Paris—Day 1: The Trip

We haven't done much highway driving since we got the car, just short jaunts around town or to neighboring towns that are not connected by highways (think of Elgin to Taylor, Texas, as opposed to Austin to Elgin), so driving across a large part of France made us use skills that had gotten a bit rusty. But we made it in spite of our map- and sign-reading deficiencies. And we managed to keep ourselves entertained in the process.

Our first source of amusement was a road sign while we were still in Germany: Danger! Accidents Possible! That's about as useful and specific as the US Homeland Security's "Orange Advisory." [It actually refers to a dangerously short on-ramp. The sign.]

Then when we got to France, we saw lots of white cows out in the fields, all lying down. The first standing cows we saw were black, so L.H. quipped that they must be German cows. We speculated on whether they were imported to be the worker cows, or just to be a positive influence on the white French cows. Then I wondered if perhaps the French cows were subverting the German ones, because we saw a couple of black ones lying down. Car games with nee and L.H.

More pervasive than cows, though, were the fields upon fields of rapeseed (1). I mean, the stuff was *everywhere*, so it must be a major crop. As a matter of fact, we saw a (German) tour bus that claimed it ran on pure canola oil. Neat! We didn't take a photo ourselves, but you can see the beauty for yourselves here. I happened to recognize it because I had seen it while driving through southern Sweden with L.H.'s friends acting as our tour guides.

(1) Rapeseed is the source of canola oil (see the debunking at the bottom of the linked page), but Americans don't want to see the word "rape" on their kitchen staples, as in "rapeseed oil", so it got a new name.

You know how American highways have mile markers but only sporadically, plus exit numbers? Well, in France, *every 100 meters* is marked with a sign. So at the end of the length of a football field, there's a number: 366.9, 366.8, 366.7.... I'm just anal enough that I would catch myself keeping track of them, which meant it was time to distract myself with futile reading assignments for school and Crazy Eights with D.D.

If you ever go to France, DO NOT EVER order andouillette in a restaurant. You will receive tripe sausage, also known as chitterlings sausage, as L.H. discovered to his eternal horror. After a quick search online, I see that it is often referred to as "sausage bursting with offal." L.H. said it smelled like the outside of the pig from which it originally came.

After the mystery lunch, we passed a bizarre series of ... installation art? on the highway for maybe 20 km—disks, spheres, pyramids, cubes, flat squares, a single pole, flat triangles, and cubes on one point, all in rainbow-hued pastels. They were just lying on the ground next to the road. After 10km, I was all, "Ok! It's geometry AND art—we get it!"

Some of you may be tempted to smite me for blasphemy, but there was a stretch or two between Reims and Paris that reminded me of Texas scenery, maybe between Austin and Waco. The part of Germany we're in tends to be hilly and forested, so it was a nice change.

We managed to drive into central Paris, find our hotel, and put the car in a garage without a hitch. D.D. was happy that she got her own bed and that there was a tv, but she didn't know what to make of the bidet. L.H. mused that it was the perfect size for a Barbie pool, but D.D. was disgusted by the suggestion. And we had no Barbies on hand with which to try it out. Suffice it to say that the bidet went unused while we were there.

Then we paid a visit to L.H.'s friend from Sweden who is living in Paris temporarily to help take care of her baby granddaughter. She and her daughter took us on a walking tour of their neighborhood (at the Place d'Italie) and pointed out some good places to eat. D.D. found a feather on the ground while we were out. When a pigeon crossed her path, she held out the feather and said, "Hey, Pidge! Looking for this?" all smart-alecky. Hee!

After a quick Chinese dinner, we went back to the hotel and geared up for Day 2: Let the Tourism Begin!