Le Tour

For the past six years Andy had been to a different stage of the Tour de France. Since he was studying in a country conveniently located next to France it would be tragic if he missed a part this year, so for the prologues he and Susan were planning camping on the French border the night before and waking up early to get a good spot on the course in Strasbourg. Eager to try out my new tent I asked if I could tag along. Wes and Monika also had access to a tent and with 5 available spots in Susan's car things were looking good. The only problem with camping near a city with a section of the Tour in it, is that it's impossible to camp near a city with a section of the Tour in it. Susan tried a few different camp grounds and all of their reserved camping areas had been booked for months. So we improvised. We decided that our only option was to find a section of deserted road, pull off and set up camp. Early Friday morning we threw all of our stuff in Susan's car and headed towards France. Susan also came up with the idea of stopping by Europapark, a theme park with rides a plenty, since it was between Bamberg, Germany and Strasbourg, France (kind of between). We spent the day hurdling through the air on various roller coasters, water rides, and whatnot but we had a bit of a problem: Germany was in the quarter finals and we HAD to watch the game. We hastily threw together a plan that involved leaving the park an hour before the game started, heading to the nearest small town, finding a bar and watching the game. Luckily for us Europapark was showing the game in a typical German fashion, under a huge tent with picnic tables and beer. The game ended in a shootout making the German goalie, Lehmann, a German hero. For me it was the most intense game of the entire world cup. Andy, Wes and I were all wearing our German jerseys and after the game we drove through as many towns as we could and shouted and waved German flags and generally conducted ourselves as hooligans. We caught the Italy v. Ukraine game in a bar somewhere and then decided it would be best to find somewhere to crash for the evening before it got too dark. On the way to the French border, and listening to the best schlager southern German radio had to offer, a news reporter came on and informed us of a massive doping scandal that had implicated all of the Tour's top riders including this year's favorite, Jans Ulrich. Dismayed, we decided to continue anyway. We ended up finding a rather secluded stretch of road about 20km away from the border and simply drove through a field and set up camp... and by camp I mean I threw my sleeping bag on the ground and passed out in side of it. I was harassed the entire evening by mosquitoes and various other flying nuisances, but at six we were all up and made our way to Strasbourg.

Knackered, we wandered around the start/finish area trying to find the perfect vantage point to watch the riders go by. I decided that I couldn't function without coffee so I left the viewing selection up to Andy and Susan and Wes, Monika and myself tried to procure some coffee. With my limited French I was able to order a simple breakfast (when I say limited I mean I pointed a lot and used only the words “un,” “deux,” “et,” “oui,” and “Merci”). We then found our way back to Andy and aggressively defended our position. Before the riders went there was a large parade of sponsors giving out all kinds of free stuff, like magnets, hats, and hot coffee. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't want hot coffee in standing in the sun in 90 degree weather, but I was exhausted. And then the riders went, spaced about one minute apart with a police officer on a motorcycle in front of them and a team car with spare parts and a loudspeaker behind them. Most flew by too quickly to get a very good photo, but it was still fun to watch. By the time 4 o'clock rolled around I was so tired that I could hardly stand and passed out under a tree in the shade. Originally we had planned to camp two nights, because the next stretch of the Tour both began and ended in Strasbourg, but we were all too exhausted to move. Instead of staying another night we headed back to Germany with a little sunburn, lots of cool pictures, and a bag full of free junk.