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We stayed in a BnB last night - the first "real" BnB (ie. not a "just B" through AirBnB) and it was great. The room was small, but nice and comfortable. The highlight, though, was the breakfast. In addition to some fruit, yogurt and cheese, our host had wonderful homemade pastries, and homemade jams and marmalade (I particularly enjoyed the rhubarb).
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After we left the BnB we rode the "wrong" direction from Beauvoir to Pontorson to take care of some business before visiting Mont St. Michel. We left our baggage at our hotel then went and bought our train tickets to Nantes before riding out to Mont St. Michel. OH MY GOD riding my bike without all the baggage is amazing. It feels like riding a feather!
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Mont St. Michel was really interesting. We left our velos at the near end of the causeway and took a free shuttle bus over to the island. The island apparently is only still and island because the people diligently scoop out the silt deposited by the over-enthusiastic river that empties into the ocean right in front of the island. We walked all around the Mont. It was full of little restaurants and shops along the bottom, but then just really interesting history and scenery above.
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Today wasn't a particularly strenuously day. 20 or so easy km on unburdened velos. So, at dinner time (in France, restaurants don't even open until 7PM), Brent and I set out in search of some lighter sustenance. There was a place around the corner that had snacky things posted on their menu. We circled the block and looked at a few other places and Brent decided he'd like the snacky place (said it was slummy enough for him). I think he may have been slightly traumatized by a couple of the fancier dinners we'd had to contend with lately (we won't say anything about him throwing his wine at me the one night). So, we went back to the snacky place, which was called Le Train Bleu. They had an extensive drink menu, and a small, hand-written food menu. We ordered drinks, looked at the food menu, and I asked if they were serving. Our server said that they were changing their menu, and she ran to get a big poster with pictures of the food items offered. There were three things on offer, a lasagna, mac and cheese, and something else. Brent ordered the lasagna and I ordered the mac and cheese. After the server left, Brent joked that the meals may be TV Dinners. Annnnnnd... life imitates art (and sometimes Brent's jokes). Several minutes later, our meals arrived, in their cardboard containers, with bits of plastic cover still stuck to the top of the cardboard containers. It was awesome. Who would have ever thought that such a thing existed... in France! The Train Bleu was playing the standard (for France) radio station filled with bad covers of old English pop tunes and had tonnes of posters up on the wall of live music acts they'd had play there. The most recent looked to be from 2012, but a lot of the posters didn't have years on them, so maybe some were more recent. In the back there was a pool table, which, oddly, seemed to be a pretty much normal-proportioned pool table, only smaller (including the balls). We finished our experience with a very poorly played game of pool and a good time was had by all.
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Something I'm finding really interesting is that, in spite of how hard I'm working each day, and how tired I feel, I actually have way more energy already than I did before the trip. Before the trip I was crashing early every evening, and sometimes taking afternoon naps. None of that for me anymore. Now I would struggle to go to sleep before 10:00 and I'm waking up by 6:00. A nice, solid 8 hours. Before the trip I felt like a wreck if I didn't get at least 9 hours. I've known that I've been depressed living in Edmonton for a while now, and I can't wait to move away from there... it's interesting to feel the depression start to lift for real (and not just in an "ok, I'm not going to be depressed anymore", mind-over-matter unrealistic way).
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