,
Inspecting the salad page on the menu for any sign of herring, we note the salad includes “artichaut” which sounds like artichoke. After much deliberation and Jay's brave taste test, we decide the herring is actually a pickled artichoke. Here's the thing about picked herring, though: If you can't be sure the food on your plate isn't pickled herring, it really doesn't matter if it is. The effect is the same.
We also note each of our salads is “servie avec un pomme de terre au four.” Cobbling together all our long-forgotten high-school French, we remember pomme de terre literally means apple of the dirt, which means potato. So it means “served with a potato au four.” We can't conjure any meaning for “au four” but looking around our table, we deduce that it means “invisible.”
Now partially fed (except Bitter Dan) and hopelessly lost somewhere near the elusive halfway-to-Le Mans town of Anus, we now have to find our way back to the farm. We decide that the root cause of our horrible navigation so far is the fact that we keep changing tacks, switching randomly between an insufficiently detailed Google printout and a psychotically indecisive French navigation system.
I declare my navigational allegiance to the latter and start ignoring Bitter's claims of having deciphered the French freeway system and just follow the arrows on the screen. The nav system is intent on showing us the dead center of every village between Applebees and our farm, most of which look so similar we're not entirely certain we aren't driving in circles. Then, finally, one of them has a giant, well-illuminated gothic Church in the middle of it. We stop briefly to gawk and then turn around and realize we're standing in front of a bar.
Giddy with the first glimmer of good news all night, we pile through the door only to be told something French that comes with a facial expression and hand gestures that strongly imply they're closed. We counter with facial expressions that strongly imply we're going to cry. Switching to English, the bartender holds up a thumb and says “Just one?” (the French start counting with their thumb, not their index finger). We agree on one and are told to go sit in the corner, so we won't be in the bar. It seems that the bar is closed, but the restaurant is not. We'd drink this beer in le toilette if we had to, so we happily comply.
Our mood substantially lifted, the next 14 little farm towns are much more interesting, especially the one with the “Bentleys” sign. “That's a bar!” Jay exclaims. We screech to a halt and pile in. It's 12:40 (French bars seem to close at 1 am), the bar is nearly empty, chairs are stacked on tables, and the bartender is doing the familiar wave off. We've learned our lesson, though, and counter with a thumb and “Just one?” It works! We end up closing the bar while the owner rocks out to vintage Queen concert footage on MTV.
1:30 AM we finally coast back into our farm, creep up the stairs and find Ryan and the womenfolk just returned from a gourmet meal. “How was practice?” they ask.
“It was fucking awesome, we can't believe you missed it.”
While you are at it, check out parts 2 and 3 as well!
