Frenchish “We’ll have a whole other level of stress,” Sandy’s voice over the phone sounded strained, “we’ll be in a country with a language we don’t know.” “Oh, don’t worry” I responded sagely, “It’s a world event; there’ll be lots of people speaking English. Once again I was wrong. And it didn’t take long to find out how wrong. I didn’t expect things to go smoothly when Colleen and I landed in Charles de Gaulle in Paris airport. We’d assumed our Chef d’Equipe would be on the same flight with us and we’d catch a ride with her to our new home and stable for the next three weeks. It didn’t look good though when we didn’t see Maura Leahy on the plane. We called Sandy to pick us up. We expected to wait a bit; she was an hour away. She had been in the country only a couple of days, we’d have to learn our first lesson in patience of International travel in an airport that last year handled 62,million passengers plus, and almost 500,000 aircraft movements, making it Europes second busiest airport second to Heathrow. It has three main terminals. Terminal two has seven terminals. That’s where we got a taste of what it was going to be like to be une personne anglais. I spotted the Orange store kiosk, the European equivalent to Telus where I could pick up my European SIM card. Our communication problems would be solved. “Could I get a SIM card for my phone?” A beautiful, dark complexioned young thing gave me a look as if I were speaking a foreign language. I took out my phone and in skilled pantomime pointed to the SIM card tray. I thought I saw a light go on behind her long lashes. What ensued was a string of words of which surprisingly enough I understood some of them. I understood they were numbers, followed by “euros” I bobbed my head. “Oui.” She removed and replaced my old SIM card; put it in the envelope of the new card for safe keeping. She rang up the bill, or rather two bills, showed them to me with an attempt at explanation. Poor thing, she still had her good humour. I cheerfully paid and off we believed at this point I had a phone. Meantime, Colleen had stopped at an information desk and asked the attendant if she could make a “local call” on their phone. A lovely gentleman did and feeling we had everything under control we got ourselves a coffee - ah expresso/espresso the universal word. There we were, leaning against the pastry display, sipping our first espresso in France. We felt obligated not to walk off; the tiny white cup was ceramic. It seems the French like to lean on things when they have their coffee in a public place. Even the infrequent trips to fuel up the car we noticed small counters where you could set down your coffee on a shelf, lean on a wall and read a paper. Then we proceeded to find the correct place to wait for Sandy. We sat for some time until it was clear we were waiting in front of the in the rental car lot. I approached a lovely woman in the lot, “Parle anglaise?” “Yes.” Where do we go to meet our friend who is picking us up? Puzzled look. Mon ami, avec une voiture? “Upstairs,” said the lady smiling in what appeared to be understanding. Merci. “We’re in departures”, Colleen stated flatly when we arrived. We had another coffee. There was a little electronics store nearby I marched over to buy something to charge my laptop. I’d left my charging cords somewhere. I had a vague idea there were such things as charge packs or something for situations like this. “I need to charge my computer,” I said pointing to the depleted thing, do you have a charge pack? I was given a cord. Non. I scanned the wall with its electronic accessories hanging two and three deep. “There, that one.” I purchased it. I went back to Colleen who was sitting in a comfortable airport chair with our carry-ons. I was so glad we’d sent the big luggage with the horse. In the ensuing complicated discussion Colleen and I had concluded there were no power outlets in the airport for public use and I still didn’t know if I had the right thing anyway. Colleen, tightly wound at the best of times, was beginning to show signs of unravelling, “This is ridiculous!” It was her turn to scout out communications she made off deliberately to find another information booth with an accommodating soul to lend us the phone “for a local call”. When she came back the storm cloud with her indicated she had little success. “This is ridiculous!” It’s not in my nature to ask for help. I tend to think if I don’t know the answer, nobody else does. It’s probably a function of a strong masculine side. But this was going to be a whole new lesson in humility on top of frustration. By communicating by gesturing with all the animation of a Zulu dancer we were sent to a public phone that didn’t work, a pay computer, and at last a pay phone that appeared to work. Of course we didn’t have the proper change – spent it on coffee. We needed change. My turn - my best hope was the at electronics store. I handed a 5 Euro bill. “Could I get change?” The cashier responded blankly. I was about to go a demonstration of how to break a paper bill into coins by having a meltdown, when a mature individual swept in and said to me in perfect English and no French accent, “Can I help you?” She handed me change, I bolted for the phone, dialed, listened to a ring that had a European accent, I heard someone pick up, and finally a voice of an angel said, “Bonjour!” “Sandy, so nice to hear your voice!” “Where are you?” We sorted through our locations by means of what terminal, what terminal in the terminal and which store we were standing next to. “Stay where you are!” The hunt likely involved several moving walk-ways, and a car to find, and then the correct terminal. But after a three hour wait we were never so happy to see a Canadian flag on our little black rental car. On to Vaumartin, the horses had already arrived.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:22:47 +0000
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