Day: 9 Heres to hoping there was no poison ivy and 1cm = 2km

Turns out the light was on my side! There was also 20 pence on my side that I‘m convinced David threw over with the light to distract me from being mad at him for loosing the light in the first place!

Another account of this same event goes like this: While peacefully sleeping in our cozy tent, I'm suddenly awoken by a slightly grumpy Alyssa who has to go to he bathroom in the middle of the night. She greets me with, "Where's the flashlight?!?" "I don't know, I don't think I had it last." "Yes you did! Don't tell me you lost the flashlight!" In my groggy state I didn't remember that the last time I had the flashlight I had given it to Alyssa because I wasn't holding it right while she set an alarm, so I began to guiltily search the tent while Alyssa waited impatiently. Finally, she declared, "I'll just go without it I guess." I remained in the tent feeling even worse, but still searching so that I could at least light her path back to the tent, but soon she returned having relieved herself of everything but her animosity toward me for having lost our only light. I apologized again, and we fell back into sleep. Later that morning, after I had regained some warmth after having to tentatively ask Alyssa for some of the sleeping bag that we were sharing in the middle of the night, we awoke and began to roll up the sleeping bags. As Alyssa moved her pillow and lifted the mattress-bag, she declares, "Oh! Here's the light! And look! Some money too!" She then concocted this ridiculous story about how I had found the flashlight and planted it on her side with the coin - as a distraction - as to not incriminate myself for losing it in the first place. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the facts; please judge the incident as you see fit.

We woke up at 7:30 to start the longest day ever of riding. While moving our bikes out of the forest, David found poison ivy. We, or mostly I, wasn’t that careful in checking for poison ivy the night before while walking through the woods. David, as some may not know, is extremely allergic so poison ivy could be a big problem. It was really sunny out all day and quite beautiful - not too hot but still hot. When we started the day David guesstimated we had 40 miles to go from where we camped to Amiens. Well he guesstimated wrong. He thought 1 cm was 1 km but really 1cm is 2km. Holy shit; we rode 79 miles today, not kidding. We stopped at 2:00ish to rest and eat and we thought we only had 20 more miles to go but actually we had 40 more miles to ride. Today was the first day we were able to ride for miles and miles along the French countryside without having to stop in the city traffic. Since we were out in the middle of farm land there wasn’t really anywhere to stop for water or food (good thing I bought that 5L of water at the French Walmart that David was so pissy about). Of course the water was just about boiling from being out in the sun all day, but hot water is better than no water. At some point we realized that we made a mistake in our calculation of the mileage right about the time when we thought we should have been arriving in Amiens. We still had 26 more miles to go and we were tired. We had to stop more frequently for water and for rest and for walking up hills, AND it was taking forever to get to the city, but there really was no other option. We finally arrived in Amiens around 8:30. We found a hotel pretty fast but it was full and it was somewhat on the outskirts of town. We had to bike to the “city center” or downtown to find any hotels. We didn’t speak any French except “one (or two) coffees” and “Don you speak English?” We had no map of the city. So we started accosting everyone we saw for assistance. I personally didn’t care where we stayed or how much it was I was so tired. Surprisingly, to us at least, no one spoke English, but they all tried to help. David found some guys who took him to some hotels and spoke French for him and found us a room but they didn’t really speak English either. It was difficult to even communicate with these guys, but after they finally understood that we were looking for a cheap hotel, David ran back to where I was standing with the bikes and trailer and said that he would ride with these guys in their car so that he could see where the hotel was and so we could bike there when he got back. After waiting for 20 minutes for him to return with the two guys who took him to two different hotels to compare prices since we were in an “financiaire crisis,” we rode to the hotel that they had picked out for us and had talked to the receptionist on our behalf.

At this point all we wanted was a shower and food. We had showered the two nights before, but you really never would have guessed it; my French guides, who drove me to scout out hotels, had to wind down the windows, although they did it very discretely, but this may have been because they did not know the English to tell me about it. Honestly, there may not be words to describe how fragrant we were at this point…. Digressing for a moment, however, I hate to perpetuate stereotypes, but this one may be true; the French can be quite stinky. I’ve discovered, after arriving in Amiens, that it is not the norm, and the place where this trend was most notable WAS in what we have been calling “the French Walmart,” which is not just for their large amount of cheap stuff, low prices, and outskirts-of-town location. This place had some pretty notable and quite a few smelly characters. Please take note: I’m NOT trying to compare our musk to that of the smelly French people that I have encountered because we were in a different league, but while I was on the subject, I wanted to let you know that this rumor was NOT (at least entirely) a myth.

Returning to the subject at hand; we wanted a shower and food. We got to our room and got a shower quite easily, but food would take me on another unwanted adventure. I told Alyssa to take a shower while I went to get food since she was in no condition to travel any further. It turns out that everything in Amiens closes at 11:00 - everything. I walked around asking every bar I found asking “Oo-vrer?” which the small English to French dictionary told me was open and most people, I think, understood, but the answer was always no. I even resorted to asking at the Dominos and Subway which produced the same results. I returned empty handed and facing the prospect of eating the same meal of nuts, bread, and a few biscuits that we had bought in London; I was not happy. Alyssa, however, escaped this fate by passing out before I returned. I begrudgingly ate what little we had and soon followed her lead.