversation other than Helene's "She is a big girl" and "That's a big problem for me". After a couple of minutes she snapped 'Au revoir' and hung up (I was pretty annoyed about that, I still had another 25 minutes left on the call without needing to pay more but hanging up meant I'd have to pay to call again to finish the conversation!)
Helene was very annoyed after this. She told me that it was the strangest conversation she'd ever had and that Charly was a scary man that had used the word 'summon' which she'd never heard in conversation before, had talked about me like I wasn't a person and that she thought I wouldn't be able to cope with him in Cherbourg because he was a very hard and strict man. I found all of that pretty hard to believe. I'd spoken to Charly a few times and certainly wasn't scary! She talked about how scary and authoritarian he was, how his wife must be really repressed etc. for about half an hour, but still had refused to agree on a date and time for me to leave.
After calling them back they told me that she'd just told them that it wasn't possible to agree a time because she hadn't finished the work she needed to complete yet and that she needed to keep me until it was complete. Charly was quite angry about how rude she was to them and about the way she'd been treating me and agreed to see if he could find a way of buying me a ticket for the Friday so that she had no choice but to put me on it, however given that the house had no address and it was coming up to 2 days before the train he didn't think that it would be possible. Before saying goodbye they told me not to worry, if I needed to leave earlier than planned, or even late at night, that they would be able to pick me up or find me somewhere to stay in Paris at short notice, assuming I could get there. Very kind of them!
Charly had told me he would call her the next day to try and get an answer from her so the next day her phone rang and she ran off to answer it. She came back 5 mins later to tell me that it was another strange conversation with 'your french man in Cherbourg'. She told me that never before had someone called just to apologise and that it was very odd behaviour. I asked if he'd said anything else but she said that he hadn't, that he just wanted to apologise. (When I spoke to Charly he told me that he'd just been trying a different approach, eg. "I'm sorry for getting annoyed in our phone conversation last night but we really do need to have a set time for Cate's arrival?? *Hint Hint*", but naturally she'd missed the hints and just seen it as an apology. Ridiculous)
On Wednesday night, I couldn't sleep because I was feeling so worried about the fact that I hadn't bought a ticket, or even had Helene agree to a specific train yet! I was supposed to be leaving in less than two days time! In an attempt to calm myself down a bit I decided to pack up all my things so that I would at least know I'd be ready to leave whenever Helene finally agreed to it.
The next morning, after very little sleep I came down to tell Helene about my lack of sleep caused by worry. She couldn't understand what I could possibly be worried about, unless it was 'your scary french man in Cherbourg', which it obviously wasn't. I tried to explain that I hadn't bought a ticket yet, or even got a day or time confirmed from her. I was concerned about the price going up, not being able to reserve a seat, not being able to get on a train etc. but she told me that I was being childish and worrying about silly things. Personally, I thought I was being an adult for actually caring about being organised and wanting to make sure that I kept the commitment I'd previously made to Fran and Charly in Cherbourg but she didn't see it that way.
The lack of sleep, stress, worry and now Helene's ignorance and failure to understand, or to even listen to me, drove me to tears at which point Helene told me I was a baby and that 'I'll just drive you to the train station so you can buy a ticket right now then, just so we can work'. This seemed a bit extreme so I said that I was happy to just buy one using the internet on her phone so she didn't have to go out of her way, and that all I needed was for her to confirm a time so that I could actually do that, but she refused. I went upstairs to get my purse and coat and then came back downstairs. I repeated that it really wouldn't be a problem to just buy one on her phone given that it was about an hours drive to and from the station and I knew she wanted to work, I added that given the journey time to the station that it didn't make sense for her to go today and then again the next day to take me. Helene told me she didn't care, all that she wanted was to do work and I never ever wanted to work because I was such a baby, oh and that she was really cross. This was too much. I'd worked 14 hours a day for 8 days in a row at this point with barely any sleep in between and it was her that was hindering us getting started with work by having a strop and saying she'd drive to and from the station just to buy a ticket! Eventually she just said 'oh, so if everything is such a big problem for you then maybe you just want to leave today instead?'
I don't think she was expecting me to say 'Yes, ok. I will. I'll go and get my things'. She completely lost it at that point, knocking books onto the floor and stomping out, slamming the door and swearing continuously. I was pretty upset by this point. I think it was perfectly reasonable to want to buy a train ticket in advance so that I had a definitive day and time of departure from the mountains, and an arrival date and time to give Charly and Fran in Cherbourg!
I went upstairs to pack up my last few things - pretty much just had pyjamas, laptop and wash things to shove in the bag - and then called Fran to let them know what was going on. Fran completely understood and told me that it was no problem for me to arrive early, she'd just need to clear off my bed! She started telling me about the next available train times when the door bursts open and Helene stormed in through the door telling me I was being ridiculous and just needed to calm down. I told her I was on the phone, which she ignored, and then I eventually just ended up passing the phone over to her so that Helene could talk to Fran.
After about 15 mins, Helene passed the phone back to me. I had packed my things, brought them downstairs and was just filling up a water bottle for the journey by this point! Fran told me that Helene had told her I was having a huge panic attack and that she wasn't comfortable putting me on a train in my state because I would definitely get lost and she was very worried about me. Fran thought I definitely didn't sound like I was having a panic attack, but actually quite calm despite being a bit upset, and that the cause of my stress was clearly Helene. She'd told her that it was probably best to let me come to them today as they were fine with it and it sounded like I needed a break! Fran also told Helene that she'd need to pay me so that I would be able to buy a ticket (she hadn't paid me for 4 weeks!), and then told me the next train was at 16:27 from Epinal. It was about 11am at this point so I had quite a bit of time to wait, but I didn't care. It was supposed to take an hour to get to Epinal anyway so thought it was probably best that I had some more time to spare, in case Helene managed to be any more difficult, which it turned out she could!
I went to tell Helene about the train from Epinal. She told me I wouldn't be going from Epinal, but from Remiremont, a tiny little station only a little bigger than Yate (and that's just because it had somewhere to buy tickets from Humans and was located next to the bus station) because it was about 20 mins away rather than an hour. I discovered that I could get a connecting train at 15:27 so still had plenty of time, though I was a bit annoyed that she couldn't even be bothered to take me to the train station she had originally told me she'd take me to. She kept telling me that I could stay if I wanted to, that I could even stay in my room and not do any work all day if that would make me want to stay. I didn't want to stay there anymore, I'd only left that house 5 times in a month and was desperate for civilisation, the internet, shops etc.
When I told her what time the train was she said that we didn't have to leave immediately if I didn't want to and that we could go whenever I wanted, and that I should eat first. I told her that I would prefer to leave before 2pm to give me plenty of time to get there, get tickets, find out where I was going, and for her to go and find an ATM to pay me from! I took my time having something to eat, during which she kept shouting questions about English grammar and vocabulary as she was trying to add some last bits to her lessons. She then asked if, just before we left, I could check the paragraph she had just written. I didn't mind but then we ended up working for an hour and a half!?! So much for, 'you don't have to work today'.
At 2:00pm, I packed my suitcases in the car and at 2:30pm, we finally got to the train station. Helene asked the station person (what are they called?) about train tickets. I understood enough to hear her asking about trains tomorrow morning and saturday. I told her that I was adamant about leaving on the train at 15:27, and then she told me that it would be 79€ for that train, or 69€ if I got the one the following morning. "It's ok if you want to stay an extra night, it's 10€ cheaper so it might be better?"
I bought my tickets and then waited at the station for her to go and find a cash point. When she got back she told me that there wasn't a train, but it was actually a replacement coach instead, and that I could get the earlier one at 15:04 if I wanted to. I did so I said an awkward goodbye to Helene and the two younger children and hopped on.
And so my escape from the Vosges began!
A few pictures from Remiremont station...
The Monday of the week I was due to leave, my Cherbourg family tried to contact me. Limited signal made this pretty tricky so I arranged to call them back the next day, and in the mean time try to get a definitive answer about time/day I would be able to leave from Helene.
I called Fran and Charly on Tuesday evening. I'd had no luck getting a clear answer from Helene but she definitely didn't want me to leave until at least Saturday. I tried explaining that she had agreed for me to leave on Friday but to no avail - she just told me I had definitely said the 30th (now I have internet again, I checked the emails. They confirm that she agreed to me leaving on Friday 29th!). Helene had offered, should it happen to coincide with the day/time I planned to go, to drop me off 'somewhere near Paris' on her way back home to Laval, but she was very vague about this and so I wasn't sure about taking my chances with that.
After a chat about train times with Fran, it was agreed that the train I had originally planned to get on (11:04am from Epinal on Friday 29th) would be best however Helene wasn't being clear about whether she would take me to the train station. Not only that, but she also said that we were an hour away from Epinal and that it would be very inconvenient for her. Fran asked me to find out where Helene had planned to drop me off in Paris to see if they would be able to arrange to pick me up/have a friend collect me/something similar. However when I went to ask Helene she continued to be vague and wouldn't give a clear answer, or a time that she would be able to drop me off. Fran decided that Helene was actually being really difficult and said that they'd speak to her instead.
I put Helene on the phone with Charly who spoke to her in French. I didn't get much from the conversation other than Helene's "She is a big girl" and "That's a big problem for me". After a couple of minutes she snapped 'Au revoir' and hung up (I was pretty annoyed about that, I still had another 25 minutes left on the call without needing to pay more but hanging up meant I'd have to pay to call again to finish the conversation!)
Helene was very annoyed after this. She told me that it was the strangest conversation she'd ever had and that Charly was a scary man that had used the word 'summon' which she'd never heard in conversation before, had talked about me like I wasn't a person and that she thought I wouldn't be able to cope with him in Cherbourg because he was a very hard and strict man. I found all of that pretty hard to believe. I'd spoken to Charly a few times and certainly wasn't scary! She talked about how scary and authoritarian he was, how his wife must be really repressed etc. for about half an hour, but still had refused to agree on a date and time for me to leave.
After calling them back they told me that she'd just told them that it wasn't possible to agree a time because she hadn't finished the work she needed to complete yet and that she needed to keep me until it was complete. Charly was quite angry about how rude she was to them and about the way she'd been treating me and agreed to see if he could find a way of buying me a ticket for the Friday so that she had no choice but to put me on it, however given that the house had no address and it was coming up to 2 days before the train he didn't think that it would be possible. Before saying goodbye they told me not to worry, if I needed to leave earlier than planned, or even late at night, that they would be able to pick me up or find me somewhere to stay in Paris at short notice, assuming I could get there. Very kind of them!
Charly had told me he would call her the next day to try and get an answer from her so the next day her phone rang and she ran off to answer it. She came back 5 mins later to tell me that it was another strange conversation with 'your french man in Cherbourg'. She told me that never before had someone called just to apologise and that it was very odd behaviour. I asked if he'd said anything else but she said that he hadn't, that he just wanted to apologise. (When I spoke to Charly he told me that he'd just been trying a different approach, eg. "I'm sorry for getting annoyed in our phone conversation last night but we really do need to have a set time for Cate's arrival?? *Hint Hint*", but naturally she'd missed the hints and just seen it as an apology. Ridiculous)
On Wednesday night, I couldn't sleep because I was feeling so worried about the fact that I hadn't bought a ticket, or even had Helene agree to a specific train yet! I was supposed to be leaving in less than two days time! In an attempt to calm myself down a bit I decided to pack up all my things so that I would at least know I'd be ready to leave whenever Helene finally agreed to it.
The next morning, after very little sleep I came down to tell Helene about my lack of sleep caused by worry. She couldn't understand what I could possibly be worried about, unless it was 'your scary french man in Cherbourg', which it obviously wasn't. I tried to explain that I hadn't bought a ticket yet, or even got a day or time confirmed from her. I was concerned about the price going up, not being able to reserve a seat, not being able to get on a train etc. but she told me that I was being childish and worrying about silly things. Personally, I thought I was being an adult for actually caring about being organised and wanting to make sure that I kept the commitment I'd previously made to Fran and Charly in Cherbourg but she didn't see it that way.
The lack of sleep, stress, worry and now Helene's ignorance and failure to understand, or to even listen to me, drove me to tears at which point Helene told me I was a baby and that 'I'll just drive you to the train station so you can buy a ticket right now then, just so we can work'. This seemed a bit extreme so I said that I was happy to just buy one using the internet on her phone so she didn't have to go out of her way, and that all I needed was for her to confirm a time so that I could actually do that, but she refused. I went upstairs to get my purse and coat and then came back downstairs. I repeated that it really wouldn't be a problem to just buy one on her phone given that it was about an hours drive to and from the station and I knew she wanted to work, I added that given the journey time to the station that it didn't make sense for her to go today and then again the next day to take me. Helene told me she didn't care, all that she wanted was to do work and I never ever wanted to work because I was such a baby, oh and that she was really cross. This was too much. I'd worked 14 hours a day for 8 days in a row at this point with barely any sleep in between and it was her that was hindering us getting started with work by having a strop and saying she'd drive to and from the station just to buy a ticket! Eventually she just said 'oh, so if everything is such a big problem for you then maybe you just want to leave today instead?'
I don't think she was expecting me to say 'Yes, ok. I will. I'll go and get my things'. She completely lost it at that point, knocking books onto the floor and stomping out, slamming the door and swearing continuously. I was pretty upset by this point. I think it was perfectly reasonable to want to buy a train ticket in advance so that I had a definitive day and time of departure from the mountains, and an arrival date and time to give Charly and Fran in Cherbourg!
I went upstairs to pack up my last few things - pretty much just had pyjamas, laptop and wash things to shove in the bag - and then called Fran to let them know what was going on. Fran completely understood and told me that it was no problem for me to arrive early, she'd just need to clear off my bed! She started telling me about the next available train times when the door bursts open and Helene stormed in through the door telling me I was being ridiculous and just needed to calm down. I told her I was on the phone, which she ignored, and then I eventually just ended up passing the phone over to her so that Helene could talk to Fran.
After about 15 mins, Helene passed the phone back to me. I had packed my things, brought them downstairs and was just filling up a water bottle for the journey by this point! Fran told me that Helene had told her I was having a huge panic attack and that she wasn't comfortable putting me on a train in my state because I would definitely get lost and she was very worried about me. Fran thought I definitely didn't sound like I was having a panic attack, but actually quite calm despite being a bit upset, and that the cause of my stress was clearly Helene. She'd told her that it was probably best to let me come to them today as they were fine with it and it sounded like I needed a break! Fran also told Helene that she'd need to pay me so that I would be able to buy a ticket (she hadn't paid me for 4 weeks!), and then told me the next train was at 16:27 from Epinal. It was about 11am at this point so I had quite a bit of time to wait, but I didn't care. It was supposed to take an hour to get to Epinal anyway so thought it was probably best that I had some more time to spare, in case Helene managed to be any more difficult, which it turned out she could!
I went to tell Helene about the train from Epinal. She told me I wouldn't be going from Epinal, but from Remiremont, a tiny little station only a little bigger than Yate (and that's just because it had somewhere to buy tickets from Humans and was located next to the bus station) because it was about 20 mins away rather than an hour. I discovered that I could get a connecting train at 15:27 so still had plenty of time, though I was a bit annoyed that she couldn't even be bothered to take me to the train station she had originally told me she'd take me to. She kept telling me that I could stay if I wanted to, that I could even stay in my room and not do any work all day if that would make me want to stay. I didn't want to stay there anymore, I'd only left that house 5 times in a month and was desperate for civilisation, the internet, shops etc.
When I told her what time the train was she said that we didn't have to leave immediately if I didn't want to and that we could go whenever I wanted, and that I should eat first. I told her that I would prefer to leave before 2pm to give me plenty of time to get there, get tickets, find out where I was going, and for her to go and find an ATM to pay me from! I took my time having something to eat, during which she kept shouting questions about English grammar and vocabulary as she was trying to add some last bits to her lessons. She then asked if, just before we left, I could check the paragraph she had just written. I didn't mind but then we ended up working for an hour and a half!?! So much for, 'you don't have to work today'.
At 2:00pm, I packed my suitcases in the car and at 2:30pm, we finally got to the train station. Helene asked the station person (what are they called?) about train tickets. I understood enough to hear her asking about trains tomorrow morning and saturday. I told her that I was adamant about leaving on the train at 15:27, and then she told me that it would be 79€ for that train, or 69€ if I got the one the following morning. "It's ok if you want to stay an extra night, it's 10€ cheaper so it might be better?"
I bought my tickets and then waited at the station for her to go and find a cash point. When she got back she told me that there wasn't a train, but it was actually a replacement coach instead, and that I could get the earlier one at 15:04 if I wanted to. I did so I said an awkward goodbye to Helene and the two younger children and hopped on.
And so my escape from the Vosges began!
A few pictures from Remiremont station...
Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Alsace le Soir
As a historian, Helene has lots of interesting things to
talk about. She told me lots about the history of the area we were going to –
Alsace. It was an area that was taken over by the Germans during WWII and so
had a lot of German influences. She also told me about the Saint-Laurent cross which is on a few mountains around here (thought I might be able to find more info about it online but Google is failing me). Her husband Benoit was from
Ventron and that he told people he was German. I was really interested about
this. It seems odd to me that an area outside of Germany would want to call
themselves German after the atrocities of the war. She kept saying that the
area didn’t have national pride for any particular nation before or after – yet
she was saying that people from that area call themselves Germans…
The Alsace region looks very German. I think if I didn’t
know any better than I would have thought it was Germany! It also seemed quite
old and a bit rundown; most people hadn’t repainted their shutters, broken
garden fences etc. but maybe that’s just rural France in general?
It’s an interesting area though. Apparently the schools in
Alsace don’t have to follow the French National Curriculum and can adopt the
German version if they want to, or just make something else up entirely. Lots
of schools also teach in German. Very strange!
As we travelled through, Helene promised to take me to visit
lots of the local villages properly. She said that somewhere near they made the
proper German pretzels, and that there was lots of local German sausage shops
too. There was also apparently lots of interesting historical sites which,
again, she promised to take me to visit.
We arrived in Saulxures-sur-Moselettes at around 5:30pm.
Helene decided to stop at the shop on the way to the house as we needed food. I
decided to go in with her as I needed a few things – face wipes and paper etc.
I didn’t realise but France doesn’t really make basic things like lined paper so
I had to buy squared paper (like the stuff we use for maths in UK) instead - very
annoying. I did manage to get myself some more fruit juice though.
It was around this point that Helene told me that there wasn’t
any internet at her house. Not impressed. Apparently they sometimes went to the
‘Maison de Tourisme’ (Tourist House) to get internet but as we drove past it we
saw it had been burnt down… Helpful.
We finally got to their house at around 7pm. It was in quite
a pretty area next to a farm and was a very old house. More to come about the
house later…
Helene was very tired but we still worked out way round all
the bedrooms making beds and vacuuming the rooms (well, I vacuumed the rooms). We
then, finally, got to have something to eat!
Helene told me all about how her sister was very strict and
hadn’t let the children eat with the rest of the family in Corsica. She had
thought it very mean (I didn’t) and said that her children were all very
constipated from eating too much pasta and bread, but not many vegetables. It’s
for this reason that we ate pretty much nothing but vegetables for the next
week.
For dinner we had a really nice creamy vegetable soup,
followed by lentils with hot dog sausage bits in it. For desert it was natural yoghurt
(which all the kids put 4-5 teaspoons of sugar into – disgusting) and I had a
peach.
Apparently her oldest daughter, Alienor, is allergic to just
about everything – almost all types of fruit, nuts, some vegetables etc. Helene
says it is because she let her try everything before she was 1yr old and so for
her other children she only gave them plain potato, milk and bread (or
something super plain like that) until they were almost 2! Therefore, the
family didn’t eat much fruit and continued to eat not much fruit for the whole
time I was there…
No pictures to cover this part I'm afraid, and I didn't take that many pictures during most of my time in the Vosges either - sorry!
La Dernière Ligne Droite
Thankfully, we were woken up by Helene at 8, not 6. She said
‘we are very late and have to leave immediately’. She wasn’t joking about
wanting to leave immediately. I barely had time to throw clothes on before she
was back to tell us that we had to go!
The journey was awful as ever, although finally someone had
the idea that maybe I should sit by the door and not in the smallest seat in
the entire car given that I was the 2nd biggest person in the car…
After that it was a bit more comfortable but the kids were still completely
unaware of the concept of personal space.
We arrived at a Service station to pick up some breakfast at
around 10am. My headphones were broken by Hermine (she yanked them out of my
laptop on the ferry) so when I went in to go to the toilet I made a very speedy
stop in the shop to buy some more. Helene came in to tell me that they were
very late and now they were waiting for me I was wasting their time. I tried to
hurry up but not much I could have done faster. I went back out to the car to
find everyone sat on the grass eating, and definitely not waiting for me!
At some point we went past Avignon and the famous bridge – I
meant to take a picture but I didn’t have a window seat at the time so didn’t
get a chance.
 |
| Cat at the Train station Car park |
At about 1.30pm Helene told me they’d changed where Alienor
would be getting the train. She was supposed to be getting a train from Bourges
(I think) which was completely the wrong direction to where we were actually
going, and instead she was dropped off at the train station in a town called
‘Beaune’. The family used to live there apparently so Helene was familiar with
the roads – just as well as we entered Beaune with apparently just 8 minutes to
go until the train, the satnav said 15 minutes, and they apparently hadn’t
bought the ticket yet…
 |
| View from Beaune Train Station steps |
Beaune was quite nice. Very french, naturally. Helene told me it’s a very old town
with a wall going all the way around it. When we got to the train station they
rushed in to get Alienor on the train, which must have left about a minute
after they got there but somehow I think she managed to get on it. I was left
in the car with the children – I don’t remember what they were doing exactly
but they weren’t being very nice. Helene came back about 20 mins later and
asked if I’d taken my medicine. Obviously I hadn’t as we’d left immediately in
the morning and so I hadn’t had a chance. She started shouting at me telling me
the reason she’d been gone so long was so that I would have time to take my
medicine. I tried to explain that I couldn’t just take it in the car and needed
to use a toilet. She then told me she would take the children away and I could
go and find a restaurant and use the toilet in there and that she’d be gone for
as long as I needed. When she asked how long I’d need I told her I’d need at
least an hour – I only needed about 15 mins but I was pretty fed up of her and
the kids and wanted a break!
 |
| More views of Beaune |
I found a little pub just opposite the train station. Helene
had suggested I go to some other restaurant over the road but it looked quite
posh and the type of place you can’t just go in to have a drink and use the
loo! The people in the pub were quite friendly. I ordered an orange juice and
then sat there having a nice time for about 40 mins, and then went to take
nasty medicine in the toilet. I’d taken the little plastic cups from the toilet
at the hostel and had ‘borrowed’ a teaspoon from the Ferry so I could mash up
tablets.
 |
| Lots of old buildings in Beaune |
Now that Alienor had gone I was able to sit in the front
seat! Much more room so much more comfortable! I was also able to talk to
Helene – the first time we actually had a proper conversation since I’d arrived
in Corsica. I was very annoyed to find out then that there was no internet at
the house in Vosges!
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