Normally I speak to Noel at 7am my time, but we had arranged to be an hour later because he was going to Easter lunch at Wendys, never a short event. Instead of waiting till after i talked to him for my breakfast coffee and croissant as planned, I went earlier and had more than just coffee and croissant. After I talked to him I had planned to go to the Cathedral for their Easter service, mainly just to hear the organ, assuming that it would be used. But instead I pottered at the markets that are very near me on Sunday morning. Mostly old stuff, some interesting stuff. Then I went to the tourist office, yet again. On Tuesday afternoon I am going on a tour of the camargue which starts at a nearby town. I will have to catch a tram, then a shuttle bus, then a bus to the town. It was going to then be a 3km walk along a road that I didnot know what the verge was like. So I had decided to ask if the company would pick me up from the bus stop. My French is not up to that, particularly over the phone, harder than face to face. The tourist office had booked the tour so I thought they would ring up for me, which they did and the tour company will. Good outcome - assuming it works on Tuesday.
Next an encounter with a spaceship which didnot function as it should, luckily after the previous person and before me. I was very pleased when I was released.
They tourist office in Montpellier is on the edge of the main Place de la Comedie. There are many restaurants surrounding it. I chose one that had a seat in the shade in the 4th of 5 rows from outside to inside. So I was deliberately not in the first or second row with the best view of the comings and goings , they were in the sun. I found it a good seat, because I could watch the excellent staff and had a reasonable view of most of the place activity without being at all visible to anyone. Except the staff.
Earlier in the day I was walking down a narrow street that cars donot normally use. 2 cars came past with VIGIPIRATE signs on them . Each car had driver plus 3 people all in camouflage gear, none skinny and little. They had to go slowly so I could easily look. Vigipirates?? I saw no eye patches. Vigilant pirates? While I was sitting watching the world go past at lunch time i looked the word up. Sure enough Vigipirate is one of the French government 's anti terrorism tools. I had to read a fair way till i got to
VIGI lance and
P rotections of
I nstillations against the
R isk of
A ttacks by
T errorists with
E xplosives
Did they not have any English speaker who thought it a bit odd? Or did they not care?
On a completely different topic but probably equally boring thing to tell you about - when I was in Sydney for a week 2 years ago I used an App called Mytrack, which enabled me to ,eg, track my walk from place A to place B and then the next day track say from palce A to place C, then the next day I could overlay the previous 2 tracks and thus see where I have been and choose different streets to go down. I found this very good for exploring the area around me rather than have to remember where I had been. I tried to use it again in brisbane a year later but I was told that I had used the first month or maybe year and I had to pay. I am very stingy when it comes to paying for apps. So forgot about it. For the first week and a bit here I have been recording where I have been on a hard copy map and sort of remembering where I have been,
. Trouble is about 5 days ago most of the shops changed their window displays and I was completely confused. I remembered the app. So I paid the grand total of 15 AUD for a years fun. I need to spend some time working out how to use more features of it. Eg. I think i can link it to my camera so it will pin point on a map where I took a photo from. Maybe that will be later, but before my next trip.
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