Our First Day in France...Driving to Normandy

On Saturday, we landed safe and sound in Paris in the early morning at 8:30 AM Paris time or 2:30 AM for those in the Eastern Time zone.  After a night of flying without sleep, I have to admit I wrote this post at 9:30 PM Paris time after having been up for more than a day…Unfortunately, we have been unable to connect to the internet from our little cottage so I am sitting here writing this post and will post it sometime tomorrow when I am able to find wifi…likely at McDonalds… and don’t get me started on how I feel about being in France and now planning to go to McDonald’s.  (Update- Nope, McDonald’s did not work, so I am posting these from Paris.)

By the time we got off the plane, found our luggage, got through customs and then find the rental car counter it was 10 AM…although CBSA and Homeland Security on both sides of the border would be concerned as the 2 “officers” never brock stride in the conversation they we having when we walked up and they simply stamped our passports without posing a single question or even looking at either of us…but I now have a stamp on my passport so that make me happy.

It was quite windy so we didn’t spend much time wandering about on our way out to our little cottage, but we did stop in a little place called Pont L’evesque…no that isn’t a typo…L’evesque not Leveque.  We stopped at a little bakery…one of hundreds we must have passed today and bought croissants, chocolate for Peter and Almond and chocolate for me…mmm…they were oh so delicious, Peter’s was still warm from the oven.  We enjoyed them along a fast moving creek in the middle of the little hamlet.  Peter took a walk down to the remnants of an old bridge and discovered that it was actually a trout fishing spot and there were kids casting cane-fishing poles up and down the banks.

We continued on from there to our little cottage and headed out once again after we received directions on operating the stove and oven, the dishwasher, the satellite tv and the heating systems and it seems this property is part of a green commune…her words, not mine…so we have to take our recycling up the road to a communal recycling depot…. also been shown where the composter is and shown the vacuum…so It might be a good time to explain that this is essential a self-catering cottage, we keep in clean and leave it in relatively the same condition it was in when we arrived, she then returns our security deposit. So yes, for this trip there is no one cleaning up behind us…and that’s fine.  But if we want she has a cleaning lady who’d do it for 45euro...tempting...

So what did we do after having just arrived in the country…. we went and did groceries…LOL I know it’s sad but I have fresh croissants and Brioche as well as local honey to drizzle on both tomorrow from Breakfast… ok maybe not both for breakfast, if not I can see toasting the Brioche or making French toast with it.  We also picked yogurt and a couple of meals for the next couple of days.  Tomorrow I am also hoping to figure out where to get the best fresh caught seafood and fish as well as other local fruits and veggies...

We had dinner at a chinese restaurant (traditional, not western) in Coutances, I know your first thought of where to go your first night in France, Chinese might not have been your choice but we were hungry and it was open.  The food was tasty except despite my efforts in which I only ordered pork-free choices and two of 4 came with pork…oh well that’s what you get for ordering chinese in France … from a Vietnamese woman…but we were starving and it was both open and they seemed to understand when I ordered but not so much when they served it .Anyways…tomorrow is another day.

The lady who we are renting from is a Brit who doesn’t speak French but she has left a variety of helpful lists of things to do and food to enjoy. So I am going to take a look tomorrow before we head out to figure out where were are going try tomorrow.

Tomorrow, it’s supposed to get up near 20 degrees Celsius...(65-68F for those following in the States).  If it is as nice as folks say it is supposed to be we are likely going to go for a drive along the coast and check out the coastline.

Bonne nuit!