My Grenoble Diary - Day One

Day one for me would be the travel day. This day did not start well for me as I was having to get up at 04:00 hours to get to the Airport for a 07:45 flight. That early in the morning means I tend not to eat breakfast for at least a few hours, so I decided that I would attempt to get some food at the airport. Taking on board the advice passed onto me by another fellow blogger, I have started a nutrition program I plan to adopt long term to correct both my body and health. With that in mind, as soon as I cleared the security check I went looking for a pharmacy in order to purchase a few power bars. Surprisingly, at 05:30 hours only the Duty Free shop was open so I was less than impressed that I was unable to buy my planned breakfast, instead I went in search of a suitable alternative. Well I started hitting all sorts of problems trying to find suitable nourishment that fell within the boundaries of my new nutrition program. I walked past Starbucks and Costa as I was determined not to drink Coffee (mainly because I cannot stand it without cream and sugar) or eat 'F' grade pastries (yeah, I have the A to F food categories burned into my retinas). I ended up buying 500 ml of fresh unsweetened orange juice and thought "I will wait until Lyon and buy some food there...".

Having dodged the butter ladened Brioche ham and cheese roll on the plane I was really starting to work up an appetite. Passing through passport control I was a man on a mission as I went in search of a breakfast fix. Well I have to say that the choice was no better than the UK airport and I was traveling with a colleague who was desperate to get going, so hungry as I was, I conceded to waiting until I arrived at our destination, the Sun Office near Grenoble. Big mistake, in that my colleague is not big on paying tolls, so after picking up the hire car, we programmed the SatNav to take us to our destination without paying any tolls. Once it had compiled the journey time, I was dismayed to realize it would be 2 hours before we get to our destination, so I mentioned to my colleague that I was hungry and if at all possible could he stop at some point along the way for sustenance. Well he tried to do one better by digging deep into his past experiences as a rally car driver and proceeded to show me just how forgiving (or not...) a Opel Astra can be when being thrashed along rural French roads. A side effect of avoiding freeways was to be greeted by a roundabout every 1/4 mile or so, at which point my colleague demonstrated what it is like to go round corners either sideways on or on two wheels. Funny, shortly into the journey my hunger was replaced by a mix of travel sickness and ever growing fear of death from collision... Some how I had survived to approx halfway when my colleague decided to handbrake into a bar & grill style restaurant car park.For a few brief minutes I felt safe, but it was short lived as both the car park and restaurant were full. Speeding off once again we finally get to what apparently is our destination....

Hmmm... "Where is the Sun building?" I asked... It turns out that my colleague had assumed that the road he typed into the TomTom was unique... It was a further 8.5 miles to our REAL destination. Finally we get to the Sun Office and I for one am glad to get out if only to provide blood to my thighs from being sat in a compact car seat, but more importantly I needed the churning in my head and stomach to stop. Could my day get any worse? sure it can, it turns out that the Sun office near Grenoble does not have a staff restaurant! MUCH later that day we found a bar in Uriage Des Bains open that served food. For a small out of the way place, the bar was warm and inviting and after 7PM it served food. I was so hungry I ordered the steak which came with fries and also consumed a chocolate dessert. Basically after 24.5 hours of forced fasting I decided just for tonight I will eat what was on the menu. Day Two breakfast was straight back on the plan.... sort of...

Posted at 08:21AM Jan 15, 2008 by binwooke in Personal  |  Comments[1]