August First

And so it goes. So say the Tralfamadorians of the planet Tralfamadore in the book Slaughterhouse Five when they see a corpse. The Tralfamadorians see in four dimensions (to our three) and view each moment in time as just one more of so many moments in time. The corpse is in a bad way in that moment of time, but in another moment, that being might be enjoying an amazing bike tour around Spain and France.
And so it goes.
As I read Vonnegut's words at the beginning of the 5th week of our 7 week tour, I pray for the vision of a Tralfamadorian (or else that liza and i experience some sort of bicycle ship wreck a la Gilligan's Island and wind up stuck on the island of France to have one hilarious misadventure after another until the end of time - whichever comes first). We made a good run but we run too slow - time well spent is starting to overtake us.
We crossed the Pyreneen frontier into france at the exact three week midpoint of our projected timeline (we have since decided to extend our tour time at the sacrifice of beach time) with little pomp, circumstance, or indication of our feat. There was no sign welcoming us to france or entreating us to return to spain sometime soon. We reached the summit Le Col de La Pierre St. Martin at 1802 m and from then on signs unceremoniously switched to french, the people we passed as we started our descent were speaking french, and as far as we could see everything was lush, lush, lush and more lush shades of green. The air was more humid and the surrounding hills were spotted with white dots that could only be flocks of sheep. As a cyclist crossing the pyrenees from spain into france you immediately feel an immense sense of relief coupled with a tinge of fear as you begin to feel just how much steeper the french side of the pyrenees is as compared to spain's more gradual and relatively lackadaisacal slopes. this is, incidentally, indicative of the main cultural difference betzeen the two countries. In spain if a storeowner feels like having one more cigarette before opening or is too hungover to open at all, so be it. in france, everything is faster and more punctualized, as sharp and abrupt as the switchbacks carved into the near-vertical slopes of its side of the mountains. Mind you, nothing compared to the U.S. (even berkeley), but next to spain, the distinction is blinding.
Liza and i reasoned that france's side is so much greener and cooler than that of spain because the pyrenees form a barrier at that point, trapping the wetter weather systems of the atlantic. and so far we have gotten our fair share of that wetter weather. i wrote these words from a motel room we treated ourselves to as we waited out a particularly lasting and blustery storm.

Our first attempt with the french language came quickly when liza stopped at a side-of-the-road fromagerie for cheese about ten ,inutes into our descent. All the sheep zere being herded back home alongside goats and a few pigs. There was a small wooden hut on the property and as we approached, a girl of about 17 stopped helping her handicapped sister with her knitting and asked in french
"Do you want some cheese?"
while a woman who could only be their mother made no attempt at discretion zith her quiet, piercing stare. (Come to think of it, though, pretty much everybody unabashedly stares at us wherever we go. I may even be getting used to it at this point.) when we got into the hut, liza immediately wished she had waited till later to sample france's cheese offerings. The spot was dirty and crude. I barely noticed since i was busy fearfully anticipating my first head-on collision with the french language and i was off dairy because of my stubbornly lingering putrid farts.
She spoke first.
I picked out something about "cow." Right. Cheese. Do you want cow cheese or do you want - there were sheep outside...that must be the other word.
"Liza, do you want sheep cheese?"
Liza's answer came back yes.
Okay. Great. Got it. But I forgot the word she had said second. And I forgot how to say "the second," so I just said "le deux," holding up two fingers. Le Deux means both.
At this point, the girl could see that liza and i were outmatched, gave us a look for a second, and reasoned that i had meant "the second."
Awesome. This is going really well. And then she spoke again.
Something about one amount or another. Hmmmmm. That's a puzzler. Metric system.
"Liza, do you want more or less?"
"Less."
Okay. "Ummmm.... plus moins, s'il vous plait" came back my reply. This means something like "more less, please."
She let out an exhasperated "Alors" and proceeded to where we maybe should have started - the pantomime. With her knife she indicated the larger and smaller amounts she could offer and with our trusty index fingers we indicated which one we wanted.
Success. Maybe we should have come in the store on all fours baaaaing like sheep with the dimension of cheese we wanted already cut out of paper.

I'm pleased to say that our communication skills have improved and we have raised our status to "excusably bad at speaking french." We've even made friends with some frenchies! oh, and the cheese wound up having maggots in it and only a little of it was eaten that night. not by us but by our first french friend, Thibaux, who ate around the maggots.

once again, i have so much more to say but i've reached the end of my patience with the french keyboard.....maybe i'll publish a bunch of posts at once when i get to a keyboard that isn't so entirely disorienting.

we hope everyone is having an amazing summer wherever you may be and we invite any and all of you to pack up your bikes and join us on the road