Bike shopping, dirt park trails and camping sans tent

Bonjour! Wednesday morning, I checked out a bike store around the corner from where I was staying at Olivia and Nacho's. The guy inside, who spoke English, told me that they did not have anything in my size in stock and that it would take a week to order. As I was supposed to be in a farm in Normandy in a week, I ventured out for a bike store that appeared to exist on the Boulevard de Montparnasse, according to the internet. Fortunately, it did, and the guy there knew his shit and spoke some English. People in bike stores in France seem a bit less snooty than their US counterparts, but I can't tell if that's because they're a little uncomfortable with English (and therefore unable to go on a pretentious ramble about bike parts) or if they're actually nicer. I suspect the latter. The very agreeable man in the bike store did have bikes in my stock, and the one he showed me was perfect: a hybrid (not road, not mountain) that came with fenders, a rear rack, a bell, and lights that work automatically when I pedal! I headed back to pick up all of my belongings from Olivia and Nacho's while he assembled the bike.

On the way back, laden with my usual Chrome bag plus two bike bags on each shoulder, I got a lot of looks, from passing glances to full-on stop-and-gawks. Then, on the Metro, the ticket machine wouldn't take my debit card, the lady wouldn't help me, and I didn't have the change I needed to buy a ticket. So I laboriously marched up the steps with my 50 pounds of unwieldy baggage, and went to the McDonalds to buy a 95 cent milkshake to get change. I felt like a tool, but it was easier than trying to get into the tiny door of a real cafe with all my stuff.

Back at the bike shop, I got a nod from a lady in line ahead of me, who recognized that my bags were for a bike. The shopkeeper confirmed that they were indeed for a bike, and were Ortlieb, "the best that you can buy," he said in French. In this tiny pocket of Paris, I no longer felt like an ambulatory freak!

As it was too late in the day to leave the city by bike, I found a hostel. My roommates were Cuba (pronounced the way you would if you spoke Spanish: coo-bah) from Canada, who was clearly out to meet some ladies, and Katie, from Australia, who chattered at me for ten minutes straight and complained that her dad talked too much. Katie and her dad were on vacation with her mom, who had made the trip to "present a paper," which actually turned out to be a "Nurse's Bible" that she had assembled with nurses' stories and the Old and New Testaments and bound in blue leather with silver corners.

Yesterday morning, I set out from Paris toward Versailles, following some very sketchy directions I found on the internet (http://www.mayq.com/Cycling_out_of_paris/Route_6_west/Route_6_west.htm) that included instructions like,
"In the Park, immediately branch to the right, climbing, and then immediately branch left on a flat dirt way that joins a gravelled path between flower beds. The path becomes a dirt trail which turns right. Push or ride your bike on the path, climbing an occasional few steps and crossing through a gate."

Miraculously, I arrived in Versailles after 3 or 4 hours with nary a wrong turn. Oh, how spoiled we are in Chicago with our flat land and perpendicular streets! By the time I sat down to lunch in Versailles, it was too late and I was too tired to continue for Chartres, as planned.

(A fully loaded bike is not a sexy thing. If I figure out how to say "wide load" in French, I will make myself a sign. Additionally, the bike should have come with a mechanism to make it beep when it backs up. Pictures to follow.)

After lunch, I spent the next few hours milling about Versailles indecisively, looking freakish with my fully loaded bike, trying to find an internet cafe and a cheap hotel. I found a very expensive internet cafe and no hotel, though I did manage to book a room for Chartres for the following night. Eventually, I decided that my best bet, given that I didn't want to fork over 80 euro for a room or bike back to Paris to find a hostel, was to follow some signs I had seen on the main road that pointed to "Camping."

The Huttopia campground (pronounced like "utopia") was rather prissy looking, for a campground, had a gate that locked at night, and would only cost 19 euro. Lacking a tent, I rolled over to the hardware store, to find that the proprietor had sold his last tarp three days ago. Since it wasn't supposed to rain, I figured I'd survive. I laid out my huge, empty duffel and my empty Chrome bag on the ground, and slept on top of them on my sleeping bag.

The woods next to the campground didn't make any particulary frightful sounds in the night; in fact, I mostly heard the trains and motorcycles on nearby tracks and roads, which was comforting. I woke absolutely freezing a couple of hours after going to bed. My two layers of long underwear, socks, and fleece plus my sleeping bag, designed for temps as low as 45 degrees, did not cut it in 40-degree weather! Don't try it! For the rest of the night, I curled into cramped positions and tried to move around a little to generate some body heat, but didn't sleep for more than a few hours at a time. This morning, after about five minutes of trying to convince myself to leave my sleeping bag, I took a shamefully long, hot shower. Now, feeling warm and fully human again, I am ready to take of for Chartres, by way of roads instead of dirt trails. There's a real hotel room waiting for me there, and I'll be able to lay out my dewy sleeping bag to dry!