Our GPS didn’t recognize the street we were staying on in Bordeaux, 500km into our 800km journey from Paris to Spain. We got to the right zipcode, and asked for help. Three people, swapping a kitten between them in a carpark in Bordeaux-Bruges. They get out maps, they call the camp ground, and the after the kitten-givers farewell the givee, they lead the way, driving all the way to camp for us to follow.
The receptionist can sell us an Adaptateur Electrique for 15 Euro, but we only need to charge our GPS. He plugs it in behind the counter and will take care of it until the battery is full.
Our laundry is wet. The campsite in Paris didn’t tell us Dryer tokens were for 10 minutes, and reception was closed when we realized. The receptionist, sitting in the restaurant that night, told us to pack our wet clothes, the shop assistant gave us a plastic bag. In Bordeaux-Bruges we finally dry our clothes and meanwhile try to figure out where to get food at 9pm on a Sunday night.
There’s a restaurant on site, but it’s expensive. I ask if we can purchase bread and cheese to take back to our tent to eat with the chorizo we bought in Paris. We can’t have any cheese but we can have bread, and he won’t let us pay either.
When we’ve eaten, we bite the bullet and go back to the restaurant, feeling rude but purchasing drinks anyway. Wine from Bordeaux is the best I’ve tasted, and it doesn’t matter that it took all day to get here or that we got lost when we arrived, or that our laundry was wet, or that we didn’t have any food, because the people here won’t let us leave with the problems we arrived with, even if we’re only here for 14 hours.
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