Friday, July 16, 2010

Fat Tire Bike Tour- Paris



The best way to do this it like this: Close your eyes. Are they closed? O.k. pictures yourself in the shower. I know just do it. O.k. now pictures yourself with your clothes on in the shower. Are you there? Now turn the water to luke warm/cold and stay there for two hours on a bike. Now do this while avoiding traffic and listening to a lady from Austrailia to mind the motor cars. This would describe our trip.

The guide had some sick idea of finishing the tour and we continiued to ride around all over paris in stead of making a straight b-line for the office. At moments like these, what else can you do but laugh?

On the trip we lost a person (unheard of in a Fat Tire tour) Yes, folks if it could happen, it did. As we waited to our guide to find our lost soul, I had a women next to me in biker shorts and a little top who kept telling me she needed to go pee. Lovely. Right next to us was a rotating bathroom. She kept eyeing it watching people go in and out. She decided to go fot it. Within 15 seconds she was back. I asked her why she didn't go and she told me that she did but as she was going the door rotated around and opened on her. She didn't know how to close it. O.k.

I shared a bobby pin with a lady whose plastic hood kept falling off. It really didn't matter because by that point everyone on our trip was soaked and I mean soaked. I moved to the outside corner of our group near the inside of the sidewalk. A lady from Australia was voicing the merrits of wear fully bike gear. She was also explaining how it had saved her head in a crash. I thought that was up for debate. As pedestrians came by she kept telling us, me specifically to "mind the pedestrians". Why was I feeling like I was being hen pecked? After informing us of our lack of courtesy, she turned to her husband and said "Henry, they just don't know how to watch for people here." Some people can be so helpful that they just take care of everyone else around them.

When we returned I tried to get the staff to give us free t-shirts but now one seemed to feel the same, except for a junior high boy who turned to me and said "I'm with you." Am I a middle school teacher or what?

Heidi and I had planned to tackle another place. She had managed to stay someonewhat dry, another hard point in this experience. I felt like I'd just finished a day at Wet'n'Wild...except without all the fun. "I want to go home, take a warm shower and lie vertically...now." "Are you sure you don't want...nevermind." We made it back and of course it made for such a great story, as Heidi kept reminding me it would.


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