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© ymt 2007
I give up
c'est gratuit! friday, march 9 (see photos)
We had grand plans to take the train to San Remo, Italy, but in the end, we decided not to go because SOMEbody couldn't wake up. There's a grand Russian church and wonderful carbonara there, but we got all that in Nice, too.
I got a Frenchwoman exasperated at me, though. That was fun. We were at Multinari and I got a pate sandwich and Cylinda wanted a cookie. When I was ready to pay, the woman asked me what I wanted to drink. I said, no thanks, because most drinks cost about 3€ each. But she was very, very insistent I drink something. Have I mentioned that my French had been declining as the week progressed? No? Well, it obviously did because it took 3 tries and a lot of stereotypical French huffing before I realized she was saying gratuit, which means free. Who knew that an awesome combination of sandwich and cookie would come with a free Coke? I just don't expect to get value meals in a French bakery. Now, I know and will expect them everywhere. You hear me, France?
What got us exasperated was the parking lot. On Sunday, we drove our rental car back to the airport, but not without much pain and suffering. I know I'm telling this out of order, but I feel I must explain to France that we understood her as much as she understood us (not much).
So first we left the parking ticket in the car because we didn't want to lose it. Of course, we needed it to enter the deck because during the early hours of the morning, everything was locked up. So we had to call the attendant using the callbox. Fine, he opened it remotely. Then we got the ticket and came back to the lobby area to pay by the automated machine and it wouldn't take our American credit cards. Bah! So we ran outside and had to find an ATM so we could pay by cash. No problem, I remembered all the post offices have ATMs attached. We got two 10 euro bills dispensed. When we returned to the parking deck, the damn machine would only accept one of the bills (our total charge was 16€). Holy hell! Cylinda ran to the hotel next door and changed the two ten notes for a 20. And that finally worked.
Until we got to the airport in Paris and our flight was delayed three hours. Oh, France, if you wanted us to stay so badly, just say so! Enough with the mind games.
