I've been kind of sporadic about the quote book on this trip... partly because we've just been so consistently hilarious, and partly because I've been video blogging some of the funnier crap (for upload later).
Anyways, here are some from Day 10, when I was feeling particularly quotey.
Ben: "Is the big button on the toilet for when you take a dump?"
Dan: "Yeah."
Ben: "Sweet."
Graeme: "I can't believe you found a way to throw bees at me, Dan. That's really impressive." [And he really did... he ran his hands through flowers as he biked in front of me, and a swarm of angry bees flew out at me!!!]
Ben: "You can be moustache guy."
Graeme: "I don't *want* to be moustache guy."
Ben: "Well, then be combination guy. There's two options, here."
Ben: "No, I don't want to... I'm done walking along seawalls."
Graeme: "Oh, please. This is the least dangerous thing you've done all day."
Ben: "I think I'm gonna name my kid 'chaud'."
Thursday, June 28, 2007
CEBToD: Day 10 -- Toulon to St. Tropez
Apparently Jay-Z sings about St. Tropez, though I couldn't recall. In fact, we've mostly been singing "Don't Turn Around" for the last several days. I have no idea why. But seriously, don't turn around... the commissar's in town, or so I hear.
So today was a real bitch of a day. Again, I don't have the mileage handy and will have to engage in some revisionist history when I add in the pix and video in the next week or so. But it was like 50+ miles with lots of crazy hillage, especially near the end. It was totally nuts, and my legs were jelly going up that last hill. But we made it to the bay of St. Tropez and found a tourist info center to help us book a room in town.
Highlights of the day started early... breakfast was included in the hotel... I don't think I've been focusing on breakfast much in this blog but it's been a big focus of us on this trip. Most of the breakfasts have either sucked, or cost 10 euro extra per person, or both. This morning's was extra, though it was the most comprehensive French breakfast we had on the trip! Standard croissants and other pastries, as well as coffee, but we also got some awesome yogurt and some delicious multivitaminsaft!! That stuff we normally can only get in Germany.... but we were stoked to find it here.
Next major highlight happened 2 minutes into the biking, and one of our big regrets on the trip is that we didn't document it in any way. We saw a seagull carrying a dead pigeon around in its beak. Seriously. Now, I also haven't been going on about the seagulls... but theyve been pretty annoying. They basically shriek and sound exactly like little kids being tortured. Not that I know what that actually sounds like, mind you, but I'm sure you got an image of it as soon as I said it and that's exactly what those damned birds sounds like. They've even dive-bombed us a few times on the bikes, which is a little disconcerting. But we figured we were safe from them, cause what do they eat? Fish? Garbage? Bugs? Well, turns out they don't mind the occasional pigeon. And that makes me think they wouldn't shy away from ganging up on a couple of hapless bikers. Anyways, it was mesmerizing to watch the gull toss the dead pigeon around as it tried to tear off bite-sized bits, which is I think why we didn't record it, because we were too shocked and enthralled to do the right thing.
The rest of the day was decent... biking, hills, etc. Very very long. We stopped for food in Cavalaire-sur-Mer, and I was played out. But we had to bike up and over the crazy hill to get to the ST bay, along a shoulderless highway with lots of turns and crazy agressive drivers. Not pleasant, but as I mentioned before we made it, so I shall bitch of it no more. I was an animal going into St. Tropez from the tourism office, though, which was another 5+ miles through more nutso (tho flat) traffic. The traffic leaving ST was backed up the entire way. So note to all you ST-lovers out there: don't drive in for a day trip. In fact, there's no train there either (train, yes, it's coming very soon!) so you'll have to take your yacht.
Which is the perfect segue into what St. Tropez is famous for, which is the very fact that it's famous. Doesn't make much sense, right, except that you know it does. There's not much there of any value except a harbor for $10-million yachts, which tends to attract such yachts, as well as all of the attendant fancy-pants shops and art galleries and restaurants that are required to support the fabulously wealthy when they drop into port. So once we checked into our hotel room and chained our bikes to the tree out back by the naked Germans, we headed down to port to peruse the yachts.
I won't waste time expounding on the lovelitudes of the yachts themselves.... we actually all decided we'd much rather have fancy houses than fancy yachts, since fancy yachts tend to be attacked by pirates on the open seas. And not the fun, drunk, sexually-ambiguous pirates like Jack Sparrow, but the scary, RPG-firing, knife-raping, murderous sorts that actually still plague the high seas. Good times. We noted our favorite yacht called The Ability, which seemed to be American, though we couldn't be sure. I wanted us to talk our way onto one of the yachts and get carted all around the Med by our wealthy new friends and benefactors, but none of us were the sorts to pull that off. I openly lamented Tiffany not being here, since she could have definitely talked us onto one of those things.
We got dinner at a crepe place facing the yachts. I swear to god I have never been served so fast in all my life, and I doubt I ever will again. We were literally measuring the time in seconds between when we would set down our menu and they'd ask us if we were ready to order. Dan and I finished first, and I decided to count how long between the time when Ben set down his fork from his last bite and when the waiter took the plates away. It was 10 seconds. I swear to you. The same for dessert and coffee. I have never felt so rushed in my life, including time at packed fast food places. It was truly a wondrous experience, and oh-so-Euro. Not.
From there it was a downhill drunk-fest. Dan and I drank on the wall outside our hotel as Ben called his gf, and people walked underneath our feet. We ended up all 3 drinking out on the main square where all these locals were playing late-night drunken bocce ball. Ben climbed up a tree and completely blended into his surroundings... so we dubbed him a tree ninja. People would walk by and he'd shout at them and scare the bejesus out of them... it was hilarious.
Have I discussed our porto power-ups at all? Dan and I started drinking port in Marseilles, and looped Ben into the tradition pretty much immediately. Before we'd left Marseilles we all had our own port flasks and would take nips here and there throughout the riding day. Between port and ham, we were continously powered-up. Have I even mentioned how much ham I've been eating? Sooooo much ham. It's inescapable.
Omg... and the facial hair. I forgot about the facial hair. We all decided to wear weird facial hair for the rest of the trip. Dan's doing a flavor-saver, Ben's doing a creepy moustache, and I'm doing a combo stache and goatee thing. Man... St. Tropez was a real epicenter of activity this week. Good times!!
So today was a real bitch of a day. Again, I don't have the mileage handy and will have to engage in some revisionist history when I add in the pix and video in the next week or so. But it was like 50+ miles with lots of crazy hillage, especially near the end. It was totally nuts, and my legs were jelly going up that last hill. But we made it to the bay of St. Tropez and found a tourist info center to help us book a room in town.
Highlights of the day started early... breakfast was included in the hotel... I don't think I've been focusing on breakfast much in this blog but it's been a big focus of us on this trip. Most of the breakfasts have either sucked, or cost 10 euro extra per person, or both. This morning's was extra, though it was the most comprehensive French breakfast we had on the trip! Standard croissants and other pastries, as well as coffee, but we also got some awesome yogurt and some delicious multivitaminsaft!! That stuff we normally can only get in Germany.... but we were stoked to find it here.
Next major highlight happened 2 minutes into the biking, and one of our big regrets on the trip is that we didn't document it in any way. We saw a seagull carrying a dead pigeon around in its beak. Seriously. Now, I also haven't been going on about the seagulls... but theyve been pretty annoying. They basically shriek and sound exactly like little kids being tortured. Not that I know what that actually sounds like, mind you, but I'm sure you got an image of it as soon as I said it and that's exactly what those damned birds sounds like. They've even dive-bombed us a few times on the bikes, which is a little disconcerting. But we figured we were safe from them, cause what do they eat? Fish? Garbage? Bugs? Well, turns out they don't mind the occasional pigeon. And that makes me think they wouldn't shy away from ganging up on a couple of hapless bikers. Anyways, it was mesmerizing to watch the gull toss the dead pigeon around as it tried to tear off bite-sized bits, which is I think why we didn't record it, because we were too shocked and enthralled to do the right thing.
The rest of the day was decent... biking, hills, etc. Very very long. We stopped for food in Cavalaire-sur-Mer, and I was played out. But we had to bike up and over the crazy hill to get to the ST bay, along a shoulderless highway with lots of turns and crazy agressive drivers. Not pleasant, but as I mentioned before we made it, so I shall bitch of it no more. I was an animal going into St. Tropez from the tourism office, though, which was another 5+ miles through more nutso (tho flat) traffic. The traffic leaving ST was backed up the entire way. So note to all you ST-lovers out there: don't drive in for a day trip. In fact, there's no train there either (train, yes, it's coming very soon!) so you'll have to take your yacht.
Which is the perfect segue into what St. Tropez is famous for, which is the very fact that it's famous. Doesn't make much sense, right, except that you know it does. There's not much there of any value except a harbor for $10-million yachts, which tends to attract such yachts, as well as all of the attendant fancy-pants shops and art galleries and restaurants that are required to support the fabulously wealthy when they drop into port. So once we checked into our hotel room and chained our bikes to the tree out back by the naked Germans, we headed down to port to peruse the yachts.
I won't waste time expounding on the lovelitudes of the yachts themselves.... we actually all decided we'd much rather have fancy houses than fancy yachts, since fancy yachts tend to be attacked by pirates on the open seas. And not the fun, drunk, sexually-ambiguous pirates like Jack Sparrow, but the scary, RPG-firing, knife-raping, murderous sorts that actually still plague the high seas. Good times. We noted our favorite yacht called The Ability, which seemed to be American, though we couldn't be sure. I wanted us to talk our way onto one of the yachts and get carted all around the Med by our wealthy new friends and benefactors, but none of us were the sorts to pull that off. I openly lamented Tiffany not being here, since she could have definitely talked us onto one of those things.
We got dinner at a crepe place facing the yachts. I swear to god I have never been served so fast in all my life, and I doubt I ever will again. We were literally measuring the time in seconds between when we would set down our menu and they'd ask us if we were ready to order. Dan and I finished first, and I decided to count how long between the time when Ben set down his fork from his last bite and when the waiter took the plates away. It was 10 seconds. I swear to you. The same for dessert and coffee. I have never felt so rushed in my life, including time at packed fast food places. It was truly a wondrous experience, and oh-so-Euro. Not.
From there it was a downhill drunk-fest. Dan and I drank on the wall outside our hotel as Ben called his gf, and people walked underneath our feet. We ended up all 3 drinking out on the main square where all these locals were playing late-night drunken bocce ball. Ben climbed up a tree and completely blended into his surroundings... so we dubbed him a tree ninja. People would walk by and he'd shout at them and scare the bejesus out of them... it was hilarious.
Have I discussed our porto power-ups at all? Dan and I started drinking port in Marseilles, and looped Ben into the tradition pretty much immediately. Before we'd left Marseilles we all had our own port flasks and would take nips here and there throughout the riding day. Between port and ham, we were continously powered-up. Have I even mentioned how much ham I've been eating? Sooooo much ham. It's inescapable.
Omg... and the facial hair. I forgot about the facial hair. We all decided to wear weird facial hair for the rest of the trip. Dan's doing a flavor-saver, Ben's doing a creepy moustache, and I'm doing a combo stache and goatee thing. Man... St. Tropez was a real epicenter of activity this week. Good times!!
d'oh... forgot about the tartare!
How could I forget... dinner last night in Toulon for me was beef tartare! I'd never had it before... so I figured I was due to try it. Turns out it's literally just a pile of ground beef with lots of random stuff on the side that you mix in to your taste. That stuff includes ketchup, mustard, onions, relish, capers... It's basically just an uncooked hamburger, sans bun. But as it turns out, all of those things plus worcestershire sauce and I forget what else make for an amazing pile of nasty goodness. Oh yeah... it comes with a raw egg, too. So I'm thinking it's the most efficient way for me to kill myself with a double-whammy of salmonilla and trichonosis. Or something like that. Anyways, it was really good.
Oh, and Ben gorged himself on the chocolate mousse we got for dessert. The guy had it all over his face, like he'd just planted his face directly in it. Which is actually exactly what he did. Yum!!
Oh, and Ben gorged himself on the chocolate mousse we got for dessert. The guy had it all over his face, like he'd just planted his face directly in it. Which is actually exactly what he did. Yum!!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
CEBToD: Day 9 -- Marseilles to Toulon
Bah, dammit... I don't have the distance or height on me for our trip today. I'll have to come back later and add it in. It was somethingl ike 30-40 miles, with like 2000 ft ascension. Something like that.
Anyways, today was a long-ass day. We went from Marseilles to Toulon... though we sorta cheated a bit at the tail-end. Getting out of Marseilles took forever, and we had our first major mechanical incident in the process. About 5 miles or so into the ride, one of my spokes broke!!! It turns out that my rack was torqued a bit off-center, so the left side of the panniers was hitting the spokes on the rear wheel on every bump. And we went over a LOT of bumps leaving town. So I'm biking along innocently when I hear a metallic snapping. I stop to see what it is, and oh fun, my spoke's broken. I can't bike the entire day with that, so we had to try to find a bike shop. I walked my bike to a nearby gas station, and sent Ben and Dan ahead to ask them where a "magasin de velo" would be. Turns out there's one right around the corner! What are the odds?!
So yeah... the odds were exactly what you thought they were. There wasn't one around the corner. Dan actually said "magazine de velo", which is a magazine, vs. magasin which is a store. Oops. I went in and clarified with the gas station guy, and got a crudely drawn map that would do exactly what a map isn't supposed to do: get us wildly lost in the Marseille burbs. But after a few more stops and questions like "pardon... ou est-ce qu'on peut trouver un magasin de velo?"... we found a sporting-goods superstore called Decathlon, which is incidentally where every French person buys their bikes. And it only added like 10 miles to our day! haha.
They fixed my spokes and re-trued my rear wheel in about 15 mins for all of 8 euros. Which is awesomely cheap. Meanwhile, Dan destroyed their public restroom, and Ben bought some goodies like a new jersey. After an hour or so we finally got moving again... but not until this weird kid who stared at us for 10 mins without saying anything finally asked where we were going. I told him Cassis, and he said the same thing everyone else said, that it's a crazy steep climb. Hooray!
Anyways, we weren't disappointed. It was quite the steep climb. Luckily there was a bike path and many vista points for us to enjoy the view. The descent was actually far worse in my opinion, because it lasted for forever, and my shoulder still doesn't really like bearing all of my weight. I should probably adjust my handlebars or something. I still can't sleep on my right side, suckily enough.
Oh!!!!!! Did I mention that my front fork was sticking for like all of last week so that I couldn't turn practically at all?! That's why descents sucked so badly for me before... I had practically no control, because I could only make large jerky moves which are horrid for fast, wet, weighted, shoulder-less descents. Dan fixed it for me for our Aix trip the other day, and since then it's been like buttah!
Anyways. Cassis was a little disappointing. Given how hyped it was, it turned out to be a small touristy town that, while pretty, didn't really excite like we had hoped. So we had some lunch and bugged out. More riding took us further along... and at some point we hopped a train for the last bit to Toulon. We just had too far to go, and between the spokes and the hills, we were spent.
Toulon was a pretty cute town... nothing too thrilling, but nice. We stayed at a hotel where a JJ lookalike worked the front desk. It was weird. We got dinner at this awesome place on one of the random squares... i forget its name, but we had some great food and wine, and the older guys who worked there were a lot of fun. I'll refer you to Dan's and Ben's blogs for more details. =D
Anyways, today was a long-ass day. We went from Marseilles to Toulon... though we sorta cheated a bit at the tail-end. Getting out of Marseilles took forever, and we had our first major mechanical incident in the process. About 5 miles or so into the ride, one of my spokes broke!!! It turns out that my rack was torqued a bit off-center, so the left side of the panniers was hitting the spokes on the rear wheel on every bump. And we went over a LOT of bumps leaving town. So I'm biking along innocently when I hear a metallic snapping. I stop to see what it is, and oh fun, my spoke's broken. I can't bike the entire day with that, so we had to try to find a bike shop. I walked my bike to a nearby gas station, and sent Ben and Dan ahead to ask them where a "magasin de velo" would be. Turns out there's one right around the corner! What are the odds?!
So yeah... the odds were exactly what you thought they were. There wasn't one around the corner. Dan actually said "magazine de velo", which is a magazine, vs. magasin which is a store. Oops. I went in and clarified with the gas station guy, and got a crudely drawn map that would do exactly what a map isn't supposed to do: get us wildly lost in the Marseille burbs. But after a few more stops and questions like "pardon... ou est-ce qu'on peut trouver un magasin de velo?"... we found a sporting-goods superstore called Decathlon, which is incidentally where every French person buys their bikes. And it only added like 10 miles to our day! haha.
They fixed my spokes and re-trued my rear wheel in about 15 mins for all of 8 euros. Which is awesomely cheap. Meanwhile, Dan destroyed their public restroom, and Ben bought some goodies like a new jersey. After an hour or so we finally got moving again... but not until this weird kid who stared at us for 10 mins without saying anything finally asked where we were going. I told him Cassis, and he said the same thing everyone else said, that it's a crazy steep climb. Hooray!
Anyways, we weren't disappointed. It was quite the steep climb. Luckily there was a bike path and many vista points for us to enjoy the view. The descent was actually far worse in my opinion, because it lasted for forever, and my shoulder still doesn't really like bearing all of my weight. I should probably adjust my handlebars or something. I still can't sleep on my right side, suckily enough.
Oh!!!!!! Did I mention that my front fork was sticking for like all of last week so that I couldn't turn practically at all?! That's why descents sucked so badly for me before... I had practically no control, because I could only make large jerky moves which are horrid for fast, wet, weighted, shoulder-less descents. Dan fixed it for me for our Aix trip the other day, and since then it's been like buttah!
Anyways. Cassis was a little disappointing. Given how hyped it was, it turned out to be a small touristy town that, while pretty, didn't really excite like we had hoped. So we had some lunch and bugged out. More riding took us further along... and at some point we hopped a train for the last bit to Toulon. We just had too far to go, and between the spokes and the hills, we were spent.
Toulon was a pretty cute town... nothing too thrilling, but nice. We stayed at a hotel where a JJ lookalike worked the front desk. It was weird. We got dinner at this awesome place on one of the random squares... i forget its name, but we had some great food and wine, and the older guys who worked there were a lot of fun. I'll refer you to Dan's and Ben's blogs for more details. =D
CEBToD: Day 8 -- Marseilles Rest Day
So today we pretty much just hung out in Marseilles all day. It was intended to be a rest day so that Dan and I could recoup a bit, and so that Ben could acclimate to the time change. If you'll recall we drank a lot last night.... shocking, I know! So we pretty much slept in like slobs till almost 11. When we tried going down for breakfast (which allegedly ran till noon), the lady running it scolded us for eating so late, making sure we knew that breakfast isn't a noontime kind of meal. We were like, thanks lady, just bring us our damn croissants and cafe. OK, we didn't say that... I actually stammered an apology in French and begged her to feed us anyways. Luckily she hooked us up.
We ended up not taking the cool French guy up on his offer to show us the city. By the time we were out and wandering it was already afternoon, and we were too blah to deal with the language barrier, even though he was the nicest guy ever. Instead we wandered around the city a bit... we saw the church near our hotel that we drank so much port in front of the last few days... we even paid to go down into its catacombs. Very cool! We also wandered the giant fort near us, as well as the grounds of the nearby chateau. Ben desperately wanted to find the Pharo, which is the district of town we were in (a pharo is a lighthouse). But despite all our searching we didn't find crap. =D Pharos have since been a running gag for us, but I'll save that hilarity for a future post.
Ben and I left Dan at the hotel and went up to Notre Dame de la Garde, which is a crazy-ass church built on the highest hill in town. We figured it'd be a hike up there, but we weren't really prepared for what we'd gotten ourselves into. We started climbing hills through town... and I'm talking San Francisco style hills. We climbed and we climbed, winding through neighborhoods, going up up up, sometimes down, sometimes the wrong direction... but after a good 20 minutes or so of climbing, we finally rounded a corner, and there it was! The beautiful church, up on top of yet more freaking hillage, at least another couple hundred feet up. I swear they moved the damn thing while we were wandering.
But it was worth it... a gorgeous view of the city, even if the church itself wasn't too thrilling. I mean, it was very pretty, but quite small. It did have a drawbridge, which seemed weird. They even raised it at one point, trapping Ben and I inside, though we obviously made it out eventually. =P
That night was our bouillabase dinner... it was something we had to do, though the soup itself left a bit to be desired. I don't like seafood, so I'm still not clear on why I ordered it. I do that sometimes... I make myself do things I know I won't like, then curse myself out for it the whole while I'm doing whatever heinous thing it was I forced myself into. I wonder if that's a certifiable disorder. I'll have to ask Tiffany.
We kept it pretty tame that night with the drinking... after all, we had mountains to bike the next day! Tomorrow we're supposed to go to Cassis, which everyone says is basically straight up the side of a mountain. I can't wait! Wheeeee!
We ended up not taking the cool French guy up on his offer to show us the city. By the time we were out and wandering it was already afternoon, and we were too blah to deal with the language barrier, even though he was the nicest guy ever. Instead we wandered around the city a bit... we saw the church near our hotel that we drank so much port in front of the last few days... we even paid to go down into its catacombs. Very cool! We also wandered the giant fort near us, as well as the grounds of the nearby chateau. Ben desperately wanted to find the Pharo, which is the district of town we were in (a pharo is a lighthouse). But despite all our searching we didn't find crap. =D Pharos have since been a running gag for us, but I'll save that hilarity for a future post.
Ben and I left Dan at the hotel and went up to Notre Dame de la Garde, which is a crazy-ass church built on the highest hill in town. We figured it'd be a hike up there, but we weren't really prepared for what we'd gotten ourselves into. We started climbing hills through town... and I'm talking San Francisco style hills. We climbed and we climbed, winding through neighborhoods, going up up up, sometimes down, sometimes the wrong direction... but after a good 20 minutes or so of climbing, we finally rounded a corner, and there it was! The beautiful church, up on top of yet more freaking hillage, at least another couple hundred feet up. I swear they moved the damn thing while we were wandering.
But it was worth it... a gorgeous view of the city, even if the church itself wasn't too thrilling. I mean, it was very pretty, but quite small. It did have a drawbridge, which seemed weird. They even raised it at one point, trapping Ben and I inside, though we obviously made it out eventually. =P
That night was our bouillabase dinner... it was something we had to do, though the soup itself left a bit to be desired. I don't like seafood, so I'm still not clear on why I ordered it. I do that sometimes... I make myself do things I know I won't like, then curse myself out for it the whole while I'm doing whatever heinous thing it was I forced myself into. I wonder if that's a certifiable disorder. I'll have to ask Tiffany.
We kept it pretty tame that night with the drinking... after all, we had mountains to bike the next day! Tomorrow we're supposed to go to Cassis, which everyone says is basically straight up the side of a mountain. I can't wait! Wheeeee!
I live!
I know you were all on the edge of your seats these last days waiting to get some sort of update from me. We haven't been anywhere near the internets since Marseille, making it tough to do blog updates. I'll try to catch up now, though I'll likely only have the patience to do a few days at a time.
We're in Florence now... meaning we're done with the biking part. I just dropped off Brett Favre to be boxed up... and now we've got 2 days to dick around before I fly to Spain. So I should be able to squeeze in the updates here and there without trouble.
Anyways... enough meta-posting. Let's get to the updating!
We're in Florence now... meaning we're done with the biking part. I just dropped off Brett Favre to be boxed up... and now we've got 2 days to dick around before I fly to Spain. So I should be able to squeeze in the updates here and there without trouble.
Anyways... enough meta-posting. Let's get to the updating!
Sunday, June 17, 2007
CEBToD: Day 7 -- Day trip to Aix
I'm going to keep this entry short, since i'm writing way to much detail that probly no one cares about but me, the francophones amongst you, and probly my mom. =D
Today we did a day trip over the mountains to Aix. Total distance was about 55 miles, and it was nearly all up and down. Pretty hardcore, but we didn't have our packs so it was pretty easy, I thought (though I was totally spent by the time we were done). I'll have to post the pix and vids, but we had bike paths for most of the journey... really nice, wide paths that were even a different color than the roads so they wouldn't be mistaken for a wide shoulder! Sooo nice.
Aix is fucking impossible to find. I swear they have some sort of telepathic cloaking device around it. No train, buses are crazy, and you can't find it by car or bike because you get turned in circles by the confusing road signs. Even when we finally found it, we couldn't figure out how to get downtown. We literally followed road signs in a 4-block circle before we gave up and struck out on our own.
The town (once we found it) was nice enough, but we were too bitter to really enjoy it. hehehe. We had pizza at a local chain, then started heading home, because Ben landed at the airport at 6:30 and it was already after 4, and we had 20+ miles to ride home, plus clean up, bus out to the airport (which is like 30 miles west of the city), and find Ben. Yeah, we didn't think we'd make it (and we didn't... oops).
The bike ride back was pretty fast... I was definitely brain-dead... dunno why, but probly just worn out from all the riding. I was worried I'd do something dumb like fall over from a stand-still again. =P We got to Marseilles fast, but Marseille's so freaking big that we were biking through it for like an hour before we got home. At least an hour, I think, and much of that downhill with few stops. We literally descended for like 30+ minutes at 20+ mph... it was fun, but nuts!
Ben ended up busing from the airport to the gare where we met him, after chaining up our bikes and getting cleaned up. We took him back and dropped off his stuff, then took him downtown and got delicious crepes for dinner. We met this awesome French family at the next table... they helped us order our dessert crepes (they got Dan one that was soaked in booze) and gave us all these ideas for what to do in the city. THey even offered to drive us around town on Sunday!!! We'll see if we do it.
Then we went back to the Irish pub and had some 6 euro beers before heading home to bed at 3am. We'd been carrying port in flasks with us all day, and by this point had been through like 2 full-on bottles (which cost 6 euros themselves), so by the end of the night we were LIT... esp Dan who'd had that booze-crepe, too. No crazy videos this time... I need to make sure next time we're drunk that I include that in our agenda. hehehe.
Today we did a day trip over the mountains to Aix. Total distance was about 55 miles, and it was nearly all up and down. Pretty hardcore, but we didn't have our packs so it was pretty easy, I thought (though I was totally spent by the time we were done). I'll have to post the pix and vids, but we had bike paths for most of the journey... really nice, wide paths that were even a different color than the roads so they wouldn't be mistaken for a wide shoulder! Sooo nice.
Aix is fucking impossible to find. I swear they have some sort of telepathic cloaking device around it. No train, buses are crazy, and you can't find it by car or bike because you get turned in circles by the confusing road signs. Even when we finally found it, we couldn't figure out how to get downtown. We literally followed road signs in a 4-block circle before we gave up and struck out on our own.
The town (once we found it) was nice enough, but we were too bitter to really enjoy it. hehehe. We had pizza at a local chain, then started heading home, because Ben landed at the airport at 6:30 and it was already after 4, and we had 20+ miles to ride home, plus clean up, bus out to the airport (which is like 30 miles west of the city), and find Ben. Yeah, we didn't think we'd make it (and we didn't... oops).
The bike ride back was pretty fast... I was definitely brain-dead... dunno why, but probly just worn out from all the riding. I was worried I'd do something dumb like fall over from a stand-still again. =P We got to Marseilles fast, but Marseille's so freaking big that we were biking through it for like an hour before we got home. At least an hour, I think, and much of that downhill with few stops. We literally descended for like 30+ minutes at 20+ mph... it was fun, but nuts!
Ben ended up busing from the airport to the gare where we met him, after chaining up our bikes and getting cleaned up. We took him back and dropped off his stuff, then took him downtown and got delicious crepes for dinner. We met this awesome French family at the next table... they helped us order our dessert crepes (they got Dan one that was soaked in booze) and gave us all these ideas for what to do in the city. THey even offered to drive us around town on Sunday!!! We'll see if we do it.
Then we went back to the Irish pub and had some 6 euro beers before heading home to bed at 3am. We'd been carrying port in flasks with us all day, and by this point had been through like 2 full-on bottles (which cost 6 euros themselves), so by the end of the night we were LIT... esp Dan who'd had that booze-crepe, too. No crazy videos this time... I need to make sure next time we're drunk that I include that in our agenda. hehehe.
CEBToD: Day 6 -- Avignon toMarseille
Today was a zero-mile day. There was a major lightning storm in Avignon overnight, and we were concerned about biking in that weather. So in the morning we decided to spend more time in the city and then take a train south. Of course by noon the weather had cleared up and it was an incredible day, but we were committed to not riding at that point, so we made the best of it.
We saw the Pont d'Avignon (ancient stone bridge that the river Rhone kept eating) and poked around the city some more, including the big-ass kirche next to the Papal Palace, which was surprisingly un-big-ass inside. We got some kebabs for lunch, and ate those with some port on the steps of a smaller kirche in town. Eventually we left the beautiful city of Avignon and hopped a train to Marseille.
The new plan had been to train to Aix-en-Provence, then bike tomorrow to Marseille, where we're meeting Ben, the 3rd member of out troupe. But it turns out that we could train from Avignon to Marseille, but would have to bus from Marseille to Aix. And the bus would be unreliable on whether they would take our bikes. (We'd find out the next day that the train doesn't go to Aix because they're fixing the tracks.) So we decided to just go to Marseille a day early, grab a hotel, and do a day trip on Sat before meeting Ben at the airport.
The train to Marseille was another local one, but it was awesome. Super spacious, two stories, and pleeeenty of room for our bikes. And it was a gorgeous view of the countryside, esp given how nice the day turned out. But when we got to Marseille... omg, I've decided that this city is a net generator of chaos in the world. It is so teeming with people, and so generally chaotic... it's nuts! Dan assures me cities in Asia are worse (Bangkok, for example), but for Europe it's likely 2nd only to Rome for being insane. Marseille actually has a bad reputation for being dirty and crime-ridden and wild... which I remember from when I was here in 98. But to be fair, since our arrival it's actually turned out to be a pretty nice city, though my chaos assessment still stands.
We found a hotel in the south part of the city, in Le Pharoh. It's far from the main section, but was like the only place we could get 3 people and 3 bikes for 3 nights. Many thanks to the Tourism Office again for their help finding it. It's actually a very cute hotel, and we have a great room (very red this time), and we store our bikes in the basement, where the ceiling is like 5 feet tall. After settling in, we walked around a bit... mostly to buy more port (we're kind of obsessed with the stuff) and then to grab dinner (at a Vietnamese restaurant, which was disappointing). Then we grabbed a Guinness at an Irish Pub with al fresco seating (yeah, I wanted a Guinness... weird, huh?!). By then it was like 1 am and we needed to sleep for our day trip the next day. One weird thing we saw was the bouncers at our pub attack these waify kids for apparently no reason. It was like watching Shrek beat up Donkey... it was totally a mis-matched fight that mostly consisted of the kids covering themselves from the raining blows. God knows what they did... but I can't imagine they deserved it. Poor weird Euro-waifs.
Oh... 12 year olds everywhere at the pub drinking. And apparently people still pop their collars here, though not ironically as I would. And lots of people tie sweaters around their necks, in the 80s-tennis-club fashion. It's hard to watch. But other than that, tons of cute guys, and Dan's certainly been pleased with the hot chicas. =P
We saw the Pont d'Avignon (ancient stone bridge that the river Rhone kept eating) and poked around the city some more, including the big-ass kirche next to the Papal Palace, which was surprisingly un-big-ass inside. We got some kebabs for lunch, and ate those with some port on the steps of a smaller kirche in town. Eventually we left the beautiful city of Avignon and hopped a train to Marseille.
The new plan had been to train to Aix-en-Provence, then bike tomorrow to Marseille, where we're meeting Ben, the 3rd member of out troupe. But it turns out that we could train from Avignon to Marseille, but would have to bus from Marseille to Aix. And the bus would be unreliable on whether they would take our bikes. (We'd find out the next day that the train doesn't go to Aix because they're fixing the tracks.) So we decided to just go to Marseille a day early, grab a hotel, and do a day trip on Sat before meeting Ben at the airport.
The train to Marseille was another local one, but it was awesome. Super spacious, two stories, and pleeeenty of room for our bikes. And it was a gorgeous view of the countryside, esp given how nice the day turned out. But when we got to Marseille... omg, I've decided that this city is a net generator of chaos in the world. It is so teeming with people, and so generally chaotic... it's nuts! Dan assures me cities in Asia are worse (Bangkok, for example), but for Europe it's likely 2nd only to Rome for being insane. Marseille actually has a bad reputation for being dirty and crime-ridden and wild... which I remember from when I was here in 98. But to be fair, since our arrival it's actually turned out to be a pretty nice city, though my chaos assessment still stands.
We found a hotel in the south part of the city, in Le Pharoh. It's far from the main section, but was like the only place we could get 3 people and 3 bikes for 3 nights. Many thanks to the Tourism Office again for their help finding it. It's actually a very cute hotel, and we have a great room (very red this time), and we store our bikes in the basement, where the ceiling is like 5 feet tall. After settling in, we walked around a bit... mostly to buy more port (we're kind of obsessed with the stuff) and then to grab dinner (at a Vietnamese restaurant, which was disappointing). Then we grabbed a Guinness at an Irish Pub with al fresco seating (yeah, I wanted a Guinness... weird, huh?!). By then it was like 1 am and we needed to sleep for our day trip the next day. One weird thing we saw was the bouncers at our pub attack these waify kids for apparently no reason. It was like watching Shrek beat up Donkey... it was totally a mis-matched fight that mostly consisted of the kids covering themselves from the raining blows. God knows what they did... but I can't imagine they deserved it. Poor weird Euro-waifs.
Oh... 12 year olds everywhere at the pub drinking. And apparently people still pop their collars here, though not ironically as I would. And lots of people tie sweaters around their necks, in the 80s-tennis-club fashion. It's hard to watch. But other than that, tons of cute guys, and Dan's certainly been pleased with the hot chicas. =P
CEBToD: Day 5 -- Narbonne to Avignon
So... where did I leave off. This morning we packed up and headed out of town, but not until we'd picked up some water and snacks, and grabbed some bread and cafe in the town square. The plan was to bike up north to Montpelier via Beziers. This would have been about 50 miles or so. Instead, we did about 22. =P
Basically, we decided we wanted to go to Avignon instead of Montpelier. But that was too far to bike. So we figured we would bike to Montpelier, look around, then take a train up to Avignon to stay there for the night. The biking to Beziers was relatively incident-free... I don't remember if I mentioned that my front fork has been incredibly stiff. Stiff to the point that I can't really turn very well, including those little micro-adjustments you make when you're just driving around. So instead of micro-adjustments, I do like these big macro-adjustments and basically look like I'm drunk. The problem is especially pronounced going downhill... I end up careening around, which is pretty scary when there's no shoulder, the road's wet, and you're hitting 20-30 mph. I really need to do something about that damned fork.
Anyways, Beziers is a city perched on top of this big-ass hill. The gare (train station) is at the bottom, more or less, but all the cool stuff is up top. So we biked up through the streets to the top (wheeee more hills) and saw the town, including the kirche-complex (kirche's deutsch for church). It's a cute town, for sure. But we'd decided to just train to Avignon from Beziers and be done with biking for the day. =P So we cut our visit short, bought some snacks for the train (including olives from a halal vendor; they were in giant tubs and we just poured them in plastic grocery bags and tied them off).
The train to Avignon... wow. It was a crappy regional train, so there was like zero room for our bikes. We had to put them in the end of the train next to the engine, in that little space you walk through to cross to a new car, where there's typically a tiny bathroom or closet next to it. The train wasn't too packed initially... but in Montpelier, we picked up roughly 15107510289 people and everyone was packed in like sardines. Our poor bikes... they basically half-blocked that entrance area and people were squeezing past them with giant-ass luggage, and we were really worried the bikes would get trashed by careless train-goers. We couldn't even watch them from our seats because we got trapped by random train-goers who say next to us (damn them!) and clogged up the aisles. But we dropped most people before Avignon, so that by the time we got there, we were able to de-train easily, and found our bikes intact and nothing stolen. Yay!
I just have to add a little anecdote here about this guy who sat next to us during the super-packed moment. He started picking his nose. Now, this isn't something you'd normally do in a packed train, but he'd been snuffling something fierce, so you could tell he had something up there that was bugging him. But I don't know that I could ever convey the trauma of exactly what he was doing. He had a big schnoz. So big that he could disappear a finger up there to the knuckle. And so he did. And he kept digging, and digging, and digging... you could see his finger moving around underneath the skin up by his fucking eyeball!!!! And I swear to god he did it the entire 25-30 minutes he was on the train. I know that sounds like exaggeration, but you can ask Dan... the guy was sitting next to me, but was facing Dan. So Dan had to watch it the entiiiire time. It was insane. He even dug something out at one point and wiped it on the side of his chair next to me. Barf. OK, I seriously have to stop talking about this or Ill bring up breakfast.
So Avignon... in a word: beautiful. It's definitely giving Girona a run for the money for top slot. We found a great hotel down a random side street... it had a tower staircase that was pretty precarious... and we were on the top floor, in this cute pink room. =P We cleaned up, and poked around town. I made Dan walk to the main square to see the Papal Palace (there used to be some Popes in Avignon during some sort of melodramatic catholic schism around 1400). We did a foot tour of the city... it's one of those places you just have to see. It's walled, and old... has narrow, winding streets... basically a stereotypical old-school European city (per my stereotypes anyways). We grabbed some coffee and ice cream in the Place d'horologes, and eventually went to bed.
Basically, we decided we wanted to go to Avignon instead of Montpelier. But that was too far to bike. So we figured we would bike to Montpelier, look around, then take a train up to Avignon to stay there for the night. The biking to Beziers was relatively incident-free... I don't remember if I mentioned that my front fork has been incredibly stiff. Stiff to the point that I can't really turn very well, including those little micro-adjustments you make when you're just driving around. So instead of micro-adjustments, I do like these big macro-adjustments and basically look like I'm drunk. The problem is especially pronounced going downhill... I end up careening around, which is pretty scary when there's no shoulder, the road's wet, and you're hitting 20-30 mph. I really need to do something about that damned fork.
Anyways, Beziers is a city perched on top of this big-ass hill. The gare (train station) is at the bottom, more or less, but all the cool stuff is up top. So we biked up through the streets to the top (wheeee more hills) and saw the town, including the kirche-complex (kirche's deutsch for church). It's a cute town, for sure. But we'd decided to just train to Avignon from Beziers and be done with biking for the day. =P So we cut our visit short, bought some snacks for the train (including olives from a halal vendor; they were in giant tubs and we just poured them in plastic grocery bags and tied them off).
The train to Avignon... wow. It was a crappy regional train, so there was like zero room for our bikes. We had to put them in the end of the train next to the engine, in that little space you walk through to cross to a new car, where there's typically a tiny bathroom or closet next to it. The train wasn't too packed initially... but in Montpelier, we picked up roughly 15107510289 people and everyone was packed in like sardines. Our poor bikes... they basically half-blocked that entrance area and people were squeezing past them with giant-ass luggage, and we were really worried the bikes would get trashed by careless train-goers. We couldn't even watch them from our seats because we got trapped by random train-goers who say next to us (damn them!) and clogged up the aisles. But we dropped most people before Avignon, so that by the time we got there, we were able to de-train easily, and found our bikes intact and nothing stolen. Yay!
I just have to add a little anecdote here about this guy who sat next to us during the super-packed moment. He started picking his nose. Now, this isn't something you'd normally do in a packed train, but he'd been snuffling something fierce, so you could tell he had something up there that was bugging him. But I don't know that I could ever convey the trauma of exactly what he was doing. He had a big schnoz. So big that he could disappear a finger up there to the knuckle. And so he did. And he kept digging, and digging, and digging... you could see his finger moving around underneath the skin up by his fucking eyeball!!!! And I swear to god he did it the entire 25-30 minutes he was on the train. I know that sounds like exaggeration, but you can ask Dan... the guy was sitting next to me, but was facing Dan. So Dan had to watch it the entiiiire time. It was insane. He even dug something out at one point and wiped it on the side of his chair next to me. Barf. OK, I seriously have to stop talking about this or Ill bring up breakfast.
So Avignon... in a word: beautiful. It's definitely giving Girona a run for the money for top slot. We found a great hotel down a random side street... it had a tower staircase that was pretty precarious... and we were on the top floor, in this cute pink room. =P We cleaned up, and poked around town. I made Dan walk to the main square to see the Papal Palace (there used to be some Popes in Avignon during some sort of melodramatic catholic schism around 1400). We did a foot tour of the city... it's one of those places you just have to see. It's walled, and old... has narrow, winding streets... basically a stereotypical old-school European city (per my stereotypes anyways). We grabbed some coffee and ice cream in the Place d'horologes, and eventually went to bed.
Friday, June 15, 2007
CEBToD: Day 4 -- Perpignan to Narbonne
So today was a fun day... 50 miles total, from Perpignan to Narbonne. A chunk of it was on regular roads, some with no shoulders... but a good stretch was on bike-specific paths that cut across the French countryside! how cool is that!
So we started in Perpignan, and cut east to the coast. We stopped in a random little town and had some pain au chocolat, then continued east. Once we hit the coast, we started northward along it, passing through random little beach towns along the way. In Port Leucat, we picked up some fresh fruit and some wine, and snacked a bit before continuing on. Up until this point we'd been alternating between roads and bike paths, but just north of Port Leucat we caught a random bike path through this protected woods/camping area for a few miles. It was really pretty... esp as it was on this little peninsula that stood between the Med and a pretty big bay. There were large wind turbines in the hills around us... and by large I mean like 200 ft or taller... these things were as big as I've ever seen...!
We continued north... in Port La Nouvelle we grabbed some food (jambon et fromage sandwiches; I can't escape pork on this freaking continent!!), and that's where we picked up a crazy-ass bike path that ran like 15-20 miles along a canal, straight into our destination city of Narbonne! Most of the path was pretty decent... not well-paved, but packed dirt, with some loose gravel and some plants growing in it. We couldn't go super-fast (10-12 mph), but that was ok. I was kind of done with the 16-20 mph on the shoulders of highways.
We did have a few incidents of specialness... Dan got a flat and stopped suddenly without warning. I got too close to him and he couldn't clip out on the correct side, and basically fell over. Hahaha. Oops. Anyways, we went to change his tire, and turns out the only pump we had had lost its seal, so we couldn't any air in his tire. We were still a good 7 miles from our destination in Narbonne, too, and it was already like 4 or 5 pm. After 45 mins of playing with the pump and various tubes (we weren't sure right away if it was the tube or the pump that was the problem), a random Frenchman sped by on his mtn bike (everyone on that path was on mtn bikes but us... kind of a sign that maybe road bikes weren't meant to ride so roughshod... =P). We flagged him down and borrowed his pump. Thank god for that guy! His accent was crazy to understand, but it all worked out. At that point we resolved to get ourselves some CO2 and be done with crappy hand pumps.
So the last few miles were just as pretty... canal, fields of grapes and cows, vistas of the Med (the canal at points runs like 10 feet from the Med... weird, huh?). And near the very end I fell over from a stop, again. Now, Dan's been in front of me pretty much the entire journey, and though he encourages me to stay within a bike length of him, that makes me nervous, so instead I stay like 3-5 bikes behind him. Anyways, he's usually good about calling out or gesturing his stops/turns/etc. At one point on the really nasty, rough part of the path he wasn't, and so I was caught off-guard by his stop. I hit the brakes, came to a stop on his right, but since I clip out to my left first and he was in the way.... I basically fell over. Again. Owwww. Right on my injured shoulder, just like in Girona. Dammit!! I mean, it's pretty funny that I keep hurting myself going zero mph, so I suppose I should laugh. And I do now, a couple days later. Hehe. But I have got to stop landing on that damned shoulder. All these impacts can't be doing it good. =P
We rolled into Narbonne near a sports store, so Dan ran in and got some CO2. We then drove into town and found a great hotel on the main drag with these great french doors that opened onto a super-mini balcony. We cleaned up, then grabbed some crepes in the restaurant attached. Mmmmmm. Both savory AND sweet. yum! We then wandered the town... it's really cute, and has a huge-ass cathedral that looks bombed out for some reason. The canal runs through the middle of town and they've got it really nicely manicured, just like they did with the rivers in Perpignan.
Per towns, I think we've ranked best to worst so far as: Girona, Narbonne, Perpignan, and Llanca. Poor Llanca.
OK, the really sad thing is that i'm at a computer that has an SD slot, so I could theoretically upload pics and video. But our train leaves for Aix-en-Provence in an hour, and we need to jet. More on why we're taking a train later, I suppose. Perhaps on Sunday, when we have a whole day to kill in Marseilles...!
So we started in Perpignan, and cut east to the coast. We stopped in a random little town and had some pain au chocolat, then continued east. Once we hit the coast, we started northward along it, passing through random little beach towns along the way. In Port Leucat, we picked up some fresh fruit and some wine, and snacked a bit before continuing on. Up until this point we'd been alternating between roads and bike paths, but just north of Port Leucat we caught a random bike path through this protected woods/camping area for a few miles. It was really pretty... esp as it was on this little peninsula that stood between the Med and a pretty big bay. There were large wind turbines in the hills around us... and by large I mean like 200 ft or taller... these things were as big as I've ever seen...!
We continued north... in Port La Nouvelle we grabbed some food (jambon et fromage sandwiches; I can't escape pork on this freaking continent!!), and that's where we picked up a crazy-ass bike path that ran like 15-20 miles along a canal, straight into our destination city of Narbonne! Most of the path was pretty decent... not well-paved, but packed dirt, with some loose gravel and some plants growing in it. We couldn't go super-fast (10-12 mph), but that was ok. I was kind of done with the 16-20 mph on the shoulders of highways.
We did have a few incidents of specialness... Dan got a flat and stopped suddenly without warning. I got too close to him and he couldn't clip out on the correct side, and basically fell over. Hahaha. Oops. Anyways, we went to change his tire, and turns out the only pump we had had lost its seal, so we couldn't any air in his tire. We were still a good 7 miles from our destination in Narbonne, too, and it was already like 4 or 5 pm. After 45 mins of playing with the pump and various tubes (we weren't sure right away if it was the tube or the pump that was the problem), a random Frenchman sped by on his mtn bike (everyone on that path was on mtn bikes but us... kind of a sign that maybe road bikes weren't meant to ride so roughshod... =P). We flagged him down and borrowed his pump. Thank god for that guy! His accent was crazy to understand, but it all worked out. At that point we resolved to get ourselves some CO2 and be done with crappy hand pumps.
So the last few miles were just as pretty... canal, fields of grapes and cows, vistas of the Med (the canal at points runs like 10 feet from the Med... weird, huh?). And near the very end I fell over from a stop, again. Now, Dan's been in front of me pretty much the entire journey, and though he encourages me to stay within a bike length of him, that makes me nervous, so instead I stay like 3-5 bikes behind him. Anyways, he's usually good about calling out or gesturing his stops/turns/etc. At one point on the really nasty, rough part of the path he wasn't, and so I was caught off-guard by his stop. I hit the brakes, came to a stop on his right, but since I clip out to my left first and he was in the way.... I basically fell over. Again. Owwww. Right on my injured shoulder, just like in Girona. Dammit!! I mean, it's pretty funny that I keep hurting myself going zero mph, so I suppose I should laugh. And I do now, a couple days later. Hehe. But I have got to stop landing on that damned shoulder. All these impacts can't be doing it good. =P
We rolled into Narbonne near a sports store, so Dan ran in and got some CO2. We then drove into town and found a great hotel on the main drag with these great french doors that opened onto a super-mini balcony. We cleaned up, then grabbed some crepes in the restaurant attached. Mmmmmm. Both savory AND sweet. yum! We then wandered the town... it's really cute, and has a huge-ass cathedral that looks bombed out for some reason. The canal runs through the middle of town and they've got it really nicely manicured, just like they did with the rivers in Perpignan.
Per towns, I think we've ranked best to worst so far as: Girona, Narbonne, Perpignan, and Llanca. Poor Llanca.
OK, the really sad thing is that i'm at a computer that has an SD slot, so I could theoretically upload pics and video. But our train leaves for Aix-en-Provence in an hour, and we need to jet. More on why we're taking a train later, I suppose. Perhaps on Sunday, when we have a whole day to kill in Marseilles...!
Low on Comments!
So my friend Dan's blog is completely new, and he's getting comments right and left on this trip! Where are all of my friends with the commenting? Sue's been great at it... but she's the only one so far! Sadness! :(
Oh, and mom... it's ok for you to comment. I don't mind "mom-ly comments" on my blog. =P
Oh, and mom... it's ok for you to comment. I don't mind "mom-ly comments" on my blog. =P
Thursday, June 14, 2007
CEBToD: Day 3 -- Llanca to Perpignan
So today was the day to cross the Pyranees. Fuck that shit. I took the train and left Dan to bike it himself.
Seriously, that's what I did. I'm in no shape to bike over mountains, and Dan told me afterward how wise a choice that was. Even he phoned it in for the last leg with a train ride into Perpignan. To help him, I took most of his heavy stuff with me, and then hopped the train from Llanca to Cerbere (just the other side of the border). He actually met me there (the train was slow), and then we parted ways again as I hopped a new train to Perp.
Once I got to Perp, my plan had been to drop my crap in a locker and then find a hotel on my bike. But they've apparently removed lockers from most of the train stations in France, or so the rumor goes. That fucking sucks!!! So I had to hoist like 60 lbs of crap on my back in a bag that wasn't meant for such work, and then wander in 90 degree heat looking for the tourism office which it turns out is NOT just around the corner, as the 4000 signs would suggest, but is in fact 2 miles away on the other side of town. Booooooo.
Anyways, I found the office and spoke with them entirely in French about a hotel. My conversation was so successful that she actually asked me at the end what country I was from. I was like, USA bitch!!!! hahahah! Seriously, though, go me.
Anyways, I got us a nice hotel... they let us keep the bikes in the room (vs. the storage closet like in Girona and Llanca). The hotel had a rooftop pool and even a jacuzzi, tho we didn't end up using either. Once Dan arrove, we cleaned up and then walked the town. Perp is actually a really nice place in most of the old town. We saw a lovely cathedral, the old city wall, and some beautiful squares, plazas, bldngs, etc. We had the best chorizo of the trip at a little Tapas place on Place de la Loge called La France. We tried seeing the incredible HUGE citadel which was the old palace of the kings of Mallorca (who knew!), but the place was close by the time we wandered down there. :( They used to breed lions in there! How fun!
Interestingly, this part of France was all part of Catalonia at one point... so despite the fact that everything is in French, they still have the colors and symbols of Catalonia everywhere... and even use Catalonian names for their towns (like Perpinya instead of Perpignan).
On the way back from our failed attempt to scale the wall of the Citadel, we stopped and got a 2nd dinner. hehehe. it was soooo good... Catalonian salad (think salade nicoise), a chicken/rice thing, and then creme catalan. And of course sangria. But the highlight was this insanely amazing butter they had with the bread. It was butter whipped with garlic and mustard seed... oh... my... god. I had a quiet foodgasm with that shit. I need to learn how to make it myself once I'm home, maybe for Sup Bitch.
And then we went back and schlafed.
Seriously, that's what I did. I'm in no shape to bike over mountains, and Dan told me afterward how wise a choice that was. Even he phoned it in for the last leg with a train ride into Perpignan. To help him, I took most of his heavy stuff with me, and then hopped the train from Llanca to Cerbere (just the other side of the border). He actually met me there (the train was slow), and then we parted ways again as I hopped a new train to Perp.
Once I got to Perp, my plan had been to drop my crap in a locker and then find a hotel on my bike. But they've apparently removed lockers from most of the train stations in France, or so the rumor goes. That fucking sucks!!! So I had to hoist like 60 lbs of crap on my back in a bag that wasn't meant for such work, and then wander in 90 degree heat looking for the tourism office which it turns out is NOT just around the corner, as the 4000 signs would suggest, but is in fact 2 miles away on the other side of town. Booooooo.
Anyways, I found the office and spoke with them entirely in French about a hotel. My conversation was so successful that she actually asked me at the end what country I was from. I was like, USA bitch!!!! hahahah! Seriously, though, go me.
Anyways, I got us a nice hotel... they let us keep the bikes in the room (vs. the storage closet like in Girona and Llanca). The hotel had a rooftop pool and even a jacuzzi, tho we didn't end up using either. Once Dan arrove, we cleaned up and then walked the town. Perp is actually a really nice place in most of the old town. We saw a lovely cathedral, the old city wall, and some beautiful squares, plazas, bldngs, etc. We had the best chorizo of the trip at a little Tapas place on Place de la Loge called La France. We tried seeing the incredible HUGE citadel which was the old palace of the kings of Mallorca (who knew!), but the place was close by the time we wandered down there. :( They used to breed lions in there! How fun!
Interestingly, this part of France was all part of Catalonia at one point... so despite the fact that everything is in French, they still have the colors and symbols of Catalonia everywhere... and even use Catalonian names for their towns (like Perpinya instead of Perpignan).
On the way back from our failed attempt to scale the wall of the Citadel, we stopped and got a 2nd dinner. hehehe. it was soooo good... Catalonian salad (think salade nicoise), a chicken/rice thing, and then creme catalan. And of course sangria. But the highlight was this insanely amazing butter they had with the bread. It was butter whipped with garlic and mustard seed... oh... my... god. I had a quiet foodgasm with that shit. I need to learn how to make it myself once I'm home, maybe for Sup Bitch.
And then we went back and schlafed.
CEBToD: Day 2 -- Girona to Llanca
OK. So today (and by today I mean 3 days ago) we got our start in beautiful Girona. Our goal was to head east to the coast, to the small town of Llanca, though with a brief stopover in Figueres for lunch. Total ride ended up being 42 miles, though that doesn't count ups and downs.
Overall the day was pretty straightforward. Lots of hills to climb and fly down. Dan got a flat in his rear tire... did I mention we only have a hand pump, so we can't get our PSI higher than like 60, even though the tubes should be at like 110. So we're a bit prone to flats... esp flying downhill at 30 mph (which still freaks me out given that's how I broke my collarbone; I try to go slower but with the extra weight in the panniers that makes it tough).
Highlights of the trip include a crashed beer truck (beer all over the road!), a motorcycle wipe-out (the woman looked more or less ok, tho definitely needed to be seen at a hospital), and hail and rain. Oh yeah, and a plethora of lot lizards (hookers). They were all young, tan, hot, and hanging out in random rural locations on the side of the road. And they were all wearing white. Looking back, I wish I'd gotten my picture with one. Had I paid one, it would probably have been the cleanest 5 euros she'd earn that day.
Lunch in Figueres was alright... I had sangria and the patatas bravas were the best we've had on the trip. The town itself wasn't anything special. Leaving Figueres was when it started raining and hailing... that kinda sucked since we had hills to cross to Llanca. But it didn't last long, and it made the vistas look freaking gorgeous. Some day when I can find a USB port I'll upload the pics to prove it.
We got to Llanca in the late afternoon... not a very exciting town, by any means. We've decided it's a weekend resort town for the locals... which means Mondays are dead days. We found a random 3-star hotel to stay in, that had a very institutional look and feel to it. I'm talking 60s green tile kind of feel. In fact, it was borderline creepy, to the point that we dubbed it the death hostel, and blocked the door with the chair and bungeed shut the closet door in case that's how they were going to come in to murder us.
We grabbed dinner at this place right on the Med... the food was ok... we had the town's speciality of anchovies... I tried one and it was predictably nasty, tho Dan loved it. We also got a bunch of whole shrimp, which Dan taught me to dismember and eat. Blecccch. We then tried to find this Pirate bar we'd seen earlier (Llanca used to be plagued by pirates... what a world), but it was closed. :( So instead we hung out at the square in front of the cathedral and drank sangria and beer, and debated global politics, economic policy, and various erudite topics. I had a half liter of sangria that I swear was more brandy than wine. It was awesome, but I was so trashed at the end... I've got video of me trying to break into our death hostel room that fans of my drunkeness will love.
Overall the day was pretty straightforward. Lots of hills to climb and fly down. Dan got a flat in his rear tire... did I mention we only have a hand pump, so we can't get our PSI higher than like 60, even though the tubes should be at like 110. So we're a bit prone to flats... esp flying downhill at 30 mph (which still freaks me out given that's how I broke my collarbone; I try to go slower but with the extra weight in the panniers that makes it tough).
Highlights of the trip include a crashed beer truck (beer all over the road!), a motorcycle wipe-out (the woman looked more or less ok, tho definitely needed to be seen at a hospital), and hail and rain. Oh yeah, and a plethora of lot lizards (hookers). They were all young, tan, hot, and hanging out in random rural locations on the side of the road. And they were all wearing white. Looking back, I wish I'd gotten my picture with one. Had I paid one, it would probably have been the cleanest 5 euros she'd earn that day.
Lunch in Figueres was alright... I had sangria and the patatas bravas were the best we've had on the trip. The town itself wasn't anything special. Leaving Figueres was when it started raining and hailing... that kinda sucked since we had hills to cross to Llanca. But it didn't last long, and it made the vistas look freaking gorgeous. Some day when I can find a USB port I'll upload the pics to prove it.
We got to Llanca in the late afternoon... not a very exciting town, by any means. We've decided it's a weekend resort town for the locals... which means Mondays are dead days. We found a random 3-star hotel to stay in, that had a very institutional look and feel to it. I'm talking 60s green tile kind of feel. In fact, it was borderline creepy, to the point that we dubbed it the death hostel, and blocked the door with the chair and bungeed shut the closet door in case that's how they were going to come in to murder us.
We grabbed dinner at this place right on the Med... the food was ok... we had the town's speciality of anchovies... I tried one and it was predictably nasty, tho Dan loved it. We also got a bunch of whole shrimp, which Dan taught me to dismember and eat. Blecccch. We then tried to find this Pirate bar we'd seen earlier (Llanca used to be plagued by pirates... what a world), but it was closed. :( So instead we hung out at the square in front of the cathedral and drank sangria and beer, and debated global politics, economic policy, and various erudite topics. I had a half liter of sangria that I swear was more brandy than wine. It was awesome, but I was so trashed at the end... I've got video of me trying to break into our death hostel room that fans of my drunkeness will love.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
CEBToD: Girona
I needed a separate post for Girona because it´s one of the best cities I´ve been to in the world. This place is BEAUTIFUL... lots of great pedestrian walks, lots of hills, a city wall... it´s old, and well-preserved, and just super-fun to explore. Dan and I spent hours wandering around the city, and the ruins of the Roman fort, and took a thousand pix that I´ll post whenever the USB thing gets working.
We had a great meal of Basque tapas, including monkfish (lobster-like, ugly-ass bottom-feeder), patatas bravas, some cod, and some chorizo. Jamon... I swear to god I´ll be eating it 3 times/day in this country. I had a glass of super-fermented cider... and I´m being generous calling it a glass, because it was like a third of a glass... we guessed because it was so fermented (though not that strong with alcohol).
Anyways... enjoy the pics whenever I get them posted. =D
We had a great meal of Basque tapas, including monkfish (lobster-like, ugly-ass bottom-feeder), patatas bravas, some cod, and some chorizo. Jamon... I swear to god I´ll be eating it 3 times/day in this country. I had a glass of super-fermented cider... and I´m being generous calling it a glass, because it was like a third of a glass... we guessed because it was so fermented (though not that strong with alcohol).
Anyways... enjoy the pics whenever I get them posted. =D
CEBToD: Day 1
Hoo boy. What a day. I think I speak for my entire body (and nerves) when I say: biking is haaaaaaaaaard.
We started out in the morning with a delicious breakfast of lots of jamon. Dear god, the Spaniards love their jamon!!! Both Dan and I woke up in the middle of the night and had a hard time sleeping after that, so we got like an effective 6 hrs of sleep. So we were a little exhausted, but excited to get going. We ended up leaving our bike boxes, the handlebar bag I´d bought, and a bunch of random crap in the room, in an effort to lighten our loads. Poor hotel staff... and poor Dan´s credit card for the charges they´ll likely slap him. ehhehehe.
We loaded up the bikes with the panniers and trunk bag... OMG were they awkward to ride. There´s so much weight on the back (30 lbs or more) that the front wobbles like crazy when you´re going less than 10 mph. eeeep. But we got moving, and once we were moving you didn´t really notice the weight.
We got out of Barcelona pretty easily (though not without some false turns into dead-ends or randome construction sites), and then rode on the shoulder of a coastal highway for about 30 miles. That part was great... it was pretty, the cars were great about not hitting us, some guy´s engine exploded in front of us at one point, and we kept hydrated and fed. Then we turned inland, headed for our day´s destination at Ginoa.
So. The entire day was 65 miles. That´s a metric century, and ties for the longest ride I´ve ever done. The first 30 miles were fine, and I could have re-done that part pretty easily. Except that´s not what we did... instead we got to do rolling hills for the next 10-15 miles. I have a hard time climbing hills, esp when I´m not trained up for them, and generally not well'rested, and am carrying an additional 35 lbs around my bike. Oh, and it was all along a highway where the speed limit was 100 kph. And there was construction at points, which ate the shoulder. I won´t belabor the point, but let´s just say I was really worn out, cranky, and just generally nervous that the wind or my weakening body would cause me to swerve into the highway and be killed by some random Peugeot. That didnt´happen, thankfully, but I´m really hoping that sort of road won´t be the standard for the rest of the trip.
¿Did I mention Dan and I named our bikes? (haha spanish question marks!) His is named Puig, which is a word all over Catalunya tho we have no idea what it means. Mine´s named Brett Favre (pronounced Fav-ruh, like the French would). Brett´s been treating me real well... he´s a good ride.
So anyways, we finally got to Ginoa around 4ish. Once I can upload my pics and video, I´ll paste one in here explaining my special move when we got here. Let´s just say I did end up injuring myself, in a totally idiotic way.
We started out in the morning with a delicious breakfast of lots of jamon. Dear god, the Spaniards love their jamon!!! Both Dan and I woke up in the middle of the night and had a hard time sleeping after that, so we got like an effective 6 hrs of sleep. So we were a little exhausted, but excited to get going. We ended up leaving our bike boxes, the handlebar bag I´d bought, and a bunch of random crap in the room, in an effort to lighten our loads. Poor hotel staff... and poor Dan´s credit card for the charges they´ll likely slap him. ehhehehe.
We loaded up the bikes with the panniers and trunk bag... OMG were they awkward to ride. There´s so much weight on the back (30 lbs or more) that the front wobbles like crazy when you´re going less than 10 mph. eeeep. But we got moving, and once we were moving you didn´t really notice the weight.
We got out of Barcelona pretty easily (though not without some false turns into dead-ends or randome construction sites), and then rode on the shoulder of a coastal highway for about 30 miles. That part was great... it was pretty, the cars were great about not hitting us, some guy´s engine exploded in front of us at one point, and we kept hydrated and fed. Then we turned inland, headed for our day´s destination at Ginoa.
So. The entire day was 65 miles. That´s a metric century, and ties for the longest ride I´ve ever done. The first 30 miles were fine, and I could have re-done that part pretty easily. Except that´s not what we did... instead we got to do rolling hills for the next 10-15 miles. I have a hard time climbing hills, esp when I´m not trained up for them, and generally not well'rested, and am carrying an additional 35 lbs around my bike. Oh, and it was all along a highway where the speed limit was 100 kph. And there was construction at points, which ate the shoulder. I won´t belabor the point, but let´s just say I was really worn out, cranky, and just generally nervous that the wind or my weakening body would cause me to swerve into the highway and be killed by some random Peugeot. That didnt´happen, thankfully, but I´m really hoping that sort of road won´t be the standard for the rest of the trip.
¿Did I mention Dan and I named our bikes? (haha spanish question marks!) His is named Puig, which is a word all over Catalunya tho we have no idea what it means. Mine´s named Brett Favre (pronounced Fav-ruh, like the French would). Brett´s been treating me real well... he´s a good ride.
So anyways, we finally got to Ginoa around 4ish. Once I can upload my pics and video, I´ll paste one in here explaining my special move when we got here. Let´s just say I did end up injuring myself, in a totally idiotic way.
CEBToD: Day 0
Well. It looks like I made it to Spain alright... It´s actually the beginning of Day 2, but this is the first chance I´ve had to blog since my arrival. I´ll probably just be sneaky like this over the course of the trip, where I´ll just post as if it´s the end of the day in question, even though for all you know it´s been 5 days and it just took the European internets that long to convey my messages to you´re desktops.
Aaaaaaanyways. Dan´s blogging on the trip as well... his blog is here: http://dans-eurotrip.blogspot.com. Check it out... we´ll both be uploading pics and video as we find machines that allow us access to their USB ports.
So Day 0 was pretty straightforward. I almost missed my flight out of Chicago... I slept all of an hour on Thurs night trying to close out all of my open work stuff, and I got all but 2 things finished, which I may try to tackle here in Europe. The flight to Frankfurt went well (ORD was INSANE), as did the flight to BCN. I waited around BCN for 2 hrs for Dan to show up, then finally stepped outside the baggage area to find him standing there waiting for me. He´d apparently come into a diff baggage area and tried to call my Estonian phone, which of course didn´t work. Good job, Estonia!!!
We took a cab to our hotel (cabbie was an ass about our bike boxes), then rebuilt our bikes in our tiny dorm room at the Ibis. Everything seemed ok, except my stupid rear wheel somehow came un-trued... it´s new, so I think that happened during one of the flights. Dóh!!! Oh, haha, look at how Dóh came out... silly Cataluynan keyboards.
We poked around Barcelona for the rest of the day... saw La Sagrada Familia, and walked down La Rambla... we kind of lost ourselves in the back streets, which was a lot of fun. We got some great paella on some random square from a bit of a tourist trap... but that´s ok cause we also polished off a pitcher of sangria between us... yum!!! When we ordered the full liter, the waiter raised his eyebrows, and I was like, that´s right bitch, get these crazy Americans some booze, stat!!!
We were pretty exhausted at that point... I´d slept a few hrs on the plane, but not a full 8 or anything... so we got gelato on the way back and crashed by 10 pm. A nice first day... though I was a little nervous about the actual biking. =P
Aaaaaaanyways. Dan´s blogging on the trip as well... his blog is here: http://dans-eurotrip.blogspot.com. Check it out... we´ll both be uploading pics and video as we find machines that allow us access to their USB ports.
So Day 0 was pretty straightforward. I almost missed my flight out of Chicago... I slept all of an hour on Thurs night trying to close out all of my open work stuff, and I got all but 2 things finished, which I may try to tackle here in Europe. The flight to Frankfurt went well (ORD was INSANE), as did the flight to BCN. I waited around BCN for 2 hrs for Dan to show up, then finally stepped outside the baggage area to find him standing there waiting for me. He´d apparently come into a diff baggage area and tried to call my Estonian phone, which of course didn´t work. Good job, Estonia!!!
We took a cab to our hotel (cabbie was an ass about our bike boxes), then rebuilt our bikes in our tiny dorm room at the Ibis. Everything seemed ok, except my stupid rear wheel somehow came un-trued... it´s new, so I think that happened during one of the flights. Dóh!!! Oh, haha, look at how Dóh came out... silly Cataluynan keyboards.
We poked around Barcelona for the rest of the day... saw La Sagrada Familia, and walked down La Rambla... we kind of lost ourselves in the back streets, which was a lot of fun. We got some great paella on some random square from a bit of a tourist trap... but that´s ok cause we also polished off a pitcher of sangria between us... yum!!! When we ordered the full liter, the waiter raised his eyebrows, and I was like, that´s right bitch, get these crazy Americans some booze, stat!!!
We were pretty exhausted at that point... I´d slept a few hrs on the plane, but not a full 8 or anything... so we got gelato on the way back and crashed by 10 pm. A nice first day... though I was a little nervous about the actual biking. =P
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Crazy European Bike Trip of Death: T-minus 1 day
Why oh why do I do this to myself. I have soooo much to do last minute, and it's all because I procrastinated on it for the last several months. Ok, sure, I was working 60 hr weeks on my last project, and yeah I was in school part-time then as well, and yeah I broke my collarbone 2 months ago... but still.
I'm not going to sleep tonight, I don't think. The good news is that my bike is boxed and I've got all my stuff purchased and laid out for my trip. So I can pretty much load up and head to the airport with 30 mins notice (though I need to stop at Jewel on the way to pick up toiletries and such). But between now and then I have like 40 deliverables due. Dear lord. Wish me luck. If anyone out there in reader-land can stop time, please do so on my behalf... and in a way that positively affects me. =D
Oh... I got new jeans tonight. Awesome stylish dark ones, like I've wanted for months. And I got them at REI. Why would REI sell jeans, you might ask? Good question! It turns out that they are MICROFIBER!!!!! No shit, microfiber jeans. Super comfortable and stylish to boot, and they wick away moisture exactly like denim doesn't. My lifelong quest to never wear macrofibers again is achieving fruition!!!!
I'm not going to sleep tonight, I don't think. The good news is that my bike is boxed and I've got all my stuff purchased and laid out for my trip. So I can pretty much load up and head to the airport with 30 mins notice (though I need to stop at Jewel on the way to pick up toiletries and such). But between now and then I have like 40 deliverables due. Dear lord. Wish me luck. If anyone out there in reader-land can stop time, please do so on my behalf... and in a way that positively affects me. =D
Oh... I got new jeans tonight. Awesome stylish dark ones, like I've wanted for months. And I got them at REI. Why would REI sell jeans, you might ask? Good question! It turns out that they are MICROFIBER!!!!! No shit, microfiber jeans. Super comfortable and stylish to boot, and they wick away moisture exactly like denim doesn't. My lifelong quest to never wear macrofibers again is achieving fruition!!!!
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Crazy European Bike Trip of Death: Intro
So. Remember when I broke my collarbone (April 1), lo those many weeks ago (nine, to be exact). Well, if you'll recall, that was my first ride of the season, as I was preparing for what I'm calling my Crazy European Bike Trip of Death.
Were I prepared, I wouldn't be calling it the CEBToD. But the shattering of my clavicle set my training back just a smidge. So here I am, barely in good enough shape to walk to the corner drugstore, let alone bike 900 miles over 3 weeks... and I'm 3 days from my departure.
What is this trip, you ask? Ho ho, let me tell you. Or rather, let me show you. Click here to see a google map of the itinerary that my friend (and trip instigator) Dan has created. We fly into Barcelona on Sat, then on Sunday we start off for Florence, Italy. We're taking 20 days to get there, with ~3 rest days en route. Sounds easy, right? I mean, how hard can it be to bike along the French Riviera in the gorgeous month of June?
Well, France is likely going to be the easy part. The bitch will be crossing the Pyranees to get out of Spain, and crossing the Alps to get into Italy. Hannibal had elephants; alls I've got is this dinky bike. But I shall persevere... I keep telling myself that if I can survive to day 5, it'll all be ok.
Dan says not to worry, that I'll be fine. Did I mention that 2 summers ago he biked 5000 miles from San Fran to DC? Oh, yeah, he did. Raise your hand if you think he might be a little more prepared for this than I am. Yeah, I thought so. It's unanimous.
In reality, I'm bitching, but I'm not really serious. I am seriously nervous about getting everything together and over there, and about getting going that first day. 40 lbs of extra weight from gear, new shoes and pedals, paper airline tickets, and more... But after that I know I'll be fine, and I'll be loving the whole thing. And at the end of the bike trip I've got 3 days in Florence, and then 10 days with my friend Maria on her family's vineyard in La Rioja (including a side trip to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls)... so by the time I'm back home in SF on July 8, I'll be tan and ripped and ready to take the SF dating scene by storm. =P
Were I prepared, I wouldn't be calling it the CEBToD. But the shattering of my clavicle set my training back just a smidge. So here I am, barely in good enough shape to walk to the corner drugstore, let alone bike 900 miles over 3 weeks... and I'm 3 days from my departure.
What is this trip, you ask? Ho ho, let me tell you. Or rather, let me show you. Click here to see a google map of the itinerary that my friend (and trip instigator) Dan has created. We fly into Barcelona on Sat, then on Sunday we start off for Florence, Italy. We're taking 20 days to get there, with ~3 rest days en route. Sounds easy, right? I mean, how hard can it be to bike along the French Riviera in the gorgeous month of June?
Well, France is likely going to be the easy part. The bitch will be crossing the Pyranees to get out of Spain, and crossing the Alps to get into Italy. Hannibal had elephants; alls I've got is this dinky bike. But I shall persevere... I keep telling myself that if I can survive to day 5, it'll all be ok.
Dan says not to worry, that I'll be fine. Did I mention that 2 summers ago he biked 5000 miles from San Fran to DC? Oh, yeah, he did. Raise your hand if you think he might be a little more prepared for this than I am. Yeah, I thought so. It's unanimous.
In reality, I'm bitching, but I'm not really serious. I am seriously nervous about getting everything together and over there, and about getting going that first day. 40 lbs of extra weight from gear, new shoes and pedals, paper airline tickets, and more... But after that I know I'll be fine, and I'll be loving the whole thing. And at the end of the bike trip I've got 3 days in Florence, and then 10 days with my friend Maria on her family's vineyard in La Rioja (including a side trip to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls)... so by the time I'm back home in SF on July 8, I'll be tan and ripped and ready to take the SF dating scene by storm. =P
Sexy or Skanky?
OK, this is just too fun. Thanks to salon.com's Broadsheet for pointing this out... Time Out New York has a piece called "Sexy or Skanky", in which you can rate photos taken of random New Yorkers as to whether their summer dress is... you guessed it, sexy or skanky.
But the really great part is that you can rate women OR men!!!! Yes, there are actually some great sexy/skanky pics of men, young and old alike. I've been having fun with this for a little bit... now it's your turn!!!
But the really great part is that you can rate women OR men!!!! Yes, there are actually some great sexy/skanky pics of men, young and old alike. I've been having fun with this for a little bit... now it's your turn!!!
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