Grenoble and Le Tour de France!

July 22 - 24:
I just had the most amazing time in Grenoble, France!  My friend Dusty and I decided last minute to see the second to last leg of the Tour de France.  This leg:  the time trials in Grenoble. 

Part of the reason this trip was so last minute was due to the uncertainty of a place to stay in Grenoble for the weekend.  Hostels were outrageously expensive, and we had been only been in touch briefly with a couchsurfing host in the area.  Ultimately, we got a hold of the host and stayed with her the whole time.

But wait, I'm skipping ahead!  This whole trip was a jam packed adventure and deserves recapitulation from the very start.  First, the initial trainride.  It takes at least 12 hours by train to get from Munich to Grenoble, and without a book to occupy me, the only entertainment I had the whole time was my Eurorail booklet, DB magazine (it's like Skymall for trains), and my window seat.  Oh, also I was out til 3am the night before wishing a group of exchange students farewell in the Biergarten.  Yeah, I had my dreams for entertainment too...

packed and ready

First layover in Strasbourg.

Lyon, I'm finally walking around in France!

1.5 hours out of Grenoble and it starts raining. Noooooo!

But the weather pulls through.

Awesome reflection of the nearby mountains.  Taken as I wait for my host to find me.

Left from Munich on Friday morning at 07:12 and arrived in Grenoble at 19:45.  In between had 4 layovers, and two of them were long enough get off the train and run to nearby grocery stores for snacks.  Over the last month I have become the biggest fan of fresh cheese and bread as a perfectly satiable snack.  Now I'm obsessed with finding the perfect cheese - bread combo.

Caitlin              Auralia

Alright, so I finally arrive in Grenoble and am greeted by my Couchsurfing host and a fellow surfer.  Auralia (the host) introduces me to Caitlin (couchsurfer from Australia) and has barely shown me around her place when she informs us we must prepare our costumes for a party down the street.

thrown together party attire

Apparently all the couchsurfing hosts in the area throw parties every few weeks, and this weekend's party was themed 'crazy'.  Good thing I came prepared with my Russian hat and safety vest!  We changed and headed out just in time to rendezvous with Dusty as he arrived at the train station.

The party was way fun...

 

...right up until the point where Caitlin got seriously sick and we (Dusty, Auralia, and I) had to carry her all the way home.  This definitely was not how we pictured our trip turning out.  The next day Caitlin was as hung over as she was hammered the night before, and muuuuch less talkative.  But that was alright because Dusty and I were so preoccupied by the race!

The time trials started at 10am.  Dusty and I could not have been more stoked being amongst such enthusiastic bike fans and around such expensive, sexy bikes!

Crazy Ausie fans, their sign says, ''Crikey Cadel!''

We're at the Tour, life is good.

Check out the wing/hinge design of this fork!  So crazy expensive.  One of these bikes is easily 10,000 dollars!   

The racers were sent in order of ranking from slowest to fastest every minute until the last 20 or so riders, who were sent every 2 minutes.  It took 5 or 6 hours for the last 20 riders to be up, so we mostly just wandered around the course, snacking on baguettes, and accumulating swag.

Mark Cavendish

Thomas Voeckler's fanclub unfortunately just wasn't enough.

The man himself, my hero, Thomas Voeckler.

Cadel Evans (this year's champion)

Frank Schleck (third place)

Andy Schleck (Second place)

awards = mayhem

After the race we pushed and shoved our way through the crowd only to completely miss the awards ceremony.  That was fine though, the day had been a total success and we didn't need to see the ceremony to know who had one.  Tired of the masses, we peaced out and headed for Auralia's apartment.  

Along the way, we got sidetracked by the Bastille, a fortress circa 1470 overlooking the city just north of the finish line.  An hour later, we were at the top enjoying a breathtaking view of the city.  

We finally got back to the apartment around 20:00 totally drained to find Auralia cooking for us! Talk about best CouchSurfing host ever, she had a two course meal planned for us and proceeded to stuff us with the most amazing spaghetti I may have ever had.  The French can cook!

We were pretty kaput after that and made our way to bed like zombies.  The next day my train was scheduled to leave at 07:46, so I didn't feel so bad getting to bed by midnight instead of staying up with Auralia's friends.  We couldn't keep our eyes open any longer anyway.

Dusty, 'Couch Surfing'...

The following morning I barely made it to the station in time to catch my train.  After getting briefly lost running through the city, I boarded my train with one minute to spare.  Yikes!  On the way out of Grenoble, I slept for the first 2 hours before pulling out my Eurorail timetable booklet and trying to figure out how I could rearrange my travel schedule to spend some time in on the the cities I would have to stop over in.  Stuttgart lent itself nicely to a 3 hour layover if I wanted to arrive in Munich by midnight, so I switched trains in Strasbourg and headed for Stuttgart!

After I arrived, my first destination in Stuttgart was the city's central park next to the train station.  In this park, I stumbled on to a bocce ball tournament!  Hundreds of people gathered around two teams on the hard packed dirt watching in earnest as the players conspired against eachother.   One team would throw a ball, then a player from the opposing team would furrow his brow, walk over to his partner, point at the balls on the ground and grunt a lot, and finally after 3 or 4 minutes of 'strategizing' make his throw.  I've never seen such focus in such a simple game. I finally left when the measuring tapes came out and spent the next few hours wandering around the city.

My final destination in Stuttgart was the park I originated in.  Here, I spread out my sleeping pad, unpacked my cheese and baguette, and people watched for a bit.  Sometimes it's just as satisfying to let the world happen around you than run around trying to see as much of a new place as possible.  After about 10 minutes to myself a man wandered by singing Sinatra's 'Mack the Knife' and caught my attention.  After all, who knows Sinatra in Europe?  

Claus turned out to be a 60yo gypsy whose life goal is to get to the US to sing Sinatra covers.  He is afraid of flying, doesn't have a job, and cannot speak english, but the similarity between this guys voice and Sinatra's was remarkable!  We talked at length about classic jazz tunes, and modern music.  He told me he thinks the world is broken because people don't listen to Sinatra anymore, haha.  While I thought he was crazy for saying that at the time, I now realize that this comment is no more than an insight into how dedicated he is to one man's music.  His world revolves around Sinatra, not the sun. 

 In the end, Claus almost made me miss my train back to Munich!  I caught the last one with no less than 30 seconds to spare before the doors closed and it took off.  Three hours later I was back home from this truly epic weekend.  

Thanks for reading, it was a blast!

Myles