Normandy (uh huh)

With Apologies to Daniel Blore, who's book cover was used for this graphic

So the plan all along had been to go to Normandy for a day. Make-A-Wish was kind enough to build that into our trip for us but, in classic Lent fashion, we were just too clever for them and ourselves as it turned out.

Never made it. And all we had to do was stick to the script.  One of our ancestors, Abraham Lent,  once owned (no longer) most of Queens (this is back about the same time that Peter Minuit was busy ripping off the Indians for Manhattan) so you can see that mistakes of this magnitude go way back and I guess this could be considered to have been preordained given our ancestry.  :-(

The biggest single disappointment of the trip for me ... among very, very, few incidentally. As I've stated before, the trip was AMAZING. Still, Normandy was a must see for me and it didn't happen. I even promised my brother Gary I'd knock back a Calvados (Normandian apple brandy) in memory of all the valiant men and women who died there.

Instead we'd collectively decided we wanted to spend some additional time (overnight) in an area not far from Normandy called Brittany. Evidently (I say evidently because I still possess zero direct knowledge of the subject) they speak a different language than the rest of France and the culture is much closer to the original Celtic. Since we're (at least) half Irish (and half nitwit apparently), that sounded like something of great  interest. Combine that appeal and Sam's manic obsession with languages (I believe she will invent one some day), pretty much another must see of course.

Since the Make-A-Wish folks had already booked us for hotels in Paris all week, we couldn't very well expect them to change the trip last minute with all the extra cost and hassle that would entail so we would plan and pay for it ourselves. No big deal right?

Surely you can see where this is going? Particularly if you know any Lents and have been involved (read as subjected to) anything one of them has ever "planned".

The manner in which we managed to bungle our version of the invasion of Normandy was pure tragicomedy. Had we been in charge of the first invasion back in '44, Hitler and his minions would have ruled France longer than Louis the 14th for crissakes. Maybe Spain too.

Anyway, we decided to rent a car from EuropCar on Saturday morning, the day after our originally scheduled, travel to and return from Normandy one day trip. A very nice, big, Mercedes van. We would travel in style for our big trip to the west coast of France. Sort of.  As you will see presently, a lot of style but very little substance.

EuropCar was way beyond busy, at least the one near the Arc de Triomphe was. We expected that since the final stage of the Tour De France was upcoming the next day but, in classic French fashion, most of EuropCar's other Paris locations were closed and this single, lonely, little underground station was besieged. If service Monday through Friday in France is slow (and it is), then Saturday is turtle-esque and Sunday might as well not even be on the calendar.

The only thing missing were ramparts, catapults, and enormous cauldrons of boiling oil. The employees were unhappy, the customers even more so, and it took over an hour to get the vehicle despite being about 6th in line. Sadly, that was the quickest and most efficient event of the day.

Anyway, we finally get the car and are suitably impressed, right up to the point where we exit the garage up a steep incline. I didn't think we were going to make it honestly. We quite literally crawled up that hill. Now I know there were 6 of us and that we'd ingested far more than a few sandwich au jambon et au fromage (ham and cheese sandwiches and one of the few things we could pronounce in the native tongue) during our week in Paris thus far, but this was ridiculous! The first sign that there was something seriously wrong with this vehicle.

Since there is so much traffic in Paris around the circle near the Arc de Triomphe and Place de la Concord we had no problem subsequently keeping pace with city traffic on a flat road. The vehicle's inherent instability was forgotten for the time being.

The highway was another matter entirely. First, finding the correct route ON to the expressway took easily 30 minutes during which we circled the French Department of Defense complex repeatedly as though we were tethered to the building. Suspect behavior at best, terrorist tendencies at worst.

Eventually, due to Gretchen's unfathomable directional abilities, we managed to wander on to highway A-13. Which is good because this, however minimally, is in the general direction of Normandy. West it turns out. More about that in a minute.

It wasn't long in that high-speed environment that the true nature of our dilemma became clear to us. First, we might not make it back into Paris let alone Normandy since everyone around us was doing 110kph (about 65mph) and we were "going" (maybe) 50kph. A dangerous combination that. Second, that was our downhill rate. I would swear I saw a dog pissing on our rear wheel as we lumbered by. Not good. So we needed to get off this highway and fast (well fast being a relative term and downhill being the preferred method).

During this I discovered the GPS system. Looking back I really wish I had completely ignored the damned thing and just assumed it was some sort of fancy audio system. But no I had to investigate. Two problems presented almost immediately.

One the audio was in French. That didn't seem such a big hurdle since we had Sam with us and she would've been able to relay the audio directions. Worse though was that every time I engaged the audio an arabic voice would begin speaking to us. Allah? Muhammad? Is that you? I thought at first that I was in the wrong operational mode for the GPS. But it was plainly evident on screen so that couldn't be it. As well, we could hear the female French voice interspersed with our Middle Eastern guest.

And no matter how many times I restarted the system the damned Arab narrator would start in again! I kept picturing Achmadinkyjihad speaking, laughing and telling me that no matter what I did he would continue speaking, I would be forced to listen, and we would all die in a fiery death because I would never figure out the GPS in time.

I'm also having thoughts that the French Gendarmes will take a dim view of this material especially given our recent and thorough recon of their defense agency, should they pull us over. I doubt our lineage to a bad Dutch businessman is going to be of much use frankly.

It took me about 10 minutes to figure how to shut him up (a previous driver had left arabic language media in the DVD player) and still be able to hear the GPS audio instructions. The Iranian leader was now gone and during that 10 minutes we managed to crest only a single hill, all the while flashers on, the girls are going through the vehicle manual to see if there is something we're missing about this damned vehicle's drive system, and Gretchen is doing her best to keep us all alive. She is also talking to EuropCar on her cell phone. Fortunately and in a stroke of unbridled lucidity, we'd lived up her Blackberry for use in France the day before.

SO, while I'm happy to be able to call up destinations and search for things in GPS French and everyone is engaged in some form or fashion with ongoing disaster rescue operations, I'm also telling Gretchen we're headed Northeast, but her unerring sense of direction says NFW, we're at least heading west and maybe a bit south. At some point during my GPS map ministrations I'd also managed to flip the map such that west was east and north was south. I really don't think that should be a choice in GPS menu systems irrespective of the language honestly.

Eventually, another 10 minutes, another crested hill, I figure out how to switch the damned thing to English mode. Whew. EuropCar tells Gretch they have a facility in Versailles.  They seem a bit miffed that she would inquire as to whether it's even open.

Let's go there shall we?

Next: Versailles, EuropCar, Midas, The Buffalo Grill and our hero, Jose (pronounced Jo-Zay).

sources:
http://www.amazon.com/Goat-Rope-Pilots-Daniel-Blore/dp/0595159613
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/rikerhouse/lentriker.html
http://www.brittanytourism.com/