Like McArthur ....we have returned

We have had an interesting couple of days.

Our train from Geneva to Grenoble was rolling along nicely until we hit a little town…maybe Seyelles Cordono in France…. when the train ground to a halt.  Half an our later we were still there and all hopes of catching our connecting train were gone.

So I got out to stretch my legs, get some air and possibly see what was wrong.  I had a hunch it wasn't good when I saw a pair of legs sticking out of one of the doors, and the legs were not moving.

However, some men were.  They were getting a white plastic bag and going on the train.

A 70 year old woman had a fatal heart attack.  They had to follow protocol and the train was delayed about an hour.  Then that car was cleared of people and the train eventually moved on.

When we got to our connection, they put us in a taxi.  A nice red head served as a translator for us and told us what was going on.  We (about 7 of us) piled in the van and headed to our next station.  It was a wild ride!  We drove along the longest lake in France, near Aix les Bains, then arrived in time to catch our train to Grenoble.

We finally made it to Dan's friends house in a small town near Grenoble.  At 8 we sat down for a traditional french meal:  green salad and bread; deboned guinea hen stuffed with chicken, served in a gravy with carrots and cardon and bread; followed by the cheese course; followed by a dessert of fresh strawberries and a raspberry tart.  We finished about 10:15 and waddled off to bed.  Waddled, because the four of us had 2 bottles of wine.  And I have no idea what cardon is, but it was pretty darn good and I did not swell up in an allergic reaction.

We left Grenoble on Tuesday and took a local train to Valance Ville, where we were to catch the TGV back to Miramas.  Impulsive me saw a stop that said Valence TGV and insisted we get off, only to be told we had to catch a train to Valence Ville and our TGV, which does not stop at the place we were at.

We made it with 2 minutes to spare.

For those of you who don't know, the TGV is a high speed train.  It goes about 320 k per hour on parts of its route.  I am not a math person, but that is about 190 mph.  We were passing cars on the highway (speed limit 130) like they were standing still.

Back in St Chamas we wandered past the Petite Cafe de France and saw Yves sitting in the sun.  We said hello, promised we would come back, went home and eventually returned to the bar.  Yves was happy to see us.  He bought wine, cheese,  bread, coffee, more wine and eventually we opted to leave and save ourselves.

But we promised to come back tomorrow for a final glass or two and to say farewell.

We topped our day with a white pizza from Chez Jerome.  Instead of tomato sauce he uses cream.  There were olives, mushrooms, ham, and emmental cheese on top.  It was great. 

We even took pictures of him with his huge vat of dough, the wood fired oven, and we parted with our pizza, hit the house and consumed one half of that and one half of a beautiful red from Dan's friend near Grenoble.

We are back to using the Poly Bureau office…. at least one more time.  We leave here Thursday morning, headed toward the west coast of France for a visit with friends of Dan's.  Next Monday we head for Paris and Tuesday we head for Chicago.  Seems hard to believe the weeks have gone so quickly, and yet so slowly.