Sunday, June 22, 2008

Updates from the Europe trip, now that I'm in the USA again

Time for an offline blog entry! It's 9am on the morning of the 18th of June. I'm sitting in a hotel room in Southern France somewhere, and we have to make it to Barcelona tonight, so we have about 3-4 hours of driving to do today, but probably (although who knows with this crowd!) no biking.

My last entry was quite awhile ago. Let's see... Was it the first hotel we stayed at in France? The one in St. Jean de Luz?

Day/Night 1: British Airways (June 9)

Day 2: Phantom of the Opera

Night 2: Sofitel at Gatwick airport in London

Day 2: Arriving in Bordeaux, getting the bikes, driving to St. Jean de Luz, avoiding striking truckers, and biking 38 miles to St. Jean Pierre de Pied or something like that

Night 3: St. Pied or whatever

Day 4: Jay and Tiff bike to Oloron (50 miles!), while the rest of us drive there to find a hotel and a bike shop

Night4: Oloron

Day 5: First climb (Col du Marie Blanc)

Night 5: Can't remember where we stayed (need a map!!)

Day 6: 7 hour hike straight uphill; trail went through a tunnel filled with water that was thankfully closed; ate at a bowling alley

Night 6: same as last night

Day 7: Second climb (col du Tourmalet); wet and cold at the top, but a great little restaurant with some awesome french onion soup

Night 7: stayed at a little hotel on the way to the next spot and had amazing food from a little magician (Father's Day)

Day 8: Off day from the bikes, we decide to head south into Spain in hopes of better weather, but it's actually worse through the tunnel; we go for a one hour walk along a road in a beautiful canyon; I say "Donde estamos?" to some dude working at a gas station

Night 8: Stay at a 3-star hotel back in France with wireless internet and talk to Jeffra with Tiff, Jayme, and Nelson on the webcam

Day 9: Third climb (Col de Mente plus another one before it); Tiff and Jay say it's the toughest one, but I thought the toughest was the first one; my legs feel like lead after doing it!

Night 9: some nice hotel along the way to Barcelona

Day 10: end of this blog post, but not getting you all the way up to date. More later!!

3 comments:

Jessica said...

what a strange summary. leave us hanging, won't you?

one correction, the soup you had in France was "onion soup," not French onion soup. don't you guys miss me?!

Tiffany said...

Boy you are a smarty, aren't you? And I suppose the braids in Jayme's hair were not "French braids," but just "braids"??

Anonymous said...

chix patties an' a good amount 'o goat cheese..! also, st saveur de luz or some kinda malarky like that . hey ho!