Versailles

L-R, The Owner, Sam, and Jose

So we made it off the highway into the city of Versailles. Most people go there for a specific reason; to visit the ornate palace and gardens of Louis XIV constructed during the 17th century . We were searching for something a bit more pedestrian ... EuropCar. As you'll recall from the previous post, we needed a different rental car and EuropCar said the office in Versailles was open. In fact, they were shocked we would wonder whether if it was even open or not. Not being the correct answer.

So we wandered through Versailles and found a Midas. As I said, in classic goat rope fashion, most people visit the Palace of Versailles, we instead visited the Midas of Versailles. Oddly enough the rest of the day was actually kind of fun or at least as much fun as you can have while stranded in a strange city with no hope that your rental car company has any ability or worse, inclination, to assist.

We pulled into the shop with a very un-busy group of workers who were more than willing to help. One in particular, Jose (Jo-zay, not Ho-say like in Spanish) offered to look at the vehicle for us after a brief conversation with Sam. He and I went for a quick ride up the street from Midas (literally on an incline fortunately) and the problem became immediately apparent to him as well as us since he was flooring the gas pedal, the engine was revving as expected but we were still going about 20kph uphill. To this point we were still sort of thinking we were not understanding how the gearing worked. Yes it was an automatic but still you never know when everything, including the dashboard and vehicle manual, are in a different language. Jose assured me that was not the case.

For his part Jose only spoke French, Spanish, and Portuguese ... which put him two languages ahead of me if not necessarily in sync. One English phrase he did know though was "where are you from". When I responded we were from Chicago he said, and I quote "I love the Chicago Bulls!". Thank you Michael Jordan. :-)

We limped back to the shop and Jose began a conversation with the EuropCar people who were just as useless in their native language as they were for Gretchen in English. Even Jose appeared irritated with them ... and this guy was about as calm and unassuming as you could expect. So it wasn't communication, EuropCar just flat sucks no matter what language you speak.

While Sam and Jose hammered away at the impenetrable edifice that was EuropCar customer "support", we found an "American" restaurant literally a stone's throw from Midas called the Buffalo Grill. The restaurant was decorated in wild west fashion with dime store Indians, headdress, Buffalo paintings, you name it. It also had one of the best burgers I've ever had which is quite remarkable when you consider that, by and large, while French cuisine is very, very good, they don't too well with bouef (beef). Seriously the menu was loaded with cheeseburgers, buffalo wings, french fries, you name it. An odd little restaurant in an odd little place.

The bottom line was that Sam and Jose were able to get EuropCar to tow their crummy van and send a cab to get us back into Paris. Actually getting us another car being completely out of the question and besides it was now closing in on 5PM local time so we weren't convinced, at this point, that EuropCar was capable of doing anything correctly.I'd have given 5 to 1 odds against the van being towed, another 3-1 on the cab, and 25-1 on BOTH occurring. The cab seemed like the safe play.

Jose would not accept payment despite his having put more than two hours effort into resolving our dilemma. He was however silly enough to give us his business card and address. The Chicago Bulls shirt hasn't been mailed yet but it will be, you can bet on that.

The trip to Normandy was officially over. Not a total disaster despite EuropCar's best non-efforts but a disappointment nonetheless.

Next: Dinner with Norville in the Latin Quarter