Misadventures in France

My grandfather instilled in me a love of travel. He also taught me the very important lesson of accepting the fact that things are inevitably going to go wrong when you leave the safety of your own home to explore the great unknown.
His laughing reminder to just smile and know that it will all work out echoed in my ears Wednesday morning as a colleague and I found ourselves rather lost in Chantilly, France. After all, attitude is everything when you are going to need the help of others to fix your situation.
Our plan had seemed foolproof, as long as we remained confident that every single thing would go our way. Turns out, things did not go perfectly, leading to a mist-filled march around one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful racetracks in the world.
You see, the night before, we were sitting at the terminal in Cincinnati waiting to board a plane to Paris. We are both covering Sunday’s Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Europe’s most lucrative horse race, and decided to explore neighboring Chantilly while in the region.
While killing time before our flight, an email popped in alerting us to the fact that Japan’s Just a Way, the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Ranking’s No. 1-rated horse in the world, was set to put in his final work for the Arc on Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. sharp at Chantilly.
In a pre-trip euphoria, we became convinced that we could make it, since we were due to land in Paris at 6:15 a.m. As such, we contacted the right people to make sure we could attend, and were given the green light.
Our flight left a bit late, but made up time in the air, and we breezed through customs. Instead of taking the train as planned, we splurged for a taxi to up our odds of making it on time. That is when it all started to go wrong.
For anyone who has ever watched the reality show The Amazing Race, there is a lot of truth to the idea that you live or die by a good taxi driver if you are trying to make it to a set destination in a set amount of time.
Assuring us he knew where he was going, our driver first took us to our nearby hotel to drop our bags. Watching the sunrise over the fields of France, we grew confident we were going to make it. And we would have. Except ... he took us to the wrong gate at the track.
We found a group of people and tried talking to them, using what French the two of us could cobble together. My photographer friend was horrified to learn that six years of advanced French classes does not go very far in this specific of a setting. Funny that teachers don’t focus on the vocabulary surrounding the concept of finding a gate at a racetrack by a chateau.
MISTY CHANTILLY

An English-speaking gent took pity on us and explained we were in the wrong place. He said that where we needed to be was around the corner and to the left, but not to worry, that it was nearby.
Nearby is a relative term, especially when you are talking about a racecourse. We walked and walked and walked some more, all the while knowing we were too late. We had heard the town clock chime out that it was 8 a.m. as we wandered down yet another of the tree-lined paths.
JUST A BIT LOST IN CHANTILLY

The fog of the morning obscured the famous chateau that provides the track’s iconic backdrop, and the only proof of a horse being anywhere nearby came when we heard a whinny cut through the morning's silence. Obviously, I will die believing it was Just a Way.
NOT THE HORSE WE WERE HOPING TO SEE

We eventually did end where we needed to be, just in time to see cameramen loading up their equipment and heading off for a hot cup of coffee. The horses had shipped in for the workout, and had already shipped back out. Empty horse vans surrounded us, but none that contained Japan’s noble runner.
It turns out we missed the Japanese contingent by 10 minutes.
Realizing there was nothing we could do, we ended up walking back to the hotel, feet squelching in our dew-soaked shoes and our brains reminding us that while the clock read 8:30 a.m., our bodies thought it was 2:30 a.m. Time changes: easy for the brain to comprehend, harder on the body.
As it turns out, our hotel also is a restaurant … that doesn't open until noon. A pastry shop was next store, so we indulged in some of France’s finest sweets while resting our weary feet at an outdoor table.
LIFE-GIVING PASTRY

The hotel’s housekeeper—who had graciously taken our bags when we surprised her on the doorstep an hour before—saw us there and waved us in.
Although check-in wasn’t until 2 p.m., she could arrange for us to get in at 11 a.m. In the meantime, she invited us to sit in the restaurant and offered us coffee or tea. All of this was explained mostly with smiles and gestures, due to our woeful lack of French.
LIFE-GIVING TEA

An hour passed, and she came by to collect my empty tea mug and waved off my attempts to pay her with a smile. At one point I almost fell asleep at the table, leading my friend to joke, “She’s not drunk, she’s just tired!”
When the lady who runs the hotel arrived at 11, we explained we had been told we could check in early by the housekeeper. It turns out, she had made sure our room was tended to first.
Sometimes the simple joy of being able to sleep in a proper bed is akin to being given priceless jewels. As I drifted off to sleep for a bit, I couldn’t help but think that the morning, although a complete failure on paper, was actually a success.
I got to stroll through a scene so peaceful and beautiful it was surreal, eat an amazing pastry and somehow looked pathetic enough that a housekeeper who couldn't even truly speak to me with words (due to my own shortcomings) made sure I was taken care of.
I will get to see Just a Way, who was phenomenal when he won the Dubai Duty Free on the Dubai World Cup undercard this March, in the flesh on Sunday. Seeing his final workout would have been nice, but the morning was still memorable.
It is not always the adventure you remember most but the misadventure, and racing is a sport loved the world over, lending itself to plenty of both.