Channeling My Inner Belgian: A Traveling We Will Go....

Saturday, August 13th, 2011

Well, here I am sitting on a sailboat in Southern France. That’s 3 feet above ground. Not even docked. A bit weird, right? I guess we are supposed to just use their speedboat to get around the water and the car to get around the town. I am not going to lie though, I was kinda looking forward to actually sailing. But I guess there is always another time!

Yesterday was definitely a hard day. We left the house around 11 AM, and didn’t even get here until 10. There were the periodic stops for bathroom breaks and to switch the drivers, but it was pretty hard. Especially since I had to share the backseat with one of the dogs! They have three dogs, two big and one small. There are pretty darn cute, but the small one absolutely hates me. Everytime I get near it, it starts to bark and growl at me! I have never had a dog NOT like me! It makes me miss my sweet little boys back at home. I do not know exactly why, but the day before we left we dropped off Cecile’s dog at a doggy hotel. I guess she doesn’t get along with the two boys? So I thought we were just taking the little one and the crazy but cute Goliath. (They pronounce it Go-lee-at) But once I got into the car, there was no little dog. So I actually have no idea where it is! I also realized that I must have left my headphones on the airplane (not such a big deal because I had grabbed the ones with only one working ear!) but then I literally had nothing to do except look at the scenery or sleep. And there is only so much scenery you can look at, so I slept. A lot.

One of the breaks we took on the car ride was in Luxembourg. They have rest stops just like we have at home, but they are always paired with a gas station and maybe a store as well. But the rest stop in Luxembourg, it was crazy! There had to be at least 400 people there, maybe even more. Eddy explained to me that the reason there were so many people was because there is hardly any tax in Luxembourg, so everybody goes there to buy tons of stuff. Just like my parents who came down to the U.S. to buy things when we lived in Canada… The De Decker family even goes so far as to bring gas tanks with them and fill them up and store them at home, rather than buy gas locally. I guess Luxembourg must be really cheap…

After the long car ride, we went to this restaurant that is apparently known for its fish. I had fish soup with some bread as an appetizer and the bread (with its special little sauce) was good, but the soup was simply just WAY too fishy for me. But once I soaked the bread in it, the soup was just fine. And then whatever fish I had for my main meal was just a bit bland, even when it was covered in cream sauce. But that also came with potatoes and a few shrimp, which were absolutely delicious. Then, for dessert, I discovered that I LOVE pistachio ice cream, and that Europeans DO NOT know what caramel ice cream is supposed to taste like, because it was nasty. Oh, I also discovered that it was common for people in France to finish out their meal with cheese. None of the cheese looked particularly appetizing, but then again I am not really a cheese girl.

After a really hard night, I woke up to find out that Eddy’s stitches for his surgery were messed up, so now I am all by myself on the docked sailboat while Eddy and Pascale are at the hospital trying to get his stitches fixed. Not exactly how I imagined vacation in France starting out, but what can you do if there is an unexpected emergency? A least it is warm! J