HOWe Things Are…

Traveling yesterday and today. Yesterday, more German countryside, entered France, all while playing fun find new countries on license plates (okay, understanding I am way too amused by some things, plus I’ve never been to Europe except for a couple short day trips outside airports (London, Frankfurt, Zurich). So all/some/most of the EU countries have the same license plate with the little blue EU symbol (stars in a circle on a blue background) on the left. Yesterday, I learned there’s a letter or letters under the EU symbol designating the country. Germany is “D”. Saw lots of “D”‘s in Germany until we entered France at which point there were mostly “F”s (France). However, there were tons of other options. And I got all happy when I found one I hadn’t seen before. (and then figured out what it was). Early on I saw “A” Andorra. Did not know this was a country until my library book which I checked out from Waxhaw on my e-reader while in Germany mentioned it. (a) yay for Waxhaw library and (b) way more prepared for the license plate game.

We’re staying in a hotel just off the highway so my run this morning – the least scenic of all my European runs (basically the industrial district around the hotel). But we went last night to the center of town, which was… guess? Did you guess how Disney would make a French town? There was a couple plazas or squares or whatever. One with a cool church, little outside cafe places, lots of flowers, narrow streets with the cobblestone, but more French looking buildings. We went inside the church and there was a paper explaining its history (in French of course). Something about 1592, something about Hugenots, and some other dates. Not grasping much (and you’d think I’d have more shot in French (four years of high school french) than German.

Last night, I watched most of a CSI dubbed in French. Didn’t actually follow … anything. There was a guy, a girl got shot, there was a dog who died. The guy had a dad. That’s about it. My plan was to watch the closing ceremony of the Olympics, but I didn’t make it past the first 10 minutes or so… slept great however, nice (although ugly) run, back to shower in the shower where you press a button to turn on the water and it lasts a certain time and then shuts off with a clunk (it could startle you if you weren’t aware the water was going to shut off like that). Also, I’m seeing this pattern how things are very compact. The shower room (unlike the German one that was a whole bathroom) is just a shower and a tiny area to dry off in complete with a little blow dryer for your head. In the gross column, the WC here. Just the toilet, no sink. And to get from it to my room with a sink, I touch (and so did every other person) the handle to the WC room, the handle on the door to this hallway, the keypad that unlocks the door. Ew.

In the annoying column, there are two outlets in this room. One fairly high up by the TV. And the cord to charge this is relatively short. Didn’t work well. The other, by the sink (for say, a hairdryer) is pointed toward the wall, and the hairdryer has the plug that extends downward a bit, so doesn’t work in the plug. Luckily there’s not a whole lot of room (compact) so the TV is relatively close to the sink. I have just now taken pictures to document…

So for fun games you can identify European countries by their EU codes:
I saw: GR, A, D, F, PL, P, E, CZ, NL, I, B, GB, DK (there’s also CH but they have their own Swiss license plates, apparently not part of the license plate thing, but recently part of the EU travel zone, Schengen thing, which is how I got a Denmark stamp and not a German one… or French).

Leaving shortly for travel day #2 from here (I think here is called CHALON-SUR-SAONE with a hat accent on the O in SAONE, and Saone with a hat on the O is a river). But when I just checked Wikipedia, the cathedral in Chalon-sur-Saone doesn’t look like the church we saw yesterday so maybe not. No matter. I’m on vacation. I saw some French town somewhere in eastern France.