Saturday, September 21, 2002

    Oh, brother! What a mess! None of our bags arrived in Montpellier, where it was cloudy and occasionally showering. We think three bags never left Paris, due to a baggage handlers' strike in Paris. And this after a forty five-minute delay leaving CDG for Montpellier. We stood in line with fifteen or twenty people and all gave the requisite information. The clerk nearly fainted when we told her we were not staying in Montpellier, but in Peret (of which she had obviously never heard) and that we had no phone in our rental house. When we arrived our host Terry told us his client last week had the same problem and that Air France did indeed deliver bags the next day.
    But of course we had only the clothes we were wearing. Terry suggested that we should collect supper at the local alimentary (a block away, across the town square) and we opted to do that instead of driving to supper. We were both tired and disgusted but an alfresco supper of ham, cheese, a pear, tomato and peach, toasted bread and a delicious bottle of local wine (the wine cost EUR 3.80, which was a little under four dollars) perked us up. Our house is lovely and we felt we were plunging right into local life.
    Our plunge into French laundry systems (Peter Mayle was right!) was less encouraging. Hours later, very wet clothes emerged from our dryer and were hung to dry overnight on the roof terrace. Since there is a clothesline and a prominently displayed basket of clothespins, I don't believe we are the first to encounter this situation.
    Nonetheless, we wrapped in towels and bed covers, watched French TV and ate our local supper. Just right for us.

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