the country that the world forgot
luxembourg. the tiny country nestled between germany, belgium, and france. we stopped for the afternoon in luxembourg city and walked around the old town, which was both quite nice, and surprisingly empty. tired after 4 days of rally intensity, the lazy afternoon was welcome. from luxembourg we made our way south, to...
france. as much as i like france, it loses a lot of its charm when coming from germany. the french highways are crap in comparison, and you pay for the apparent privilege of driving them. you pay through the nose. toll roads in france are ridiculously expensive, but i suppose that's partially a result of having the sncf run so well throughout the coutry. we drive for most of the day, and retired to a rest stop for the evening, as we were all too accustomed to doing by that point in the journey. what we weren't accustomed to was...
being robbed. we settled in for the night, comfortably in the back of our opel meriva-home, and fell asleep. the windows were cracked open some to let fresh air in - we would have been sleeping in a steam room otherwise. it was something of a shock to awake to the sound of my bag being reefed through the window opening by what i assume to be a dirty frenchman (dirty because he was stealing, not beacuse he was french). i remember screaming something not very nice at him (though at the time it sounded like someone else screaming it, a beside-myself experience, if you will), and wrestling my bag back away from him. i opened the door, ready to pursue him and do whatever instinct instructs that you do when confronted by thieves, but decided that getting shot/stabbed/mauled/raped/laughed at in my underwear in the middle of nowhere in france at such a late hour probably wouldn't much be worth the story. my apologies to you, for that. as it turns out, all of my belongings were still in my possession, the result of the window not being open enough to quietly slide any of them through. will, though, wasn't so lucky. they only managed to take one of his belongings through the slightly-too-open window, but unfortunately it was his camera. quite shaken, we took a while to gather ourselves, and drove to the next gas station rest stop. the moral of the story, you ask? in the end, it's that if you're going to sleep in your car, do it somewhere well lit (as bad as that is for sleeping) and well-populated. in general this means sleeping at a gas station. hopefully you can learn from our mistake, not from yours.
there is, of course, only one way to make things better after such a violation, and that, my friends, is a visit to nice. one word: beach. well, a few words, really, like 'rocky', 'slightly uncomfortable', and 'naked old people', but hell, it's the mediterranean! you didn't hear me complaining, golden grandparents or not. the city was in the same shape that i left it last year - hot, sunny, busy, and expensive. but it was great. it ended up being 4 days on the beach, complete with hot sun, hilarious beach vendors, and as many good looking girls as you could ask for. and if that wasn't enough already, it was france, which meant monoprix sandwiches that rivalled even last years mortadella masterpieces, giant yop that was even bigger than england's (750ml plus a bonus 10%? uh, yes please?), french pastries, and a native language that i stood a chance at understanding. if you happen to go, watch out, though. there were almost daily sightings of sea serpents, and even a few mud sharks. and let me tell you, you do not want to get stung or bitten by one of those.
through a somewhat awkward interaction initiated on their part, we made friends with the girls that worked at the 'american' bar in nice, so after some coercion in the evening i ended up dancing (gasp) on a table in the smallest, sweatiest, loudest club i've seen to date. retarded. but the band was actually really good, so it was actually kind of fun. and the aussie girls were really nice, and it was nice to speak english to someone other than ourselves. and they were cute, i'm not going to lie.
other random fun included will generously giving people cigarettes when they asked if he could spare one. we soon learned that any time someone asks for a cigarette, they really just want to sell you "mmm...hashish?" and despite this ulterior motive, they accepted will's cigarettes. of course. if you visit nice and you smoke, be warned.
while will was swimming he somehow ended up with a stray hairband wrapped around his leg, which he brought back to shore. needless to say, i wore it for the better part of the rest of the trip because it's europe, and really nobody even gave me a second look. it was nice. both the hairband and the lack of care, really.
every night we'd end up going for walks along the beach, and we'd sit with our drinks (mad fantas for me, shit's on point) and throw rocks into the water. the promenade and quai were always full of people out enjoying the evening, and true to euro-style there were a bunch of inline skaters who'd set up cups along the concrete and do all sorts of crazy footwork through and around them, weaving their feet at somewhat unbelievable speed. as silly as it looks when you first see them, it's actually really impressive when you watch for a bit. talented kids.
g's premonition of flowered skirts and sunsets didn't really come true, but i did meet a particularly nice bulgarian girl on the promenade one night, so g gets at least a bit of prediction-credit for that. somewhat sadly saturday morning soon came, which meant that like it or not we were off on the long and winding road to...
jh..
france. as much as i like france, it loses a lot of its charm when coming from germany. the french highways are crap in comparison, and you pay for the apparent privilege of driving them. you pay through the nose. toll roads in france are ridiculously expensive, but i suppose that's partially a result of having the sncf run so well throughout the coutry. we drive for most of the day, and retired to a rest stop for the evening, as we were all too accustomed to doing by that point in the journey. what we weren't accustomed to was...
being robbed. we settled in for the night, comfortably in the back of our opel meriva-home, and fell asleep. the windows were cracked open some to let fresh air in - we would have been sleeping in a steam room otherwise. it was something of a shock to awake to the sound of my bag being reefed through the window opening by what i assume to be a dirty frenchman (dirty because he was stealing, not beacuse he was french). i remember screaming something not very nice at him (though at the time it sounded like someone else screaming it, a beside-myself experience, if you will), and wrestling my bag back away from him. i opened the door, ready to pursue him and do whatever instinct instructs that you do when confronted by thieves, but decided that getting shot/stabbed/mauled/raped/laughed at in my underwear in the middle of nowhere in france at such a late hour probably wouldn't much be worth the story. my apologies to you, for that. as it turns out, all of my belongings were still in my possession, the result of the window not being open enough to quietly slide any of them through. will, though, wasn't so lucky. they only managed to take one of his belongings through the slightly-too-open window, but unfortunately it was his camera. quite shaken, we took a while to gather ourselves, and drove to the next gas station rest stop. the moral of the story, you ask? in the end, it's that if you're going to sleep in your car, do it somewhere well lit (as bad as that is for sleeping) and well-populated. in general this means sleeping at a gas station. hopefully you can learn from our mistake, not from yours.
there is, of course, only one way to make things better after such a violation, and that, my friends, is a visit to nice. one word: beach. well, a few words, really, like 'rocky', 'slightly uncomfortable', and 'naked old people', but hell, it's the mediterranean! you didn't hear me complaining, golden grandparents or not. the city was in the same shape that i left it last year - hot, sunny, busy, and expensive. but it was great. it ended up being 4 days on the beach, complete with hot sun, hilarious beach vendors, and as many good looking girls as you could ask for. and if that wasn't enough already, it was france, which meant monoprix sandwiches that rivalled even last years mortadella masterpieces, giant yop that was even bigger than england's (750ml plus a bonus 10%? uh, yes please?), french pastries, and a native language that i stood a chance at understanding. if you happen to go, watch out, though. there were almost daily sightings of sea serpents, and even a few mud sharks. and let me tell you, you do not want to get stung or bitten by one of those.
through a somewhat awkward interaction initiated on their part, we made friends with the girls that worked at the 'american' bar in nice, so after some coercion in the evening i ended up dancing (gasp) on a table in the smallest, sweatiest, loudest club i've seen to date. retarded. but the band was actually really good, so it was actually kind of fun. and the aussie girls were really nice, and it was nice to speak english to someone other than ourselves. and they were cute, i'm not going to lie.
other random fun included will generously giving people cigarettes when they asked if he could spare one. we soon learned that any time someone asks for a cigarette, they really just want to sell you "mmm...hashish?" and despite this ulterior motive, they accepted will's cigarettes. of course. if you visit nice and you smoke, be warned.
while will was swimming he somehow ended up with a stray hairband wrapped around his leg, which he brought back to shore. needless to say, i wore it for the better part of the rest of the trip because it's europe, and really nobody even gave me a second look. it was nice. both the hairband and the lack of care, really.
every night we'd end up going for walks along the beach, and we'd sit with our drinks (mad fantas for me, shit's on point) and throw rocks into the water. the promenade and quai were always full of people out enjoying the evening, and true to euro-style there were a bunch of inline skaters who'd set up cups along the concrete and do all sorts of crazy footwork through and around them, weaving their feet at somewhat unbelievable speed. as silly as it looks when you first see them, it's actually really impressive when you watch for a bit. talented kids.
g's premonition of flowered skirts and sunsets didn't really come true, but i did meet a particularly nice bulgarian girl on the promenade one night, so g gets at least a bit of prediction-credit for that. somewhat sadly saturday morning soon came, which meant that like it or not we were off on the long and winding road to...
jh..
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