Today England; a demain, la France

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Bonjour mes amis,

Demain matin nous allerons a la France. Okay, so I probably ruined the French language with that sentence, especially since this computer won't let me change languages, thus preventing me from adding the appropriate accents to the French words. Pardonnez-moi, s'il vous plait. Hang on, I'll see if I can add some Italian to the mix and mangle another language, too...(sorry, Eileen).

Tomorrow, June 23, my cousin and I head out on another adventure. Although our train does not leave Waterloo until 10:30, we have to get out of Wiltshire much, much earlier. Drivers who enter certain areas of London during peak traffic times have to pay a "congestion fee", so we will be dropped off at Heathrow around 7:00 a.m. and will hop on the tube to get to Waterloo, with only one transfer, thankfully. Neither my cousin nor myself have ever ridden the "Chunnel" train. Neither my cousin nor myself have ever driven a car in France, either, so we will have at least two adventures tomorrow. Let's make that three. My cousin has driven many roundabouts in England but, Western Canadian that I am, I have never driven one at all. Ever. In any country. And I have to negotiate three of them just to get to the hotel. All readers who are praying people are being asked to invoke the good Lord, all patron saints, and all guardian angels of all people in Lille on June 23. A spirit of wisdom would be nice to have, too, so I know when to stand on the brakes and when to burn rubber! In fact, a few prayers from now until June 27, when the car is to be returned, would be an excellent idea.

I wouldn't be driving in a foreign city, reading signs in a foreign language, negotiating roundabouts, and praying in as many tongues as I can muster if it weren't necessary. But getting to all the WWI cemeteries and sites I want to visit is challenging on buses and trains, at least according to all the directions I have seen on the Net. I popped onto MapQuest today to get directions and began to think that the trips to Ypres (Ieper) and Passchendale might be even more adventurous than previous jaunts. We will be in Belgium then and the names of streets are at least 12 letters long. Map Quest found it necessary to tell me that the name of one street changes at some point, providing both names, of course. I looked at them both several times and finally began comparing the names to see what this great change is. It's nothing like Via Innocentus III changing to Via della Spaghetti. Not at all. The only difference between the street names is one letter; yes one letter. An E changes to an A. That means something in Flemish but, frankly, by the time I figured out something had changed, I would have missed the turn off of the road with the A and ended up in Bruges! Romance languages I can sort of figure out; Flemish is another story entirely!!

So, while Nonna Leslie and her husband are making their way around Saskatchewan, Canada, reading signs in English, hunting in vain for really good Italian coffee, Nonna Margo will be navigating in at least 3 languages, only two of which make any sense to her. You can understand the call for prayer!!

are planning the trip so that we see all the appropriate sites, lay the desired flowers and take the desired photos in 3 days, leaving us a couple of days to bus and train and walk and get lost in Lille. My poor cousin has no idea what she is getting into with me.

I shall seek out an internet cafe in France and update the blog from there.

Ciao per now, (sorry again, Eileen)

Sola Nonna et ma cousine

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