20/08/07

I left London by coach at seven thirty in the morning and thanks to the lack of sleep that I had had due to my sleeping pattern that I had gotten into staying at my great Aunt Alison’s place, I slept most of the way to Dover where we caught the tunnel train to Calais. I then alternated between napping, watching ‘Pirates of the Caribean 3’ on the tv screen, reading and thinking ‘oh I’m in France’. At our one service stop I used all of my euros (I had a 2 euro coin left over from my last trip) to buy some lunch – a packet of chips.At spot on 3:30 local time we arrived at the Euro lines Bus depot. Right - time to find the metro so I can meet Blandine at Montt Parnese. Okay, Can’t seem to see any signs to the Metro – don’t panic, you may just have to find a local bus to take you to the nearest one – but you don’t have any money, ahh! Hey There’s Blandine, Cool! And then came one of the most awkward greetings I have been a apart of – and I have been a part of a great many awkward greetings. To avoid the dreaded ‘to hug or not to hug’ moment, I make it a rule to go in for it if in doubt – as long as a move is made then the awkwardness of deciding what to do evaporates. Also to avoid going to the same side as the person that I am greeting I make my moves big and simple and well in advance of any contact. This system usually works a treat – but I have never tried it in France before…I went in for the hug but Blandine did not. It was just like hugging me before I learnt the greeting system – stiff, mechanical and unresponsive. Blandine then said ‘you’re in France now – we kiss’ – so we did the kiss on each cheek and she lead the way to the Metro line. Later on we talked about greetings and she said that she found it quite awkward in Australia when she was there because everyone hugged so much. Despite kissing each other , even close French friends don’t hug often – she didn’t even hug her parents when she left for Australia. Looks like I’ll need to make some changes to the ‘greetings system’ when I’m in Europe.I was worried ever so slightly that we would not get on all that well as we didn’t actually hang out all that much in Australia and that I might not be able to understand her as I had trouble talking with our French Contiki driver because of his limited English and thick accent. But on the train to her house on the outskirts of Paris both of these concerns were quashed as we chatted about old times as well as what she had planned for us.We got picked up by her mum in a diesel Citroen C4 and drove to their house in a near by village opposite what I thought was a very large castle but won only a tiny Château. Once there we had baguette and cheese and Duck patte of sorts. Blandine told me that it was all the insides of the duck mashed up. Yum yum! I knew that I couldn’t get out of trying it as I had made Blandine try Vegemite in Australia and besides – the food was something that I had said I was keen to try in France. My mind kept sayi8ng ‘you are eating heart, liver, lungs, intestines and kidneys’ but my stomach said that it wasn’t actually all that bad. After that we went to the local Bolongarie and go some Baguettes and I had a read of my book ‘Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance’ and I had dinner with Blandine and her mum – more duck, this time wings and legs that came out of a can. Blandine’s Dad was at their country house which used to be Blandines Grandmother and her brother Adrian was at a mates place. We then watched some crazy French tele – people dodging cows in foam pits and then went to bed – the first time in over a month that I had slept in a proper bed – was very nice!