Got a new, sweet ride -- but where do I park it?

Bits and bobs today…The headline event is that my playmates arrived! My cousin, Little Margaret Harris of Denton, and our mutual good friend, Susan Hollister of Durham, flew in this morning. Our rendezvous, however, nearly didn’t happen.

Note to Self: Learn the French words for “car park” BEFORE arriving at one of the world’s busiest airports.

Had a good plan to start with: Get up at Dawn’s Hairy Crack to go pick them up. No problem. Find the bloody airport. Check. Find the correct terminal. Gotcha. NOW WHAT?! Where do I park the car??? If there were signs with directions to the parking garage, I have no idea where they were or, more to the point, what they said. Some symbols would have helped. But at 6:30 a.m. in a steady stream of impatient French drivers it was too early – or too late, depending on your point of view – to whip out a French- English dictionary.

Happily, I had built enough extra time into my journey to accommodate doing several loop-de-loops around Charles de Gaulle and several provinces of northern France until I managed to find the entrance to a parking deck. By then, paying 8 euros for the privilege seemed like quite a bargain.

I’m absolutely delighted my Guilford College buds here, and as usual, we’re having a splendid time. The weather continues to be stunningly beautiful. All is well.

Which brings me to Item #2: The Daewoo Deathtrap has been retired. Previous readers may recall my…er, difficulties with the car that came with my exchange house. Under the best of circumstances I’m not fond of gear-changing. Most European cars have manual transmission and I have managed OK in the past, but there is simply more of me than there was of this tiny vehicle. At the end of every journey I was fit for nothing except some Advil and a heating pad.

So I did the only sensible thing any 60-something, comfort-addicted, creaky-boned, amply-proportioned American lady would do: I rented myself a bigger car with automatic transmission. Because of a mix-up at the rental counter, I got an upgrade: A full-sized Citroèn sedan. What a sweet ride! That sucker cradles my frame like a Sleep Number bed and glides down the highway purring like a kitten. Voilà! I’m back in serious travel mode.

My last observation for today has to do with French children, or probably more to the point, child-rearing. The French don’t seem very big into correcting their children or quieting them down in public places. Cases in point: Yesterday in the grocery store, there were literally dozens of screaming, unruly, out-of-control children. And nary a parental nudge to any of them that their loud, obnoxious behavior might be inappropriate in public. Are these mamas deaf??

And Sunday at the village flea market here in La Frette, there were squads of squealing children who ran wild undeterred by a mother’s knot-jerking. If it had been an American scene, I have little doubt that some little bottoms would have been smarting by the end of the afternoon.

This observation brings me to this advice to the French military: If it ever appears that Germany has the annexation of France on its mind again, simply deploy a battalion of French pre-schoolers to the border. Having to listen to those little chil’ren for a day or so will be all the deterrence needed to stave off a prolonged conflict. Bless their bratty little hearts.