Nous sommes ici

Well, we made it.

Vancouver to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Toulouse, Toulouse to Cordes.

I realised the day before I left that I was living in cloud cuckoo land if I thought my limited French was going to suffice. That said, at Toulouse airport I did manage to convey to the woman at the information counter that I wanted to buy a French SIM card and I did manage to follow her directions to the appropriate shop, where this got me what I needed: “Je voudrais acheter un SIM carte avec beaucoup de” (hmm, what could the word be? Let’s hopefully try) “data?” Probably not the word, but she got my drift and I got a card with 30GB, which should do the trick.

Into the Hertz office where I knew my French wasn’t up to snuff. “J’espere que quelqu’un parle anglaise?” Phew. The answer was yes. Dang. They gave us a much bigger car than I was expecting and, apparently, we couldn’t change it. Dirk is definitely going to be doing all the driving.

Getting out of Toulouse is no mean feat, even with Siri talking one through it. Eventually got to Cordes, at least an hour later than we’d estimated, where we were met by our AirBnB hosts, Phillippe (who fortunately for me speaks English) and Sylvie.

Could they be any more charming? Or welcoming? Non, ils ne pouvaient pas.

A bit of shopping. Strictly essentials – beer, wine, baguette, cheese – then settle in after long journey.

And now it’s morning and time to go explore the medieval village we will be calling home this month.