Europe 2013: Just Another Day on the BeachSeptember 15, 2013 I got to my campground particularly early today, since I didn't have that far to go, and just woke up from a nap. France did indeed have a decent day in store for me, although the reason I woke up was because of the sound of rain on the tent. Still, it was pleasant and dry for the whole time I was riding, which is what really matters to me. I woke up in the hotel having had very distinct dreams about someone in Marseilles whose bicycle wheel kept falling off at a particular moment in a journey they took regularly, and how I fixed it by adjusting the chain tension. Then it was down to breakfast (definitlely living Motel 6 style -- the "continental breakfast" was discernible from the American version only because it was heavy on the croissants and missing the branded sugar-based breakfast cereals). Of all my stuff, only the gloves and the boots remained damp from the rain yesterday, which is pretty much what I'd expected. I was on the road just before 9:30 (it's amazing how much time savings there is in not having to pack up camp), and headed for La Ferte-Mace. I know I've mentioned it before, but La Ferte-Mace is the primary setting for _The Enormous Room_, which is pretty much ee cummings' only "conventional" novel (and even then, it has some interestingly unconventional aspects). In the book, he describes his time in France during WWI, starting out as a volunteer ambulance driver with a company of American volunteers (with the sneering chief, who habitually refers to the "dirty Frenchies"). His friend B writes some letters which get them both taken away by the great and good Gouvernement Francais and sent to a place which is technically not prison, but enough like prison to make no practical difference. This prison is the Camp de Triage, located in La Ferte-Mace, France. All the men are kept in a giant dingy room with all the windows by one blocked off, sleeping around the perimeter of the room on straw-filled matresses. There are various winding staircases and passages in the place, some offices, a cafeteria, a cold-water-only shower room which they're forced to use once a week, and a dismal outdoor courtyard with a sad apple tree and a little shed where the guard is stationed. The book is very evocative, and is not "a book about being in prison" or "a book about being a prisoner of war" except in the most tangential way. It's a book about sense impressions (mostly positive) and taking delight in one's situation, exploring the people around the author. It just happens to take place in a prison during wartime. In any case, I was very curious to see how my mental image of the place stood up to the place itself. I got to La Ferte-Mace, and my first impression was to be very surprised at the size of the town. It's not huge, but it's a sizeable town with probably 30-50k inhabitants, at a guess. It's described as a fairly miserable little place in the book, but I suppose that's only fair, since cummings really only existed inside one building the whole time he was there. I got to the town center, where there's an impressive church (service in progress, as I'd gotten there about 11 on a Sunday), took a few pictures, wandered around a bit, and realized that I hadn't the faintest clue *which* building he'd actually lived in during that time. Fortunately, Orne, France (the district La Ferte-Mace resides in) maintains a municipal free wifi service, and I was able to get online and find a scholarly-looking paper about an American who visited like I was, to try to find out more about the place. He said that the building was now called the Lycee des Andaines, and had been substantially modified since WWI. I was a few hundred meters from the right spot. Obviously I have no idea which windows cummings would have been looking out of, or which bit of ground would have been the muddy cour, or anything else, but I did walk around the building and take a bunch of photos. I saw the street he must have pushed the water cart up to get to the water pump. There was an open spiral staircase I climbed (getting a nice cut in the process: whoever welded up those railings needs to work on their finish work) and took a photo of the trees and fields beyond the building, which are described in the book. I think there's a new, single-storey building there now which wasn't there in 1917 (or whenever the book was set, I can't recall now), which gets in the way of the view. In all, it was very interesting to see the actual building he was kept in. The author of the scholastic paper who describes finding it goes on to say that at the time he visited, only one person at the school had even heard of ee cummings, and had been involved in a 1984 project covering the history of the school's buildings, which included some material on cummings and _The Enormous Room_. I'm glad I was there on a Sunday, so everything was closed up. I think my French is sufficiently bad that I never could have explained why I was there, or why I was wandering around taking photos. It would have been cool to see the inside of the building, but I think it's so very different now, that I wouldn't have been able to recognize much of anything from the book. Satisfied, I turned to my next task: finding a place to spend the night. I looked at the map, and realized I was really quite close to Cherbourg, where I need to be tomorrow afternoon to catch my boat to Ireland. I picked a likely-looking spot near the coast to the south and west of Cherbourg, and chose a campground at random. I ended up at Municipal Le Clos Martin in Pirou-Plage. Once past Domfront, the GPS sent me along more very narrow country lanes. I kept thinking about stopping to take a picture, but then thought I could never get the size of the road across, which was really the remarkable thing about it. Then I saw a car on the road, and I was surprised at how, even riding along the road myself, I had dramatically overestimated its width. It was just wide enough for two cars to pass without slowing to a dead stop while passing. One of the advantages of being on a motorcycle: there's pretty much no road too narrow. When I got to the campsite, I was glad to see I'd picked one that was almost literally right on the beach. There's just a large berm between me and the Atlantic ocean. I can hear the surf as a steady roar in the background, and the wind is also pretty steady. The real trick for tonight will be surviving the night without the tent shredding itself in the wind. Only time will tell, but it's a thing I'm legitimately worried about. The wind actually hits the tent in odd little gusts from a variety of directions. On the positive side: the very damp rain fly was definitely dry before the rain started again. With any luck, the rain (which has been only very occasional) will stay away for the morning, and I can pack up a dry tent. This is my last night of camping in Europe. Clearly the season is at an end: the campsite, which is huge, is utterly devoid of tent campers, and only a stalwart few caravan and motorhome campers are here. There's a nice-looking pool, but the gate is locked. The office is closed, and a helpful fellow camper told me (I hope this is what he told me) that I should just set up my tent, and talk to the office in the morning. So, I'm set up, and I'll check the situation out tomorrow morning. Because the season is so close to over, half of the facilities are locked up, but fortunately the bathroom is still open (with a stern sign saying the automatic door will shut promptly at 10:30, so don't get caught inside!). I'm mostly happy to be heading home. There's a part of me that would like to stay here, maybe set up a permanent camp in Hamburg or Vienna (I *really* liked Vienna, and started to feel at home there pretty quickly, language aside). But mostly, I'm glad to think that in a few days, I'll be back to my house, with my bed. I won't have to worry about not speaking the language, and I won't have to walk a hundred meters to use the bathroom in the morning. I won't have to sit for hours on a motorcycle seat, although that's probably one of the things I'll miss rather a lot (the motorcycling part, not the actual sitting on the seat, which is pretty uncomfortable). I will not miss sitting half-scrunched over in the tent, typing on a folding keyboard balanced precariously on my tankbag, with the tablet propped against either the rolled-up riding suit, or the sleeping bag in its stuff sack (depending on how far along I've gotten on my preparations for the night). I won't miss the narrow sleeping mat, although it has been an absolute delight compared to my previous self-inflating mat. Mostly, I won't miss being absolutely on my own for days at a time. I really like my alone-time, but this is definitely taking it to extremes. I will enjoy once again being in the company of my friends, and my theater, and even, sort of, my workplace. I want to change some of my priorities a little bit, although I know it will be laughably easy to simply fall into the life I was living before I left, so any changes I want to make will have to be very actively pursued. One of the biggest physical changes I've noticed on this trip is that I've lost weight. Yes, in my legs from lack of bicycling, but also the little bit of chub I've always had has reduced a bit. That'd be a nice trend to continue, and really, it's just by dint of eating less. Not a hard concept, but remarkably hard to put into practice. That's one of those little change that will have to be very actively pursued if I want it to stick. Riding a motorcycle for 5-8 hours a day forces me to not eat. Sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day presents all the opportunity in the world to snack constantly. This is a bit of a topic shift, but I think I keep forgetting to mention it (apologies if I've already covered this). That's about the nature of this trip. It feels like I'm really on two different trips. There's the trip where I'm visiting friends, staying for a few days with each person. Then there's the trip where I'm riding a motorcycle and sleeping in campgrounds in my tent. They're so separated in my mind that it's almost hard to conceive of them being connected, although obviously they are. It's just this: when I'm staying with a friend, the motorcycle is parked, the tent is put away, and I exist in a different mental space. When I'm riding around and sleeping under the stars (well, more often under the clouds) the context is completely different. It was a very interesting thing to realize, and I didn't even become consciously aware of it until Vienna. As long as we're on random topics: I noticed today, repeatedly, that French town planners were very fond of putting their church spires directly in line with the road, so that your first view of the town (particularly along the long, straight Roman roads) is always a road leading straight to the spire. There's no way that was accidental. It made for an interesting picture, although I always spotted it too late to pull over and actually take the shot. I also forgot to mention, about my sob story from yesterday: mid deluge, riding along, I sort of casually noticed a speed camera box on the side of the road. I glanced down at my speedometer, and realized I was going 99 in a 90 zone (for reference, that's about 5.5 MPH too fast). I looked up in time to see the flash go off, and now the French officials have a lovely picture of a very tired and downtrodden Ian riding along, with absolutely no identifying marks visible. Quit using front-facing cameras, guys. Doesn't work on motorcycles. I think that's me typed-out for the day. Tomorrow, a quick tour of the peninsular coastline, or a trip to Omaha Beach, I haven't decided yet. Then, to Cherbourg to get in line for my ferry. 4:30 final check-in, 6 pm departure, and 11:30 am arrival in Rosslare. I'm ready. Take me home. ---- No, it would appear that France actually does have it in for me. At 9:45, the rain fly blew off the tent, immediately soaking everything inside with thin, needle-like rain until I could get it back on. Fortunately, it didn't simply fly away, since I'm honestly not sure if I could catch it in this wind. I just added additional tie-downs (getting myself thoroughly soaked in the process), which will hopefully prevent the problem from happening again. It looks like several of the stakes got twisted around so that the rain fly could come loose, so everything's been jammed into the ground to hopefully prevent rotation. Of course, the soil here is basically sand, so really not the best choice for "ground in which thin metal stakes will hold up against strong, gusty winds." I'm not really sure if I'll be able to sleep at all tonight. Clearly this was not the right choice for a campground, but the alternatives at just past ten at night are pretty disastrous, including "relocate into the bathroom building before the door closes itself at 10:30" and "attempt and fail to pack anything together and find a hotel." The thought of packing all this crap up in tempestuous winds, in the pitch black, and with rain pelting down (seriously, this is Glenuig-level rain now, fierce and insistent) is laughable. Maybe if I abandon the tent to fate. ---- 3 am update: the wind has shifted, so now it's coming from the northwest instead of the southwest. So, all my buttressing, which I installed on the south side of the tent, is of course useless now. When I got up just now to re-stake the north rain flap, which had pulled its stake loose (and will again, the earth in range of the tie-down is simply too weak to hold against the new wind direction and strength), I was pleased to see that the stars are out, so I'm considerably less concerned about how the night will pass now. The mostly-full moon is rising over the ocean, and I'm sure if I were A) awake and B) in the mood for it, it would be beautiful. As it is, I'm merely anticipating the additional light making it even harder to get back to sleep. But at least the clouds are gone. I must have slept at some point, because I don't remember lying awake for 4 hours. Here's to trying again, although the tent is still bouncing around me like it's in the middle of a shoving contest between elevated three year olds. Return to the Europe 2013 page
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