Road Trip…B&B style

Last weekend we decided it was time for our first road trip, so we headed to Normany, France. For you history buffs, you probably know that Normandy is the home of the invasion on D-Day from WWII. I will get into the specifics of Normandy and the American Cemetary in my next post, but I want to set the stage for this trip before we get to all of that.

Those of you who know me well, know that I like to have PLAN for everything. So, you can imagine my anxiety when we didn’t have a hotel room booked for this excursion as of noon the day we were leaving; Normandy had just gotten 2 feet of snow 24 hours before we left; and we were relying on Nigel to do all of the directions. Nigel, BTW, is a GPS.

Luckily, our friend Jeremy called Marie and got us 3 rooms at a B&B in the middle of Nowhere, France. She spoke ZERO English, so none of us could make the reservations! “Sank You Jeremy”–(inside joke). So, 7PM comes and we head off in the Ford S-MAX, which is probably the largest vehicle on the road here in France. People stop to look at the monster on wheels. It is WAY smaller than my Toyota Highlander. I guess they are just used to Smart Cars around here?

11PM comes and everywhere in the little town is shut down. We see one light in the distance (hoping that it is Marie). Nigel, of course, had stopped working since GPS units aren’t known for their directions in the middle of Nowhere, France. So, we pull up and pray. Little Ol’ Marie comes out to greet us in her shawl and house shoes. I had not a clue what she was saying or IF we were in the right place, but quite honestly…I didn’t care. We were crashing here even if all 5 of us had to share a room!

Daniel and Marie had quite the conversation (I was pretty impressed with his skillz). Eventually, she lead us upstairs to “the sleeping quarters”. I snatch up the first room (honestly, since there were 2 beds in the room, I figured all of us were staying here and the lines of communication were just messed up. Let’s be honest…I wanted to be sure I got a bed and not a floor!). But, NO, she keeps going onto the next room. Handson and Bethenny take their pick. Then, Bachelor David gets the last room. 3 Rooms total….hooray! Marie shows us the “toilette” and Bethenny and I both look at each other. I guess we are all sharing a potty!? Yeah!

Once we started to discover our room, we had a full bath waiting for us. And man-o-man does Marie like Bleach. It was the cleanest place I have been in a LONG time. Thank you Marie! David was just as lucky. However, that toilette was for Bethenny and Handson. They also had to spoon in a twin bed. Sorry guys, we didn’t mean to give you the short end of the stick! Needless to say, Bethenny was ready to skiddattle the next day.

9AM sharp: Marie had fresh bread, fresh jam, fresh coffee, fresh hot chocolate, and fresh milk and OJ waiting for us little Americans. She had a wonderful fire crackling in the corner and the cutest smile on her face. Thanks for everything Marie, we will be back when the weather is warmer!