Quarter Life Brain Snap

The Ride into Rouen was pretty cool, took a B-road for most of it & just carved through the countryside. The pattern more or less goes like this: open green fields for a mile or so, then little ancient town for a mile or so and repeat. Doesn’t old! We stopped off at a servo at one point and enjoyed a better Espresso than 99% of the coffee’s I drunk in London. Go France! While we took a break & ate Pistachio flavour Cornettos (not bad actually) A dirty looking French woman pulled up in a shitty corolla, towing a little box trailer. I leant over and quietly bet Matt that she’d jack-knife the trailer, any money. We weren’t disappointed. She fumbled around in her boot and pulled out a pair of pliers & started digging around in the seal of her driver’s door window, a few seconds later and the entire window exploded into tiny pebbles of safety glass. She looked up at us and shrugged in a very French way. She got back in, and started reversing the trailer. It jackknifed immediately as we’d expected, but instead of straightening up, she hopped back out of the car, picked up the back of the trailer and straightened it up. Gotta admire a woman who can lift a trailer. (yes mum, we offered help, but she waved us off)
France is a quiet place on a Sunday afternoon, pretty much everything except pizza joints are closed, so when we rode into Rouen, it was very much a ghost-town – with an intermittent buzz of a pizza delivery scotter whizzing by.
We were riding along trying to find the hostel, I had the TomTom in my tank bag & was taking directions from it when we hit an infamous French roundabout. These things are about 3 lanes wide, and have traffic lights scattered at random points IN the roundabout. Not to mention you have to change lanes while going around and trying not to get cleaned up by a bastardly French motorist. Oh, and the direction and lanes are of course, backwards. Fun.
We got lost.
Then Matt got held up at one of the mid-roundabout sets of lights & I lost him.
Several minutes an angry  swearing French motorist and 2 SMS later, we re-grouped, re-entered the roundabout of death and found the hostel – about 200 meters up the road from where we’d gotten lost in the first place.

Hotel was sterile & mostly empty, but we were pretty Rouen’d (boom boom) the beds were comfy & we got to sleep early.

Got up today & rode through more amazing French countryside on a B-road for a few hours towards Paris, carving up some awesome little sections of road along the way.

Then we hit Parisian Traffic. Jeeeeeesars!
“Road rules are merely a suggestion” said our tour guide last time we were in paris & he was bang on the money! People basically drive wherever the hell they want. I came around a corner at one point only to have the woman in front of me put her car in reverse and come flying back at me. Once we got in the swing of it it’s fine tho, you basically just go wherever you want & if you see a gap, people expect you to slot in, if you hesitate, they’ll take your place. It was a pretty massive change of pace from belting through the speed-limit-free countryside!
But we’re here at the hostel now waiting to check in, its perched on the side of Mont Martre , where that huge-ass basilica sits, looking over Paris.
As usual, it’s an eye-bleedingly pretty area.

Tomorrow we’ve got a huge ride down to Bordeaux, 6 hours of ass and mind-numbing motorway its gonna be flat, straight and boring as hell, but we’ll have got the boring crap out of the way & be down south at the start of the fun bits. Gonna ride to Pamplona in spain by the end of the week & if all goes to plan – run with some bulls

Apologies on the lack of posts, I’ve been running around like a madman trying to sort out the bike trip, more on that later tho, this one is about my visit to Stonehenge! It’s a bit blurry in places, but I’ll try and recap!

I turned 26 on Sunday 20^th June, and to celebrate, I let a group of mates know – on Friday night no less – that drinks were in order Saturday night! Luckily my friends are (awesome) and also as delayed as I am when it comes to planning stuff, so a group of us hit the town.
we Started off in an Irish pub Called Waxy O’Connor’s, then moved on to a karaoke joint in the city somewhere, I think it was around in Leicester square? Anyway, we’d sunk a few at this stage, and it was one of those places where you get your own room to croon in, so the general vibe was pretty fearless. In a few hours we Killed Queen, punished Pulp, and generally sung ourselves out of key. The best efforts of the night were definitely Liam’s rendition of “Power of Love” by Hewy Lewis & the News and Sophie’s attempt at a sit-down spoken word, before (if my hazy memory serves me correctly) someone tactically changed the song (Lambie?) Bloody good fun! Then we got our smuggled booze confiscated & drunk many more beers.
Ii awoke on Sunday (my actual birthday) and was – to paraphrase the great Mr Prescott – met by my old friend, Hangover Steve. I was hurting,  but we had more adventures to plan!

A bout a week prior to my birthday, I’d got wind from Ms Erin Ricketts (old schoolmate) that there was a free festival (the best kind) out at Stonehenge for the summer solstice! I looked it up and it turned out that on this one night of the year, the unwashed masses were allowed in and around the stones themselves! So I told Dave (old schoolmate) and he was in from the get-go. The original plan was to go on Claire, with Dave dinking on the back, but then when A) I realised I wouldn’t be able to drink and B) I felt like absolute crap from the previous nights festivities, so we decided to catch a bus there and back instead. So once again, at super late notice, we booked a bus for an easy 20 quid return & luckily managed to secure the last 2 seats on the coach.
So at about 7pm on Sunday the 20^th, we headed off for Stonehenge.
We didn’t really know what to expect, but we’d read tales of 35,000 hippies the year before, nudity, singing, dancing and funny smelling cigarettes, so it all sounded like a fun scene to check out! When we arrived at about 10:30pm, we got punted off the bus about a mile or so from the henge itself (couldn’t actually see it) & started following the meandering drip of hippies across a paddock & over a hill.
We started chatting with some girls walking along with us, primarily because one of them was wearing hotpants and a singlet. It was Night-time, in a field, in a paddock in west country, and this chick was dressed up like she was heading down to Avalon for an icecream in December. Turns out she was drunk, and pretty vacuous to boot, so with that avenue of entertainment exhausted, we reached the entrance gate, got ignored by the bored security guards and ditched our scantily clad friend.
We could see the stones now, a few hundred meters up ahead, twinkling like the Eiffel tower from all the camera flash’s going off in the middle. Surrounding the henge were 4 large floodlights, all tinted a dark blue & on very dim as not to sterilise the vibe. The resulting blue glow over the whole thing was very “aaaa aaahh ahh ahhhhh”.

We found Ms Ricketts & her mates quite close to the stones, sat down & had a few drinks.
It smelled like a festival (aka Weed) & there were random cheers from the throng of people standing within the stone circle. Interested, I grabbed my camera & wandered in to the middle of the henge by myself while the others tinned on . Inside the ancient circle of stones was a tight crowd of people, I was expecting mainly hippies, but it was a hugely varied mix of the old, the young & every age & social demographic inbetween, everyone from old hippies to young hipsters were all standing in the middle of this monument cheering at absolutely nothing!
I snapped a few photos, joined in the whooping & hollering for a bit (when in Rome) & went back to find my friends.
Dave and I spent the next few hours wandering around, in and out of the henge, chatting to people, drinking some Vodka & generally enjoying ourselves & the mix of people this pile of rocks had attracted. We met a hippie with a large tray of baked goods at one point & despite our initial enthusiasm for what extras they might contain, we were assured they were “nothing but whole, organic ingredients…man…all the nutrition and energy to help you through to sunrise”. A little disappointed, but hungry nonetheless we bought some (amazingly rich & delicious) chocolate brownies & kept on wandering.
Then the pagan party gods, sensing our need for more booze, bestowed upon us a gift/curse in the form of an un-opened 3L bottle of cheap, nasty Cider.

Minor Tangent – In the UK, it’s completely acceptable to order a Cider in place of a beer and what’s more, not draw so much as a raised eyebrow from the barman. In Aus we have Strongbow, which, as well as being disgusting, is also widely regarded as a chicks drink. But oh not here! In this country there are hundreds of extremely delicious, premium ciders, all with no feminine taboo. I’ve been sampling them turn about with the myriad of tasty (albeit warm) beers & I recon Australia could really use a few of these! Strongbow however, still tastes like crap.
Anyway, as well as coming in the delicious premium variety, Cider also comes in the dirtiest of dirty dirt cheap variety as well. We’re talking just over 1 pound for 2 litres of Cider. In a plastic bottle,  its classy stuff!
At about 4.5 to 5 percent alcohol, it’s the same as beer, but it’s the sheer volume of the stuff that packs a whallop… & that’s the stuff that Dave and I found lying on the Salisbury plains at some time in the AM.
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So we swigged and walked and talked and joked and wandered around chatting to random people for a few more hours & met a random bloke called Adam & his friend Faye.

He had a guitar which a group of us sung along to for a while, then I had a go and played some songs which was fun untill about halfway through my go, my cider addled mind realised that I was far far far too sleep deprived to remember basic chords & I unleashed vast quantities of suck.
I could play a repeating 4 chord verse a few times, then just completely fail at remembering what came next. Thankfully, most of  the people around us were high as kites & didn’t seem to notice. Man.

It was about 4am at this point & getting light, the Hare Krishnas started up their chant & this is where my memory gets a bit hazy, as sleep deprivation really took hold at this point & started making me loose the plot completely!

We chatted briefly to a newlywed couple who’d got married at sunset in the middle of the henge, & had been sitting there all night waiting for sunrise. they seemed really really thrilled by the whole thing, but i just couldnt get over how much of a horiffic resemblance the groom bore to Kid Rock

The sun was due to come up at about 4:30am & people were getting excited, as its the sunrise that people come out to see – Even though the thing was made in 2500 BC, and had nothing to do with the pagans or sun worship at the time – apparently it was a burial ground at first then became a sun monument waaay later down the track – or so I read somewhere. Even the experts still argue about it, so I’m not making any claims!
It was a clear chilly morning out on the plains, with only a thin band of clouds over on the eastern horizon. Everyone turned and faced the “heelstone” which if you stand in the centre of Stonehenge, points directly at the rising sun on the summer solstice. A few people clapped and cheered when it was obvious the sun had come up behind the cloudbank, but it wasn’t for a few minutes, when the sun actually peeked over the clouds like a giant golden eye opening up, that everyone burst into applause. It was a really good fun vibe, sort of like midnight on new year’s eve at a big party, except less random pashing and less covered in spew.

So we went and licked one of the rocks. No idea why, probably sleepless insanity, but it was funny at the time & I’m pretty sure I won’t get the chance to do it again.

We walked a mile or so to the bus stop again & piled onto the bus back to Salisbury, where we had to wait an hour or so for our coach. I fell asleep in a cafe for a bit while Dave & Erin ate a massive English breakfast. We piled onto the coach in a trance – I could barely keep my eyes open & my head was lolling around on my shoulders like a baby, so decided to take a photo of myself. I believe the results speak for themselves.

But I’d do it again in a heartbeat, Good times.

Lambie and i got together over beers tonight and planned out a basic basic route for our motorbike trip.

Here it is

This is tentative loop so far, and just the part where we’ll be riding together, i so if anyone has any suggestions of places we really shouldnt miss, please let me know!

*Update*

Cheers Gowenlock for this detour – A piece of road so freakin’ awesome for motorcycles it has its own website.

Oh yes.

In a sleepy blur, Lambie, Myself and 2 girls piled into a mini-cab at about 4am & headed off for Kings Cross station, unfortunately for me however the train we were catching wasnt anywhere near platforms 9&10, therefore completely robbing me of all sorts of glorious harry potter moments, and also depraved my companions of ammunition to pay me out with, so not all was lost.
I was sitting next to lambie on the Eurostar train to france & luckily for them, the others were scattered around the train & not near us, aka “Ground Zero”. It was a pretty unneventful trip, except when the train stopped at a station in south england. all was quiet, lambie looked over at me and with a quizzical look, as though he was about to say something profound…and dropped a really really loud fart. Everyone in the carrage heard it. Vintage Lambie. Even the asian guy on the seat to our right cracked up laughing.

We were staying in a hostel in a suburb called crimee (said crim-eh we think) it was a flashy new hostel on an insanely pretty canal type thing.
It was quite the cliche’d scene, but pretty cool nonetheless – Parisian lovers drifted silently past in rented electric boats, A mother duck and her collective noun of chicks swam past and old men played bocce on the shore. Seriously.
I didnt feel at all awckward buying a bottle of what would otherwise be “gay french water” & everyone seemed to carry baguettes. We hit up a patissarie on the way to the lourve and i had quite easily the most delicious rasberry tart of all time.

The lourve was packed. thousands of thousands of people more intent on taking photos of beautiful art than actually looking at it, which is a bit of a shame. The mona lisa was entertaining, i’ve seen the image a million times & it looked no different in real life, but what was great  was the mosh-pit in front of the thing. people were crammed in, all holding their cameras up & firing a billion shots off. you couldnt get anywhere near it thing which is a bit of a shame!

I completely understand why the french hate tourists, especially the brits and the yanks, Hell, I hate tourists!
When i’m in a foreign place i try to blend in as best i can, as its much easyer to observe & respect foreign customs when you’re not pissing people off! So here i was in a group of 7 or so people, mostly aussies, and most of whom were making little effort to blend in. It was pretty uncomfortable. someone holding  up an empty basket in a french resteraunt and saying “HAAY, can we get some more bread please” made me die a bit inside. The look that the (gorgeous) waitress shot our table suggested she would have liked us to do just that.

I’d arrived in london with a bit of a snivel, so freezing rainy france that afternoon, combined with a bruised liver, ment that i was on the road to illness. Matt too had a cold of some kind, combined with a sore throat, so, being the medical professionals that we are, we decided that a bottle of Gin and some baguettes would cure us.
The next day, with an empty bottle of gin and some beers on the floor of our hostel room, we felt fantastic! sore throats were eased, no headaches or complaints of any kind!
what a magic drink! so clearly on to a good thing, we decided to do the same thing again that night.
Huge Mistake.

We went on a walking tour of central paris on the 2nd day which was awesome. that took us to all the usual hangs and the tour guide knew his stuff. We went to a wooden walking bridge at one point, where young parisians lovers would sit at night with a bottle of wine & some cheese. to show their love for eachother they would buy a padlock from a local hardware store, get something romantic engraved on it, and lock it to the bridge’s fence forever.

Apparently the government comes along once a year (recently for us) and cuts them all off the fence which is a shame, but there were still a fair few there.

I had a wholemeal Big Mac from a french maccas. it was incredible.

It seems Rollerblading isnt as laughed at as it is in other parts of the world as it is in france, so at one point we were laughing at some rollerbladers, when around the corner comes, not kidding, 1000 rollerbladers.
thats not something you’re ever prepared to see! i think it was some kind of charity race or something, but either way. Rollerblades? Really?

Got creeped the hell out by a bag-man on the trains. he had crinkly brown paper bags on his hands and a surgeons mask on his face, but otherwise resembled a homeless guy. I was sitting next to the door, and the first thing to enter my field of vision was this paper-bag hand, slowly reaching around the door right in front of me & grabbing the rail right next to my head with his crinkly paper bag hands. His beady blue eyes darted around above the surgical mask & he smelt heavily of soap.

on day 3, most of the group left us, so lambie, Sophie and myself all headed back to the eiffel tower. lovely place, but there are a million guys trying to sell you the exact same small metal eiffel tower trinkets and lighters. the que was insane, agood few hours, and every 30 seconds or so some guy would get in your face about buying some more souvineers. It grew old pretty quickly!

We had snails and blue steak (much to the surprise of the waiter) for dinner. The snails were pretty tasty, just garlicy morsels really. they’re a real pain in the ass to get out of their shells tho, you get a little fork and some scary looking tongs that wouldnt be out of place on a surgeons table & just do your best.

pretty sick of typing now, so i’ll sum up the 4th day:
Sophie left, Matt and I went to the catacombes, they were shut so we went to the massive bascillica called Basilique du Sacre Coeur. it was incredible. eerily quiet inside, except for a german asshole blabbing to his family.
We then went & had french onion soup and massive beers at some cafe next to the moulin Rouge. We got robbed 16 Euro for each beer, but the onion soup was tasty.

Go to Paris. It’s awesome, but dont go with anymore than 1 other person if you want to avoid the wrath of the french!

So I decided to take a year off from my life & do something I’ve always wanted to do – Ride a motorcycle across Europe.

more soon