Tour de No Pants

Looking back at the week of the Tour de No Pants

I can now check of two events from my "life to do" list. The first being in France during Bastille Day. Second, attending a part of the Tour de France in person. Check and check.

In front of the stage of the Tour de France

July 14th was a free day at the university, so I joined a group for a day trip to Strasbourg. The only negative was that we had to be awake and at the bus stop at 6:45. As I slept as late as I possibly could, I had to make up for those extra 3 minutes of sleep by making a cool trot to the waiting bus. A cool trot falls directly between a full spring where one looks like a dork and a leisurely walk where one seems rude.

That is alot of beer

In Strasbourg, we dodged raindrops boarding the bateau mouche to explore Petite France, the old town center. Following the boat ride, I had a creppy lunch next to a really large keg of beer that was twice as tall as me. The creppy lunch consisted of a crêpe filled with meat and cheese, and a side plate of mozzarella and tomatoes. Actually it was delicious. The rest of the afternoon was spent strolling downtown among the German influenced architecture.

Petite France in Strasbourg, France

The bus returned and from there I headed to downtown Besancon with classmates to celebrate Bastille Day. Like alot of national holidays, people like to go out to eat, and Besancon wasn't any different. Thus, our reservationless asses were shit out of luck trying to find a table. After our dozen attempts at various restaurants, we had to grab something from the local kabob eatery (fast food), duck into a covered alley to protect us from the rain that was falling while we waited for the next 30 minutes until the fireworks started. But as we huddled in an alley to eat our gourmet dinner, we decided to find a better place to enjoy Bastille Day, back at the dorms. As we tramped through the rain and festivities, French teens find this the time to fully express themselves, with fireworks. They find it quite funny to throw it directly at each other. One happened to be thrown directly above my head, not so funny, but no need to worry, my face is fine, or at least as fine as it's going to be.

Notre Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg

As fate and life in general would have it, we were diverted from the dorms to another locale that exists in every corner of the globe, an Irish pub. Thus I spent the national French holiday in an Irish pub with a group of Irish students. As the ever so wise Alanis Morissette stated, quiet ironic don't ya think.

Russian Rider that finished in first place

Fortunately for me, I didn't have to go to the Tour de France, the Tour de France came to me. This is the July event where 160 or so cyclists jump on a bicycle and race around the country trying to finish in the shortest time possible so they can sport a yellow jersey. The interesting thing is that that yellow jersey fits pretty snuggly, maybe it's the European fit for shirts.

Waiting for the cyclists on Pont Canot

Undoubtedly, the Tour de France brings alot to the table such as lots of people, big money, and visitors and interesting from all over the world. The day of the race, I headed down to Pont Canot, a prime spot on a bridge to watch the racers fly by. People had waited 2 to 3 hours. I waited about 50 minutes. Leading up to the racers arrival, team cars, floating advertisements on passing trucks, and a couple of stores on wheels passed by us and the interesting characters.

There was one interesting character in particular that you might expect to see in the streets of New Mexico. It was a rather rotund guy wearing a three sizes too small green Gatorade jersey with pink tights and boots. Let's call him Mathieu, because he was obviously French as he sang various chants to get everyone excited. Didn't work. He also sat on one side of the road before cyclists arrived where he laid in the middle of the road and posed for photos. Since he wasn't getting an arousal out of the crowd, he felt it would be cute to just pull his pants down and swing his little French baguette around. Unfortunately, everyone on the other side turned their heads and missed the passing cyclists. Just kidding.

Yep, there goes the Tour de France passing by

Once the Tour de France passed, it was pretty exciting to see and experience for about a minute. As long as people waited for the cyclists to pass, 1 to 3 hours, it took those guys only a minute to pass.

Alright, time for bed. Next up, the country known as the tourist magnet - Luxembourg.

John

The finish line of this blog entry