The Battle of France is Over....and I lost

Route: Wimereux to Calais then by train to Antwerp. Distance by bike about 50 km.

Warning! There are strong statements about France in the following posting. I'm only telling it how it happened to me. May not be suitable to all readers!

The dawn broke under drizzly skies, and I got up early to get my gear together. After talking to Anika and Lesbeth last night, I decided that today was going to be my day. Once in Calais, I will have ridden the entire French side of the English Channel from Normandy to Cape Du Blanche. I was beyond ready to get going!
Just as soon as I got back from the restroom, it started to rain. Great, today would be the day where I got to test my raingear. I pulled everything back into the tent, and waited out the drizzle. It gave me some time to plan my route. According to the map, Calais wasn’t far, but I wasn’t sure if I could get a train today or not.
As soon as the sun broke through the clouds for an instant, I was out the door, and packing up the bike. After saying bye to my new friends, I left the campground. My legs were tired from 3 days of long distances, but I was determined. I have had enough of little French villages, headwinds, rude people and crappy bathing conditions. It may be my American nature here, but when you pay 30 Euro for a campsite, the damn bathroom should come equipped with toilet paper and a free shower!
On my way through town, I thought I would stop and by snack items. It was Sunday after all, and I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to get out of France or not that night. I carefully locked up my bike in front of a little market and walked in. I picked up a couple of small things, paid and left.
As soon as I got out the door three things that cemented my feelings about France. One, the shop closed as all things do routinely in France for no apparent reason. Two, I realized that I had forgotten to buy Toilet paper, and everything was now closed. This of course led me to wonder if French people walk around with toilet paper all the time? Three, a guy walked by when I was eating a banana and sneered at me while saying “bon appitet…”, which is a French insult whenever they see someone eating in public.
You know how you always think of something to say long after the moment has passed? Well, it occurred to me as I was chugging up a huge hill, into a yet another wet and freezing headwind, that I should have chewed loudly and gotten in that guy’s face just to watch his expression. Of course, me being the nice guy that I am, I simply acknowledged his outgoing insult with a wave and a frown.
The final straw came at the train station. After being jerked around by the ticket counter staff who seemed to think that I would know what train I was supposed to get on and when by osmosis, I finally got onto the right train, squeezing in between people with my bike. As usual, it’s a catch as catch can kind of situation on the train, no special areas for things like bikes, you just bring it on and hope for the best.
As soon as I’d settled into an out of way seat, a conductor stuck his head into the car, and yelled in French for a while, after which everyone on the car got out and went to another car in the same train for no apparent reason. I slowly got up and started to put the bags back together, when a conductor came back on the car to tell me to hurry up or I was going to make the train late. As he whizzed past me, he bumped into the bike and knocked it halfway out of the car which in turn knocked one of the panniers off the back. It’s not easy to pick this all up and put it back together quickly.
In what seemed like 10 seconds, three conductors were standing around me yelling at me to hurry up, that I would make the train late. Finally, I’d had it and I yelled at one, “well maybe if you helped me steady the bike, I could get the bags back on?! What about that! Hold the bike for a second!” He looked at me like he didn’t understand a word I was saying, even though he has just told me I was late in perfect English, and went on berating me for not getting the bags on faster.
Basically, not one of those three conductors lifted a finger to help me, other than verbal abuse, until I handed the bike down from the car. At that critical moment one of them helped me steady it for a second while continuing to yell at me to hurry up to the next car down the train. Wow. Thanks guys. It may be the tiredness of the road talking here, but I have never met any people as genuinely stuck up and mean to foreigners. With a few notable exceptions, one of those being when I’m actually on my bike, people have actually gone out of there way to be rude to me simply because they know I’m an American.
For the benefit of those of you who may be reading this and don’t know the author, I’m a pretty tolerant guy. I try to be open to new things, and inviting to new people. I came to France with the idea that I could be a one person symbol of America by being polite, speaking French whenever possible, and generally blending into the framework without doing things like announcing that we won World War Two for the French while wearing a dirty American flag T-shirt and acquiring a “my other bike is a gun” bumper sticker.
With that said, even though I tried my hardest, and was as patient and as tolerant as I know how to be, I would not say that the vast majority of the people I encountered even thought of me as a human being. Getting scolded for eating in public is hard to understand from a culture which views it as perfectly acceptable behavior to urinate in public. Getting boot camped on the train for something that was obviously not my fault is hard to take from a country which prides itself on nuance and manners. My thoughts on France at this time can best be summed up in a two word phrase; the first word being the expletive for coatis and the last word being the country name (France).
With all of this said, there have been some great positive experiences on my tour of the English Channel. The visit to the invasion beaches and the American Cemetery was without a doubt one of the most moving experiences of my life. Standing on that ground was very powerful, and I highly recommend it for anyone at interested in such things. Equally as amazing to see where each little coastal town, all them well over 1500 years old, holding fast to their traditions and culture, even if it did get on my nerves toward the end. Finally, I was amazed to see the devastation that is still evident from the war. It is everywhere, German bunkers, shell holes overgrown with brush, buildings still pockmarked with bullet and shrapnel damage. The list goes one.
Perhaps it’s easier to understand the French attitude toward foreigners when placed in the context of two horrible world wars less than 20 years apart. As I road the sandy hills approaching Calais, I came to place called the Pont du Blanc. It is the northwestern tip of France, and you can clearly see the Cliffs of Dover across the Channel.
At the apex, there is a monolith marking the edge of France, and a memorial to the civilian war victims. It is from this point that Hitler launched the Battle of Britain, his ill-fated attempt to invade the UK. Consequently, the entire hillside is a complex maze of bunkers, observation and gun posts, radio and anti-aircraft sites, and machine gun nests. The larger bunkers are battle scarred, but still intact while there smaller cousins, some as far as 3 miles inland, are generally piles of dynamited rubble.
The sandy ground, covered with scrub sage and dry pine trees, is a lunarscape of shell and bomb craters left just as they had been during the war. The trees and bushes have re-grown inside the craters so that all of the groves of trees, or bunches of bushes, are circular. The monument stands in the middle of this wasteland as a symbol of human hope, or maybe desire, that the world should learn to live in peace. France has certainly given more than its fare share of people to the slaughter.
The final hill to Calais was the longest, and the steepest. My gear weighs around 45 pounds, plus the weight of the bike at around 30. That’s a lot of stuff to haul up anything, but the grades here are crazy! Sometimes you get up to 11% on simple country lanes. Even in the granny gear, I have to stand up and pull on the bars to get any purchase. After a long slog in the rain, with the wind whipping down from the hilltop and blowing me all over the tiny traffic filled lane, I saw the city. Sweet Lord in Heaven, I thought to myself, I can leave France!
The aforementioned short annoyance at the train station put me on a fast train to Lille, then a quick transfer to a slower train up to Antwerp. I watched as the countryside turned to city and back to country while the train swayed its way north. My heart rose as I saw, slipping through the windows, bikes lanes on every road, public restrooms, water fountains, and (gasp) stores open on Sunday! One step off into the Antwerp Central Station and I knew I was right at home. The signs are in several languages, English too. The people speak English, and the city is extremely clean and full of bikes! People are whizzing everywhere on them while utilizing clean public bike paths, public bike lockers, covered bike parking, and the list goes on.
I am indeed more than excited to be in Belgium, one of the countries where Grandpa fought. I can’t wait to hit the road tomorrow! I’ve got a big day. My route will take me through the city of Antwerp and east to Lommel near the Peel Marshes of Holland. I will camp there, and meet Niek the next day for that battlefield tour. Yes folks, things are definitely looking up!
Finally, thanks to everyone who has been reading the blog! It’s great to get all of your comments on facebook and to hear your thoughts. I expect to have some pics and video up in the next couple of days as I’m, apparently, back in the land of the 21rst century!

Ride Safe!

Gavin