Adios Spain, Bonjour France!

On this day we said good bye to Spain and headed off (rather early) to France. 

Today was to be the first day of our 15 day/over two months rail pass so it was time to test it out find out how it all worked! As we had already found our way to the station the day before, getting there was fairly straightforward if more awkward with bags in tow! Once there it there was a wee bit of rigmarole as it was an international train connection – our bags had to go through a security check and then we were kept in a 'holding pen' with the other hopeful passengers until we were allowed down to the actual platform to catch the train.

The Train in Spain arrives on time Now and Again.

The train travel itself was fantastic – as our seats were reserved there were no hassles getting a spot and there was a space in each carriage for luggage. Greg found the journey a lot easier on his stomach although it was unfortunate that we weres seats that meant we travelled backwards! There were even power points between each seat, a toilet, and if we had cared to explore more, there was a cafeteria on there as well.

Happy but quite alseep still!

We changed at Figueres Vilafont from the Spanish train to a French TGV one in which we were in a slightly less spacious upstairs carriage. Lovely views of France and plenty of time relax (and catch up on the blog!)

Lovely green countryside as we travelled into France.

Anyway after about four hours we arrived successfully at Narbonne. We got off and then it was a little bit like “Oh wow, now we're in France. How do we speak French? How do things work here?”

What I thought would be a pretty short walk from the station to our hotel turned out to be closer to 25 minutes on not always stellar footpaths in the very hot sun. Very hot sun! (We found out later it was 28 degrees)

(I'm on another train at the moment and someone has their cat in a box! It keeps meowing...poor thing!)

We finally got to our accommodation. The man at the front desk was somewhat unsmiling but stiffly polite and allowed us to leave our bags until we could properly check in (it was only 12pm). So we ventured out once more, phrasebook in hand, to find some lunch and figure out how the heck to survive in France. I couldn't even remember why I'd chosen Narbonne rather than go straight to Carcasonne, but never mind. The town was very sweet to wander through, and not at all touristy.

Pretty river winds it's way through town. Although the river's course had begun to change in the middle ages, there had been some more recent to work to make sure that some water still made it's way to town.

We meandered for a while looking for food, feeling quite nervous. We had heard that the French do 'menu's like the Spanish – a three course meal with various options for a set price – but as we walked past places they had their menus on display... of course totally in French. Eventually Greg looked at a place with nice tables outside in the shade and said what about here? Nervously we approached. I had tried to memorise 'table for two please' and attempted to start saying it, phrasebook in hand, but the man standing out front spoke english and smilingly directed us to sit down.

Hooray! Food is coming!

Feeling relieved that ordering wouldn't be totally dependant on our rather limited/non existant French (except for counting to ten, I had that sorted - thanks Michael!) we relaxed. The menus were given to us along with our cutlery. Then our waitress came along. She gurbled cheerfully at us in French and I, assuming she had asked what we wanted, confidently said that “I would like Menu please” in French. We kind of thought the Menu would just be a set thing. Unfortunately it turned out that each course had options, and the options were blackboard options rather than written on the permanent menu so it we had to chose from what the waitress told us. Hearing it verbally it was even harder to figure out than seeing it written! The waitress valiently used what little english she had, scoured the phrasebook and even typed stuff into the french–english dictionary on my phone. Eventually I found the phrase “what would you recommend” and to everything she said we agreed happily, no idea what we were going to get! But it was smiles all round – she was extremely nice and patient.

Surprise salad! It turns out chevre is goat's cheese!

In the end we got a goats cheese salad, which Greg really liked but the cheese was a little strong for me, but overall not totally unpleasant. Followed by lamb chops (“cutlets” the waitress had been saying over and over in such a thick French accent that we didn't realise she was using English!) with a mountain of rather nice chips.

...and when the waitress says "Cottelot" she is actually speaking English and saying "Cutlet"... lamp chops!

Kafe... :)

For dessert we got something we are now very familiar with: “Ile Flotantte” - floating island - which is a whipped egg white meringue floating in custard with a caramel sauce – it's just genius! I got a couple of 'kafe's' also to counter the early start we'd had.

Ile Flottante!

When we were at last finished, Greg called the waitress over and haltingly read out “can I have the bill please?” from the phrasebook while the waitress grinned over his shoulder, already able to see what he was saying. “Well done!” she cried.

All in all we were feeling pretty pleased with our success (although to fair it was all thanks to the lovely waitress – she got a decent tip!!) at our first real French interaction. I was pretty happy to finally be somewhere where everybody wasn't already fluent in English – as long as people are friendly and easygoing about language barriers trying to communicate with the locals in their own language is always more fun! We decided that we had done well to start our France adventure in a little town in the south where english speaking tourists are more of a novelty and less of a nuisance! 

Just wandering round town.

That lunch was pretty much the highlight of the day. We wandered around for a bit and found some of the 'sights' of Narbonne which were closed up tight. Then we figured it was time to go back and check in. On the way I made use of a public toilet in a park – 50cents for a rather unpleasant experience in which I contemplated the possibilities of contracting HIV or Hepatitis.

Pretty tree lined avenues and old school French buildings abounded, just casually.

When we got back we were allowed into our room. The man at the desk even cracked a smile, so maybe he'd had his afternoon nap or something. The room was a decent size and quality, with good internet reception. We chilled out for several hours. We were defintely starting to need a bit of a holiday from our holiday at this point!

Once we felt up to it we ventured out once more. We found the supermarket and bought some chilled water and some random french potato chips (according to the dictionary one was mustard flavour and the other was flavoured with lancers (as in jousting) which was fairly uninformative..eventually we discovered that they were the same as ready salted).

The mustard ones were pretty gross if you got a heavily seasoned one!

We went back to the train station to make sure our tickets for Carcasonna and Sete the next day were sorted. The sweet old lady in front of me in the queue tried to make conversation with me. She was pointing at another woman who was being served and saying 'Picasso' amongst other Frenchy things. The woman's dress was a bit like a Picasso painting so I'm guessing that's what she was remarking on. My weak apologetic protest of “Je ne comprends pas... Anglais...” was largely ignored and she just kept repeating herself in a friendly but insistent way. It was funny though – especially when the information she was trying to impart was hardly essential (I think). In the end once I kind of figured what she was on about I smiled and said “ah, oui!” and that seemed to placate her.

At the desk I copped out and immediately asked the lady “parlez-vous anglais?” - I was prepared with key phrases in case she didn't, but the bottom line was what I wanted was a little complicated and I was willing to bet her english however poor was still better than my French! She smiled and said something in French that I decided was “a little” (It seems to be the standard response to that question – when it isn't a flat out no - even when they're fluent in english). Between her, Greg and I we managed to figure all our tickets out and again, the teller was very friendly, smiley and patient. We got our tickets, grabbed some timetables and headed out. Today was all about successfully communicating!

Outside the cathedral.

Then we decided to see if we could visit Narbonne's Cathedral, it's main 'attraction', built when Narbonne was a significant point of trade due to the river and it's proximity to various regions in France and The Spanish border. The cathedral never got finished because the river's course changed away from Narbonne as did the politics and the money wasn't there anymore. Unfinished it's still a fairly imposing sort of building. We couldn't go in because we arrived too late – it was already after 6pm. But it was still worth a wee admire.

Greg and the sundial fountain by the cathedral.

Courtyard beside the cathedral. We wandered through it until we got yelled at in French by some dudes. "Pardon" is a useful word.

A fountain near where we found dinner.

We dropped all the stuff off at home then headed back out again to wander around Narbonne's shops and buy some dinner. I got some postcards and a new SD card for my camera (already filled two up!). Not too hungry after the massive lunch we found a patisserie selling filled rolls. I managed to point at the rolls we wanted and say “I would like this please” but unfortunately yet again there were options. Luckily the lady behind the desk figured we were english “chicken or tuna?” she asked. We sat at the tables and nommed our rolls (bagettes?). 

The square where we eventually found dinner.

As we finished we saw the shop man was packing up the tables so we stood up to clear off so he could close. But he stopped us and asked where we were from. We told him New Zealand, he was geniunely surprised we would come so far to visit Narbonne. Then, using broken english he managed to make reference to the rugby world cup (he confusingly said 'next year your country win the world cup'). We had both forgotten the final was between France and NZ! Of course rugby is probably the only reason a dude in the middle of nowhere in France would have heard of our little country! He tried to ask us if we liked another kind of sport, but he didn't know the english word for it. He flexed his arms and stomped, so maybe it was wrestling? Sumo wrestling? American football? We were pretty lost and of all the conversations to try and have with a language barrier involved, one about sports was never going to be a winner with Greg and I. So we politely extracted ourselves with many thanks and headed off home.