And One for the Thompson
Today Will and I slept in a bit. Well, Will did. This damn French lady kept banging on our door randomly at something like one-hour intervals. Who needs new towels at 7:00?! No one! No one needs this! Anyways, we got directions from the concierge, and she gave Will a map. The map failed. Hard. Will and I have never seen a map fail this hard, ever.
According to the map, we were supposed to go straight. At one point, I said, “Hey Will, you wanna turn left here? It says Beaune.” Will explained that the map was VERY clear about us going straight. We ended up in some industrial complex, facing a fence. After much trying to open the gate, we just jumped the fence. We were then on a highway.
Meow.
We walked a little over two kM on the highway before a van with flashing lights pulled onto the shoulder and stopped us. A man who spoke very broken English explained that he was “motorway security,” and that we had to wait for the police.
The police showed up, all right. The fucking GENDARMERIE showed up. If you don’t know what the Gendarmerie is, it’s the military. The French military showed up. His first question to us was, “You are on a highway. Do you think that’s dangerous? Do you think that’s dangerous?” He made us get into his military car, and it turned out we weren’t getting arrested. In fact, he was super friendly and conversational, and he gave us a free ride to the train station. He also gave us directions to good restaurants. I gave him recommendations for his upcoming vacation to NYC. He is our friend now.
Will and I found the town center, and we got a quick lunch. I had two servings of spaghetti carbonara (sans bacon). In France, it comes with an egg yolk still in the shell. If you’re feeling like you hate your arteries, as I always am, you just pour that shit in there. It was awesome. Will had a cheese/ham omelette. We also had beers. Will had lemonade-beer called Edelweiss, and I had some weird abbey beer that neither of us can pronounce. They were tasty.
I bought Will a ticket to a wine tasting tour. We were in Burgundy, and I wanted to see if I could cultivate a taste for wine in him. I failed. Hard. However, watching him suffer was hilarious. He swore he would make me suffer with meat sometime in the future. I await the day. The wine cellar was actually pretty cool, though. For anyone who doesn’t believe Will would go to a wine tasting, I have photographic proof.
We then wandered around Beaune for a bit. We went into an antique flea market thing hosted by an old folks’ home. I almost got an 1870 Prussian sabre, but the blade was kinda loose, kinda shitty, and I didn’t like the balance. Blah. There was also a shotgun that was pretty cool.
One thing that was super weird at the antique flea market was a military helmet from WW2 with my initials on the inside. In my handwriting. Like, exactly my handwriting. It was kinda freaky. All this demonstrates is that time travel will be invented, and I will go back to WW2. And lose my helmet. …Hopefully, Will will be there to keep me alive.
We then went back to the hotel. We took a cab because we didn’t fancy another ride with the French military. Well, we kinda wanted to, but it was a poor choice. We hung out for a bit and set up Band of Brothers to buffer. We figure we can’t leave France without watching the U.S. invade Normandy.
We went to a nearby place for dinner. They spoke zero English and had zero vegetarian food. I had a Heineken with Will, and then I left to go to this Italian place. The owner was super friendly and offered to teach me Italian if I taught him English. Since I need to translate for us in Italy, I took him up on the offer. He gave me a free antipasto of eggplant (no idea what was in it) and roasted red pepper. I also had no clue what was in the red pepper, but it was pretty good. Turns out it was like seven things, including beef, parmesean, bread, cheese, and I can’t remember what else. When we got back to the room, we watched America save the day. WW2 shows are awesome.
One thing we’ve noticed is that in the English-speaking countries, we met a shit-ton of a crazy-ass people (e.g., Jacques, Blue, Jaan, the Aussies, Tibo, etc.). As we get farther from the English-speaking countries, the people appear to be saner. However, we think we are swiftly becoming the crazy people. Dina pointed this out to us. We would like to state that she is probably correct. Thanks, Dina.
As a side note, it was recently Dina’s birthday. Since she is the ONLY official follower on the blog, she gets a public “gute zum geburtstag” from the two of us! Hooray!
Will’s Corner
There is a reason I only trust topographical maps and landmarks.
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Dear Joe,
Maps suck. Luckily, you don’t need them. You have everything you need in your cute little noggin (and beer)!
Love,
Will and Andy
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