My mom's last couple days with me before she flies out of Gander have been spent in France! Happily, this did not require a trans-Atlantic flight, but just a 55-minute ferry--from the Newfoundland town of Fortune to the nearby islands of St. Pierre et Miquelon, which have been retained by France and are still full-out French. French speaking, the Euro as currency, European electrical outlets (we were ill prepared, lacking adaptors), plus....
...French signage...
...French license plates ("SPM" is for St. Pierre et Miquelon)...
...the island's own history of defense from invasion by those nasty English, who finally gave up the ghost...
...and, of course, its own obligatory red-and-white lighthouse.
It was rainy and cold for our 48 French hours, and the day tour we were going to take to see Miquelon was canceled due to the bad weather. But I was actually kind of glad about that. St. Pierre was a sweet, colorful, place to be total lazy bums for a couple of days.
We read, we played cards, we slept...and we ate. We ate and ate and then slept and then ate some more. Oh, the food. In that respect, above all others, we were very firmly in France. There were crepes and pastries and coffee with real cream and a café or restaurant on every block in which to sit and enjoy it all. Our favorite was a tea shop where they had an English version of Scrabble.
I'm now full of enough butter and cream to sustain me for weeks after my mom's imminent departure, at which point my travel style will shift dramatically to a more shoestring variety as I head even deeper into Newfoundland & Labrador.
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