Day 2: Hybrid cars, round-a-bouts and Grease Monkeys

Catherine says:

Mum/Margot and I have just finished a late le table du matin.  Which is just a fancier way of saying le petit dejeuner.  Or breakfast.  Or brekkie.  Ooh la la.

We are having a lazy day today and the blog posts are going to roll on fast and thick.  So here goes.

When we arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport we picked up a hire car which we will use for the entirety of our DIY trip.  After all, we are travellers, not tourists which makes me think that perhaps we're full of Pikey blood.

So, about this hire car.  The hire car company provides us with a hybrid car.  Fine we think.  In fact, we didn't even think.  We didn't even give this hybrid hire car a second thought.  And we should have because hybrid cars have a very particular way of being started.  They're somewhat unique.  However, the hire car company didn’t really explain this very well; instead they started the car for us.  We smiled and I drove off.  Yes people, emphasis on the word "I".

The Mater (or the Smoother Moother or Smother Mother... all three pet names I have for my beloved mother) and I (her pet name for me is Dafter Daughter... get it, daughter, slaughter, laughter, draught etc. oh we do love our word games!) decided I would drive.  I took a little test run around the hire car car park and once I felt comfortable we headed off to face a barrage of round-a-bouts and the 120km drive north to Amiens.

If I must say (and The Mater will agree) I did quite a spectacular job of driving on the wrong side of the road and navigating my way around about 15 round-a-bouts (they circle them in the opposite direction to us) within 15 minutes as we escaped the labyrinthine mess of Parisian roads.

Yes, damned if I was going to do an Uncle Bryan and write-off the car during my first encounter with a French round-a-bout!  (Sorry Uncle B - we know your talents lie in more important arenas like, but not limited to, literature and book collecting, both of which I hold in high regard and have oft been a beneficiary of this passion of yours!).  So I was pretty chuffed that it took 15 round-a-bouts to get out of Paris and I didn’t end up on the front page of Le Monde!

Anyhow, all went well until we arrived in Amiens, turned off the car, removed our luggage took it in to the hotel and then returned the car to move it and park it in a nearby long term car park.  I couldn’t start the damn bloody car.  No matter what gear change configurations or manoeuvrings I performed the bloody thing wouldn’t go forward.  Mum and I sat in the car for ages as I just revved the motor on the spot, getting more and more frustrated.  In the end I gave up and we went back into the hotel and rang for auto-assistance and spoke to a very nice man who spoke English and didn't laugh at me when I said "Je m'appelle Catherine. Pardonnez-moi. Je ne parle pas français. Je suis Australienne."  (We have been told that we must always emphasise that we are Australian as the French tell us they have more tolerance of non-French speaking Australians than what they do non-French speaking English and Americans).  I explained the problem to the lovely customer service officer and so he sent out a mechanic (just like RACV).

The mechanic rolls up 45 minutes later covered in grease (I mean, what did I expect?  Just because he’s a French mechanic he would roll up in Yves St Laurent with perfectly manicured grease-free fingernails?) and Stephanie, one of the English speaking hotel desk managers, and I accompany him to the dodgy vehicle.  Stephanie translates but Grease Monkey insists on talking in French to me, very fast and very loud with the expectation that I would understand everything he said (this was reminiscent of the time years ago when The Mater took over management of a Scandinavian student exchange program and insisted on talking loudly and slowly to our little norse visitors due to the belief that loud and slow made everything easier to understand!) .  At this point – with Mum upstairs in the hotel room – my internal Rosetta Stone started working overtime and crashed and all I could think to say was “oui, si, sim, ja... nei, nej, no, non, jeg ikke entender uma palavra meu signor”.  Lucky I didn’t spew out a “konichiwa”, a la Alabarondi (aka Dad, Pop, Popsicle, The Pater - another story for another time people).  Then Grease Monkey starts wildly and rapidly gesticulating about how to drive the car all the while telling Stephanie that the hire car company were trés stupid to even contemplate allowing a non-French non-hybrid-vehicle-accustomed customer to rent a hybrid vehicle.  He tells Stephanie that she will have to ring the hire car company on our behalf and arrange for a swap.  Stephanie agrees and then asks Grease Monkey if he would be so kind as to drive the car to the permanent car parking lot which he does all the while continuing to talk to me in rapid fire French and waving his hands about.  After parking the car he does a 1500m walk faster than either I or Persa Scagliarini (my primary school athletic rival) could ever manage and I nearly have a cardiac infarction trying to keep up with a mechanic who could double as an Olympic walker... or perhaps head the Jamaican bob sled team.  (Go John Candy). 

When I return to the hotel I explain all this to The Mater and we have a discussion with the hotel desk managers who kill it in the customer service stakes and assure us that they will have the issue of the car swap sorted in no time.

Or so we thought.