The weather has been getting better each day. It’s wednesday morning and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. We open the doors and windows to air the place out, and decide to have breakfast at home. Croissants and nutella and scrambled eggs from “les poulets élevées en liberté.” Chickens raised in liberty. Now that’s even better than Free Range. Chickens who are free to choose their own form of government. Free to do whatever it is chickens want to do with their lives. These eggs should be quite good.
After a delicious breakfast, we set about changing our plans. The internet hadn’t quite reached Fécamp yet. That, or they realized that shortly after a visitor would hit town, they’d log on to TripAdvisor.com to find out what other towns in the area might have accomodations.
We decided to aim for Dinan. But we needed some WiFi to figure out our options. We found Le Flibuste, a brasserie/tea-lounge and the hippest place in Fécamp. Actually, Le Flibuste would be pretty hip anywhere, even Stockholm or Berlin.
We ordered some hot chocolates, cider, espresso and got down to business. All of us. Three iPhones, one iPad, a Thinkpad X301, a Nokia N900 and a Nokia N8, all sucking down megabits while we drained our espressos. God, it felt good.
We stayed for three hours that afternoon. I managed to catch up on my work email, find a double and triple room at Hotel Arvor in the center of Dinan for the following two days. The girls were able to update their Facebook accounts with glamorous photos of them, and make their friends jealous with their accounts of our fabulous seaside accommodations. We finished up, and made reservations for dinner at Le Flibuste later than evening.
It was a beautiful, sunny evening, with a gentle fresh breeze gliding in from the English Channel. Raquel and I and the girls went for a walk to the grocery store, and found a wine shop where they let us taste some Burgundy they were considering stocking. Though they were behind me, I knew the girls were probably doing what they often do when I’m tasting a wine: elbowing each other, whispering “watch him do that swirl with the glass” while the other takes a fake drink and swooshes it in her cheeks. Then they look at each other and discuss,
“tastes like sweaty socks with bananas.”
“Yes, but only the finest aged sweat–from a, uh…”
“Wildebeest?”
“Yes! Exactly!”
We got a bottle of Côtes du Rhone and left. Wine prices, for very good wines, are remarkably cheap here
On the way home, we found a potential restaurant alternative to Le Flibuste. They had a number of interesting dishes. The word for “plate” in French is assiette. This particular restaurant had nice pictures of some of the more popular choices on the menu. Here’s the menu that they’d posted on the wall out front.
I’ve never seen the word assiette abbreviated before. At least that’s what I think they were trying to say. We didn’t go there after all, and Raquel didn’t find it particularly funny that I would be interested in having a plate of Mexican Ass.
We called our hostess, and arranged to meet her the next morning, Thursday at 10am to hand back the keys and collect our deposit. After hanging up, I was really hoping it was clear, from my broken French, that we meant 10am, not 7pm.
Ten A.M. the next morning, I looked out the window, and our hostess was outside waiting by her Peugeot 205. She was yelling at her dog, a Yorkie, which seems to be a popular breed in France. I couldn’t hear what she was saying to it, but it was probably something like, “Why can’t you shit on the sidewalk like all the other dogs in Fécamp? Why?” And she gave it a whack with her hand.
I came out to greet her and she stepped inside. She apologized for the rainy weather today, but noted how nice it had been all week. We didn’t venture any more on the topic of horses or hairs. I handed her back the keys and she wished us well on our travels.
Facebook fabulous in Fécamp…
Leave a Reply