Sleepy Suffolk

Barely a fortnight into the new year, and here I was jetting off again to some far-away overseas land. This is the fantastic thing about England: pretty much everything, save Wales and Scotland, is over a murky body of sea conveying excitement and mystery to any trip no matter how close, business-like, and uninteresting it may be. Yes, an escapade to a remote Walloon town can suddenly sound like a trek to an unchartered land all thanks to the Channel.
This time though, I was off to Madrid to visit my father who’d been dwelling in the eastern parts of the Spanish capital for the past 8 months or so. My mother still being in France, I decided I’d pay ‘my old man’ a visit and show him a good old time in Madrid’s many joints, bars, and restaurants.
Much like most travel from Eastern England these days, it all started with a Ryanair flight from Stansted Airport on route to Madrid’s 4-strip airport. And suddenly the excitement and thrills of overseas travel had been dwindled down to a bland necessity to fly on board Europe’s cheapest - in all senses of the vocable - airline. But to complain would be like shooting oneself in the foot. We, consumers, have brought Ryanair unto ourselves by begging for ever cheaper fares and complying with the airline’s whimsical regulations in order to achieve such ridiculous prices. And to be quite honest, if the wary traveller fully plays along (i.e. doesn’t bring luggage along other than a small carry-on bag; checks in online; lets other passengers fight for vital space in the long queue reminiscent of long-gone post-war rationning eras; take it easy and not care about flight delay), then the airline delivers perfectly.
I was surprised to note there were a few fellow Frenchmen flying out to Spain: in the queue, I eavesdropped on a very interesting conversation between two 20-odd French passengers ignorant that others may well understand their language. At least, time flew by for me as I listened to their banter. Once inside the aircraft, I grabbed a seat in the very last row and was shortly joined by a pretty girl and a male friend of hers. They too chatted away like there is no tomorrow. The girl seemed fidgety. She was merely nervous to be flying and surely soon enough she snapped at me in French thinking I wouldn’t understand. All this because I had my HTC contraption turned on (in flight mode of course). I replied that (a) I’d understood her every last word, thank you very much and that (b) my phone was turned off. It’s a shame we hit it off that way because apart from her nervousness, she seemed like a very nice girl in all proportions indeed.
The reason I’d left my smartphone turned on (in flight phone I stress again) was to be able to trace the plane’s route using a GPS receiver I’d recently bought. I had cached Google Map images of the route in my phone before the flight and so, I was able to plot my route and follow the progression of the flight as it went up north of Stansted and Stevenage to then circle round London, past Reading, Heathrow, then finally south to Southampton, the Channel, Britanny, and at least some 200km well off the French coast (past Nantes, La Rochelle, and Bordeaux) into Spanish mainland over Santander, close to Burgos, Segovia, and lastly Madrid.
Once the Ryanair bird (I mean by that the plane, not any of those calendar pin-up girls) touched down at Barajas, I hastily made my way to the underground and some 40 minutes later, both my Dad and I were enjoying a famous fizzy Dutch beverage in the apartment kitchen while chewing on some delicious local chorizo y morcilla (de Burgos por supuesto). We caught up on family chit chat and gossip which was thin indeed. That’s the problem with permanent ubiquitous communication means. Family members update each other in near-real time nowadays which means that by the time you get to see family facef-to-face, everyone already knows everything and there is little point in rambling on about Auntie Emma’s latest amorous conquest (no I don’t have such an aunt).
The hour being well into the night by French standards, we called it a night and went off to sleep to doze off.

Disclaimer

The IT-minded readers of this blog will tend to wonder how Brad Chen relates to a seemingly odd word ‘roscón’ while the not so IT-geared Spaniards will ponder who in the world Brad is and what his relationship to one of Spain’s national cakes is.

A grand day out

On this glorious and sunny day of mid-January, I headed out to London to attend a security talk at UCL given by Brad himself on Native Client, a Google project focusing on secure clientside execution of native code. The talk took place at UCL’s Bloomsbury campus a couple streets behind the timeless British Museum. Rain drove us quickly into the building’s lobby and a few other attendees and I waited for the amphitheatre to empty itself of the previous lecture’s students before settling in.
Soon enough Brad came along, gave us a presentation as well as a convincing demo of Native Client before taking questions from the audience. The main concern that arose was whether Native Client was indeed novel (by comparison to previous attempts e.g. Java applets, CGIs, ActiveX) and how security was handled. If one is to execute native x86 code on their own personal PC, they had better trust the source of the code.
More at UCL Event Details and Google Native Client

La galette des rois

On the way out, I strolled over to Holborn and - feeling in a rather merry mood - went to Paul, a French bakery chain, to enquire about a French galette des rois. Traditionally France, Spain, and other countries celebrate the Three Wise Men with a specially crafted cake called Roscón de Reyes in Spanish or Galette des Rois in French. The celebration takes place on the day of the Epiphany, January 6th. But very often, the celebration (or at least the cake-devouring part) stretches on until the later days of January. And so, Paul still had quite a few roscones to be had and I acquired one thinking of my housemates’ delight at eating this French delicacy. This was by no means an easy mission as Paul Holborn redirected me to Paul Covent Garden claiming it was the only (yes the one and only, the unique, the marvellous) store in all of London to still sell the French galette.

This no galette, this is a Bask cake

This outrageous statement came straight from my beloved Navarrica housemate, Amaia, who scornfully but gladly mouthed in a piece of galette. So this was no proper roscón, merely a pale French version of a local Spanish cake. Shocking indeed! Napoléon would have performed a whopping somersault had he not succumbed to arsenic a few years before. With National pride in jeopardy, it was time to turn to the books to set the records straight: who of the Spanish or the French had invented the cake? And which was the authentic one? Had the integrity of the roscón been breached? A quick read-through of Wikipedia, the ever-increasingly authoritative source of Truth, taught us a few things: firstly the tradition is not linked to the Wise Men (so much for my earlier comment); and secondly France has different cakes depending on the region and the southern French cake seeped into Spain before the time of Felipe V (so much for the Pyrenees as an impenetrable border). The French Rooster could now stand tall and persnickety having dispelled the Iberians’ intrusion in French culinary matters.

Let’s go to IKEA

By now, one may wonder how IKEA fits into this story of IT security and Spanish cakes. One of the reasons for gathering round the cake at our house was to prepare our upcoming trip to Schruns for a skiing holiday. Still can’t quite see the link? The Swedish furniture-in-a-kit company, source of Nordic swagger, and Amaia’s favorite pasttime, irrupted into the conversation when Maria, our beloved Andalusian midwife sprang into the room not unlike a Jack-in-a-box and declared «vamo’ a IKEA».

Or so we, the non-Spanish speakers, thought. What she had in fact said, in her delicious Linareh accent, was none other than «Vamos a esquiar» which translates to «let’s go ski». Our puzzled looks generated an uproar of laughter from the trans-Pyreneans. Maria then clarified what she’d actually said and we moved on to talk of our future adventures in snowy Austria while nibbling on the last few crumbs of the galette.

Wednesday, who doesn’t love a Wednesday? It’s halfways through the week, there’s only two days left before crazy Friday (thank god it’s only Friday that’s crazy) and you’re comfortably settled in your work routine. Ah the bliss of the Wednesdays.
And that’s not even half of the story. On Wednesdays, my best buds from right around the corner come round in a big mighty truck (they’d call it a lorry or possibly a van) and drop off a box of swell vegetables (the very same ones where Amaia’s sweet swedes came from). And on that day, when I hurry home from work, it feels a bit like Christmas all over again: I’m in eager expectation of the box. I open the garden back door, peep in, and - now it feels more like Easter egg hunting - I peruse the garden with by box-seeking eyes until wham I locate it, tucked away in the corner between the living room door and the cloakroom window (if one can call a glassed 10cm wide gap a window).
The expedition takes on a rescue mission twist as I lift the box and sundry up and rush them to the kitchen. You see, although one can check the contents of the box online, I never bother doing that. I’d much rather have the surprise. As a matter of fact, even when I order known extras (like butter, meat, etc…) by the time the motherlode’s delivered, I’ve forgotten what I’d asked for. And so the surprise is truly genuine.
Today was no exception. If anything today, the surprise effect reached its climax. Firstly, it’s mighty cold outside and the sole feeling of going inside a warm home is titillating indeed. Secondly my roommies are still very much away and being home alone in the kitchen, even inert vegetables are a true solace. Thirdly, the Christmas effect hasn’t worn off and this is the very first, one and only, box of 2009. There won’t be another box #1, will there now?
Today, my order came with a second refrigerated box (to be specific a styrene box with packs of ice). Now that’s kind of amusing as the weather has been so inclement on the Fahrenheit scale that it’s probably colder in the garden (and for that matter the downstairs cloakroom - again) than in the styrene box. In other words, why bother?

They say this period of the year is made for resolutions, for instance, to eat more healthily after such hearty Christmas meals crowned by the inevitable brandy-sloshed pudding. It seems Abel and Cole have heard Mum’s advice loud and clear for as I unfolded the box, out came carrots, turnips, parsnips, and the odd potatoes; that accounts for half the box’s veggie population. The other half teemed with clementines, bananas, and the usual suspect, the apple. This and regular squash sessions with matador José should put me back in shape in no time.
And so, the remainder of my Wednesday evening was spent cajoling my box, tucking the vegetables away in their respective shelves, and planning what to cook for the rest of the week.
Until next time, bon appétit!

Have you ever noticed how often the engines are on when you board a train, a plane, or other means of public transport (including buses)? They’re nearly always on - even in the case of planes where in lieu of the main engines used for thrust, an auxiliary engine runs to provide the cabin with enough electricity to light the passengers’ way through to their seats.
Now, have you ever noticed how often those engines are turned off well before departure for a handful of seconds sometimes stretched upwards to a full lengthy minute? Why do they do that? Is it a sign from the conductor / pilot / driver? Are they signalling out to us that yes they do exist? Do they want to remind us of their existence? Surely we passengers do not naively think these feats of human engineering can self-drive themselves? So why do they do it?
On this last day of an eventful 2008 (quite a vintage it turned out to be - sour grapes mixed with plump ones), I was on the 1737 train from Cholet to Angers when just the thing happened. We (the odd passengers and myself) were comfortably installed in a second class coach waiting for the train to extricate itself from the station when, once the conductor had announced an on-time departure, a dying engine sound was instantly followed by a total blackout in all coaches. Within seconds, the engine had purred back into shape and the lights were once again shining brightly.
I couldn’t help but think of the conductor out there alone in his cabin (or is it called engine room or perhaps something more modern, inspiring more grandeur). What were his plans for the passing of 2008?
On this note, let us welcome 2009 and celebrate the end of yet another year.
Good night and until then,

Yours truly.

Not so long ago, I’d have had to go to Harwich, take a wooden vessel - probably a small rocky caravel - to undertake the daring crossing of the Atlantic Ocean to eventually reach the New World.
Nowadays, I have to travel further away from Ipswich, all the way to London’s southern airport, Gatwick, to even consider reaching America. However, of course, we don’t travel in caravels anymore (not even the flying one) to America. The captain won’t be Sir Walter either. In lieu of sails, ropes, and masts, I’ll be snuggled into a close fit seat in one of many rows of a Boeing 767 - probably not the window seat - and the trip will last a mere eight hours or so. Rather than setting foot on the warm sand of the Carolinas Outer Banks, I will tread the possibly worn carpet of Atlanta’s hub airport, home to Delta Airlines who still love to fly (and it still shows). At least, I won’t be sea-sick.
It’s been a long seven years since I last strolled around American streets, nearly a decade since I deambulated in NYC’s downtown alight with the spirit of Christmas. I cannot begin to describe what it feels like to return to a land one has known well enough to call it home.
It will be the first time too since I’ve moved to England and as such going there will be a linguistic test. How much of the British language has rubbed off on me? Dare I walk on the pavement? Have my language inflections changed? Must I monitor my vocabulary closely for fear I slip a word a tad too Suffolk-like?
In due time, I will report on this whole new experience.

Last night approached the surreal for my little suburbian life for which the most adequate has to be tranquil if not sleepy like the county where I have settled in.
Last night we hit town, the big one with a capital C as in City. Last night we went to London’s northern borough of Camden to attend a concert like no other in a venue grand in name and feature, Alexandra Palace. The boys on stage were none other than the four fellows from the brisky country anchored out in the midst of the Ocean, Iceland, a country that has reached unparalled heights of publicity with the economic crisis in recent weeks. But to be fair to the ebullient island, it is also famous for its singers namely Bjork and Sigur Ros, two groups / singers who have severely redefined the aural landscape.
If it hadn’t been for a late night talk with a new colleague of mine, Jia-Yan, I wouldn’t have been aware that Sigur Ros were in London for a couple of nights reciting their favorite Icelandic chants. I had discovered with Laurine a couple of years back in her room in the ‘German Mansion’ along with Coco Rosie and Iggy Pop.
As the big handle flirted with IIII on Ipswich’s redundant church’s clock, JuanLu dropped me off at the station where we caught up with Jia-Yan and Alex who’d only just arrived. The journey went eventless though we did manage to lose two friends who were to catch up with us in Colchester but up to now it still seems they caught the wrong train or failed to see us in the coach. We listened to a few tracks of music, including work by a very new artist whose name I shall keep hush; and eventually in spite of signalling trouble at Ipswich Station (the Indian must have fallen asleep in his tipee) and congestion at Liverpool Street, we eventually made it to the City with a good thirty minutes of delay.
In a matter of minutes, we sped to the Central line, oystered our way through the gates and stepped onto the escalators which swallowed us down the underground tunnels. A couple of changes and a jolly enjoyable ride on the Northern Line (Bank Branch) later, we made it to Highgate. Taking the underground can be fun, entertaining, even pleasant. But when one is lugging more than two bags (i.e. in hands full mode), taking the tube can reveal itself to be an interesting challenge. London TFL does make it simpler with sidegates avoiding the overloaded mule a tourist can be the trouble of extricating one’s way through the revolving gates. Nonetheless, carrying several bags on a moving train could often be compared with an equilibrium exercise a doctor might have recommended his ill patients in a XIXth century sanatorium in the Swiss Alps.
Travelling all the way to Highgate, then the following day around London and the woeful Paris underground with its sinister RER felt very much like a trial of balance.
Back to our bag of beans. After dropping off our luggage at Clare’s pad (a selfless friend of Alex’s), Alex and I hailed a cab to go to the venue. The concert was due to start at 9 and by the time we reached Alexandra Palace, it was a good few minutes past 8. By then of course, and as very often, I was penniless having ditched my queens and shields (colloquially called quids) for some Mariannes and Belgian Kings (aka euros) ahead of my trip to Paris the following. As such I had to rely entirely and solely on the very broad shoulders (and wallet) of Alex, my English friend. Being English and averse to gluten, he invited me to a platter of chips which in the sudden cold unforgiving temperatures were like golden raindrops of warmth sent straight from Heaven (rather than fried potatoes from the fields of Norfolk). We munched on these fishy chips (they slightly tasted of fish) as we progressed through a very orderly queue - as one would expect in England.
Alexandra Palace is in fact no palace but it does commend superlative adjectives to one’s mind. Such are its dimensions, grandeur, and style that the novice is very much overtaken by the archways, the slightly oriental stuccos, the voluminous rooms, and of course the sound. We were indeed greeted by a rhapsodic ruckus as we entered the main music hall where the start up band was warming the waiting crowd. Alex, displaying his speleology skills spaded his way through a tightly packed sea of fans to Jia-Yan with me tagging along with a Canadian student in his wake of crowd wrath.
The Canadian Girl, Maria, having lost her friends in this hive of fans, buzzed around with us and even offered to share her snack with her: asparagus. Yes indeed, asparagus. Well to be precise, chocolate asparagus. You needn’t look bewildered. She wasn’t carrying a hoe, wicker basked, and gardener’s apron either.
And finally the concert kicked off. There are no words to describe what I felt then. I guess one would have to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and bite into Dahl’s imaginary vocabulary to come anywhere close. My hair stood straight up, it almost felt as if I were floating in ether, and there was a rush of cool air blowing our minds away. It rained confetti on the dazed crowd; it plain rained too between the stage and us. There were movies projected on the curtain of water. Magical! To some extent it echoed in my mind what I imagined whilst reading Locus Solus, Raymond Roussel’s whimsical opus.
Once the concert was over, none of us were truly in a talkative mood, as we were all awed by what we’d heard and seen. And so after parting with Jia-Yan and her friends, Alex and I walked home and shared a nice little chinese dinner in Clare’s dining room.

Part I

Again we had decided to wake on the brink of dawn - at least respectably late dawn - around 8 AM or so. The weather was grey but not inclement and we were grateful for the sole fact it was not raining for after all this was November in France, not the mellowest month of all.
We made our way down to the ’stable’ where our hostess had laid an even more impressive breakfast than the one we’d had day before. She had concocted several jams of her own devise: one could read on the handwritten labels such intriguing mixtures of pumpkin and lemon, zucchini with orange, apple with carrot… She had carefully laid the jam preserves in an S shape across the table. There were surely 10 or 15 different flavors to choose from. And to go with them, we had bread of all sorts - fresh from the baker’s - as well as croissants. This time we were the only guests present and had the table to ourselves though it could have easily catered for 10 or more. We soon got to banter and happy chit chat with the lady who soon pulled out a folder where she’d proudly maintained translations of her ‘Welcome to the Buisson’ text. And believe it or not, although the folder did contain 10 or so languages, it had neither Spanish nor Portuguese which are 2 of the most widespread languages in the world. It did have however such remote languages as Corean and whimsical ones as Creole. Disheartened by this absence in her booklet, JuanLu and I decided to translate to Spanish and Portuguese. While Spanish was a wheeze, Portuguese proved more gruelling to the point that I could not recall some basic words. For instance, I was incapable of remembering the word for pillow. We knew it in Spanish (almohada) but could not recall the Portuguese equivalent. A few days later we had the opportunity to check and as it turns out, we were a mere letter short as almohado translates to almofada in the lusitanian tongue. Eventually, in spite of my lack of vocabulary, both JuanLu and I managed to produce a scraggy translation that would have had Camões and Pessoa uneasily shifting on their seats.
Shortly afterwards, the morning melting away into early afternoon, we headed off to Chenonceau for a slice of French history.

Part II

to be continued…

Part I

Day 2 saw the advent of an oddly gorgeous, sun-drenched morning in the tranquil town of Bourg. We had decided we would breakfast early - well before 9 - to enjoy a full morning touring about the small scenic village, the riverside and the nearby sites. And while we did manage to extricate our sleep-laden bodies from the snug bed sheets (each of us with our own set mind you) on time - which is a feat of its own right considering two of the explorers are Spaniards - we squandered our time happily chatting around the breakfast table with the only other guests of the logis, a couple from Britanny (which incidentally happened to be the hostess’s home region).
My fellow friends managed to capture a word here and there and piece back together a puzzle of a conversation to make sense of what we were bantering on about. Not mentioning the breakfast itself would be an injustice to our hostess as she had provided us with ample fresh bread, croissants and other palate-teasing pastries, which surpass those Danish phonies one can acquire at Delifrance, UK. The choice of jams was rather delicate as we were offered a palette of flavors and colors. And we could coalesce saucy strawberry with pale peach or raptuous raspberry.
At last, we were all packed and on our way. JuanLu’s Ford Fiesta pulled out of the manor and after a wrong turn that took us back to where we came from, we eventually found the riverside road where we stopped for a few picture sessions, just a few snaps to get Leopard (not Cohen) framed. November had all but vanquished the last few hours of October and the leaves’ rich hues reflected the victor’s mood. The salty air was rich in this typical humid dirt scent which so often teases our olfactory senses. Had it not been so cold and crisp, we would have surely gone about running through the vineyards like 15 year-olds rolling about in the leaves, but of course we are responsible adults. Besides temperatures forbade we even considered exploring the countryside for more than a handful of minutes.
And so we took the car over to the next little village, Plassac. The previous night, in the logis, I had read there were Roman ruins in that village, ruins of a villa. My vivid imagination had taken on from this little fact and had constructed a lavishly decorated villa with crimson frescoes reminiscent of Tuscany landscapes. An inch of imagination more and that little grey matter would have had its way with a couple citizens of Latium lazily lunching in a triclinium whilst local slaves - Gauls most likely - poured them the bacchic essence of the best local grapes.
I had whetted my friends’ appetites to convince them this was the way to go. They would settle for no less than grandeur: what a disappointment it turned out to be. We soon realized that in lieu of frescoes, we found a field full of fern. In lieu of foot-thick walls of antique plaster and stone, a few solitary stones timidly sprung from the ground erratically. And in lieu of audio guides, tourists, and a new-age museum, we found a closed door and a sign that read ‘musée fermée jusqu’en avril 2009′ which of course for non French speakers was as good as greek. But for the rest of us, it painted gloom all over the place.
After our close shave with the fourth century BC, we decided to jump forward a few centuries and soon enough we were on the road to Blaye, a village known for - surprisingly enough - its wines. What else would one expect in this region? It’s a bit like gaping in awe at a flock of sheep in Wales. Well what on earth else did you expect? Shaun?
Now let’s be truthful. Blaye is a fairly sized village - bigger than Bourg (and not as picturesque) and has a couple other attractions including a Vauban fortress and a basilica (Saint Romain). The fortress was built on the site of several castles the oldest dating back to Roman times (if memory serves correctly). Its situation was then of military importance strategically overlooking the Gironde and thus controlling all boats going upstream. What is left of the fortress spans a good deal across a hill and one had soon got lost in its walls. The view from the walls was most breathtaking with the horizon out west and North west hiding the ocean.
An interesting thing about the fortress is that it has a sign which reads ‘basilique St Romain - tombe de Roland’. Reading this had the effect of a lightning bolt. All little French boys and French girls, when at school, learn of the heroics deeds of a young man, Roland, who died at a brave young age while fending off an attack of ignominous barbarians (possibly the Maurs) in the Pyrenees. It is said Roland hurled his sword at the ground thus splitting it and creating a passage way through the mountain. Clearly a sane mind can then detect a hint of folklore and not factual history. But go explain that to a dazzled little child carving for knight & princess happy-ending stories. And to be perfectly straight, Roland is said to be the nephew of Charlemagne, one of the greatest Emperors Europe has known. The French claim him, so do the Germans. He was a Franc (a Germanic tribe - this three-word phrase being somewhat an oxymoron), converted to Christianism, and was crowned in Reims (modern-day France) where traditionally all other French kings were henceforth to be crowned.
With this background in mind, knowing that I was within yards of a shrine of French (or German) history, made me like a little puppy on his first walk round the neighborhood: as excited and jumpy as a circus flea. Again disappointment reached the pinnacle of the expectation. As it happens, the basilica is no longer open to tourists - not that it’s in the hands of an evil private owner who refuses to open the site’s doors to eager eyes - but rather that there are no doors left to be opened. As a matter of fact, there are windows, walls, pillars, altar, choir, pews left. Actually, come to think of it, there were more ‘leftovers’ at the Roman place earlier on. If we carry on at this speed, what will Chenonceau (our touristic aim for Day 3) be? A minimalistic grain of sand in a cubic inch glass exhibit? This is where D&K guides come in handy - they show you what to expect. One should redub them the WYSIWYG tourist guide. It avoids tears welling up the history-avid guide.
Both JuanLu and Enano smiled at me when we all realized what was left of the basilica. A 40-something woman busy smoking what seemed to be a cigarette enlightened us with a few snippets of local history: «on ne sait pas bien s’il est enterré là mais c’est ce que l’on suppose. Il n’y a pas assez de moyens pour continuer les fouilles.»

Part II

A few sandwiches and a couple sips from a cold bottle of water later, realizing how late it was, we decided in unison to ‘hit the road’ and start moving north. We had estimated a 4hr-ride via ‘nationale’ (toll-free) roads. Before we left Blaye, we stopped at a local vineyard we had been recommended in the town centre called ‘Chateau Le Siffle-Merle’. There, we met a young lady perhaps in her late twenties, early thirties who took us on a taste ride of the wines they produce: a white sweet one and 2 reds. Now the Bordeaux area is not very famous for its whites and the production of the latter is fairly recent and confidential. The wine she served was indeed very sweet and palatable. She then made us try 2 reds quite similar with the exception that one was vinified in a nobler way using casks of wood. On our way out we bought a bottle of each, increasing our stock of delicacies meticulously stored in the Fiesta. We all had in mind a dinner we wanted to throw upon our return in Ipswich. And I certainly had in mind Asterix’s tour of Gaul whereby he stopped in different towns to acquire the local specialty.
The rest of the journey was eventless. JuanLu dozed off a bit while Enano drove on the French highway void of any traffic (French holidays had just come to a term and all were but back at work or in school). On the way, we passed Poitiers and its Futuroscope of which we barely caught a glimpse. The Futuroscope is a theme park built around the cinema and image industry. It contains several high-definition screens, animated seats, flying carpets and other technological feats sure to wow the younger minds.
They say in IT & networks that the last mile is always the problematic one. It is also true of driving. Without a decent map of France, let alone a poor one, and no GPS, the only help we had was from reading Google Map’s indications which were necessary to get by but not sufficient. As we neared Amboise, we suddenly had an urge to double check our location and route. Now of course, in the middle of nowhere, with no traffic about, it is easier said than done. But finally thankfully we spotted an IBIS hotel where we stopped for a few minutes.
This is where the story gets very XXIth century-like. Parents and oldies alike please skip ahead if you fear a techie overload. Now most folks would reasonably enter the hotel and ask for directions. After all we were less than 10kms from our destination, it was 9PM or so and pitch dark, and we had no map. The imprudent traveller might indeed have gone in to ask for help but we knew better what with the likes of Norman Bates out and about - such a Shining example of hospitality. So instead, we took JuanLu’s iphone and scoured the ether for a wifi hotspot and surely IBIS came equipped with an orange wifi zone. In less than a minute we were trekking on the web checking Google Maps as to our whereabouts and the directions to take. It couldn’t have been simpler: carry straight on until you reach the Loire, then turn right, follow the river until you reach Mosnes and then turn right again for a few miles until you’ve reached your destination, ‘Le Buisson’ (the bush).
Such said Google, so we did. And twenty minutes later, we had a reached a closed gate, a very dark house, and the dire prospect we had either found the wrong ‘bush’ or simply arrived too late. I pulled out my phone and called the number I had thankfully jotted down, just in case. Several rings later, a woman answered the phone and we were relieved to hear we had indeed reached the right shrub, just a wee bit late as the owner had already called it a night and was no longer expecting us. Soon, she had shown us the way into her house, a refurbished farmhouse along with stables turned into lounge-breakfast area. We were profusing excuses as to our lateness but her cheery mood soon quenched our fears. She kindly gave us plates and silverware to have dinner. WIth the time being so late (flirting with 11PM), we decided to stay in, open a few pouches of chorizo and lomo (courtesy of the Prietos), pop open a bottle of red Bordeaux and drink to the health of our second day out, Amboise, and the lady from the Bush.
The room itself was most cosy with two great sofas overspilling with pillows, cushions, and animal skins (probably sheep). On the far end of the wall, there was a horse manger full with straw and LED lights giving the room a Christmas-like cheer. The table in the center seemed to be made of massive wood and its colors reflected the rest of the room: mahogany; red; brown; rich fall hues. As for the room, it contained 2 single beds and a double bed and again we were impressed with the level of hospitality and comfort. We soon drifted off into a deep slumber after so many kilometers and such a long & filling day out and about. The following day would be about French Renaissance, palaces, the most beautiful avenue in the world, and a late night pizza (or was it dawn?).

And so it came. The grand day out, the day we took JotaLu’s cherub, his very own talkative Ford Fiesta out on the wide roads going North.

Prior to leaving for Tozeur, Tunisia, I snapped a couple pics with my everlasting Polaroid camera. Two of these came out exceptionally well methinks.

and