Wednesday

Yesterday was a rest day, but today I’m back and feeling perky. Ma sœur va me rendre visite. Je vais la rencontrer a Paris. Ce matin je suis allé a la gare pour acheter mon billet. Nous parlions en français totalement et c’était bien. Mon billet est première classe! Le clerk spoke slowly and clearly. I understood him!

Ici des photos de la gare:

You can see there are no trains. Loches is being served by a bus these days. If I am reading the signs correctly it’s because they’re working on the line to make it better for us in the future. I’m not sure it’s in my future.

That building on the very left of the next picture is the Emergency entrance of the hospital. (You can just see the red and white sign.) I’m living next to the station and frequently see ambulances go by to the hospital.

Here is Loches from our building looking toward the station (but you can’t see it as it’s around the corner). The pointy hat building on the left is Tourist Information.

Ensuite ce matin je suis allé a la pharmacie pour acheter some dental floss. That wasn’t nearly as positive an experience. Sometimes (most of the time, actually) I just don’t hear the words. If people came with French subtitles I’d do much better. They seem to understand me but I don’t have the ear yet. It’s only been a couple of weeks… I’m being patient with myself.

Although, I was in one shop today and asked the woman what the little things with the hats were, and I understood very clearly that they were just a decoration. Small wins.

You can see our weather has gone cloudy and they are predicting rain for this afternoon and tomorrow. We had quite a wind the other day and it took out the door to the office here. The doors are made of glass.

I don’t know how they deal with security at night. That wood is just propped up there.

There is a campground not far from here. It’s along the river walkway. Here we have some campers, in spite of the cloudy weather. They say that most people in France spend their holidays in their own country. I can see why.

This building on the left looks like it might be housing for the elderly, or some special people in any event. I, personally, think the elderly are very special people. It is also along the river. Yes I went for a walk on the river this morning. Then I went to a bakery and then had to go home right away, treat in hand!

This is one of the more modern areas of Loches. As soon as you go out of the old city it’s a bit different. The roads are wider for one thing. You can also see by the blue sky this pic was taken on a different day. I miss that colour.

In these next pictures you can see the indents on the roadways. The streets aren’t quite wide enough for 2 way traffic In some spots so they have these areas where drivers are supposed to pull in and wait for oncoming traffic. It works amazingly well.

Everyone is very good, except maybe at rush hour. I think that might be 6pm?

It was so chilly today that I ordered chocolat chaud with my salade chèvre chaude. When it arrived I apologized (hey, I’m Canadian after all). Désolé. J’ aurais du vous que je suis végétarien. (I’m not vegetarian but I don’t know the word for pescatarian.) The warm goat cheese was good, as were the walnuts and dressing.

You can see the streets were not crowded. And it’s Market Day!

The words on the building are nice to look at. That’s a pizza shop on the left. I’ve never seen it open.

Overall a pretty good day, in spite of the weather. Hope yours was good too.

Love to you all.