Jul 2009

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

Bienvenu à Besancon

As my flight from Frankfurt arrived in Geneva, Switzerland at 7:30 p.m., I was mentally prepared to have to stay the night in Geneva and travel the next day on to my destination city of Besançon. The last train out of Geneva left out of Besançon at 8:30. Not alot of time for an international arrival.

Fortunately, a flight attendant told me that the train station was right next to the airport. Once I got off the plane, I ran so I could wait 10 precious minutes for my bags to come out. I grabbed those bags, ran to the train station where I found out that I would have to transfer to another station downtown to get me to France. "Merde!" After another train I was finally at the correct station. I ran up to the ticket office and with a little less than 3 minutes to spare, I bought my ticket, literally ran through customs since noone was actually there working, and jumped on the train and onto Besançon, France.

I am taking French classes this summer at the Centre Linguistique Appliquée here in Besancon. These classes go towards my Masters Degree. I have to say that my first week of classes and living in Besançon had been really interesting. First of all, the set up. We have to attend 3 classes a day from 8:30 to 3:00 with an optional forum after these classes. My classes have either been really well organized or poorly organized along with forums consisting of a presenter reading statistics for an hour and a half in a monotone voice or interactive presentations. Classes are either right on the mark or off in left field.

One of the stereotypical qualities of France is their food, but considering that we have been eating in a school cafeteria, food hasn't been the true treat that you might imagine. On the other hand, our classes are extremely international. Compared to my classes last summer in Argentina which was comprised mostly of Americans, classes here are comprised of students from Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Ireland, France, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, Syria, Botswana, Senegal. You can definitely say it is eclectic as Crawford, Texas.

My diverse classes

The majority of the students are staying in dorms. During the first week, I stayed in the dorm named Jérome. I soon found out that Jérome was the dorm where French students that didn't return home for their summer vacation stay to drink and talk right in front of the entrance of the building. Unfortunately, my room just happened to be situated right above the entrance. For 5 consecutive nights, they felt like sitting in front to drink, talk, sing, and yell a few times for extra flavor as it prohibited everyone trying to sleep to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning. That's completely bollocks isn't it?

So each night, I would go down in between midnight and 3 a.m. to ask them to take their ass somewhere else. Finally, on the last night, I went down and had a heated discussion about the fact that I had to go to class the next morning while they didn't. If I had a better vocabulary in French, I would have peppered the conversation with alot more colorful words like bollocks and you smell like catfish. I changed dorms on Monday.

One of my goals on this trip was to make a side trip to Westvletern, Belgium to purchase the number one beer in the world. This beer, the Westvletern trappist beer is very scarce and tough to wrap your hands around. You process requires that you make a reservation two weeks before you plan on buying it, then two weeks later, you drive up, give them your name and your money, and then they give you best tasting beer in the world. That was my plan, BUT, what a big but, there was one big item impeding my visit. When I was looking to get a train ticket to Belgium, it was going to cost a nifty $500. I enjoy beer, but not quite that much. Maybe sometime in the future.

Enough of this negative crap. Now for the uplifting and the bit odd to make you laugh. A great way for me to integrate with locals has always been basketball. During the first week, I found a set of basketball courts where guys come and play three times a week. I quickly put myself in the mix. I have been playing basketball for a good two to three hours each time. I know that makes you feel better.

Now the school that we attend tries to provide several cultural activities within Besancon for us to take advantage of. One of the first activities was a French movie preluded with a concert from the guy that produced the music for the movie. Sounds great in theory. Two other graduate students, Norah and Sarah, both came and we were a little perturbed that we were a little late for the start. Once we entered, we were glad we were late. Up on stage was the musician making odd music with his clarinette. He reminded me of Will Ferrell in Anchorman when he starts playing his jazz flute. The French musician would play a note and then use his computer to change the sound. Basically it sounded like a whale under water in a great amount of pain from constipation. He felt the music and began to levitate using his one leg to push himself up and tucking the other one behind his other leg. It looked more like he was practicing yoga.

Finally the movie started 40 painful minutes later. This didn't mark the end of pain, just a pause, and then a continuation of another long dragged out piece of French cinema. We left early and ate some ice cream.

Leading up to the Citadelle

Looming high over the city of Besancon is the Citadelle, a place that protected the old city below and was designed by Vauban. I took a Sunday afternoon to visit it. To my surprise as I walked across the drawbridge, underneath were a couple dozen baboons. What?!?! Baboons up in the citadel. Unknown to me, the back of the citadel is a zoo containing kangaroos, several types of monkeys, lions, tigers, fish, flamingos, and llamas.

The funniest moment came by a few monkeys. It always has to be the monkeys. One male monkey, we'll name him Santa Fe, felt it best to swing around the cage quickly until the female, Albuquerque, was away from her baby. Santa Fe would then quickly swing over in her direction, and seemed to be trying to jump over Albuquerque. He wasn't successful since he kept trying in rapid succession to jump over her. There's nothing like humping monkeys to make you laugh.

That was the first week of Besancon. The next week brought the Tour de France to town.

Peace
John

Welcome to Ireland Y'all

Fortunately, to get my butt over here to Europe for my month of studies, we were able to use frequent flyer miles for a free ticket. On top of that, one of the advantages of flying is that you can usually include an extra stop between your two main cities. So I decided to make my stop in Dublin, Ireland.

I left U.S. soil July 3rd and arrived on the ever so green Irish soil on July 4th. My main goal of my stop in Dublin wasn't to find U2 playing in a local park or Pierce Brosnan prepping for his next James Bond film, but to finally decide if Guinness was a beer I really like or really just don't enjoy. Anywhere you go in the world, and I mean anywhere, you will find an Irish bar and Guinness. It is really good beer or excellent marketing. What better way to find out than going straight to the source.

Yes, straight to the source

After a mandatory 2 hour nap to recharge my batteries from hardly sleeping on the flight over from Philadelphia (Philly should really be renamed the "We're not really that interested in your sorry ass city"), I grabbed my backpack and headed in the general direction of the brewery. After going the long way to the Guinness brewery, I was standing within the brewery that helped feed thousands of Irish during the lean and good times. There is nothing like a Guinness to chew on.

Entrance to the Brewery

I joined all of the other enthusiasts in touring the brewery that is in the shape of a pint of the black beer. Each stage revealed the brewing process, ingredients (one Eastern European decided to eat a few of the hops that hundreds of people run their hands through everyday), and the advertising. It was at this point when I was watching an advertisement that I realized that one of the commercials they were showing was of good ol' American football. Upon closer observation, it was high school football from none other than the great city of ODESSA, TEXAS! Let me tell you, there is nothing like being abroad and being reminded of the notoriety and grandness of your home state and town. Hmmmm, I don't remember seeing any commercials about that state to our west.

Yes, that football you see in the video is from Odessa, TEXAS! All the way over in Ireland

Eventually I passed the seven levels/floors of a Guinness and arrived at the top floor, the Guinness Gravity Bar. The Gravity Bar rendered a 360 degree view of downtown Dublin. Usually when people first step into the Gravity Bar, they immediately head to the round bar for their complementary pint of Guinness. I on the other hand, realizing the magnitude of what was about to transpire, took my time, walked around, took in the view, took some photos, watched others drink their pints, and then leisurely strolled up to the bar. The moment of truth arrived, do I like Guinness that's straight from the source? I mentioned my mission to the young gal serving the pints, so she decided to make my first time special. She put the shape of a shamrock in my Guinness.

If you look closely, you can see the shape of a shamrock in my pint

LIterally seconds before my first drink of the day, but definitely not the last one

I grabbed my pint, kindly asked a couple to take the above photo, raised the glass up, and took my first drink. A few minutes later, several drinks later, I had came to my final decision about Guinness - I don't like it. Like any good tragedy, you'd expect me to really love the beer, but sadly, I didn't like it that much. Downstairs, I gave the Guinness family another chance at redemption with their Kilkenney beer, and I have to say that I liked that beer quite a bit more.

After another beer and a turkey sandwich, I figured I should make my first visit to Dublin more than just the Guinness brewery. The problem is, I had a hard time orientating myself on the map and walked around a good hour not seeing much of interest other than local housing. I am sure that the beverages played no part in my misdirection as much as the lousy map I was using. I am sure of it.

I love Magnum bars. Maybe I should make a pilgramage to the Magnum ice cream factory in Great Britain

My trip to Dublin, Ireland was brief and enlightening. I think Dublin would best be experienced with my two girls and friends. So next time, I am going to bring those folks with me.

So the next morning, I jumped on a bus, the incorrect one, but fortunately it was a direct bus to the airport, and I was on a plane to Geneva, Switzerland where I hoped to catch a train to Besancon, France where I would complete my studies for the month of July.

Alright, next entry will be about my first week in Besancon.

The first person that leaves a comment on this blog entry with a special word that I have to use (ex. booger) in the next blog, I will send you a postcard from France.

John

You might enjoy this extra reading

We need to think about this blog entry a little bit

Since the birth of our beautiful baby daughter Sophie, Nadine and I have yet to take a real trip together without our little Thai souvenir. So shortly after our wedding five and a half years ago, we had two free airline tickets to Hawaii that were gifted to us. We decided that we should make that our 5 year anniversary trip. Mind you, that seemed like it would have taken alot longer than the five years actually felt, as It felt more like a good two years.

Once we completed our last day of school back in Omaha on June 2nd, we were at the airport the early morning of July 3rd on a plane headed for Maui. This was going to be a week away for the two of us sitting on a beach, relaxing, taking in the sights, and enjoying each other. It turned out to be a great trip.

A little beach we like to call Big Beach, as well as everyone else

During our time in Maui, we chose a new type of lodging, not a hostel, sleeping bag, or even hotel, we went with a condo in the beach town of Kihei (almost every town on Maui is on the beach). I think that we lucked out in the fact that we found a place that wasn't incredibly expensive by Hawaii standards, was comfortable, and best of all, our place had a view of the ocean and the mountains on the other side of island.

A little tour (tore if you are from New Mexico) of our condo

One of our first excursions in Maui was to visit the eroded crater of the Molokini Crater. This is a volcano that has eroded over several years, about 10 or so . . . thousand, and is now in the shape of a half moon. It's here you can join a couple of hundred other snorkelers and swim around reef that has grown around the crater. Before it became a popular spot to get a nice sunburn on your continental untanned skin, the US Navy used it as target practice for the Navy. You may be able to note the pot marks along the upper rim if you look closely.

From Molokini Crater, we travelled over to Turtle Beach to continue our conquest of wearing flippers and a plastic apparatus in the water, but this time in search of turtles in front of Malu'aka Beach. Initially, hand in hand, Nadine and I didn't have much luck in finding these massive creatures having their shells being cleaned all of their unneeded extra sea attachments by little fish. Within 5 minutes we saw a green sea turtle pass to our right in a lazy swim as the tide pushed him around the gentle waves. Over the next 30 minutes, we easily saw a dozen pushing around the corral and at one point being easily within 5 feet of one. We both agreed that we liked the green sea turtles more than the crater.

The water was quite blue around Molokini Crater

One early morning, around 2:45 local time, an unmarked van stopped in front of our condo and swooped us away to the very small industrial area of Maui. We were starting our day for the sunrise at the top of Haleakala National Park. From here, the tallest point on the island of Maui, we were going to ride a bike 26 miles downhill down to the coast, a total descent of around 9,600 feet.

The most important facet of your arrival at the top of this dormant volcano is to score a position along the fence for the best spots for photos. The only hiccup with this is that at 3:30 to 4:00 in the morning, it is freezing cold at that altitude with ferocious wind hitting you in the face. Needless to say, we were quite happy to be wearing ridiculous looking blue wind suits as we stood next to teenagers in shorts. Oh teenagers, they can be so dumb. Good thing, we were never teenagers. After some time, we actually encouraged the sun to hurry up and peek its head up over the horizon, because it was incredibly cold. In the end, the sunrise was quite stunning, even if the picture below doesn't do it justice.

House of the Sun

Sunrise over Haleakala National Park

This silly outfits didn't keep us as warm as we would have liked. Nadine is the one in the blue.

From the top of Haleakala, we jumped on our bikes to complete the best possible type of ride you could ask for, a ride completely down hill where you have to peddle for 200 yards out of a total of 26 miles. The ride took us down the volcano through farm land, forest, and small towns all with a big panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean.

We need big helmets to cover our big craniums and distract you from our ugly purple jackets. I bet you didn't even notice them did you?

One of the more popular tourist attractions is to drive the way too green northern coast of Maui to the town of Hana. It is aptly named the "Road to Hana." We tackled the road one morning before the rest of the tourists got up to drink their morning brew. For those of y'all that easily get motion sickness, this is a ride to ignore as it is a constant rotation of switch backs and bridges. The reward for feeling like a race car driver is even smaller towns, black beaches, and unique rock formations. The trip was nice with all of the photo ops and scenery, but probably a one and done activity for us.

The Road to Hana - a curvy, nauseous road of green

An awesome black beach close to Hana

Yes, I am a professional model. It's taken years to get that "Blue Ice" pose down. That's how I got Nadine to notice me.

A common ploy while on vacation in Maui or other popular tourist destinations in the United States is for time share companies to comp part of one of your trips or excursions in exchange for your assistance at one of their spiels. Going into it, Nadine and I both knew that this wasn't going to be a winning situation for the company, but we did have to put in our time for the money that they donated to our snorkeling trip. Part of the presentation by Regina was the directive to write down 10 places we would like to visit. So we sat there and tried to think of 10 of the most random places we could think of while she tried to find a lovely time share that we would find some lovely on a lovely island where it was just lovely. How about a time share in the Maldives, Yemen, Tuvalu, or New Mexico? I am sure that most of us haven't heard of these places. She has to look it up on the map, and she was never able to find that last one. "A New Mexico? You are not talking about the old one?"

Feeling up free time by building a rock formation

What do you do while you are on vacation?

After our quick and productive week on the island of Maui, we went straight from the beach to the shower to the plane, and back to the non-island of Omaha.

Alright, next up . . . somewhere in Europe.

Peace,
John and Nadine