WHEN THE GIRLS WENT TO FRANCE…

AUDIO QUACK | Skip introduction 2:09

*Real names have been disguised for privacy.

For this year’s girls’ trip, we chose to go to France. I wore a neck scarf for the occasion.

Sausage* and I reunited at King’s Cross St. Pancras; she had come from America with a suitcase the size of a goat. We bought Pret a Manger for the journey – it felt appropriate to begin our trip with some French cuisine.

We arrived in Paris and stayed in a boutique hotel called Hotel Wallace, which was decked out in a retro-Italian style. I could just about see the tip of the Eiffel Tower from my bed – it made me feel like I was Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge.

The first time I went to Paris, I was 17 on a school trip. I admired the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower, with my business studies teacher standing next to me. She was a nice lady but ruined the vibe somewhat. A few of us tried to sneak out in the evening to go on a Parisian adventure like they do in the movies, but we got caught by the teacher in the hotel lobby. She sent us back to our rooms—very disappointed in us all.

This time I had no teacher getting in the way of my romantic fantasy, but I did wonder, as I was walking around the Eiffel Tower in a red dress, whether, perhaps, I had watched too many movies.

When a man approached me with a red rose under the tower, I thought, Oh, my romantic dream is materialising. But he didn’t want to give me the rose, he wanted to sell it to me. Another man came along and asked to take my photo, but again, he wanted money – not my face. A third man wandered over, holding a stack of flashing, colourful Eiffel Tower models. I gave up.

Sausage and I spent the rest of the weekend exploring the city. I decided to wear new loafers, which were nice on the outside but were size 4 torture chambers on the inside. I had fat blisters all over my feet which, even with plasters, made me walk like a duck. To save me from dying in pain, (dramatic), we took regular coffee breaks, sitting side by side, admiring French fashion and dogs. I toyed with the idea of taking up smoking and whether I should make neck scarves ‘my thing.’

Sunday afternoon arrived. It was time for the second leg of the journey – Bordeaux. The taxi driver dropped us off away from the train station, which meant we had to walk with our bags. You know you’re getting old and ugly when the taxi driver makes you walk. We trudged down the train platform, only to be told by the train guard to go back up again. Eventually, we found our carriage. It was a double-decker train, so obviously I booked seats on the top floor, forgetting about our bags and lack of biceps. We heaved our suitcases all the way up the staircase. When we got to the top, out of breath, I saw a canteen bar, not our seats.

“FOR F*** SAKE!” I shouted.

“Erm, Mary, ” Sausage said, “turn the other way.”

I did and saw the carriage with seats filled with unimpressed passengers glaring at me. We shuffled down the aisle, apologising as we knocked arms with our bags.

“Désolee.”

We settled in our seats, unpacking our ipads, headphones, books and snacks.

“Why is it so quiet?” Sausage whispered.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back.

One of the passangers was still glaring at us.

A man sat down on the other side of the aisle. He took out his phone and a bag of posh jelly tots. A woman came and sat next to him, and she seemed happy that she was sitting next to him. They began a (quiet) conversation. He offered her a jelly tot, and she took two or three. We thought we were witnessing a real-life meet cute – like the one in my favourite indie romance, Before Sunrise. But then the man dug into his bag, whipped out his headphones, and put them on. The woman slowly turned away and stared out of the window for the rest of the journey. When she got off, she took one last jelly tot. Sausage shook her head in dispair. “This is why the world is single!”

Our AirBnB was a villa twenty-minute drive from Bordeaux. Christine, the superhost, greeted us at the gate to give us a tour. Christine didn’t speak English, and apart from Sausage’s A Level in the language, we weren’t too good at French. So we followed her around the house in a strange game of charades. She picked up the plug from the kitchen sink and tapped it on the bin. “No food in the sink!” I guessed. Correct! She picked up a bottle of wine and raised her eyebrows. “OH! OH! Oh! You can drink this!” Correct! She cupped some water from the pool and pretended to sip it. This one was tricky. “The water is salty?” Sausage guessed. She repeated the mime again. “No chlorine?” Correct!

We asked Christine if there was a local supermarché to buy food. She made a cross with her arms. “Closed?” Correct!

Before we knew what was happening, she was on the phone to her son, asking if he could bring us food. He told her that we should order Uber Eats. She said that we were American, so we wouldn’t know what Uber Eats was. He said that out of everyone, we would know what Uber Eats was. (This is what Sausage understood from the phone conversation anyway).

Christine hung up on her son and offered to drive us to McDonald’s. We smiled as said, “No, no, no. Please, we’re fine.” She swung her car keys on her finger, insisting we should go. We kept saying no. And then Sausage told her I was a vegan, and that’s when Christine gave up.

“Au revoir!” she said. Even superhosts have their limits.

For our first dinner in the French countryside we ordered in sushi.

Amy arrived later that evening, hobbling up to the house with her suitcase. She had hurt her knee in netball the day before. I reminded her that this is why people shouldn’t play sports over the age of thirty.

The next three days we lounged under the sun, got burnt, and ate kilos of Lay’s ready salted crisps. (Is it me, or do ready salted crisps taste better in the sun?) We didn’t use the pool; it was too cold, too buggy, and none of us liked swimming anyway – we just wanted to have something nice to look at.

The last day in France, we stayed in the city of Bordeaux and shopped. Amy wasn’t hobbling (as much) after holding ice on her knee for the last few days. Sausage needed to stock up on European goods before the tariffs came into effect. She bought some earrings, hand cream, olive oil, and then pondered whether she should buy a jar of truffles.

“Do you think I can get the truffles across the border?” she asked the shopkeeper.

“Errr….Oui,” said the shopkeeper.

“Unless Trump suddenly changes the law tomorrow,” I said and then began my best bad impression. “There will be no truffles. No truffles. Across our borders.”

Sausage joined in. “We have the best truffles.”

The shopkeeper laughed. Oh, America.

Our last store was the popular French clothing boutique, Sézane. Sausage’s sister, Stephanie, loves the shop. She had recently received an email from the store, advising her to buy the cardigan in her wishlist before the tariffs come in. She was very upset about this, so we made her an AI song called Tariff Troubles. You can listen to it…

Sausage bought herself a Sézane cardigan. Amy and I asked if she was going to buy her sister a cardigan while she was there.

“Nope,” said Sausage.

With our bags a little fuller, we arrived at the airport. It was EasyJet, so our plane was still dossing about in England when we should have been boarding it in France. Eventually, it came, and we said au revoir to another successful girls’ trip.