Downtown Missoula
Saturday was quite a day. We made the
8:00 Coach Service (free) to London Heathrow on a British bus. Very
nice, with curtains in the very broad windows and the usual very
polite driver.
Arrived Heathrow about 10:00 and
after a certain amount of confusion, boarded the Underground for
Kings Cross. That's where you take the Eurostar for Paris.
We got a ticket for the only other
stop, at Calais, and in an hour we were there. Five minutes later we
were speedily on our way to Paris, having failed to realize that we
were already in France. We saw the station sign as we whizzed by it.
We were off in the time change, and the trip we thought would take
three hours only took the one.
So now we are in Paris Gare du Nord,
and after some confusion and wandering about and asking for advice,
we took the metro to Gare de Lyon, where the trains for Vichy leave.
We got separated on the Metro once. The doors closed between Paula
and I, but I waited at the next stop and she was on the next train.
Once in Gare de Lyon, on the other
side of Paris from Gare du nord, we wandered about for rather longer
before finding the ticket booth. Once there, however, it was a matter
of only a moment to purchase the tickets to Vichy for a train that
left at 19h01. Then we waited patiently in the wrong place until we
almost missed our train. Actually, no harm was done and the train
ride through the dark to Vichy was uneventful. I even napped for an
hour.
Things got a bit dark once more on
our arrival in Vichy. Paula had a map of the town and that helped
quite a bit. So we wandered the streets once more, on streets about
10 feet wide with sidewalks about 2 feet wide and in the fullness of
time arrived at an oasis of light that announced itself as the Ibis
hotel. We checked in easily and the room is modern and quite
different from any possible hotel room in the States.
Poor Paula still has her cough, and
we have crossed France with it, like Typhoid Mary. The people are
very polite, and very hospitable. If you speak French, no matter how
badly, they will do everything in their power to understand you and
see that you understand them.
This morning, once we get out of the
Hotel, which we are in no hurry to do, we will probably do some
limited exploring of the neighborhood. We have missed breakfast
already, but there is still some hope for lunch.
Later: No hope for lunch either.
Paula slept into the afternoon. Then we walked around and found out
that the place really comes to life after 3:00 pm on Sunday. We found
the mall, called 4-ways, probably because there are 4 entrances.
Shops all around outside and inside. Everything very expensive and
much sought after. People outnumber cars here exactly as they do in
Paris, but the pace is much slower and everyone has time to stop and
chat. One of the girls in the "Picnic en ville", which is a
packaged food store for a picnic in town, complemented my French very
nicely, so I asked her to marry me. She didn't exactly say no, and
later on her parents came in and they had a long chat.
We saw a bread maker that makes 4
small loaves instead of one large loaf.
The biggest difficulty is getting
enough to drink. Bottled anything costs about $4.00 for 50 cl, which
isn't much. For reference, a can of Coke is 33 cl. So the only
sensible thing to do is carry several water bottles around with you
when you go anywhere. The coffee is all espresso, very strong and
delicious, but no volume to it. I think the French are doing to water
bottles what we are doing to Cigarettes, attempting to eliminate them
by taxation. We have not figured out yet how to get tap water on the
street yet, so we just carry a gallon or two of it.
That's all from me for today, now to
try to get all this onto the site in Panama.