We got up really early today, because we wanted to catch the 10am train from Paris St Lazare station to Caen, Normandy. Regretfully, this was no to be, all thanks to the pace at which the French work.
What happened was that we assumed Monsieur Phillipe would have the reservation of our Normandy cottage all sorted out by the time we were checking out, so all we needed to do was grab the confirmation fax and go. To our dismay, he only started to fax the confirmation through when we were about to leave the hotel.
In the end, his lack of initiative plus the tardiness of the other side caused us a whole precious hour We were only able to leave at about 1030am, so by the time we reached St Lazare, our only option was to take the 1220 train. Arrrrgh the French!
Onward! Here we go again!
The train ride took 2 hours so all of us took the chance to catch a few winks. Terelle did a major poo poo in the train, so it was another unglam diaper change moment. Woe betide the poor guy in the same carriage as us, i think it took a whole lot of politeness and self restraint on his part not to change carriages immediately.
We finally reached Caen at 3plus in the afternoon and proceeded to rent a car. It was actually more of a mini van, and it accomodated all of us pretty easily. Hubby was the designated bus driver; it was a novelty at the start, but after a while he got quite tired of driving it!
Coffee for the journey ahead!
We made a pit stop at a Shell kiosk for coffee and snacks, and it was here that Terelle had an accident. She was running around and pulling everything off the shelves as usual, when she suddenly decided that she wanted to climb up the stool at the bar counter. It swiveled around and she fell, hitting her mouth on its metal bar.
As she sat on the floor crying and clutching her mouth, i was terrified to see blood pouring through her hands. I thought she had broken her nose! On closer inspection, it was actually a deep gash on her gums. Still we were quite worried when we couldnt stem the bleeding, we were afraid that her tooth might have been loosened because of the impact.
Thankfully, she calmed down after awhile and could even eat some cheese and crackers, and we reached the Croix d'Or Hotel without further incident.
This hotel is actually a "logis" which means charming lodging, and boy was it really charming! We were definitely not disappointed by Monsieur Phillipe's recommendation! He finally did something right for once!
Kara taking us on a guided tour through the logis. We had interconnecting rooms that spanned the whole 2nd storey. Our toilet alone was already bigger than our entire room in Paris!
Sadly we spoke too soon about Monsieur Phillipe doing something right. Somehow the manager at Croix D'Or thought we were a family of 4 adults and 2 children, so they only prepared 2 rooms for us when we actually needed 3 rooms. He quickly got on the phone with our champion Monsieur Phillipe and after much haggling and a little unhappiness on the Croix D'Or manager's part, we managed to get another room at just 30Euros. Well that's not so bad, at least he kinda made up for it!
Just outside our logis, on our way out to dinner
We headed out for dinner a short while later but most of the shops had already closed. However we found a little eatery still ablaze with lights, so we ventured in for our 1st proper sit down dinner together, in France that is...
Luckily for the dvd player, which kept the girls occupied so we could enjoy our dinner in peace
Sigh, after awhile they still ended up running all over the place again!
We all retired back to our luxurious rooms after dinner. Terelle's cut on her gums was still oozing blood every once in awhile and when we awoke the next morning, we had the shock of our lives, cos the entire bedsheet was covered with bloodstains.
We had to sheepishly report this incident to the front desk, lest they think up of other embarrassing reasons for the bloodstains.
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