October 20, 2015
Day 91: Nantes to Montreal: Well, no riding but we did actually push our bikes about 1/4 km!
It needed to be an earlier start than we have been doing of late, to be sure of getting to the airport in good time. But Michel got up double early to go to the bakery. He was already back with baguettes, croissants, and some small sweet pastries before we crawled downstairs. We would feel badly about absorbing so much hospitality if we did not know that we too would delight in doing the same thing if the roles were reversed.
The airport is called Nantes Atlantique, a name it got because the town in which it is located is rather too obscure to lend its name (and have anyone find the place). Nantes itself is much like our own Victoria in size and feel, and the airport is also similar - large enough to have everything, small enough for no hassle.
The trip to the airport was well timed for Michel, because he could drop us and at the same time pick up his wife, Jeannette, who was returning from the States. The "No hassle" rating for the airport applied to our whole experience, and we waved goodbye to our bikes at the oversize baggage in plenty of time to go welcome Jeannette back.
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I later wrote to Michel to thank him for all his kindness. We have been fortunate to find maybe a dozen people in Europe over the past four years who we can count among the finest we have ever met. Michel and Jeannette are among them, and are as treasured as any of the memories or pages of blog that we have had the fortune to accumulate at the same time.
While thinking about this select group of people today, I also thought about the people of the half dozen or so countries we have passed through. The welcome we received was so thoroughly warm that it was almost unbelievable. Especially heartwarming this time was the number of times people in France referred to us as "les cousins Canadiens". It's hard to express just how good that made us feel.
The Air Transat flight began with me "noticing" that our plane, an Airbus A310, was old enough to lack the in seat entertainment system that had been so enjoyable on the flight out. The seats also were just slightly less wide. I say "noticing" because Dodie told me to quit complaining. So I was careful thereafter to only "notice" these factors!
It turned out that Transat had compensated a bit by offering a free entertainment selection that could be accessed from ones own computer or tablet. The selection was a bit limited on this, but it did do the trick of hypnotising me for the necessary 7 hours. One thing that was on there was a Quebec film called La Passion d'Augustine. This concerned a convent-music school in rural Quebec in the 1960's. It was a moving film, and had lots of images of rural Quebec, a good reintroduction after 90 days away.
Over 3500 miles (almost 5000 km) later, we were on the ground in Montreal. A van-taxi easily swallowed our bikes, which had also quite handily survived the trip. We got deposited a few blocks away from Josh and Sabrina's place in downtown. The city looked appropriately icky, in comparison to Europe. It may take a while for that impression to fade.
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Not icky, but lovely, were the faces of our loved ones here - Josh and Sabrina, Amelia, Evelyn, and Joseph. Evelyn had been talking about running into our arms, and she did that!
Actually, no one was home quite at the minute we arrived - but there was a nice note on the computer, and the special products that Sabrina knew I would be looking for . This included, of course, a dozen bagels. This will keep body and soul together for a while. But after that - I will be jumping on Josh's bike to see what baguettes are around, before I forget what a real one is supposed to taste like.
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