We walked over to Preixan for the first time. It was very small, not much to see. Just the little church and an ancient tower. The church would have probably been cool to see on the inside, but according to the Scottish girl, who's name escapes me, who was working at the hostel, it is rarely open.
Then we turned in our key, got Katy and drove to Carcassonne. Getting gas was much less of a fiasco than yesterday. Katy taught me how to say “Do you take cash?” in French. “Prenez vous déspece.” I don't know if I've spelled that right. Probably not. She talked to the people for me though. Then we parted ways after finding a parking space.
We went to look for food and I found a patisserie shop on the square de Centre Villa (the new town) that looked good and bought a chicken sandwich and a pastrie. V. bought a brownie to split later on the train.
Then we went back to the car, and drove it to the train station. The “reserve Avis” spot was free, so we parked there, not far from the waiting area. I took the key to the counter and said in garbled French that I needed to return the car.
The man understood me but then said something really fast that I didn't understand. Repeating it didn't help. I need to remember to ask them to speak slower, but I get flustered. “Lentment, s'il vous plait!” V. understood what he was getting at, and she doesn't speak any French.
He was pointing me to a woman in blue, which I should have comprehended but as I said, he was speaking too fast.
She took our keys, signed off on the rental agreement, and we sat down and waited. We were an hour early which was good. V. went across the street to get McDonald's (again!).
I decided to wait to eat my sandwich until I got on the train. It was a very, very good sandwich too. The train ride was uneventful and boring. Stared at the countryside and wrote out some postcards.
We arrived in Paris a little late, a little after 6pm. We found the metro, with the help of a map and a man miming which way to go. We found an information desk, and the man was very helpful and spoke great English. He told us which line to take and where to buy our tickets.
We waited a while in line to buy our tickets and when I got up there the agent said he didn't speak English. Lies! I heard him speak English to an obnoxious Asian tourist. But whatever. It forced me to ask in garbled French for a 'carnet' of tickets, and he understood me! Yay! I was quite happy with myself. So now we are at the hostel. We are staying at St. Christopher's in Paris. It is nice. We ate dinner in the bar downstairs, mine was €13, but we were tired and didn't feel like looking for anything else. The burger and fries were good. I really need to find French food tomorrow.
The showers were nice, they had a place to hang clothes and were fairly private. Now it is bed time, we have a long day tomorrow.
I miss the Pyrenees.
No comments:
Post a Comment