Motorhoming in France

[Threviel]

Yeah, what's the deal with those vigipirate soldiers? They seem to be patrolling everywhere, two cars were even in front of a carnival in La Rochelle.

[Duque de Bragança]

Opération Sentinelle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op%C3%A9ration_Sentinelle

[Threviel]

So. Two black guys, not looking like workers just off the shift just scared me. They walked together towards the car, 200m away one of them walked over to our side. They kept walking towards us staring intensely until they had passed. I photoed them and sat down in the driver seat so they could see us. How worried should i be? Is it just racist old me? How criminal is a small town like Valence?

[garbon]

I'm wondering why you needed to mention to black guys in that story. I'd agree it does seem like you are engaging in racism if you wouldn't have felt the same way had it been to white men.

[Threviel]

Well, i don't know if that was pertinent information or not, in unknown territory I only have preconceived notions to use. So, if black people here are generally poorer (which I have no clue about) their skin colour might imply lower social strata and therefore higher probability of crime. But I see your point and I feel foolish. 

I would have felt the same way, it was their behaviour and dress only that triggered my suspicion, lots of other people of all kinds were about without triggering suspicions.

[garbon]

Well, i don't know if that was pertinent information or not, in unknown territory I only have preconceived notions to use. So, if black people here are generally poorer (which I have no clue about) their skin colour might imply lower social strata and therefore higher probability of crime. But I see your point and I feel foolish. 

I would have felt the same way, it was their behaviour and dress only that triggered my suspicion, lots of other people of all kinds were about without triggering suspicions.

Certainly wasn't my intention to make you feel bad but yes, always good to challenge our preconceived notions. Making race a salient detail in a story about criminal concern does support (in small part) concerns about black people and criminality.  Particularly when you haven't been pointing out the race of all the other people you've encountered on the journey.

[Duque de Bragança]

Valence is obviously not Détroit (@Sav) given its size but not infamous by any means.
I suppose they have a rough area, as in most places.
It is also the gate of Southern France, with quite a lot of people transiting through it so probably above average criminality-wise.

[Threviel]

Well, we made it. We're in (checking google maps) Arbois in the Jura region. The family is getting homesick so we're making good time towards home. The rim is switched and the car is ok, unfortunately I scratched the side of it on a hedge on the camping.

We plan on staying here a few days and celebrate midsummer. We'll investigate local wine and just hang around. The lack of food is a problem, we are out if ideas and tired of not having a proper kitchen. 

Normally I post when in bed or when we are driving, but now I borrow the wife's phone and she's only got a swedish keyboard.

[Threviel]

Midsummer has been celebrated. The girls had flowers in the hair and singing of silly songs was done. Matjes herring, boiled potatoes, sour cream with chives, beer and snaps. Strawberries and cream for dessert. It's the best meal of the year.

For lunch I had prepared crepes, we wanted to walk around Arbois. Fortunately there was a market going on and they had some stands with ready meals. We bought Paella for two and found a beautiful little mini park overlooking a stream going through town. It was a glorious lunch. We also found excellent strawberries and some levain bread.  Arbois is a very beautiful town, only marred by the fact that heavy traffic goes right through the center.

We had planned on staying longer, but there's a huge heat wave rolling in, so we'll hurry north. Tomorrow we go to Mulhouse. We want to go to a big supermarket one last time, so we'll do that on Monday and then it's full speed home.

[Duque de Bragança]

Mein Gott, Mülhausen! The French Manchester.

[Threviel]

We couldn't really make Alsace work in a good way, so we decided to go home directly instead. We went to a huuuuuge Carrefour and did our last shopping, onions, sause Algerienne, big spanishish ham and some other stuff. Then we went to Germany, now we're at a camping just over the border. We will flee fron the heat wave as fast as we can.

The car is probably overloaded so we're optimising weight balance and stuff. No real problem in Germany and Denmark, but in Sweden it's calculated differently, so bye bye driver license if they catch us.

When we arrived here and had parked the car I went out to look around. The little old woman in the next car was looking at me, so I, used to French ways, gave her a friendly wave and a smile. She looked me dead in the eyes and then continued reading. Welcome to Germany.

[Duque de Bragança]

I guess you should have gone for Colmar and/or Strasbourg instead of Mulhouse.
I'm surprised you Swedes did not visit the Haut-Koenisbourg Castle, sacked by the Swedes during the 30 Years' War. 

[Threviel]

We couldn't really make it work with a hard deadline of being above Hamburg at Tuesday evening, due to the heat wave. Had it not been for the heat wave we would probably have spent another week in France.

The eastern part of France we hastened through, after Carcassone we sort of felt finished. What we saw made us regret not having more time, we will definitely return and do the east more properly. Jura was magnificent and so was the Rhone valley.

France in general has been a huge positive surprise, far far nicer than I would have thought, the people in particular.

Oh, an I've been to so many places sacked by Swedes, it's almost the normal in northern Europe.

[Admiral Yi]

Did you apologize?

[Threviel]

For?