Dijon to Montbeliard

DAY 3 - Dijon to Montbeliard 7/10/07

It was hard to get going today after the All Black defeat, especially when trapped in the country that beat you. However we re-focused and told ourselves it could be worse, Holden could lose again to Ford at Bathurst... Oh shit - that happened as well this weekend.

We moved on, unlike my dad who made a plaque that absolutely nothing happened on this day in Beachlands (he was kindly house/cat sitting). After the All Blacks’ loss I am sure the cats have learnt a few more French words of another sort.

We were heading for Basel in Switzerland today but decided to call it a day, early, for a number of French cultural reasons. No, it's not because they won the rugby and we are avoiding them. It is because it is Sunday and small town France is shut on Sundays. The French don’t like to work too hard, they work 35 hour weeks, have two hour lunch breaks, strike a lot for no reason and definitely don’t work Sundays. One good thing has come from all this leisure time, they are very sociable, love to chat, obviously exercise as its hard to find a fat French person and on weekend they have quality time with their family. It doesn’t however suit the Kiwi tourist.

The French can’t live without their fresh baguette and cigarettes so the patisserie and tobacco shops stay open just long enough after church to get the essentials (so many skinny Catholic baguette eating smokers to provide for).

This picture is of Montbeliard from our sports stadium camp car-park, you dfhdgfhdfgh can’t quite see the flower boxed bridge railings which are everywhere in France, except the tourist-swamped South. It is nice to look at but after a while you get bored with French cultural Sundays. We drove around wondering how you get diesel on a Sunday and discovered you need a special credit card for some stations and others discourage even that by roping off the service station. We then experienced more small town France when looking for tea. The Americans have no respect for another country’s customs and cultural so the only place to get food on a Sunday is McDonalds.

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