Not feeling very clever today, still a little groggy from another Tuesday night in Faenza and a water bottle full of white wine, no bike crashes this time however...leg is STILL healing from last week...
no Professor, those are NOT my Chacos...
...and made the trip to Bordeaux uncomfy enough for me to be a little more careful in the future.
Speaking of Bordeaux....nice. Here's the scoop;
Took a lift to Faenza...
... a train to Bologna...that's a MUTO piece by the way
...a bus to the airporto...
...a plane to Bordeaux...
and Igor picked me up in a van to the hotel. Pretty easy. We spent the evening wandering around...
...and eating awesome french food cooked with real butter, getting back to the hotel late to spoon with my boss. Two Dudes and one Lady in one small hotel room, tons of luggage filled with 3 weeks worth of sweaty clothes, and 3 bellies full of french food makes for an interesting night and even more interesting single-bathroom-morning. Igor and I shared the king sized bed, Carrie got the hospital fold out, an overall experience that has me questioning my very american ideas of personal space.
...then the next was spent lazily, Igor hitting the computers after sleeping in, Carrie and I getting some sun at the hotel's outdoor ping pong table...
...and a ride into town to take a better look at Bordeaux and the time trial stage of the Tour...
Notice the mega store to the left of the picture...its called BUT.
We ran into this Chick...
Sara is another tour guide who was wrapping up her own tour and joining us for the caravan back to the Farm.
...ate AMAZING duck confit for 8 Euros! an amazing deal thanks to Sara and her ability to chat up the locals over a smoke and a story, we saw a little time trial, a big church with a HUGE pipe organ inside...
And caught These Dudes getting RAD! watch the video here...
...I ducked into this cool kid hipster bike shop that only carried bmx, track, and cruiser stuff...
...and Igor and I booked north to pick up a huge rental in the beautiful wine country of Bordeaux.
That night, with a plan of attack for the following day we cruised out for some food and I finally got me some asian food at a little pan-asian buffet style sit down out by the airport, complete with bad music and a karaoke corner...
finally some sriracha!...
and the next day did a little loading...
...and a little drivin'...
...and a little more drivin'...then some more drivin' the next day...
We stayed in the tiny hamlet of L'isle-sur-la-Sorgue, rocked by a day of Le Mistral, the winds that whip through this part of France are known for blowing over new tour guides, and making the locals go mad. Look at the bikes on the roof of this van and tell me that's not a little concerning...
...When we got to the hotel, there in the lobby was the infamous vending machine I have been hearing stories about...look at the right side of shelf 2...
...you can keep the Little Debbie Snack Cakes...I'm having a HEINEKEN!
...had a little hotel room aperitivo of the stinky cheese Sara had been carrying around for what smelled like a week, paired with a cheap and amazing wine we bought in Bordeaux....
Igor and I agreed we should have bought a case! Another great french dinner after cruising around the village...
...and then ran into a festival that involved floats on the tiny stretch of shallow canal that runs all the way round town, hence the name L'Isle, as in Little Island of La Sorgue.
Carrie got a little rad with the lip-synching, and we all got more than a laugh at these obvious dads, who lent their muscles to the girl's float by adorning french maid costumes to steer up and down the canal...
The following morning, out of town, and onto the highway for the day. Left at 10 and made it back around 11! Went from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean sea, to almost the coast of the Adriatic in 2 days time - what an amazing drive!!
There were quite a few of these to break up the pace, and add a reminder of language barriers and cultural differences as the vacationers behind you start a chorus of honking, almost enough to drown out my laughing...the bird WAS flipped...
And enough of these to keep you on your toes...
But overall, I have nothing negative to say about spending two days with some amazing folks, doing this job, a job I could have never imagined for myself a year ago, and driving through some of the most dramatically different and yet familiar countryside the world has to offer. There were parts of the drive that looked anything from Orange county...
...to Napa wine country...
...the hills of Tunisia!...
...to the postcard perfect sunset beaches of California...
...or the pinon and rock of Colorado...
...to the dry chaparral of central Oregon....
Its crazy how similar the world is even just topographically. Seeing France or Italy from the driver seat, out the windshield, or from the freeway is not something most people would agree is the best way to travel, but I really enjoyed the time in the car. I thought alot about the last year, about the times I thought I wouldn't make it anywhere, the nights I spent at cafes writing in my little black books - line after line of "what the fuck am I going to do now!?" I thought about the journey I have been on and especially the bounce I feel in my heart over the last couple weeks. I felt like I was almost back to normal, but so much has changed in me that I couldn't help but really just bask in this "new normal" and smile out the window at another parisian village in the distance.
And it certainly helped to be with really amazing people full of silly antics and positive energy. There was at least one dance party at a gas station...
It also helped that Carrie and Igor brought iPods full of both amazing music (turn the audio down for the first part of video) I have never heard before, and a few tunes I love and have missed dearly. (For the record, a loaded iPod and good conversation will outweigh the worst duck confit gas hands down every time.)
It helped too that I was the bonus driver, there to save them from the exhaustion and loneliness of watching your co-workers drive ahead, listening to bad public radio, and passing the same truck with the giant wolf on the side for like the 3rd time.
It helped that I got to take turns driving all the vans, while a driver slept in the back seat, giving the sweet relief they needed to make it home.
And it certainly helped that the sun bid us good evening with this amazing sunset, adding just the right punctuation to the personal stories that were created over the last few weeks for everybody, another page turns, and another story begins.
I'm starting to like this starting over stuff.
S.
