Tyler goes, Keisha comes

Sunday, July 11 

On Sunday Tyler and I went to the airport. He was leaving to go home and I was staying for a few more days for a Photography Retreat with Nicole Hill Gerulat and Candice Stringham in the south of France in a town called Beynac-et-Cazenac.

One of my good friends from Texas, Keisha, decided to do the retreat with me so she flew in the day Tyler left. 

Keisha and I rented a car to drive to Beynac. I wasn't able to select a GPS online, so I figured I'd be able to get it once we got to the counter. Oh no. A very rude French woman from Europcar informed me that I should have booked it ahead of time and there was nothing she could do. Keisha being the smart person she is had printed directions from the airport to our hotel in Beynac.

We had a little Fiat that we named Larry. It was a manual car and Keisha was the only one able to drive it. We took off on our merry way. On a Sunday. Made it just fine all the way to the southwest of France. When we were getting close to our exit Keisha said we needed to stop for gas. We pulled off into the rest area but there were two signs for gas, one for trucks and one for cars. We went the wrong way, and could not find anywhere to turn around!

No problem we figured. We'll just get some once we're off the next exit.

The next exit happened to be our exit. We looked for gas and pulled into a gas station that said it was open. Now two words I know in French well are Ferme and Ouvert. I learned it well in Montreal. The sign next to the pump said Ouvert which means Open. But that was a lie. They were closed, and the machine didn't accept cards.

So we kept going on our merry way to Beynac. Praying to find an open gas station. There were several signs for a gas station, but none to be found. Keisha looked at me and said we're out of gas. I looked at her and laughed because I was sure she was teasing me.

Nope. Not teasing. By a miracle there was a dirt area right after a curve we were taking that we were able to pull into. So we ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere in southwest France on a Sunday.

Keisha asked me what we were gonna do and I said we'll get out and flag somebody down. So I did.

The first people that pulled over was a couple with two kids in the car. Neither me or Keisha speak French in this. In Paris Tyler did most of the speaking, and most everyone spoke English so we really had no issues. The wife spoke very little English, somehow she understood we were out of gas, asked if we had a can (we didn't), and then asked where we were going. I told her Beynac. She looked at me very confused and said Beynac was the other way about an hour away.

Awesome. Now we were without gas, AND lost... without a GPS remember.

The nice lady informed she was sorry, but because of the kids she couldn't help us. No problem.I'll just flag someone else down.

The second people I flagged down was a couple in a black mercedes with a white dog in the backseat. They spoke even less English than the first couple with the kids. The guy came out and immediately went on to what else!? Fix our tire! And then he realized by my incessant pointing to the gas tank that we were out of gas. The wife said in broken English that they would take one of us to get gas.Keisha said you go because you speak better French than me and I'll try to figure out where we went wrong.

Without any thought I grabbed my purse and jumped in the car with strangers. As soon as they started driving I immediately thought "What the HECK AM I DOING!??? I don't know who these people are!? They don't even speak English! They could kill me!!!" I was a little freaked out.

We drove a good 20km, got to a gas station, and no card was accepted at the pump... and it wasn't open either. So we get back in the car and another 30km later a gas station with a card reader. Only problem is the machine won't accept my American card. Why? Because European cards have a chip in it for fraud protection. I attempted to explain to the couple about the chip and she inserted her card into it and filled 3, one liter, bottles with gas. I paid her back, and tried to have her keep more for all the trouble but they refused.

We drove back to the spot where Keisha was waiting. On the way back the wife asked me what we were doing. I told her a sob story and how Keisha has recently gotten divorced and she was sad, so we took a vacation together. This was in part French, part English with the French words being marrie, divorcee, triste and vaccacion. The rest was pointing and English. Yes... I'm a French speaking rockstar.

We put gas in the car, but were still on red. So we were not out of the woods. We took off driving and decided to stop somewhere, a hotel, to ask for directions. I pulled out my book of French phrases, and off we went. This elderly couple was sitting out and spoke no English at all. I pointed to the book to the phrase that made sense "Je suis perdueJe suis perdue". Somehow I made out that we needed to follow the signs to Bergerac.

Still we did not have anything solved about the gas. I told Keisha to just keep going and I had faith we'd make it there. Literally we started driving and around the corner, less than 2 minutes was a huge gas station and a super market! We were laughing hysterically at this point and couldn't believe it. We still had the card issue though. So I stalked a girl on the pump next to us, tried to explain with my best french that my carte had no chip while pointing at my card, then pointing at her card and flashing her money. She got the point and let us fill up the car with her card and we paid her cash.

We finally arrived to Beynac 15 minutes later. We were so happy and so tired. Poor Keisha was jet lagged and had been driving the whole time. We checked into our hotel and went to eat immediately because it was late. We went to the restaurant across the street from the hotel where I saw many of our photography group eating. The menu all in French, no English speaking staff. I saw riz on the menu and decided to order that because I knew riz was rice. The waiter looked at me as if asking me if I was sure, and I nodded bravely I was sure. Keisha stuck with an omelet since she knew what that was. I got my dinner in a little pot, a strange looking meat in it, and 5 grains of rice swimming in this weird brown sauce. It just looked like brain to me. So we called the waiter, who didn't understand us, but got another person that told me the meat was veal. Keisha kept trying to convince me it was veal and smelled like it. I kept trying to tell her that veal did not look like that. We both tasted it. She voted for veal, I voted for something else. I played around with it and decided not to eat it. I also saw something under the meat that looked like a stomach. Later on as we were leaving - me still hungry - we saw a menu on the outside of the restaurant in English. I learned that I ordered Veal Sweetbreads. From watching the food network I knew it wasn't a good thing, but I could not remember exactly what it was. We showered and I got on the computer to check what sweetbreads was. Yes... thymus, stomach, heart, pancreas. Not normal meat.I was just happy I didn't eat it. I know my meat dang it!

After this mess of a day we went to bed, exhausted, and me hungry.