Day 22: Pau Day 6! 🌞🌞, 29°

Gearing Up To Go Somewhere!😂

I was awake and up early this morning. Happy to see the sun after the incredible lightning storm late yesterday afternoon and early evening.

I hope to be underway tomorrow afternoon following my 2:30 appointment at the hospital. So instead of going on a hunt for a pastry this morning (don’t worry, I’ll go later) I sort of munched on some of the left over bits of food around here as I enjoyed a good cup of tea. I decided to miss a pastry and instead go through my gear in preparation for tomorrow. That might sound like an odd decision given it’s France, right? But I’m a little tired of hanging out here, and I am definitely wanting to moving on.

The tentative plan for tomorrow is to first find a nice pastry to go with my tea. Then I’ll pack up my gear and clean up this apartment which won’t take very long. I want to make sure that everything is back where it was when I arrived. In hopeful anticipation of a good result tomorrow I have not renewed this accommodation, and I must vacate by noon. I’ll then catch the bus out to the hospital with my gear to take the test.

Should the test prove successful🤞, I will wait for the written report so I can forward it to the insurance people and I’ll then catch the bus down to the train station. There is a 4:57 train that takes about a 2 1/2 hours to reach Toulouse. From very recent experience, I know that I can catch a bus from Toulouse Central train station out to the airport where I plan to overnight at an airport hotel which I’ll book from the train.

On Saturday there is a 10 AM flight to Montreal with a connection to Vancouver and onwards to Victoria. Once I know that I can go home that flight will get booked. Annemarie and I have both looked at the flights and there were seats available. If I miss that flight for any reason, the next one isn’t until Monday. Toulouse would be more than fine for a weekend, but I’ve enjoyed that experience twice, and I would really like to make the Saturday flight. We learned yesterday that the insurance company will only cover my medical expenses, and none of my living expenses. That’s OK, but I’d prefer to just head home. If it was Marseille or some other really interesting mid-size French city, I might be open to spending the weekend.😇

In the event that I am not cleared to fly tomorrow, I will find a different accommodation in Pau. If I must stay in Pau longer I would like a change of scenery, and patisseries, although this place has been just fine and super well located. Mind you, I am getting a bit done with the sloping floor!🤣

At about noon I decided to get out for a walk to a patisserie I’d seen on Google maps that had a good rating, a 4.6!

It was a bit of a walk, but it took me through parts of town I hadn’t yet directly ventured into.

I had usually ventured out in a different direction, so this was a nice change

There are a long set of stairs, somewhat suspended above the roadway below that drops down into the lower valley from here. There was one part of the narrow stairs that I had to talk myself into crossing!

From there, I decided to walk down to the train station just to have a look around and to familiarize myself. Just in case I’m in a rush tomorrow to catch a train!

Investigations complete, I discovered that there was a free funicular back up to town. Who knew?

I walked up past where I had lunch yesterday and on to my place to have lunch.

It will be interesting to see how tomorrow goes.🤞 I feel good, but I haven’t exactly been pushing myself this week.

Cheers!

Geoff🍻