Today was the crew's third day in this new and strange place. We beamed down to the central city in Rouen and were given a quick tour. It was quite lovely. We saw an old church and then we saw a newer church (built on the spot where Joan of Arc was burned). As we walked my second and third in command pointed out a bizarre establishment called a "crêperie." Naturally, we were intrigued. We decided then that as soon as our tour ended we would surely visit this institution.
However, as with many things that one desires too much, we did not complete our journey to the crêperie. It was decided that we, among with a few other crew members, would embark on a mission to ride new bikes from the center of town to the mother ship, Mont-Saint-Aignan. A seemingly simple prospect. It had only taken us fifteen minutes by bus to reach the central city that morning. Pas problem, oui? NON!
Like a tsunami, the realization that we would be in charge of delivering these bikes to the mother ship from a town that was still relatively foreign to us and where we had no clue about what the rules of the road were hit us. As with many other realizations of this magnitude, fear was not far behind. We tentatively wheeled our bikes onto the main road and set off. We practiced our control on these bikes on the side streets, stoping often to pack up on supplies and omnoms. After roughly an hour, the real journey began.
As a crew we decided to follow the bus path, as we had seen another cyclist doing this so we assumed it was safe. Ca c'est faux. We were only able to enjoy the breeze in our hair for approximately .03048340902492 seconds before we hear the angry screeching of a large busses horn. We were at an impasse. Should we continue on this road that we know will take us directly to the mother ship, or should we brave the main road full of hundreds of angry drivers and risk the possibility of losing sight of our proverbial yellow-brick road? We decided on the latter.
We road for a bit but at seeing an increasing number of angry drivers we decided to walk our bikes along the sidewalk. Safe? Yes. Tedious? Yes. We walked for a good mile before we were met with the greatest obstacle of all. I'm sure you clever readers have already realized a very important piece of information. We had to go to the mother ship MONT-Saint-Aignan. Yes, Mont as in hill...large, large hill. I don't know for certain, but if I were to guess I would say it was roughly a 90 degree angle full of twists and turns and other automobiles! Needless to say we were terrified. We road as far as we could but quickly had to return to walking. The crew was running low on moral almost as fast as we were water. It seemed an impossible task to complete. We walked for what seemed like hours! It was only when I was about a half a mile from the mother ship that I realized... My bike had an electric setting!! My second in command and I took off at warp speed and reached the mother ship in record time. I was even able to salvage most of the strawberries I had bought that morning.
Although the prospect of using bikes to get to and from the city now seems painful, my crew and I are still determined to boldly go and explore this strange place called Rouen.
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