Finished packing, had a sumptuous breakfast in the
hotel, and drove to the airport at Montpelier. I was impressed
with how much more comfortable we have become with driving in France,
even though it's been far busier than the quiet country lanes I
anticipated. The rules of the road are somewhat different than in
the USA, but Sheila's navigating and our semi-literate reading of
brochures and signs got us in synch. For example, with three
lanes on the toll road to the airport, with a speed limit of c80 mph,
you only leave the rightmost lane to pass. With a pretty solid
convoy of big trucks, however, I was almost always in the second lane
this morning, though darting back into the rightmost lane whenever I
ran out
of trucks. And whenever I pulled out to pass a truck and he
decided to pull out to pass another truck, I was legitimate in
resorting to the third lane, otherwise reserved for people going MUCH
faster. We found the airport was not as overtly marked as we'd
expected, and despite the fact that
it is not called the Montpelier Airport, we took a shot and scored.
Gassing
up the rental was also an adventure. I put in my credit card
successfully,
stared at an instruction I interpretted as "pick the grade you want"
and
was absolutely unable to figure out how to do that. So, I got to
try
out what we had been told were the five magic words in France:
"Excusez-moi
de vous deranger." It is commonly interpretted as "Excuse me for
bothering
you," or, I guess, "Excuse me for living, okay?" In any event, it
produces
a wonderful result. People appreciate your acknowledging that you
are
imposing on them, and they graciously do whatever they can to help.
Soon,
the disel was flowing into the Toyota, and we finally found a sign that
seemed
to point to where we wanted to go: "Rental cars."
Before we knew it--well, we had gotten to the
airport
early and the plane was late and we waited around inside security while
all
the shops and restaurants were outside security--but eventually, we
were
airborne again, and the countries of Europe, old and new, were whizzing
by.
Au revoir, ma belle France
Cheerio, England (who writes this stuff?)
Getting from the airport to our hotel was a
challenge:
we took four trains. The first was a short shuttle from Gatwick
North
to Gatwick South (recall those?). Then we got onto two wrong
trains
to central London. When I say, "got on," I mean all the luggage.
Fortunately,
we caught it (or were caught) each time, and the third train was a
winner.
From there to the hotel was a moderate taxi ride through
incredibly heavy-for-non-rush-hour
traffic, and we were finally settled in our hotel.
This is a "special" hotel, with feng sui, aroma
therapy,
etc., but also (you pay an arm and a leg for it) wireless internet
service.
I will buy a couple of hours tomorrow and upload everything from
France
and our first day in England. For now, it's time to unpack
everything
we own and start over.
