This title means, "What Hi-jinks during our last day in Europe !"
Yes, hi-jinks is the appropriate word. Berry and I woke up this morning in a huge comfortable bed in Strasbourg, France and we are now laying in a bed in Luxembourg, sincerely thankful that one of us was not in jail and the other searching downtown Luxembourg for a way to bail the other one out of jail. Yes. Let me start at the beginning.
Berry enjoyed Strasbourg. Most French towns of medium size and large size are impossible to navigate. The center of every town seems to be full of unmarked one way streets. Robert drove more than twice down the wrong way on a one-way street, and he now remembers that amazingly empty lane is only for buses. Robert is creative and has a sense of humor.
The Hotel Hannong in Strasbourg has an excellent breakfast, compared to most of them. There was one other hotel in Arcachon, France, which had fruit and meat and eggs, along with all the breads and juices and yogurts. There was someone there to cook you things. That does not happen in most hotels.
We drove through a steady sprinkle from Strasbourg, France to Luxembourg. Robert parked the car and Berry paid for the parking. We want each person's behavior to be described accurately. We walked down into a large valley full of trees. Robert saw an olive bird with white wing bars. It did not have a seed eating beak. Berry and I could not come to any definite identification. We try to be honest with ourselves.
Berry found a coffee house which was very much like a Starbucks. Robert had a large Americano with a splash of soy. Berry had the Oreo Frappuccino, which was coffee and cream and a crushed Oreo. Lunch followed. Berry had Chicken Cordon Bleu. Robert had braised pork with choucroute.
Dessert for Berry was the superb and ubiquitous Crème Brûlée.
Although we ate today, we did actually look for birds,too. There is a large forest behind the Hotel Ibis Airport. We walked slowly through old growth coniferous trees, searching for woodpeckers. A German girl waved at us. A Luxembourger with two dogs put them on leash for us. There were no signs and no name to this forest. Some hunters had put deer stands inside the woods. Robert playfully mounted one of the deer stands and continued looking for woodpeckers.
Okay, now comes dinner. We came back to the hotel and showered and dressed for a fine dinner, and we found a popular seafood restaurant, "Chez Becano" on Rue de Clausen 1342 Luxembourg. The reason that I state the address is that this restaurant was on the road which led back to the hotel.
Robert had the cod smothered in veggies. Berry had sturgeon in a red sauce. Robert had a cute orange flavored cake, which had been bent into a circle by the chef, very yummy. Berry had chocolate ice cream with something chocate inside of it. Robert got in the drivers seat when we pulled away from the restaurant.
Berry started off in the passenger seat. All this is necessary to know. Robert was driving and pulled into traffic. It was to be a short trip back to the hotel near the airport. The traffic slowed at each of the traffic circles and then sped up afterwards. Then further down the road, suddenly everything ground to a stop. There were forty police, spread out on both sides of the road and some in the middle of the road.
It was a police ratissage, a rat-catching operation. Our imaginations went wild. Were they searching for islamists? Had there been another attack? Forty police are a lot, anywhere. We imagined that they were rousting only foreigners, because they pulled a British girl over to the side of the road and fiddled around with her. Robert was driving, so he looked for his driver's license. Big search in the car and no license. Robert thought he left it in the room with his passport. Driving without a license, at a Luxemburger police rat-catching. Oh, no !
So Berry got a great idea. Berry would run around the car to the driver's side and Robert would slide over. Berry had possession of her driver's license. Then the line inched forward. Two cars actually pulled out of line and sped off in the opposite direction. They blatantly avoided going through the police operation. The police just let a busload of people go through without stopping them. Carefully, Berry slowly pulled forward.
Two Luxemburger police officers, one female and one male, approached the driver's side of our car. The large cop barks something in Luxemburger at Berry. They had not noticed that we switched drivers. I asked a question in French to get him to speak more slowly. He asked if Berry spoke English. She admitted that she did. They had her. The male officer took our rental car documents and Berry's drivers license to the left and turned Berry over to the female officer.
The female then made Berry blow hard puffs in a breathalyzer. It was a drunk test. The lady officer told Berry to blow into the pipe. "Go...go...go..." Until the apparatus beeped. Berry got her score back almost immediately. Her blood alcohol level was 0.0 For dinner she drank a Coca Cola Light. She got back her license. Had Robert been driving without license or passport, in a foreign country... that would have been a disaster. Then, Robert impulsively snapped a photo of one of the cops. Oh, no.
The angriest cop came over to the car and asked Robert why he took that photo. Robert stuttered some vaguely English words. The cop said that if one was to photograph him, one needed to ask first. Whew ! Tired of risking prison time in a dirty European jail, Robert became very quiet. Berry drove slowly back to the hotel.
Tomorrow will be a long plane trip to Memphis. Good night.
Robert and Berry
Photos courtesy of rfowler, bfowler
Too funny...eckks.Anne
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