Complex Numbers

There Is A Such Thing As Coincidence

Yesterday's adventure took me on the TGV from Paris to Tours.

Don't ask me what the letters stand for. You can look it up same as I could, but I don't really want to know. Far as I'm concerned, they stand for Train Go Vwhooosh!

Out of curiosity, while on the train, I checked a website that used GPS data to determine one's current speed. Now, obviously, French high-speed rail can only move in km/h, and I can convert just fine in my head, but having spent most of my life moving at mph, I clocked in at 180-190mph.

Upon arrival in Tours, I made the questionable decision to walk to my hotel. Google said it was mostly flat, and it didn't lie. What it didn't tell me was that it was also mostly tiled sidewalks. Try rolling two suitcases on tiled sidewalks for 1600 meters.

The travel agent had some suggestions for what to do in Tours for the rest of the afternoon, and they were good suggestions, involving historic neighborhoods and buildings. I like that sort of thing well enough, but I have my priorities, so I set out to find beer.

What I found was very good beer, and a couple of hours later, I staggered back to the hotel, only to find, upon logging in to WDC, that our very own Annette was, by cosmic coincidence, also in Tours at that moment.

So of course I had to stagger all the way to where she was staying which was, comically, right next to the train station.

At least I wasn't dragging luggage, this time.

Now, look, I don't just go knocking on random peoples' doors, even if they are regulars here on Writing.com. But I'd spent a week in the L.A. area a while back, being shepherded around by Annette and her husband. So it's not like we didn't know each other. I didn't knock on her door, either; we met in the lobby and went to have drinks. Soft drinks, because even I have my limits.

I got back to the hotel just after midnight, which probably wasn't the best idea, either; I had to get up at some ungodly cow-milking hour this morning to go on a planned-and-paid-for tour of some of the catwaters in the area. Catwaters? Wait, no, I mean chateaux. (The best part about learning another language is gaining the ability to make horrible puns in both languages.) But that's a discussion for tomorrow.

Pic posted with permission: