FRANCE

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Episode Transcript

(00:13):
Um, uh,

William Bryce's video reco (00:17):
Good morning.
It is January the 28th, 2025 andstraight from the highly
caffeinated studio.
This is According to Willie Band I, Will Bryce, am your host
for the next half hour.
Last week we talked about thegreat state of Florida And I
humbly thank you for the amountof downloads that we had for our

(00:40):
first podcast.
It gave us a ranking that I wasnowhere near expecting.
So very much appreciated, veryhumbled.
And I look forward toentertaining you in the next
half hour to make it worth yourwhile for tuning in again.
One thing that I do want tostart doing is kind of picking
from random Some mom and popbusiness like we talked about

(01:03):
the last time independentlyowned businesses throughout the
u.
s Whether I know who they arewhether I don't I want to give
them a shout out and whether itgives them one customer That's
worth it for them because thatcould pay for their child's
baseball uniform or anything sothis week's according to willie

(01:25):
b Shining star award business isnone other than Crawford
equipment in Mississippi.
Now I have actually donebusiness with these folks, and
they are definitely taking careof business.
I'll let you go and check outtheir website at Crawford
equipment, but.
If you need to get a hold ofsomebody to buy equipment, to

(01:45):
talk about a restaurantequipment, they, they literally
have it all.
If you have a convenience store,a restaurant, doesn't matter.
These people got it and they'vegot many, many warehouses of
equipment that will suit yourneeds and the service to back it
up.
That's the biggest thing.
So if you need to get ahold ofthem, you can get ahold of

(02:06):
Lauren Crawford.
Her number is 662 408 4742.
Or you can email her at LCrawford, 671.
At gmail.
com, they have warehouses allthroughout the South.
They're in Murray, Kentucky.

(02:26):
They're in Western Arkansas.
They're in Birmingham, Alabama.
They're in Pensacola, Florida,they have the means to take care
of whatever needs that you have.
So give Lauren Crawford a shoutout over there at, Crawford
equipment.
And I guarantee you, they willtake care of you.
You tell them I sent you.
So on to this week's subject,which is.

(02:49):
France.
So we're going further acrossthe pond to a little destination
over there that a lot of peopleare familiar with, but not a lot
of people have had theopportunity to go.
I was blessed enough to be ableto have that opportunity to go
to France for 10 days.
And I got to say, I reallyenjoyed the trip.

(03:10):
I wasn't sure that I would.
The one thing in hindsight thatI wish I had done was learn a
lot more French.
I can tell you that you canabsolutely, not learn too much
French before you go.
I realize you have GoogleTranslate and all these kinds of
things, but, you'll get a lotfurther if you learn to speak

(03:34):
some of the language so thatyou're at least able to navigate
yourself around.
And more especially, if you'regoing to drive, which we did, we
rented a car and drove for 10days from Geneva through Lyon,
Grenoble, Quincy, all the waydown to Paris, and then back up
through the Swiss Alps to Genevato fly home.

(03:55):
You cannot use Google Translateon the road signs.
So be prepared for that.
So I'm going to start off andI'm going to tell you a few
things that I think anytraveler, and there's a lot of
YouTube videos and stuff thattell you like, Oh, go here and
stay here and go see this, gosee that.
Here's some things that a lot ofthe travel videos don't tell

(04:17):
you.
Number one, Learn as much of thelanguage as you can, one of the
things that I would recommend isbe aware of your surroundings,
which that's pretty much thecase, whether you're in the
States or you're abroadtraveling.
When we go on vacation, we looklike tourists.
We just do.
And so we need to be aware ofyour surroundings.

(04:40):
One of the biggest fears that Ihad going to France by watching
YouTube videos, et cetera, etcetera.
Was pickpockets.
I mean, I thought they were justin herds and groves over there,
but I didn't have any issue withpickpockets.
They were a little more, brass,if you will.

(05:00):
They come up to you face to faceto try to scam you instead of
coming up to you quietly tocheck your wallet.
Instead, they were just tryingto scam you.
And they're really good at it.
You know, The, food availabilityis different than it is here in
the U.
S.
If I want something to eat rightnow, I can literally go 500

(05:22):
yards from where my house is andget something to eat.
In France, it's kind of hard toexplain, but It's a lot more
sparse on your selections.
And not only the locations aresparse, but times are sparse.
A lot of restaurants close inthe middle of the day.

(05:43):
So if you don't get there duringlunchtime.
You're waiting a long time todinner time because they would
just absolutely close for 345hours in the middle of the day.
Um, and they will, you can havewine and desserts until then.
That's, that's kind of their,what they do.
They have wine and dessertduring that time.

(06:05):
I'm not opposed to that, but Iwould still like to have, if I
want a cheeseburger, I want acheeseburger.
I'll have the dessert after, butI still want the cheeseburger
with bacon.
So, you know, the small streets,I'll tell you that, the streets
over there for the most part,especially if you're traveling a
lot and going through some ofthe small villages, some of the

(06:29):
streets are really small, likeRoom for one car.
That's why you see that theydrive small cars is because
their streets are just not aswide as our streets are here in
the U S and the route, thetraffic roundabouts, there's,
there's roundabouts to get intothe roundabouts.

(06:49):
I kid you not.
If you go over there and startdriving, you'll see what I'm
saying.
Oh, and don't speed because youprobably won't see any officers.
They have little cameras hiddenhere and there in the bushes and
the trees and the side of theroad.
And they will take your picturewith your license number on your
car.
And by the time you get home,you'll get an email going, Hey,

(07:13):
here's your ticket.
You were speeding going throughLyon.
Okay, so that's somethingdefinitely to watch out for.
Their subway system.
Same thing, make sure that youhave your day planned out.
Route your day with this, usethe subway system.
The train system is like, to me,it was really two parts.

(07:34):
They call it train subway versusback and forth.
But for me, they had a subwaysystem, but they also had like a
high speed rail train that wasabove ground.
And that's really cool.
If nothing else, just for theexperience.
And you get to see some of thecountryside that you wouldn't
normally see from the road.
The subway system does stoprunning at certain times during

(07:56):
the night.
There is a last train.
And if you missed the lasttrain, you are going to stay
wherever you are.
There's a story coming up aboutthat as well.
Restrooms.
Okay.
So I'm going to tell this storyand then tomorrow I will post
some pictures on our socialmedia pages.

(08:18):
Unfortunately for you.
And fortunately for me, I do nothave pictures of about what I'm
about to tell you, and I'm gladwe went to a park in Quincy,
France, and it was a reallycool, like something you see in
a movie, it's got a lake, it'sjust this green grass, all the

(08:40):
paths and stuff to walk aroundpeople lying on blankets, their
big sticks of bread and bottlesof wine, and they're just
enjoying life immensely.
So we saw.
And near distance that therewere some boats and there was
some lake activity and we wantedto go check that out.
So we said, well, before we dothat, in case we do wind up on a

(09:03):
boat, let's go ahead and make apit stop at the restroom.
So this is where I behoove youto learn as much French as you
can, because the sign I did notfully understand, or maybe I
just didn't read it.
I don't know.
It's kind of like instructionmanual.

(09:23):
My wife goes in ahead of me.
Now, as is custom here in the U.
S., someone goes in a door, theycome out, you grab the door and
you go in behind them, and thedoor never, you know, closes in
between.
These restrooms are selfcleaning.
And by self cleaning, I mean,Multiple nozzles that wash the

(09:46):
inside of the restroom down fromfloor to ceiling.
And if you do not let the doorclose in between guests, it will
go into self cleaning mode.
And you will be locked in thereuntil it finishes because the
doors will lock.
And water comes from everywhere.
So I came back out of therestroom soaked from head to

(10:09):
toe.
Laughter.
When my wife finally stoppedlaughing, which was a
considerable amount of time, Idon't blame her.
I would have had the samereaction, but I had squishy
shoes for the rest of the day.
So now it was necessary to gorent the boat to drive around
the lake in the sunshine to tryand dry Will out.

(10:33):
It was an experience.
Probably the pictures of my facewhen I'm locked inside the
restroom and figure out I can'tget out and water is shooting
from everywhere and there'snothing you can do about it.
I'm hoping the water that theyuse to clean the restrooms was
at least somewhat clean.
I'm going to go with that.
That's the way I've always stoodon.

(10:54):
Well, that was clean water.
It's coming from the ceiling.
It's coming from the wall.
I'm good.
So that was interesting.
The next interesting part ofthat little scenario was when we
went to rent the boat, weinquired, we saw these little,
four people motorboats out onthe lake.
They had like a small 15, 20horsepower motor on.

(11:16):
And I was like, Oh, that'sreally cool.
But you know, we're, we're notfrom here.
We're from the United States.
I doubt they're going to let usrent one wrong.
They not only let us rent one.
All we had to do was show themour driver's license and pay.
I think it was a hundred dollarsfor an hour.

(11:37):
And we got to take the boat.
So here's in the U S you wouldhave had to give it a blood
sample and, fill out forms andduplicate and triplicate and had
attorneys involved and, left upa million dollar deposit for a
20, 000 boat.
It just was amazing how thedifference was in the
transaction.

(11:57):
But it was a really nice time.
We enjoyed being on that boat.
Tomorrow I will post pictures ofthe boat on our social media
pages.
It was one of my memorableexperiences over there besides
the food and the desserts.
Parking over there is also achallenge.
It's not a parking lot.
It is a car park You will becorrected.

(12:20):
If you say parking lot, it'salmost like being in North
Carolina and you order a chickenfried steak It's not a chicken
fried steak here It's a countryfried steak and they do not
understand what you're talkingabout until you say country
fried steak our trip started outin Geneva.
We flew into Geneva, then wedrove to, Quincy, Leon,

(12:42):
Grenoble, and then on intoParis.
And that was really cool.
We saw some of the countrysidethat you wouldn't normally see.
If you were, just flying in andjust seeing one town or one
city, so we saw a lot of thecountryside and like one of the
towns, and I believe it was,Leon, there was a fresh market

(13:03):
and they had tons of fresholives and cheeses like salamis
and prosciutto.
And it's just, it was thecoolest thing because we don't
have that here in the U S and itwas like being at a market back
in the 1800s.
So I thought that was reallyinteresting.
It was almost like you went backin time because there was no,

(13:24):
sanitation processes and havingthe stuff out on display.
And you know what?
I was okay with it to me isvacation food.
Vacation food doesn't counttowards calories.
It doesn't count towardssanitation.
It doesn't care.
It's vacation food.
You want a pina colada at 5 a.
m.
Go for it.
You want a burrito at 3 a.

(13:44):
m.
Go for it.
Go for it.
It's vacation food.
It doesn't count.
And I stand by that.
So I will tell you the food wasthe food choices were
interesting.
There wasn't as many choicesthat I particularly cared for,
but I, I tried to venture outand try some things that I

(14:06):
wouldn't normally try.
There were some cheeses that Idon't like in the U S but I
liked them over there becausethey were good.
They've just seemed so muchcreamier and so much better.
I like a lot of chicken.
I will eat chicken every meal ifyou let me.
Over there, they don't have asmany chickens.
I've, in the movies, alwaysthought they did.

(14:27):
But I'm coming to find out thatthey did not.
Because every time I would orderchicken, they would offer me
what they called pigeon.
Which, you guessed it, pigeon.
I'm sorry, I'm not eating apigeon.
You can call it by whatever nameyou want to.
It's still a pigeon.
They're still at my feet aroundmy table, like at a sidewalk

(14:50):
cafe that we were at.
They're still pecking and eatingstuff off the ground.
They're eating my leftovers.
They're eating the things that Idrop off the table, regardless
of what they eat.
I don't want to eat a pigeon.
I'm okay with a chicken and Idon't care which one's cleaner.
But I am familiar with chicken,so I'm not going to go off, keep
going on chicken.

(15:10):
But just be aware that if youask for chicken, you're probably
going to get pigeon.
And, you know, maybe it's good.
I don't know.
I will say I did try somethingthat was totally out of my norm
and it was totally accident, ifyou will.
I'll tell you the story.
So we went into a really nicerestaurant one night.

(15:33):
We were absolutely starving.
We hadn't had very much foodthat day because we had learned
that you don't get food in themiddle of the day.
So I saw a steak on the menu andI'm like, yes, give me a steak.
Give me the potato.
Give me the whole nine yards.
I am starving.
The waiter comes out, and I feelpretty confident in the amount

(15:54):
of French that I had learned tobe able to order my dinner and
my wife's.
So I ordered my wife's dinner,and it went flawlessly.
The waiter was actuallyimpressed with my French.
I went to order my dinner.
And I decided to venture off alittle bit, if you will.
And, We started talking abouthow I wanted my steak cooked.

(16:15):
So I said, you know what?
So I said, well, maybe I'll justdo rare.
And then he said something aboutsteak tartare.
I said, you know what?
You only live once.
Why not?
I got the steak.
Ladies and gentlemen, when Isay, it still brings tears to my
eyes.
When I say that this steak wasraw, it was actually cold to the

(16:40):
touch.
A bandaid on this thing and itwould have walked right out of
the restaurant as they say.
But wow, I ate it.
I ate every bite of it because Iordered it.
And my wife said, well, youshould send it back.
I'm like, nope, this is, Iordered this.
I'm going to eat it.
And I did.
The taste of that meat remainedwith me for multiple days.

(17:05):
I would never order it again.
I now even go a step further.
I won't even order a rare steakanymore.
I stick to medium and mediumrare now, just because of the
taste of that steak.
So, you know, it's cool toventure out and, you know, like
I tell you, you only live onceregardless.
Some people don't like totravel, right.

(17:27):
But for me, travel is the escapeof a lifetime.
You can, and it's not about thet shirts.
It's not about the trinkets thatyou bring home.
It's about the mental picturesthat you take while you're
there.
It's about the experiences thatyou take in while you're there.
That's why I'm so passionateabout.

(17:47):
Being a foodie is that becausewhen I go to eat at a
restaurant, I'm not just goingto eat a meal if I wanted to eat
a meal, I would just eat athome.
I'm going for the experience.
And that's the thing that wehave to remember in life is to
take in the experiences.
Now, remember I was telling youabout.

(18:07):
The scam artists.
So when we got to Paris, wewanted to take in the Louvre.
We wanted to take in the EiffelTower.
There's so many iconic, sites tosee in, in Paris.
I felt like I was some kind ofsecret spy because I had done my
research on YouTube and Googleand everything.

(18:31):
And I And found out that therewas actually a secret entrance
to the Louvre.
You went down through theshopping mall and came back up
and voila, no lines.
We literally stood in no lineswhen the line up top was miles
long.
So that, and if you, you canstill look it up on YouTube to
this day and you'll see a videoshowing you how to get down

(18:53):
there to the ticket booth wherethere is no line.
But here's where you have to beaware.
We didn't have our tickets aheadof time, so as we are walking
towards the booth to get ourticket, we were approached by a
gentleman and trying to sell ussome tickets at a discounted
rate.

(19:14):
Well, like I always tell you,you get what you pay for.
And because he was trying tosell them so cheap, something
just told me my spidey senseswent off, and I'm like, this is
not right.
So we said, no, no, we, we wenton to the, up to the, the ticket
booth.
Now the guy is still rightbehind us all the way to the
ticket booth.

(19:34):
I thought, well, maybe the guyshe's legit.
As I'm talking to the lady,telling her that, Hey, the guy
behind me is trying to sell mesome tickets.
I mean, is it okay to buy those?
She said, what guy I turnedaround, this guy has
disappeared.
I mean, in thin air.
So she said, no, that usuallywhen they're selling those
tickets, they're already, theythey're picking up off the

(19:56):
ground or out of the trash, andthey're just selling used
tickets because they're notstamped or punched or anything
like that.
So.
We saved some money there by notbuying tickets from, a scalper,
as we call it here in the U S wego to a ball game.
We can go outside and gettickets.
Not that I've ever done that,but that's what I hear.
I knew when we were in,Grenoble, there was, You know

(20:19):
how you have the sky lifts here?
We have ski lifts.
We had sky lifts acrossamusement parks, things like
that.
They had these glass dome ballsthat, and I think it was a set
of six that were on the cableand they went down the
mountainside.
Up top there was a really coolrestaurant up there.
So you, you had phenomenal viewsand it was really something that

(20:43):
you kind of had to reallyresearch online to even know
that it was there because it wasso far off the beaten path.
So that's the thing is do yourresearch before you go so that
you don't miss those things offthe beaten path, because that's
where you're going to miss thosememorable experiences.
I will tell you that elevatorsin most hotels.

(21:06):
Um, or when I say they'resmaller, uh, plan on one person
and a suitcase.
I had never felt moreclaustrophobic in my life and
I'm not scared of tight spaces,but that was a little bit
different.
Desserts over there, whetherit's Geneva, whether it's,
France, doesn't matter.

(21:26):
I never found, that's one thingI never found.
Bad was a bad dessert everywherewe seem to go.
They just had the mostphenomenal desserts.
And I'm talking desserts onanother level.
I'm talking about desserts thatwere made in heaven by angels.
And I think that actually usedingredients from clouds to make

(21:47):
some of these desserts.
They were just incredibly light,incredibly creamy.
It's just, there's no way todescribe them that we have.
I promise you I've eaten enoughdesserts in the U S to know that
we don't have anything.
Like that here in the U.
S.
Not that I've tried yet.
If you know of something, let meknow and I'll go check it out.

(22:10):
So the Eiffel Tower.
So here's where this getsinteresting.
So on our trip, to Paris, I hadplanned on staying one night in
Paris because we were there for10 days when I booked it on

(22:30):
Expedia.
I saw a hotel that I thought wasthe absolute most mind blowing
cool hotel I ever seen in mylife.
And I'm like, I don't care.
We have to stay here.
I don't know where this is at.
I know it's in Paris, but wehave to stay here.
And it had views of the water.
How could you go wrong?

(22:51):
Well, let me tell you.
The name of the hotel was anindependent.
It was called the VIP YachtHotel.
Now, you've seen yachts here inthe U.
S.
I've seen yachts.
When you tell me, hey, I have ayacht, you've, you've got a
really big fancy boat.

(23:12):
To have put the name yacht orthe word yacht on this floating
establishment, I Was, anabomination and to Webster
dictionary.
Let me just go ahead and tellyou we drove around for a good
45 minutes, starving, exhausted,frustrated.
We had driven all day and wehadn't had.

(23:33):
We didn't get lunch because wegot into an area where there
were no restaurants all the wayover there.
We drove and drove and finallythe GPS kept saying, you have
arrived.
I disagree.
I don't know who is in the spacebubble for that GPS up there
trying to navigate, but theywere wrong.

(23:55):
We were not, we had not arrived.
All that we could see was this.
What looked like a barge, and ithad the name, the yacht VIP, VIP
Yacht Hotel.
So I told my wife, I said, youknow what, I bet this is the
boat that takes you down riverto the hotel.

(24:15):
I could not be more wrong.
I could try, but I would not be.
So I finally went inside thisbarge and there was a hotel
desk, just like in a, in alobby, although I'm only five,
six and the ceilings wereincredibly low.
When I asked if this was theaddress, he proudly said yes.

(24:41):
As I began to look around andtake more in, I'm like, there is
no way we're going to stay here.
This does not look safe.
I'm, you know, I'm, I just wantto go.
And so I told him, I said, letme, let me go check with my
wife.
I'll be right back.
So I went back to the car and Itold her, I said, so this is our
hotel.

(25:01):
She said, what do you mean?
I said, no, this is the hotel.
So we got on Expedia, Asked fora cancellation and then in the
meantime booked a Hilton hotel,which we know what those are
Again when you need to reallyplan out your trip because the
addresses in France Some of themseem really similar and you

(25:24):
really don't know exactly whereyou are So we wound up booking a
Hilton not four blocks away Webooked it at Disneyland Paris,
which was two and a half hoursaway, but the damage was done.
There was nowhere else to get ahotel.

(25:44):
As I drove around looking forthe hotel that was not ours.
Again, frustrated, tired,fighting all the traffic in
Paris, which you cannot evenbegin to fathom how bad it was.
There were no parking spots.
As I mentioned, parking is aluxury.
I wound up.
In part, I kid you not, on asidewalk, under a tree, and went

(26:10):
inside and told the guy, hesaid, yes, you, you are booked
at the Hilton.
I said, awesome.
I finally felt like that withina few minutes, I was going to
have food in front of me and abed.
Wrong.
I was booked at a Hilton.
I just wasn't booked at thatHilton.
And he told me where the hotelwas.

(26:31):
I said, how far is that?
And he said, well, it's at leasttwo and a half hours with
traffic right now.
So we drove all the way out toDisneyland Paris Found something
to eat collapsed the nextmorning got up took the subway
system We did we were done withdriving.
We're like we don't want todrive anywhere else.
Let's just take the subwaysystem So we took the subway all

(26:53):
the way back into Paris andwe've seen all the sights of
Paris a few scam artists alongthe way We finally got an Uber
to take us back over to wherethe subway system was and he
made one extra loop and took usby the Eiffel Tower because it
was all lit up.
It was late at night and hesaid, y'all aren't leaving are

(27:15):
you?
And I said, well, yeah, we haveto get back out to our hotel at
Disneyland Paris.
And he said, no, you have tostay.
Until 11 o'clock until they turnon the twinkly lights, he said.
It looks like the Eiffel Toweris covered in diamonds.
He said, you cannot come all theway to Paris and not see that.
So we bought in and we stayeduntil 11 o'clock.

(27:37):
And sure enough, it was I'llpost a picture of this, but it
was absolutely phenomenally notsomething you need to miss
because it's, um.
There's no words to describe it.
It was absolutely phenomenal.
However, like I told you, thereare some subway trains that
stopped running at night and youneed to know those times.

(28:01):
We basically sped walk to ourfirst train and barely made it
onto that.
We had to take three differenttrains to get back out to
Disneyland Paris.
As we made each connection, wewere getting on the last train
of the day.
Knowing this, when we got to thelast train that was going to
take us on the final journey,final leg of the journey.

(28:26):
When I say we ran to that trainthat we basically almost dove
inside the doors as they wereclosing is an understatement and
in the story, we finally gotback to Disneyland Paris, got to
our hotel, we were able to driveback into Geneva the next day

(28:48):
and turn in our rental car andget back on a plane and come
back to the U.
S.
Would I go back to France?
Would I check it out again?
I don't know that I would beinterested in seeing Paris
again.
But to see some of the othersmall towns in France, these are
just farming communities.

(29:09):
They are small communities, butthey got their narrow streets.
But there's so much history ineach one.
You'll see these massive woodendoors that are just 20 feet tall
and look like they were builtback in the 1500s maybe, but it
was just, it was so neat.
And to think about the kind ofhistory that must be there and

(29:30):
I'm, I'm not a big history buff,but it really kind of got me to
thinking.
So I would like to go backsomeday and check out, some of
the other small towns throughoutthe countryside, you know, maybe
by train, I don't know.
If by car, driving throughFrance was a little, a little
bit nerve wracking, but it was,the trip was definitely worth

(29:51):
it.
And when you get, when you getback home and you get, finally
gets your nerves back together,you know that it was worth it.
And you've made memories thatwill now last a lifetime.
And you know what, with allthat, that ladies and gentlemen,
squishy shoes and all, I bid youfarewell.
This is the end of this episode.
You do not want to miss nextweek's episode where we're going

(30:14):
to start.
It's be a two part series andwe're going to take a look at
Jamaica.
That's right.
We're going even further acrossthat great big pond and take a
look at Jamaica.
And that will be a two partseries, but until that time,
check us out on our social mediapages, tick talk, Facebook,
YouTube, and Instagram.

(30:35):
And like I said, I will beposting pictures of things that
I've talked about during thepodcast.
If you have any comments,suggestions, any windows,
whether they could be good, bad,or ugly, you leave them and I
will do my very level best toanswer each and every one.
Once again, I cannot thank youenough for listening till I see

(30:55):
you again caffeinate and conquerand have a great day