Crevé!

This vacation was my first experience driving in continental Europe. For the most part I enjoyed driving "Giulietta", my rented midsize Alfa Romeo. But on the first day of the trip, trying to reach our family home in Normandy, we had a bit of trouble.

After a long day of driving, we were within 15 minutes of St. Fraimbault, approaching the town of Ambrieres-les-Vallees. The roads in France frequently transition from four-lane divided highways to barely two lanes winding between buildings that predate the automobile. As the road enters the town, it narrows quickly. Just then, an 18-wheeler turned a corner ahead and came barreling up the hill in my direction. Afraid to pull in too close, I left the car too far to the right and my right front tire hit the curb at the spot where the road narrowed. I felt the tire instantly give out. Luckily there was a convenient place to pull over. We put the temporary tire on and were soon on our way to St. Fraimbault, with no real harm done but with the driver's anxiety level a bit elevated.

The next day presented the challenge of getting a tire replaced in a country where things often work a little differently, without wasting a day of vacation. I dropped my friends off in the picturesque medieval city of Bagnoles and drove to the outskirts of town to a tire shop.

I fully expected this to be a test of my French skills, as I wouldn't expect an auto mechanic to speak English. Luckily, I had been preparing for this moment my whole life. Since my youth, my family has played "Mille Bornes", a French card game based on the theme of a 1000-km road trip. Some cards carry mileages that you can play on yourself to make progress towards the finish line. Other cards can be played defensively on other players to impede their progress, including "panne d'essence" (out of gas), "accident", "limite de vitesse" (speed limit) and, crucially, "crevé" (flat tire).  We brought this game over to the house in France and have been playing recently. So I was prepared as I approached the mechanic.

 "J'ai un crevé," I said.

He motioned to me to show him the tire.  He took a quick look and frowned.

"Le pneu est morte," he said. (The tire is dead.)

That was one of the few things the mechanic said that I understood. He was a twitchy fellow that muttered to himself as he worked. He walked to the back of his shop to where the tires were stored. I think he started with the new tires. Proceeding to his collection of used tires, he pointed to one and I understood that it was the same tire as the newly deceased. He told me to come back in a couple hours and it would be ready. This would give me enough time for a leisurely lunch in Bagnoles with my friends--the best possible scenario. I handed him the keys to the car. He gave me a puzzled look and said something that I didn't understand a word of. At that point it finally dawned on me that he had the wheel and didn't need the car. He probably thought I was a fairly dense Englishman with poor driving skills.

Returning from lunch, the tire was ready to mount. After a brief and ineffective discussion about who was going to mount the tire, it became clear that he wasn't particularly interested in doing that, so I put my pit crew to work again.  Luckily this was the last defensive card played on me for the trip.