Le France 07/15/2010
Well, it all started at about 5 a.m. Joe started yelling for me to put the rain fly on my tent. I hadn’t the night before because it was beautiful outside. We were camping at a little campground in Chateaudun, France. No one spoke English, of course. We found it late the night before. Everyone was extremely nice, which has been my experience with France, surprisingly. Everything I had heard was that the French are rude, but I must say, I have not had the experience at all. In fact, quite the opposite. Of course, I have not been to Paris; which may be where all the mean people live. Anyway, I got back in my tent and waited for the rain to stop. As I got out, I felt a pain in my lower back. I hope it was just a muscle, but I immediately recognized the pain: a kidney stone. I had one within a few days of my 21st birthday and it is not something you forget. I hobbled over to the showers, because you need clean underwear if you are going to the hospital. It was all I could do to stand for a shower. I then made it back to my tent and crawled inside. By this time, Joe had come over to check on me and I guess I looked pretty bad, because he ran off, with French phrase book in hand, to get an ambulance. Within about 10 minutes, I could hear that European siren. The ambulance got there and no one spoke English. I had Joe bring me a pebble so I could demonstrate a stone in my back. I think they got it, but I was still worried about an erroneous amputation due to the language barrier. It only took a few minutes to get to the hospital and then I was rolled into a hall where I sat for probably 30 minutes. Eventually, a number of nurses rolled me into a room with a curtain. There was an old man on the other side, and he and I alternated moaning. There is a certain camaraderie in pain. So, I spent the next 9 hours in the ER with little happening. I had x-rays and an ultrasound but it was pretty slow and the hospital was pretty busy; and there was only one doctor. I guess it was about 2 pm by the time pain stopped. 3 or 4 hours of pain with a little morphine helps the time fly by. Joe stuck around and waited with me. It was excruciating just sitting around with nothing going on except watching people being wheeled in and out. For the last few hours, I was in the hall in a bed. The nurses were very nice and not hard on the eyes. My attempts at getting a sponge bath were met with failure. Anyway, we got out at 9 pm, went back to the campground and packed up our tents, and stayed at a hotel called “Etap”, which is a chain of inexpensive hotels similar to a Microtel. You check in by kiosk and it was a tiny room, with bunk beds and no a/c. We met up with Brad the next day in Angouleme, which is a really cool city in southern central France. I don’t know the history, but it has a historic downtown on a hill with a giant cathedral. Actually, that is the description of all French towns, I think. They all have a giant cathedral and are all scenic. We have seen countless Chateaus (castles) and every little town is picturesque. It is maddening because you keep wanting to stop and take pictures, which means it takes all day to get anywhere. Also, there are villages every few miles, so it is a little difficult to make good time unless you take the interstate, which are all toll roads, and fairly expensive. We stayed at a hotel with a/c, but it was tiny and had one double bed and a pull out bed under the double. When we pulled out the bed, there was barely enough room to walk to the bathroom; which is why I stubbed my toe on the edge of Brad’s bed. Yesterday, we rode in mid Pyrenees, which had some awesome roads for motorcycles. There are motorcycles everywhere, and they basically follow no rules. In traffic, they just take off down the middle of the road and ride to the front. The good thing is all the cars just move over to the right to let them by. We got caught in traffic yesterday and tried it ourselves. It is great, except our bikes are little wide with the boxes and I hit a few plastic cones. They deserved it, though. One thing about France: things here are rarely open. It seems they have a lot of holidays, and they are not open on the weekends, and only part of Monday. At noon, everything shuts down for 2 hours, and I mean everything, and then they close at 4 pm. There is nothing open at night except a few restaurants and bars, assuming there is no holiday. Also, the gas stations close early, and for some reason, our credit cards don’t work at all the automatic pumps. It is definitely a lot more relaxed here. The only thing that is always open is McDonalds, which is a big deal. There are signs on the outside of town letting you know where the McDonalds is and they are pretty fancy. You can also order by kiosk there. I had a Royale with Cheese. Well, Because of the kidney stone debacle, we missed the running of the bulls; I guess it was the creeping of the stone for us. We are within 50 miles of the next stage of the tour de france, and plan to see part of that tomorrow. After that we are heading to Spain to drop off Brad at Madrid, get bikes serviced, and see a little Spain. CommentsDebbie Nobles 07/25/2010 3:59pm
The people in Paris are just as nice.... Leave a Reply | Jim SeamanBringing you travel updates, witty repartee and advice you can count on.  ArchivesMay 2011 Categories |
RSS Feed