All of my nurse friends will recoil in horror when I say this, but on the plane from Brussels to Marseille yesterday, I turned to David and said, “In twenty-five years of air travel, the airlines have only once lost our luggage!”

As the words escaped my mouth, I instantly regretted it. Nurses have a superstition of NEVER saying at work, “wow, it’s quiet tonight”, because of course, fate hears you, laughs, and then immediately un-quiets the shift for you.

We landed safely in Marseille, waited patiently at the luggage carousel, only to watch the conveyor belt halt without any of our bags. David and I stood there with several other passengers, I suppose expecting that the conveyor belt would magically start moving again, despite the fact I could see passengers starting to board the same plane from which we had disembarked.

We all seemed to accept the truth of the situation all at once, then made our way to the “lost luggage” desk, a sad little train of empty carts and weary travelers.

Our flight from Montreal to Brussels had been delayed one hour due to some mechanical issues, so I felt certain that David and I would miss our connecting flight in Brussels. Once we landed in Brussels, the pilot advised that, “it snowed a little overnight, and they are not as accustomed to snow here as we are in Montreal. The ground crew are having some problems with snow blocking the bridge, as you can see they are trying to remove the snow with their feet”. He said this with a chuckle. I was not laughing, instead feeling highly irritated that shovels apparently only exist in Canada.

By the time we were allowed to disembark, there was only about half an hour left before boarding time on our connecting flight to Marseille, so we hustled through the airport, slowed by the long line at passport control.

As the plane took off, I looked at my watch and noted it was almost exactly 60 minutes from when we landed from Montreal, which, in retrospect, was probably not enough time to unload our bags and then place them on the connecting flight.

At the “lost luggage” desk, we were informed that our bags were still in Brussels but were due to arrive on the next inbound flight at 11 pm. With a plan to return the next day to collect our bags, we picked up our rental car and headed off to Nîmes, about a 70 minute drive from Marseille.

After meeting up with our landlord and collecting the keys to our apartment rental, David and I headed off to our favourite big-box grocery store to pick up some basics, plus a few items to help us until we got our luggage back. Namely, some underwear and something to wear to sleep. We had flown Business Class, so we each had a toothbrush, toothpaste and floss from the kit the airline gave away.

I found the women’s lingerie aisle where the night shirts were about €15 (around CA$24). I did not feel like paying that much so got the idea to find a men’s shirt in a very large size instead. It occurred to me that I have never seen a very large man in our many travels to France, so was unsure that large shirts existed. However, I did find an XXL size, and even opened it up to make sure that a French man of XXL size was the same as a Canadian man of XXL size. It was nice and large, and at €5 (about CA$8), this was my new night shirt.

As for underwear, I am going to blame jet lag, because despite speaking and reading French, I wound up with thongs instead of regular underwear. To add insult to injury, not only was there a picture of the thongs contained in the package, but it was in an economical pack of three pairs. I have never in my life worn thongs, and now I am the confused owner of three emergency pairs.

Thankfully, the rest of the day went very well. Our apartment is huge and lovely, with floor-to ceiling windows, plenty of hot water, and a bright kitchen.

For dinner we walked over to our favourite local restaurant, La Table du 2, above the Musée de la Romanité, right across from the 2000 year old Roman Arena. We started with kirs apéritifs (white wine with fruit liqueur; peach for me, blackberry for David) which were served with a little dish of olives. Nîmes is in the Occitanie region, right next to the Provence-Côtes d’Azur region, so many of the foods and specialties are the same as the ones in Provence, olives being the main one.

Next, I had the “parfait” for my starter, consisting of a poached egg in a mushroom sauce topped with a piece of puff pastry, while David had the “potimarron” soup of squash, smoked haddock, and swirled with mascarpone. We both enjoyed the beer-braised pork cheeks served with lentils and parsnips. Everything was choked down with the help of a bottle of Costières de Nîmes Clos de Boutes “Pluriel”.

Dessert for me was a kind of deconstructed black forest cake, while David had the pineapple clafoutis with rum-raisin sauce. Both were served with a small spoonful of house-made berry sorbet.

Bellies full and heads cotton-y with jet lag, we made our way home and straight to bed for a very comfortable sleep, thong underwear notwithstanding.

Thank you for reading! More to come.