He grudgingly woke up, grumbling, and then muttered that we should 'follow the highlighted route'. Sure, Hal, sure, you bet, what highlighted route? See, we were parked head on to this big building and maybe Hal couldn't see all his satelites or something, but he had his car image cross-ways on the road and no lines drawn on his little map. So I backed out, carefully, into the Monday morning traffic, then moved the 20 feet to the corner hoping that Hal would wake up. Nope, still no highlighting. So I turned left, since I had to do something and something 'gauche' is usually what I wind up with. And it was, of course, wrong. With apparent disgust Hal said 'recalculating', indicating that I had done something so abysmally stupid, such a complete 'faux pas', that I should just quit breathing and save the oxygen for those with intelligence. To show us just how mad he really was at being woke up so early, he led us on a merry chase throughout Monday morning Rennes traffic. Where four lanes of traffic try to occupy three lanes of road and nobody will give you an inch. He clearly had us turning right on one road that led only to an underground parking garage. I couldn't go backward, a line of traffic was glaring behind me, and I dare not go into that subterrainian hell from which I would clearly not emerge intact, so I had to go forward. Down a road with signs that said 'Interdit!!' and other violent things in French, and 'Busses Suiliement', and something that translated roughly into 'authorized vehicles only'. Merde said I, and pressed on while Jan just stared, eyes wide as saucers expecting Les Gendarmes to pounce on us in a moment. But instead we enjoyed a full block of trafficless road in front of us, what a joy. But when I looked behind us, horrors, I find that we are leading a parade - a veritable jail-break of traffic is following us! Not good, we will be charged with corrupting the morals of French drivers if in fact French drivers have any morals, which they don't, so the charge won't stick if we get a good lawyer. Finally a left turn and the scene of the crime receded far in the mirror.
Hal cut us some slack then and gave us a fairly direct route out of town. That is, until he totally misled us in the last roundabout. The highlighted path he showed us clearly put us on the first exit, but the second exit was what we should have taken to get to Nantes. So down this one-way road we went, and the Saints from the local Cathedrals had to plug their ears at the expletives uttered in the car, directed at Hal. But Hal talks to us and never listens, so he didn't even notice. After his ritual 'recalculating' remark, he tried to have us turn left at a point on a divided road where a concrete barrier is now firmly placed, so his maps must be a little out of date. Another disgusted 'recalculating' remark, and then a series of vectors that brought us correctly back to the south-bound freeway. And right into a traffic jam where we sat for a while during which emergency vehicles came up the lane dividers in the middle of the road, forcing everyone into the steel lane barriers at the edge. I think all the roads here were designed in the time of Louis the Sun King, with each lane the width of a horse and rider. No, I mean it, if there is any logic at all that is the only thing I can think of that works.
Finally, on the road south. Jan and I were thoroughly rattled now, and were compulsively swilling Coke and munching our chicken and egg breakfast baguette. Only the French, chicken meat and egg salad sandwich, we were eating both the mother birds and their unborn children, the whole generation lost to the world. Where to go, where to go, Bordeaux with its legendary wine country or La Rochelle on the coast with its provincial charm? What will we choose, wine or scenery? Well, what do you think?? You're right of course, we chose the scenery. So we turned right after keying our new destination into Hal, and after some long diversions down some REAL country roads (one lane wide but bi-directional traffic) we arrived here at La Rochelle. Again, Hal's maps are out of date as there is some major road construction happening around here and everything had to detour. We were behind a huge flatbed truck with a double-wide trailer on the top, for the last 8 kilometers, and that was fun to watch. There was a pilot car and flashing lights everywhere, but everyone both coming and going were getting very exercised with much fist shaking and people passing at the most hair-raising places. Not us, however, we were every bit the unflappable Canadians that you would expect us to be. Well, Jan at least. I just cursed out Hal repeatedly for sending us off into the countryside when he shouldn't have, and putting us behind the silly thing in the first place.
But at last, here we are, and we parked in a big lot just by the inner harbour and walked to the nearby tourist office. The lady there was perfect, an absolute vision of helpfulness, smiling happily and answering all our questions in flawless English. Found an excellent hotel, just a half block from the train station (Le Gare de La Rochelle) and checked in. Then off for lunch and a long walkabout, shooting a thousand pictures in a very quaint and historic and picturesque town. Being equipped only with English is definitely a problem here as the locals are virtually mute when confronted with it, except for our charming lady at the tourist bureau. But the shopkeepers, nada. Still, we made ourselves understood on our shopping trip and at lunch, and got all that we needed or wanted. But forget asking for something not on display, you can only get what you can point to if you are as challenged as Jan and I. Try asking for 'Aspirin', or 'Acetylsalicylic Acid', when you are a stranger in a strange land. You can actually watch the clerk's eyes glaze over in confusion. But then I saw it and pointed, and life was good again.
Lunch was another matter. I read once that life in the middle ages was described as 'Nasty, brutish, and short' and I suppose that was true, the quality of life was a bit rough back then for the common folk. But that description also applies to some French people we have met here. At lunch we went to a little bistro, charming looking place from the outside, so in we went. It had a definite Spanish flair to the place, sort of like a tapas bar but not. We should have had a clue when the two proprietors (also the only two in the place, but it was after the lunch crowd if there was one) were both dressed up in black leather pants. Now these two either saw themselves as 'tres chic', or perhaps Hell's Angels prospects, but they were both certainly Nasty and Brutish and very short so the medieval phrase fits well. The woman pointed to a table by the door, so Jan sat against the wall and I by the door. The day was cool and after we ordered Jan commented that she was against a heater and quite warm, so I moved across next to her and pulled the next table over to accomodate us. We were now sitting at a table for four, but the restaurant was empty so I didn't see a problem with it. Up comes the woman, raising her voice and waving her arms (all four foot nothing of her) and indicating that I couldn't do that. Like hell I couldn't, just watch me. She persisted, getting quite steamed at my affrontery of sitting beside my wife, standing with her leather-panted legs apart, in my face, shouting. So up I got, walked past her down to where her better half was cooking our lunch, and told him that he could stuff his Quesadilla if his nasty wife was going to keep that crap up. And, with a truly Gallic shrug, he indicated that, what the hell, I could sit where I wanted. I walked back to our table, vindicated, to an embarrassed Jan. But at the kitchen end, the battle of the runts was just being joined, and we could watch because the grill was in the open, part of the atmosphere (literally) and the ambience of the room. Much arm waving ensued, and I really wish I could have understood some of the words yelled between them. In the end, we got our food (which was hot and excellent) and our coffees (which were hot and strong) and Jan got her glass of wine and we didn't get poisoned though I wondered about it.
So that was our day, a day like any other day, except that now you are part of it too as of 5:30 this afternoon. Tomorrow? We don't know, maybe Bordeaux or maybe we will heal our damaged nerves here for another day, enjoy this charming town, and choose somewhere else for lunch.
