Date: 25 October 2008 18:36:48
1. Visited places I've never before
2. Slept with a friend's boyfriend
3. Slept with her mother
4. Driven 1000Km from mid-France to the UK
5. Managed to survive in France without being able to string a sentence together - many thanks to Mini's mum and boyfriend for the help with this
6. Found my way from Lyon to Montbrison without help and by talking to French people who didn't speak much/any English
7. The Auvergne volcanoes - from not far away
8. Driven passed a few little known places - Vimy, Vichy, Arras, Compeigne
9. Driven around the Paris Periferique - if you haven't then you won't understand the sheer pleasure/nightmare it is
10. Avoided any real traffic delays - until we reached the M25 & M4 today
11. Met many nice French people - a contradiction in terms I know :-)
To show how small the world is....
I have a friend who drives for a living; he makes his living driving his van around Europe. Yesterday I rang him to discuss my route from Montbrison to Calais. He had driven to Southern France on Tuesday and had been looking for a return load on Wednesday afternoon.
He knew I was in Lyon and I knew that he had been down to Clermont Ferrand to deliver. He asked where I was coming from, so I said Saint Etienne way. He'd been there on Wednesday for his return load. So I said, "Well I'm in a little town a few miles away." We talked a few minutes more and then I said I was on Montbrison - "That's where I collected my load on Wednesday."
Now Montbrison isn't a large place and most people would never know it existed.