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| Sculpture in Nantes |
After my visit to Bangladesh, I continued to celebrate my
special big “60” by visiting some of my old haunts and meeting my old friends:
Cheltenham ( I lived for 9 years) in June,
London ( I lived for 4 years) in July, Cornwall ( for old time sake) in August and then to the Loire Valley ( I was with
my husband in 1991) in late August. All places I visited from April onwards brought
back lots of memories with friends I knew ; however my stay in the village of
Chalonnes-sur-Loire with a French family, I hardly knew had added a new
experience to my life in France, what
might that be?
Equipped with very few words of French, (the language I had given up learning!) I went to Chalonnes-sur-Loire with English/ French dictionary
to help me over come the language barrier with my hosts whose English was as
poor as my French. My five days with them were filled with real French hospitality;
I mean real French hospitality, the only problem was that I could not cope with it after my
first day with my hosts. I have heard so much about the outdoor, long drawn eating habits of
the French excellent cuisine,( the best in the world) serving up to four courses for lunch with wine. I had the “full
Monty” day after day and all I wanted was a sandwich and a glass of water for
my lunch after my first day of excitement was over. Not so, as far as my hosts were
concerned and there were no words I could find in the dictionary to explain my
very humble and hospitable hosts that I have been over fed and over drunk with their
generosity.
As for the French loo habits, there were no words in my dictionary for me to start a conversation on the subject with my hosts and here I shall not even start writing about it
as to what I did not do right visiting the French loo everyday during my stay with my hosts?
Religiously, every day after lunch my hosts took me out, to
see and walk the beautiful Loire valley, visit the vineyards, visit the art
galleries, the city of
Anger, famous for its
castle and
Nantes
famous for garden sculptures. However I often found myself tired, sleepy and
not appreciating all the beauty around me and to keep myself awake I kept
taking photos, altogether I took 250 photos in 5 days!
For me five days of living my French dream was turning into a bit
of nightmare, I couldn’t wait to get home to pick up my English habits, good old chicken tikka masala sandwich plus a glass of beer, can't beat that!
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