France Trip Day 1: A Long Drive

Our Spring Break trip has gotten underway. This is to be a long trip -- almost two weeks -- and there was no way we could "wing it" for that long. David handed the planning reins over to me, which means I will be responsible if something goes wrong. The pressure is on.

I was so proud that I thought far enough ahead to check out some audiobooks from the school library to load onto my ipod so we could listen to The Tale of Desperaux and an Andrew Clements book during the 5-1/2 hour trip. Last night, David pointed out, "Well, how exactly are we going to listen to them? The ipod hook-up is in your car, not the car we're taking." Oops. And I had already returned the CDs to the school. I guess the radio and some of our CDs will have to do. Lesson learned.

I wish I could say the kids are excited about the trip, but they're not. The prospect of spending lots of time in the car and then looking at castles and cathedrals ("We always look at castles and churches!") doesn't appeal. I'm hoping that just like on our other trips, once we get going, they'll have fun.

Within 1-1/2 hours, we were near the French border and David remembered that we had spied a KFC in the area when we drove this route last year, so we reprogrammed our handy-dandy navigator to take us to it. It was lunchtime, after all.

Taking a cue from Pulp Fiction, we enjoy seeing what American fastfood restaurants offer in other countries. Here in Germany, KFC doesn't offer biscuits and the coleslaw is different, for example. But there was plenty else to make us happy and leave with full tummies.

We crossed the border soon afterward (you usually just drive right through, guards don't stamp your passport or anything) and switched into French-mode. This means going from almost all English-language songs on the German radio to almost all French-language songs on French radio (mandated by the government, by the way), and paying $34 in tolls. That's $34.00 for not even 4 hours of driving. And our trip is just beginning!

The toll amounts didn't take too much away from the pleasure of driving through the Champagne area of France. For over an hour, all we could see was soft rolling hills and an empty road ahead of us. Not a town in sight and the highway was startlingly free of traffic. Just lovely and peaceful.

We arrived to our destination, the home of our college friend Sally, in one piece. Sally is also a former French major and has settled with her French husband and four children, close in age to ours, just south of Paris. While the kids got acquainted, I happily accompanied Sally to her local supermarket. Checking out fastfood menus comes second only to seeing what you can find in a foreign supermarket.

Sally's Carrefour was by far the biggest supermarket I have been in in Europe. I was very excited. David just doesn't get it. "What's the big deal with going to a supermarket?"

While we can find some American products back in Germany, there were things in the Carrefour that I haven't come across. The kids were thrilled when I returned to Sally's with jars of Skippy peanut butter, Vanilla Coke, Golden Grahams, Honey Nut Cheerios, Doritos, and Cheetos. I even found some Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup for green bean casserole, but the kids were less enthusiastic about that.

For dinner, Sally treated us to raclette. I was looking forward to seeing how one ate a raclette meal, as we have 2 raclette sets in our basement, but I've never unpacked them and I have no idea how to use one.

It was yummy, quite simple and a lot of fun. You put raclette cheese on a little pan, stick it into a heating unit, let it melt and just when the cheese starts to bubble, pour it over potatoes, cold cuts or pickles. We were enjoying it and I asked, "So, you could also pour the cheese over chicken or something else, right?" Sally was scandalized! It must be cold cuts! I apparently still have a lot to learn about living in Europe.