Bourg-en-Bresse, France

So it turns out that there were benefits to sitting on a fence for 8 hours over 2 days in Pamplona--the random people you befriended. So yeah, the second day of the running of the bulls found me sitting next to 2 girls who go to Purdue and were doing a program in Lyon over the summer and would be heading to Bourg-en-Bresse the same day as I to watch a leg of the Tour. After 4 hours of rail time, we exchanged info after the run.

Fast forward. I go from Pamplona to San Sebastian, Spain. I figured, get there and then figure out how to get to Lyon. So on a Wednesday evening I get to Hendaye Spain/France--seriously, I still have no idea what country I was in. Things were in French, things were in Spanish and I spoke English. Perfect! Anywho, I think I was in the French version of Hendaye, just across the border from the Spanish version. I took the train w/Evan, who I was in San Sebastian with. He was heading to Paris. He got a ticket for the last train out that night and I got a ticket to Lyon for first thing in the morning. I figure that I can just crash in the train station. Well, nope, that was not to be. As Evan's train to Paris was boarding, a train station guy comes over and asks if I'm supposed to be on the train and I tell him, "No, I'm on the 8 am to Lyon." He then let's me know that I can't sleep there and there really aren't too many options for someplace to crash that night. So what do I do? I go and change my ticket to go to Bourg-en-Bresse via Paris that night. That pretty much meant I had to pay 30 Euro more. I didn't want to, but after 7 days of sleeping outside, I was not willing to find someplace to crash at 11 o'clock at night in a city in which I didn't even know what country I was in, all by myself. So I hop on the train with the hopes of sleeping some so that when I got to Paris at the butt-crack of dawn, I would be conscious enough to navigate my way from Gare Nord to Gare Lyon via the Metro. From there, I would have a short jaunt to Bourg-en-Bresse.

Fast forward again, I survive the train ride and get to BEB. I know absolutely nothing about this town other than that the Tour is supposed to be coming through and that it's not far from Lyon. As soon as I step out of the train station, I fell in love. It's a quiet city of about 30,000. It's steeped in old buildings, churches, squares and really, really nice people. I stuck out w/my backpack on, but no one really gave it much of a thought since they knew I was there b/c of the Tour. I headed right into town and followed the signs to the tourist office. The guy there was great--he had spent a year as an exchange student somewhere in Minnesota during high school, so he was familiar w/Wisconsin and we talked for quite awhile. He gave me every thing I needed to know about the Tour's schedule and pointed me in the direction of a place to get some food and enjoy my time in BEB.

I spent my day walking around, talking to locals who had many a question about me and my backpack and hanging out in a park along a river writing in my journal.

I sucked it up that night and slept in the cheapest hotel in the city. Since I haven't had a reason to use the French I learned in HS, College and on my own, I was rusty. I get to this hotel, manage to get the last room available and have the non-english speaking front desk guy show me to my room. On the way, he points out the shower and the toilet in the hallway. My room has a bathtub but I gathered I was supposed to use the shower in the hallway. So I settle in, turn on some volleyball and decide to wash some clothes by hand. I ran a little water in the bathtub to soak some clothes and did a majority of washing in the sink. Then my phone starts ringing. I thought about answering it, but then realized, "Wait a minute, I'm not going to understand a word being said, so why put myself through it." So I don't answer it. 5 minutes later it rings again. I stick to the same philosophy and continue washing my clothes. I wonder if the bathtub filled w/water is leaking into the room below or something, but I figured that if something that wrong was happening, they would come to the room. No one did, and I went about my business.

The next morning, the day of the Tour, I check out, find an internet cafe and make plans to meet up w/Libby and Jess, whom I met in Pamplona.

I was ready for sport 3 of 4 on my trip!

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