Summer faded into fall and fall was nipping at winter’s nose as we waited at the Cafe des Vente for the Americans. They had left Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris at 7:30 AM and by any reckoning should be in the l’Herault seven hours later or by about 3:30PM.
It was now 6:30PM.
But let’s rewind for a moment to get the whole story. Our landlord had rented a village house to an American couple. Then she suddenly had to go up to the U.K. on business and could not meet these folks as planned. This put her in a bind. Then she put two and two together and came up with us. Since we speak English and are American too, she asked us to help and being nice people or just foolish we agreed.
Having just arrived in France ourselves we had yet to get French mobile phones we ended up dealing with the Americans via email. So far so good.
It was a setting out to be a stormy, windy day across France when this we got a buoyant email early in the morning.
“We’ve arrived. It is 7:30 AM and we are leaving Charles de Gaulle.” By leaving they meant getting into their rental car and driving from Paris to the Herault a trip of roughly 300 miles. Now this is pure American. In a country with a TGV that gets you that distance in three hours or where $27 gets you a Ryan air flight to here in 90 minutes, choosing to drive for about seven hours after a ten hour flight through six time zones and paying about $140 between gas and tolls was, well, very American. But look we are still red, white and blue (it’s only been four days in France) so our attitude was “you want to drive-okay drive.”
The folks at the online Michelin site say the drive at legal speeds takes seven hours. So leave Charles de Gaulle (CDG) at 8 AM add seven hours of driving and you get here at 3 PM.
Okay, the plan then is to get to the bar at 2:30, drink some coffee and be the happy “Bienvenue et Aloha y’all” greeters.
We get to des Vente, order our coffee and wait under an awning protected from the afternoon rain.
3 PM and the rain subsides, but no Americans.
4 PM the sky clears and it gets a bit colder. Still no Americans.
5 PM and still no Americans.
Let me digress about one of the lovely things about France. For $3, we got two espressos and the right to sit in the café for the rest of our natural lives. The waiters don’t make funny eyes at you or wipe your table every two minutes or ask if your coffee is cold.
The space is yours.
Finally at 6:30 we write a note and ask the bartender to pass it on to any bleary eyed and lost Americans who appear at his door. The note said simply: “eMail or Skype when you arrive.”
Ten we got home, started dinner and just as we are to sit down to eat--at about 7:30--guess what?
That familiar voice whispered through the evening silence and said “You have mail”
An email from THEM, “Hi, we are at des Vente. Having a drink, see you when you get here. Take your time”
Okay, let me be honest here. This was a moment when I was ready to throw my fellow countrymen under the bus. After waiting around without a word or email at the bar for four hours, I had been all ready to settle into a quiet evening, watch the sunset over the pool and have a nice cold Vodka tonic and bore myself to death with British TV.
Okay we are new here in France. Recently gone from the US of A and I certainly don’t want to disparage my fellow countrymen. But people this was not cool. These were the Weakest Link.
But we did our duty as we had sworn to and went back to town and escorted them to their new digs. After a few ‘bye-byes’ and ‘we’ll see you soons’ we drove off.
And I had to wonder where had they been for those extra four hours?
I was annoyed and then annoyance turned to fear.
Just yesterday I had read that the U.S. State Department had issued a terrorist warning for Europe. It said that the Ben Laden Traveling Circus was up to something and everyone should be extra cautious.
Could these seemingly ordinary Americans actually have been secret agents? Or worse, part of a sleeper cell?
And is that what they did? Did they stop on the road to sleep?
Oh my god!!!
Photos and text © 2010 Steve Meltzer
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