I was up at 5:30 am worried about getting a new car today. I called AVIS and was told that I would have to wait until 8:00 am as "All of France is closed at this time!" Apparently the French are not early risers. I had AMEX check and there is an AVIS office at the Metz-Nancy airport which is about an hour away by cab. It's raining today to make things more difficult. We took a cab to the AVIS counter at the Metz-Nancy-Lorraine Airport to speed up the process of getting a new car. They can't put me on hold again if I am in their face. There we had a car by 9:00 am. Mary heard the counter rep say in French, "He might have ruined the car!" Ruined or not we made a clean getaway out of town with a new car. I know one thing, if I was that AVIS rep I wouldn't have given me another car to ruin!

I know that a lot of people have commented in the past about the rudeness of the French people, including me! But, Mary and I wouldn't have made it through the rental car ordeal without the kindness of others - the tire store manager and his wife, a customer at the tire shop, the taxi cab driver, and the innkeeper. I have to apologize for my past remarks, at least until we get to Paris.

We drove to Verdun, the site of a catastrophic battle during WWI pbetween the Germans and the French/USA allies in which almost a whole generation of Frenchman died. 976,000 soldiers died on both sides, 377,000 Frenchmen alone between February and December, 1916 most of them from the Verdun area. Nine small villages were completely destroyed by the shelling. Only one was was rebuilt after the war. The rest just simply disappeared.

Our first stop was at an American Cemetery. Those soldiers buried there were part of the 660,000 allied forces led by "Black Jack" Pershing who routed the Germans at St. Miheil.

Our next stop was at the bridge and ancient town entry gate in the city center. We arrived in time to witness a French memorial service for the fallen soldiers of the Algerian campaign between 1945 and 1954. Looked like a few of the parade members were actual veterans of that French War. I took a video.

We were then off to two big Verdun memorials. The Verdun Memorial and the Douaumont Ossuary.

The Verdun memorial is an amazing memorial about life in the trenches and bunkers of WWI, p including uniforms, armory, and equipment.

The Douaumont Ossuary is huge memorial to the fallen of Verdun. It is lined with the names of the fallen, from floor to ceiling. Underneath the 1000 ft long building is a pile of bones many meters deep from the unknown and unidentified dead of Verdun.

We lit candles for everyone inside the Douaumont Ossuary in a small chapel dedicated to the martyrs of Verdun.

From Verdun, we headed for Epernay, a town in the champagne region of France. We found a Chateau that had been converted into a sort of bread and breakfast. Beautiful place called "Le Clos Ratmi". We stopped around 4:00 pm just because we were tired from the stress of the previous 24 hrs.
After a glass or two of wine in the parlor, Mary disappeared to practice her French on the lady of the house. After an hour, we left for dinner.

We picked a Brasserie that served frog legs. Now, I know a little bit about cooking, serving, and eating frog legs as I spent many years in Missouri. People from Missouri know their frog legs. These weren't frog legs, they were little itty bitty tiny frog legs. In Missouri if the frog didn't look like it would produce legs the size of a 12 pound chicken, you left it alone.
But dinner was wonderful. And best of all, my sweetheart gave me an unsolicited kiss on the way home.

Life is good!