drinking and driving

I landed in France an hour late. No worries: I still had no idea what train I’d be on. Border control and baggage claim were a breeze, my 28kg (60lbs) of baggage notwithstanding. I had cheese with me from New York. French cheese—silly to import back to France, but I knew it’d be a while til I saw some decent food. Short of decent bread, I made an attempt, and bought a few dinner rolls at one of the overpriced airport cafés. I got to the airport train station and did the obvious thing of using the automated machine to buy my ticket. Except for that machines in Europe (like the Europeans themselves) tend to hate Americans: it wouldn’t accept my cards. So I got in a long, sweaty line, waiting to talk to a real person. And thirty minutes (that could have been better spent washing up in the toilette) later, I had an expensive ticket to the middle of nowhere, SW France.

I ate my cheese, slept, and did what I could on my computer before my (and my computer’s) batteries ran out (gripe: thanks to installing Vista, my battery life was about a third of what it usually was—call me old fashioned, but I’ve gone back to XP). One transfer and seven hours later, I had arrived. There was no one awaiting me, even though I had called ahead to let them know when I’d be arriving. I did the embarrassing thing of walking up to a strange car, thinking that the lady was smiling at me, thinking that my ride had arrived. It wasn’t my ride.

Vincent Pozzer, of the middle generation (actually, I think there's a great grandchild out there), pulled up fifteen minutes later, helped me with my bags, and apologized for showing up late. We went through the usual pleasantries, and he pulled a cold, organic, Bavarian beer out of the glove box. We clinked the bottles and toasted to good health; he had already started on his own bottle. Things would be different out here in the country.

It was about 10pm when we arrived to the farm, “Crozefond,” and the sun would keep the sky lit until around 1130. I dropped off my bags in the caravane, a dusty, cobwebby old RV, where I’d be staying for the month. I met Claudette, better known as Mami (grandma), and Gilbert, aka Papi, whose name I didn’t even learn til days later. We ate dinner, together with their granddaughter Matilde, who’s one of the few not to live on the farm. I said my bonnes nuits, and headed to unpack my bags. It was only thanks to Mami’s flashlight that I was able to get anything done—there wasn’t any electricity feeding into my place until we ran the extension cord two days later. It was an inexplicably excellent evening in all, and I went to bed, unpacked, and with sweet dreams.