2001: Belle époque, mal époque.

by Carl Russo


3.


The Red, White and Blue flaps patriotically alongside
the Blue, White and Red in Avranches, Normandy.



I read the results of a survey asking Europeans to rank foreign tourists by rudeness. The English took the laurels unanimously. This gave a boost to my Ugly American inferiority complex. But we couldn't understand how your typical Brit could act more uncouth than your typical Yank until we overheard two old birds on a visit to the medieval dungeon of Loches. One gray-haired gal told her equally griseous partner how to deal with French hoteliers. "Demand English!" she declared in an uppity Margaret Dumont accent. They repeated it together: "Demand English!" and cackled loudly.

Vanessa and I demanded nothing but an end to the rain that pounded us from the bus station to our hotel on the sidewalks of Tours. After checking in, changing out of our wets, and finding a market that sold umbrellas, we gave our taste buds orgasms at Le Charolais Chez Jean Michel. (We chose it for its low, low prices, not its fancy-schmancy name.)

A British pub-cum-internet bar looked inviting, so we ordered pints and climbed the stairs to the computer room. I can't help it—I'm addicted to the film reviews in the Village Voice. Home page headline screaming, "THE BASTARDS!" Photo of smoke issuing from the World Trade Center. Another dumb Hollywood blockbuster, I thought, till I read some story.

Downstairs in the bar a big-screen TV showed the collapsing skyscrapers with the sound turned down. We stared blankly. A short, chubby Frenchman asked if we were Americans. We answered yes, to which he burst into tears and hugged us. It was the most touching moment of our trip, and I'd spit on any American ideologue who bashes the French.

But it still hadn't sunk in. Back at the computer the next morning, we'd received several freaked-out emails from the home front. In the poorest of taste I replied, paraphrasing an old Woody Allen line, "I was nowhere near New York or D.C.!"

Even my most radically un-American leftist friend wrote, "Wow, the thought of you guys tasting wine in the French countryside at a time like this. I just don't know."

Neither did we, but we continued on to the lovely castle-town of Saumur to taste wine and eat mushrooms in a bizarre mushroom cave, all the while searching for an International Herald-Tribune, which was sold out at every kiosk.

Before sunrise we were on a northbound train to Normandy, where a traditional family-run inn held our reservations in the city of Avranches. Highlights included a galette saucisse with spicy mustard from an outdoor vendor, the round hole in the skull of Bishop Aubrey in the Saint Gervais church (Archangel Michael thumped it, my ass!), and discovering the French version of a Veterans Administration building, where aging D-Day retirees in uniform posted a sign expressing condolences to their fallen allies of 9-11.



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