Day 9: Sleepy Sunday

I decided to sleep in a bit after getting in late yesterday. After waking I worked out at the silly gym at the Holiday Inn where I was staying. I've learned to keep my expectations pretty low at hotels when they say they have a workout facility. Usually most of the equipment is in disrepair, what little of it there is, and there are few if any free weights to be had. The Filton Holiday Inn was no exception. It still beats trying to do it in my hotel room.

After an otherwise lazy morning I headed into town to do laundry, and wander around the Bristol Christmas market which is a bit of fun. I tried my best not to think about the fact that the primary reason I was grabbing a taxi to head into town was to do my laundry. Since the round trip works out to around £40 ($65). Unbelievably, it was still much cheaper than using the hotel's laundry service which was £6/item.

While I was in town, I walked around the Christmas market downtown to do some shopping for the girls, but didn't see anything for them. I knew I'd be going to the giant market at Hyde Park in London later, so didn't worry too much about it.

Day 8: Skiing in England!?

Left to right: Les, Nick, Garith, Little Ant

I decided to join the guys for indoor skiing today at Hemel Hempstead outside of London. It was a lot of fun, but two hours was enough. There are only so many times one can go down the same bunny hill dodging the slow, winding, endless queues of people learning how to ski.

At the top of the "mountain"

After skiing, Nick decided he wanted to take the scenic route through the countryside on the way back instead of blasting through on the M4 which is a bit boring. We stopped at the King William IV pub in Saint Albans on the way back for a late lunch. I took the opportunity to have a nice traditional British meal consisting of meat, potatoes and gravy with some assorted "vegs".

It turned out that Oxford was also on the way back so we stopped in to wander around and grab a pint. The town was wonderfully decorated for the holiday season and we stuck around to watching an outdoor Christmas cartoon projected on a building which was about the magical machine that produces snow being broken down which the elves go fix. The movie climaxed with a fake snowfall made of foamy bubbles getting shot out of a machine to some holiday music. The local kids went crazy over it.

Waiting around for the show to start

It was worth the wait just to see the kids going nuts

Despite the streets being all lit up and looking lively for the holidays, the pubs and streets were quite quiet even though they were filled with people. Apparently its a much older and civilized crowd that makes up the Saturday night life in Oxford.

Day 7: Friday night in Bristol

I felt like I had prepped well for the next week's work with Jon, so I took off a bit early from the office. I ended up going on a big pub crawl around Bristol Center and Clifton with Nick, Gareth, little Ant, and Tom. We all had a great time getting a bit drunk on the local draft beers and ciders and even a couple scotches.

Day 6: First day of work in Bristol

First day at work. It turned out that the hot lunch was curry, so that makes two days of curry for me in a row. I wasn't complaining about that fact, however, it was a miserable curry though. As fortune would have it, a week prior I had already talked Jon into curry for dinner this particular evening before I left the states. So it was a coincidence we already had it twice since I arrived and were going to have it three times in two days! Jon loves Indian too, so he humored me by agreeing that the first two times didn't count as they were substandard attempts. So we joined up for some great curry after work at one of my favorite restaurants in Bristol, 4500 Miles from Delhi. Afterwards I introduced Jon to cider on the Apple cider barge and he found the cider there "interesting". It has a bit of a "funk" to it. Or what I find reminiscent of the smell of fermenting silage on my relative's farms growing up.

Curry at the Raj. Jon and I couldn't join the guys for dinner so we met up after our curry. Left to right: Les, Nick, Ant, Garith, Gavinder, Jon.

Day 5: Small disaster in London

I was flying out to London after lunch and had a hard time figuring out what to do with the little time that I'd had left in Paris that morning. The bed at the Marriott was amazing so I decided to capitalize on it and sleep in. It was terrific and my body was thanking me for the respite from the daily abuse and poor sleeping since flying here. I had been developing a cold since departing the plane and my activity and lack of sleep was helping it along I'm sure. I was feeling like a new man, but on the train ride to the airport I got a bit melancholy over the thought of leaving. I would have liked to spend a bit more time in France exploring.

It turns out that I had a bit of a personal disaster landing in Heathrow. When I went to grab some British pounds from the cash machine right after landing, I discovered that my wallet was missing. Went to lost baggage where some airport personnel informed me I needed to go, and contacted the gate to have them search the plane. I waited around for twenty minutes for one of the gate crew to call me back which never happened. They said they'd call back after fifteen, so I gave them a call. I was promptly told that they couldn't find it and the plane had left. Considering their immediate response to the question, I doubt they had ever looked for it. Oh well, it was my fault for not noticing sooner so I shouldn't be blame them. On reflection, I think there's a possibility I had been pick pocketed as I recalled being a bit rushed back in Charles De Gaulle and put the wallet in my back pocket when I had purchased lunch which I'm pretty careful not to do for just that reason.

I ended up sorting out a way to get online at the airport, call up Vanessa for her credit card, then ordering a train ticket online to make it out to Paddington station where I had arrangements to meet my UK colleague Jon. It turns out that we were too late to make the train we had prepaid for leaving Paddington for Bristol though, so we grabbed some curry and a couple of beers while catching up and waiting for the fares to go down. He was nice enough to loan me a hundred pounds while I got my finances sorted out. That was a giant help.

Day 4: Breton's Saint Malo and back to Paris again

I finally got a full night's sleep and felt like a new person. After a failed attempt to find an open creperie in town, I headed out for Saint Malo on the coast about 30 mins away. After going around in circles a bit looking for the tourist information center, I stopped by a hotel/convention center outside of the city walls to ask directions to the tourist center. It turns out that it was only a few hundred feet away and I passed it at least three times. I made it to the tourist center to get a local map, and the woman who helped me was one of the friendliest i had met in France. She certainly looked out of place here and I was taken aback by her forwardness in wanting to help as the other workers sat a bit lazily at the other desks. She could have been mistaken to have stepped right out of a photo shoot for modelling. It turns out she was Romanian and very pleasant. I would have enjoyed staying longer, but had other plans and was starting to feel like I was being foolish chatting there. 

So I went straight, more or less, to the historical museum located in the town and doled out the six euro admission. It ended up being a bit of a tourist trap. Filled with random artifacts that didn't have much to do with the the history of the area. Few of them having English translations and what was captured in French was very brief.  

Found the museum tucked in next to the hotel.

Having my fill of the museum, I located the stairs to the ramparts of the walled city and made my way around on them taking in some beautiful views of the rocky coast and forts built on the small rocky islands that could be walked to on low tide. It reminded me quite a bit of the Pacific Northwest. Especially some of the areas of the Olympic Peninsula.

Looking out at a couple of the Saint Malo forts.

Much of the town within the ramparts was closed with few people wandering the streets. It appeared that it was prepared for much busier times when the weather would be nicer. I was able to find a tasty looking craperie, Craperie Gallo, so finally got around to eating some galletes, aka savory crepes, and trying their tasty Jacques Cartier crepe with chocolate sauce and pears. It was on fire which is one of my favorite features of a dessert. Jacques Cartier happened to be the founder/discover of Canada who came from Saint Malo.

On reflection, I should have eaten more of these

I wrapped up in Saint Malo and had planned to drive through Le Mans to check out the race track on the way back, but didn't think I'd have time before it started getting dark in Paris. I was heading to a new hotel and didn't want to try navigating the bizarre street layouts of the city at night. It turned out that I didn't make it anyhow and hit rush hour. Part of the experience was getting stuck in one of those cluster fuck intersections where six roads intersected with several buses in the center blocking traffic in all directions. Traffic was stuck in a puzzle like only I've seen in pictures. I was mired down in that intersection for forty five minutes or so. Fortunately I wasn't in a hurry, so ended up being amused watching the whirl of chaos around me.

After checking in finally, I went off to Aux Artistes pub to grab a cheap dinner and accidentally ordered beef bourguignon before realizing what it was. Part of the problem was after saying hello and asking for a table, the waiter handed me a pencil and paper and told me in English that it would help. I was a bit irritated since I tried my best to speak French when I walked in and didn't think it was that bad. This was on the heels of starting to feel some pride in my French. So in hopes of decent service, I stuck my tail between my legs and I ordered from the menu without asking questions. From what I could understand the beef was the specialty of the house. Turns out that I had forgot that it was the worst meal I had ever had in France when I visited Calais last winter. The place in Calais had served a dry roast soaked in a grey slop made of onions and mushrooms. Blech. Fortunately Aux Artistes did a great job and it was actually tasty. It reminded me of what I'd expect to order in a typical British pub, a tender roast with savory gravy. In the meantime while waiting for my dinner I noticed the waiter handing pencils and paper to all the patrons. I guess it gets pretty loud and it's more efficient and reliable to order food that way. Not a bad idea as it turns out and I felt silly for getting irritated earlier. 

Day 3: Driving to Normandy and Mont Saint Michel

I slept awfully again. Waking up at 3am sharp. Fell back asleep around 6 and decided to get up at 9:30. The original plan was to be at the Sixt car rental agency when they opened at 8. Ended up not departing Paris until 11:30 between shower, packing, storing luggage at hotel, walking there, and the paperwork and waiting for them to fetch the car. In retrospect I should have taken the metro and shaved about 20 mins off.

My good little Citroen

I headed out for my three and a half hour drive to Mont Saint Michel in Normandy through the countryside. It was a nice drive, but I forgot to account for how much extra time it takes to actually get out of a French city, plus stopping for the tolls.

Taking the 1 1/2 mile walk to the "island/peninsula".

The main entrance.

So I didn't get there until 4. I knew entrances to the cathedral were cut off at 5 and the tour closed at 6 so there wouldn't be a problem. Or so I thought. I checked into my hotel on the island town, the mouton Blanc, dropped off my backpack, then marched up the few hundred feet of steps to the top of the mountain where the cathedral was for the tour. Phew! I made it to the ticket desk at 4:45. Plenty of time for the self guided tour. However, the employee at the front desk thought otherwise and refused to sell me the audio tour although he was quite happy to sell me admission. The audio tour was an hour and 15 minutes long, but I generally skip or fast forward through certain parts I'm not interested in for audio tours. We went around a few times, and I came close to telling him what kind of person I thought he was and decided better. So I just payed admission and wandered through which turned out fine. It was a pretty interesting cathedral as far as they go, but I decided then and there that it's the last one I go see.

Something occurred to me when I was there that got under my skin that might have something to do with that. I was thinking about all the squandered resources that went into the building of the site over the many years. And then all the people that dedicated themselves to being monks or religious people. Then of all the people who spent weeks at great personal cost to make the trek there. What a staggering waste that could have been set to a better use.

A view up at the cathedral walls. It was a nice quiet evening walk around.

Being used to dinner service starting between 7 and 8 in Paris, I decided to take a 15 minute nap before heading out after coming down from the cathedral. When I woke up and descended on the town for dining, I rediscovered the fact that small villages close down early, so there were only two places open. One of them being the hotel I was staying at which I have a general policy not to eat in when it can be avoided. It was the cheaper option with some set menu choices I was more keen on though.

I ordered the assortment of hors d'ourves, an Omelette de la Mt St Michel, and something unremarkable for dessert. The first course ended up being a salad separated into its constituent parts and spread around the plate with onion dressing sprinkled on. Not exactly what I was expecting. The omelette on the other hand was pretty interesting. They whipped eggs and cream into an almost meringue or whipped cream like texture, then fried it golden brown on one side and folded it over. I need to try that on my own some time.

From the top of the cathedral. Note the low tide.