Mid morning we went to the Post Office in town. They are not like American or New Zealand Post Offices AT ALL. They are way more (and have been for a looong time) technologically advanced, and have been since I have been coming to France, in 1981. I remember the stamp and weighing machines back then. In these PO's you can weigh your own and get the stamps from the machine and put them in the slot or bag, and go on your way without having to talk to anyone. We weren't so lucky. Why do we ALWAYS need something out of the ordinary?
Nobody in the PO spoke English (I asked, of course), so I did my best to ask if they had any boxes so that we could post Christmas presents to our families in the US and NZ. Boxes were presented, but they were all too small. Fortunately we had measured the required sizes before going there.
An English woman arrived and she volunteered to translate, but to no avail. She didn't have enough French language to be able to help.
We asked if the Librairie ( (Lee braire ree) the book store) might have such things as boxes? There was no agreement that it might, but we needed a walk, and the book store was just down the road.
We had to negotiate THAT corner at the entry to the Medieval Town that pokes out into the road, but I smiled as widely as possible at the woman hurtling towards us in her little car (aren't they all little??) , indicating I was about to step off the sidewalk and onto the road, as the sidewalk ended there, and I had to literally walk on the road to get around the building that pokes out there, and then back onto the sidewalk around the corner. She was gracious and gave us time to negotiate the building. We could have crossed the road and done it all way more safely, but that would be too easy, right?:)
On our way down there we walked past all the Christmas market tents now occupying the center of the parking lot. IM sure more will be erected in the next day, because Saturday is market day. We will have to come down early, because we are leaving town for good, on that day. We don't want to miss the market though.
Having now arrived at the Librairie, we asked the owner if she spoke English, as you do. Non!D'accord (ok)...we will do our best to communicate en Francais. We did manage to make ourselves understood..phew, and obtained the necessary and perfect sized boxes, and two bags for smaller postings, on the right in this photo. We also purchased some wrapping paper, and I forgot that I bought Christmas cards at the Post Office, but they too were written and posted this afternoon. I cant take the wrapping paper with us, so our hosts now have some pretty paper donated.
It took a while to wrap everything and fit it perfectly into the boxes. The PO people had donated some bubble wrap to our cause (no charge), which was very nice of them, and it worked well as packing.
The place was buzzing, and of course we had a difficile request (difficult)...Customs Forms. Oh yes! Not just ONE form, like the rest of the world, but two, as per French bureaucracy norms. So, I stood there filling out forms...two each, so that was eight forms for four boxes, and of course I messed one up and had to ask for another...as you do. The trouble was, they wanted it all written in French. There was also the problem of putting our senders address on the form. I asked if I could put our US address on the form instead of the current French address, because we wouldn't want anything returned to our hosts. My French language isn't very sophisticated, I have to admit, but somehow we communicated all this and successfully completed the forms, the weighing and placing of forms with sticky backs, onto the packages, and all was finished and Bon Journee (good day)was exchanged with all in the PO. I like the French manners. They all asked if we were in line....in this small PO...no, Apres Vous, I said...after you! Merci Madame:) Thank You.
We felt like we had been doing this ALL DAY. I guess we had.
On the way home at 3.30pm, we felt like we needed a hot drink. Lets go to the next town and see if we can find one, I said. However, just up the hill we remembered that the Madeleine Factory was nearby, and turned down that road.
Parking in the lot with all the other little cars...yes, Im making a joke about them now...we went into the Magazin (store...Maga zarng) and were confronted by multiple baskets of samples (which we didn't understand were samples, first up, until we saw people taking them by the handful as they went out the door!! Freebees!) and boxes of different product. WOW!
Madeleines are made of Genois sponge, which is an egg and sugar sponge cake in small cakes, either shaped oval or long (Financiers...feen ong see ayes). We plucked up the courage to do as everyone else was, and took a sample while we watched the goings on in the Robotic Packing shed next door, which we could watch through a plate glass window.
It was pretty fantastic watching all the machines doing their thing, but the people ultimately did the stacking, which was in typical French style...only went fast enough for the person to put two boxes at a time onto a pallet. Sheesh! Directly below us was the plastic wrapping machine which was fun to watch. The pallet arrived and stopped inside the laser beamed area. The plastic wrap machine started up and began wrapping the boxes on the pallet. The top of the pallet had a black plastic cover, and the machine wrapped from top to bottom and then up again, finishing with the plastic being trimmed off and the end was caught by another part, ready to start the next pallet wrap. Fun!
We brought a couple of samples home with us. The one on the right is a dark chocolate covered, chocolate chip Madeleine. The one on the left is a milk chocolate 'enrobed' (there's that sexy French word again!) Financier...coconut! Excellent, both of them. Waz said he had sampled the coconut one at the store.
Having just divested ourselves of extra baggage weight, we obviously needed some more...as you do:)
I was looking for these Dark chocolate ENROBED Orange longues (tongues)...yes, they are tongue shaped.
Interestingly, nobody tried to speak English to me, and just assumed I spoke French. I guess I am good at nodding and agreeing with them, so they think I speak the language. Always amuses me until I cant respond appropriately, then they look at me funny! As they should, lol.
I understand a lot of what they are saying, but I get stuck for words, when I have to reply. I guess with time that would change and my fluency would improve. One would hope so!
We were grateful to get home and put the coffee pot on. We ate the samples and enjoyed those, but we wont be having an early dinner tonight, as a result.:)
Cats have been fed, some are back inside, and I need to go out and close the shutters.
We are not having a fire tonight, as Waz has cleaned out the Fireplace. We needed the ashes to be cold first, and as we are leaving on Saturday morning, we didn't want to dirty the hearth again.
We need to go and pack our bags tonight. Tomorrow will be spend doing last minute laundry...we wont be home until Tuesday, so this will be the last opportunity for us to do so. It will be all Hotels from Saturday night onwards.
We decided, instead of going for another night in Paris, Saturday night, that we would stay in Bordeaux and visit the Christmas lights in the old town. They weren't there at the beginning of our stay, three weeks ago.
We will TGV back to Paris on Sunday, after dropping the car back. We have really enjoyed our little Renault, 5 on the floor. Plenty of space for two people and large enough for all our bags etc.
We are returning to Bordeaux via our friends house. We have some things to leave with them, for when we return in January. Nice to have the ability to do this. It also saves us purchasing things such as toothpaste, shampoo and body wash, again, in large bottles.
I'm off to put the Sausage and egg pie in the oven to reheat. Good thing I made a large pie and froze the rest. It makes our last couple of nights easy to cater. We will finish up most of the small amount of vegetables in the fridge, and enjoy the last two nights with the cats.
Au Revoir for now.
Those Madeleine look amazing. Hard to resist when you know there is a limited time of accessibility before returning to the States.
ReplyDeleteWe might have gone there earlier, had we thought about it, lol....good thing we didn't, or we might have eaten more of them:)
DeleteDo you have google translator on your phone?
ReplyDeleteNo, Sandy we don't, we have a different app. I prefer not to use an App. Waz has it for his use. I try to speak as much French as possible when I'm here, and that means listening actively, and using my limited language in the best way possible, and asking people for the right words. I get lots of help from the locals, which is fantastic on their part. :)
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