55. Off the Grid

As I sat around the kitchen island listening to the 80’s music station and eating chips and salsa out of a pink Barbie bowl, I realized just how isolated we were going to be this week. We are living in one of Mom’s camp friend’s vacation home in Louire Valley. Vacation season hasn’t started yet, so we are the first of many in this neighborhood. In the “get away” mindset, the house does not provide internet.  So it’s just us, some books, and a handful of movies.

Getting here was no cake walk. It all started when someone in the family, who will remain anonymous, led us into the wrong train cart. When we realized that there were people in every one of our seats, someone had the initial instincts to get our tickets out and argue with them. Through this, we learned the error of our way and apologized for holding up the entire 10^th car and headed to car 9.

Next came the adventure of finding the car rental place once we arrived in Paris. I am still convinced that we did it wrong. Something tells me that walking down the winding tunnel of a parking garage to the 3^rd lowest level, was not the correct way to happen upon the Avis Budget office. Nonetheless, we found it and have a great car that I took upon myself to pack up. With me in charge, there were no extra bags lining the interior of the van like other rentals we had, but I’m not pointing fingers here.

The biggest and most entertaining bump along the way was that the housekeeper for where we are staying, Madame Monique, does not speak a bit of English. Not a drop. She also didn’t understand that we didn’t speak much French. And by “we” I mean Mom. If Mom didn’t understand, Madame Monique would turn to Dad, who just learned how to pronounce Merci without saying Mercy in a heavy American accent. This led to more than a couple awkward silences with everyone staring at each other. Monique had one speaking speed - fast- and most of her charades were the exact same move. We think we learned where to put the key and money when we leave.  Other than that we were on our own.

I’m sure we will learn the quirks of the place as we go. Most of our houses have had challenges. Last week we woke up to a half flooded kitchen – kitchen is a loose term for the side of the room that included a sink and a clothes washer. In Rome, our toaster would not stay down, and we had to stand there and watch the bread toast while holding the silver slider down the entire time. On top of that once the wires were hot enough, it would take the bread about 2 seconds to burn to a crisp. So there was no time for distractions. In Barcelona, we were in constant fear of being electrocuted by the towel heaters in the bathroom. And in Madrid we couldn’t figure out how to heat the house – Yay for thick socks!

This house has already proven to have challenges. For dinner last night we had microwaved spaghetti, on account that both the stove and the oven don’t work –this explains the gestures Monique made to that part of the kitchen. But that’s a small price to pay because the rest of the house is great! We, once again, have rooms to ourselves and 5 bathrooms. Such a luxury!

We spent the night planning our stops for the week based on a stack of brochures from the local TI equivalent in size to all of my school books last semester. With the map all marked up, we all grabbed our tubs of Nutella and settled down for a Family Movie Night! You didn’t actually expect us to talk to each other in the absence of internet, did you?