Chasing Shiny Pennies

I’m well aware that I’ve been negligent. We’ve been busy. And had a period of short and very short stays. Not only that, I was behind on my planning. I’m trying to catch up. It’ll all become moot shortly.

Today (April 1st). Two train rides. The first leg, to Toulouse, was 2 hours long, and packed. We stood the whole time. There were numerous stops and they kept packing them in. We changed trains in Toulouse.

Rather than make one reservation from Montpellier to Pau, I had made two. The layover time on the single reservation was 6 minutes and I figured we’d need more than that. It turns out that the connecting train to Pau on the single ticket departed from the adjoining platform, so we would have been fine. The train from Toulouse to Pau was less crowded and we got seats. But not together.

This goes back to the whole seat reservation thing. Both trains were listed as “seat reservations optional”. We’ve asked multiple agents about that and the response is always the same….”I can’t make reservations on that train.”. Leaving one (well, me anyway) to ask, “Ok, who can?”. The man behind the curtain, apparently. We have yet to find the mysterious dispenser of those coveted reservations.

You know you’re in trouble, though, when you’ve corralled a seat, stowed your luggage, and are sitting watching other passengers board…….and they’re looking carefully at their phone or a piece of paper and comparing it to seat numbers. We got booted from our seats on the Toulouse to Pau leg by someone who knows a guy whose cousin knows the janitor that works in the otherwise inaccessible reservation office. We found separate seats and waited, with bated breath, for the train to pull out of the station. At which point you’re safe…..until you arrive at the next station and more passengers board. Then you go through it all over again. Hoping against hope that they don’t have your seat number in their phone or clutched in their hand.

There’ll be more on this later. Kinda like the driving stories that wouldn’t end. Re-runs with a twist. Where else you gonna get your entertainment? Netflix?

Have you seen the new series? It’s about a 71 year old and her much, much, much younger boy toy (or toy boy if you’re from Ireland or Scotland). It’s an adventure…..

Anyway, We got to Pau. Go. It’s a nice town. You can ride a funicular. It was Liz’s first time. Beautiful views of the Pyrenees. We met Martine, our hostess. She lined us out. We dumped our stuff.

Then we went down, sat at a sidewalk cafe on the Boulevard of the Pyrenees, had a drink, and drank in the views.

We only had 2 full days in Pau. We got some good wandering in; we went on a tour of the castle…..”Sir, if I have to tell you again not to touch the artifacts I’ll have you ejected.”. The day before we were to leave, I was trying to find us a place to eat that was open on our out-of-sync eating schedule. I found a place, we took the funicular down, walked 3/4 of a mile, and the place was closed. I checked google maps again. They assured me it was open. I knocked on the door. They were closed. There was another spot just down the block…..that doesn’t exist. So then I found another spot. A most excellent spot. It was a 15 minute walk according to google. After about 5 minutes Liz began to despair. “Are we there yet?????”. “I’m hot!!!!”. I had to carry her the last 500 feet. But we found it. Or at least we found somewhere open; and from a distance we could see people chewing. Liz slid off my back and sprinted the last 50 feet.

The first full day, though, was abbreviated because we did laundry. That’s when the washer drained itself on the floor of the apartment. We rounded up towels, mopped up what we could…..knew it wasn’t enough and called Martine and told her to bring more towels. It turns out that she had some plumbing work done a day or two before we arrived and the guy had neglected to put the washer drain hose back in the drain.

We never did make it to Larrau. I got to fretting about renting a car again and driving in a new country. Maybe pushing the luck a little far. At this point I’m not sure I’ll drive when we get back to the U.S……..you go drive for a month in Ireland and Scotland, then tell me you don’t feel like you’ve used 23 of your 9 lives.

I’d just like to say to Tina in Killybegs and Rosemarie in Castletownbere that I will visit again. And I’ll drive there again. It’s a beautiful country.

Then we left for Paris.