France, First Day
“Ben?”
“Ben?”
mmmm…. whatisit…. ?
Groggily I open my eyes.
Wha-? Where am I?
I takes a little while for everything to come back. The plane flight, the train, the smiling people picking me up a the station.
“Ben?”
‘Yes?’ Crap. ‘Oui?’
“Est-ce que tu veux prendre le petit dejeuner?”
Oh god. What? Petit dejeuner, that’s breakfast. ‘euh, oui, attends’. My groggy mind slowly begins to turn, the realisation hits me that this is real. That I have to speak French. Oh, crap.
I look at my watch. It’s 11am. I’ve been asleep for 16 hours. Yet I’m exhausted. I feel as though I could easily sleep another 16.
I pull on some clothes, and leave my room, and see Jean-Luc down in the living room smiling up at me.
“On doit aller faire les courses. Tu viens avec nous? Tu veux prendre le petit dejeuner avant?”
Shopping. I was going with them. Something about having breakfast first. I responded with a non-committal grunt / oui, still trying to get my bearings.
He shows me where the shower is, and I clean myself up. My first shower since I left New Zealand, god did I need it. I get properly dressed, and go downstairs, to find Jean-Luc waiting for me to go shopping. I figure I must have said something wrong, he thought I didn’t want breakfast.
Which wasn’t really that bad, as I wasn’t hungry at all. My body thought it was 11pm.
I put on my jacket, scarf, and gloves, yet still acutely felt the cold as we headed outside to the car.
We pulled into a small looking supermarket at the next village, Saint Romain, called Champion. Inside, I was amazed at the amounts of mass-produced packaged food. All I could see was plastic. Ham sold in packets of two, four, or six slices. Hundreds of different kinds of yoghurts, desserts, anything in plastic punnets, all individual servings of course.
Jean-Luc bought a few things for lunch, while I looked around absorbing everything I could.
back at the house, he set himself to preparing lunch which I went back up to my room and began unpacking my belongings, settling myself in for a year. It still seemed so surreal. I couldn’t really believe it was happening.
I heard Jean Luc calling again, and went downstairs for lunch,where I experienced my first meal “a la francaise”. It was nothing flash, but was delicious, and interesting. It was, of course, four courses. Which in itself had me stunned. We began with half a grapefruit en entrée, followed by the actual meal (I believe it was lamb, or something). Then came my favourite part of any meal, the cheese. Jean-Luc walked over to the fridge, and got out a plastic container of at least four different types of cheese. I mean, sure, everyone knows that the French are very cheese, but to see there on the table the equivalent selection of cheeses that one in NZ would see only at the most flash of dinners was quite an anticlimax. For dessert, I think we had “rix au lait” or creamed rice.
I couldn’t wait till the next meal. I was full and satisfied, but still, I couldn’t wait. Call me greedy if you will.
First thing on the agenda for the afternoon was to enrol me at school.
It was about a 20 minute drive from our township of La Cerlangue to Lillebonne, where my school was. On the way, we had a very-much one way conversation, with myself attempting a few times to say a few things but finding it easier to sit back and listen. We drove through a few villages on the way, each with it’s own ancient church. La Cerlangue had one from the 13th Century. I couldn’t believe it.
Better yet, as we were driving though the forest, I glimpsed something that really caught my attention. Something solid, non-forest like poking through the trees. I kept looking, and suddenly it dawned on me exactly what it was.
A castle.
Oh my god. A castle, a fucking castle not ten minutes from my house.
We rounded a bend, and there it was right in front of me.
(Photo taken from bottom of hill looking back up, later that year in Summer)
I was so excited, I wanted to stop the car right then and check it out. I didn’t ask though, I just stared in amazed wonder. I’ve loved castles since I was terribly young… and here was one, a real one. Jean-Luc could tell I was amazed by it. He told me that it was the “Chateau de Tancarville”, had been built in the 12th Century, and inside it’s ruins another had been built in the 18th Century.
I passed it twice a day, six days a week, for the following year and never got sick of seeing it.
We continued on towards Lillebonne, where yet another historical wonder awaited me. As we drove through the center of town, I looked right.
(Again, photo taken in Summer)
And saw a Roman Theatre. Dating from the First Century AD. I was bowled over. I couldn’t believe it. A castle, and now a roman theatre! Not only that, but not two minutes further up the road, on the left, was yet another castle.
History was surrounding me. It was everywhere, everything was covered in layers and layers of it. It was amazing.
At school, Jean-Luc conversed with the school secretary, much of which flew completely over my head. The obligatory remark was made, however, when she learnt that I was from New Zealand.
“Ah! Le pays des All Black! Est-ce que tu joues au rugby?”
No, I don’t play rugby. She seemed thoroughly taken aback, as in, how could a New Zealander not play rugby?! If you saw me, you’d understand. My friends would understand.
Back at the house, I was in sensory overload. Two castles, and a roman theatre, thousands of years of history… I wanted to be out there and seeing it all.
Unfortunately, my body didn’t agree. It wanted to know why I’d been seemingly up all night, and wanted nothing more than to sleep.
Jet lag does suck.
Early night for me.
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Adey Ben, 2 months without a post is terrible. Get moving!!!!!
yojoe What about Missile Pops?
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