Anyone who has had the "adventure" of driving with Randy back home can attest to his need to drive aggressively. Well, true to form--he's no different here in France. While we have a good relationship with the GPS unit this trip (some of you may recall the love-hate relationship we've had with previous units on other holidays--LOL!), I think it's fair to say that Randy doesn't believe in staying within the speed limits while we navigate from place to place. A truly unique challenge when you don't really know exactly where you're going, while a voice tells you to turn left or turn right, and someone is driving fast.
Driving throughout the countryside, the speed limit is 90 km/hour. This speed drops down to 50 whenever your enter into a small town. Throughout the towns, there are signs which automatically calculate the speed of your car and then flash you either a "happy" face or a "sad" face as positive or negative reinforcement. Well, I'm happy to report that Randy actually received a HAPPY FACE today!! This isn't a picture of the actual flash he received, but this is what it looked like. While I was laughing about it--Randy was grumbling that the only reason this happened was because he got stuck driving behind two of others that were obviously obeying the speed limit. I believe this was the only happy face he received today--but one is better than none at all :)
LANA EATS PLASTIC:
On another note, something got lost in translation at dinner. We arrived in Chatillon sur Seine at 6 pm to went in search of dinner. Turns out dinner service doesn't start tip 7 pm--unfortunately our stomachs are still a bit behind but we found a local bar/brasserie "Le Saint-Vorles" that we could have a drink at while waiting for the dinner service to start. After our late 3 course lunch--dinner was definitely going to be a lighter meal so we decided to share a salad and a small pizza. Randy's salad arrived and it looked delicious. My pizza arrived and the first impression from other of us was "this looks like a McCain frozen pizza!!". If you have never had one of these--think cardboard, with ultra thin toppings and stringy cheese. Keep an open mind right? One bite, then another. Something seemed a bit odd. The chorizo sausage seemed a bit chewy. Another bite. Yup--definitely chewy. I take a closer look--hmmmmmm--what is this this little thing on the side? I pull on it. It goes around the chorizo slice!!! I find myself holding a thing piece of plastic shred from the chorizo wrapper!! This is not good. I check another piece. Same thing. Dilemma--try to remove said plastic from chorizo slices on the pizza then eat? Or tell the waitress in limited French there's a problem.
We decide to call the waitress over--I show her the plastic and tell her I can't eat the pizza. She looks and says "but in France, all of the chorizo comes with this plastic on it". "Well, yes, but shouldn't you take the plastic OFF before it goes on the pizza?" She looks at me with a puzzled expression and re-iterates that this plastic is quite normal. I try to explain that I can't possibly eat the pizza with this on it. She shrugs her shoulders and gives me a sympathetic look. Oh dear. I ask to speak with the manager who never comes out. Finally we ask her to take the pizza away and she apologizes for the plastic. I settle on a few bites of salad and we call it a night but as we leave I imagine a prep cook in the kitchen now removing thin pieces of plastic from a huge tub of sliced chorizo sausage!! I did leave a tip for the server as it wasn't her fault.
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