1002 perfect bodies...but where?

So Leo has called blogging rights on Pamplona (which was muy caliente!) so I get to catch you up on all the other stuff we did leading up to the big run.

When last we left you your two young heroes were sitting in an internet cafe in Blois, Fr just about to watch the greatest bicycle race in the world. So we the shifty little Blois internet place and rode our bikes (butts still VERY sore from the previous day´s marathon) to Leo´s favorite place we´ve been so far - the Champion Supermarche. Champion is a very popular French grocery store and Leo loves it. I feel only slight more uncomfortable in French grocery stores than I do in American ones, so if you know my disdain for grocery stores you know how much I like Champion. But we got to ride along the Tour De France path to get there and we scored some cheap lunch (and I FINALLY drank some milk on this trip). It turns out that Champion is a major sponsor of the Tour and they were having a pretty big party out in front of their store. We couldn´t sneak into this exclusive shin-dig, but we set up across the street on a sunny hill and got ready to watch the race come around a curve. About two hours before the race started coming through the parade started. When I say parade, I mean, of course, speeding minivans and trucks with all manor of advertisements, most of them throwing candy and random stuff out at the audience. It was fun trying to catch this stuff as it flew at us. Leo made a couple good grabs and I snatched some lanyard out of the hands of an eager 5 year old (haha, that´ll teach him to react quicker next time). So when the riders finally did come they came in packs cause this was a team time trial day. I think there were 19 teams each with 8 or 9 riders or so. I watched the first two teams ride by from the hill and then decided that I wanted to see some different views. Leo was chill on the hill and decided to stay there so we split up (with no real plan of how to get back together). I rode back along the path that we had come up on stopping every 10 minutes or so to see the next team fly by. It was great. In the actual city they had to make tight turns and they were flying by! So I just kept riding and I ultimately made it to the finish line. I was near the finish line for the last three or four teams, including Lance and the Discovery team. It was great at the line, because they had a huge jumbotron to follow the action. It was neat to see the teams coming on tv and then watch them fly by. When the TV announce said ¨Lance Armstrong¨ the place just exploded. He was extremely popular, especially with the ridiculous number of Texans that were there. So Lance and company flew by and set the best time of the day. From then the suspense was on, the last team was on pace to beat them, but about 2 km from the finish the leader (yellow jersey) fell! No one else on the team was involved and they kept on trucking, but they came in under a second slower than the Americans so we won...and there was much rejoycing (Sheryl Crow was going crazy on the jumbotron). American flags came out of nowhere and everyone was screaming and going crazy. It was at this point that I went and rode around the big press area trying to find where all the riders were. I failed miserably and having made it all the way around to the other side I gave up hope of seeing anyone cool. Just then I saw a couple guys ride by in Discovery jerseys, so I pushed up further to see what was up and here come Lance Armstrong, sitting on a bike and surrounded by body guards Lance rides about 6 feet in front of me, I struggled to get a pic, but only got the back of his head. I looked over and saw that there was a big stage to my left so I hung around there and watched Discovery team get their rewards for winning the stage, then Lance came back out and put on the yellow jersey since he had just taken the lead. It was awesome. I hung out for a while longer and then circled around and headed back to town, now riding in the actual path of the Tour, only in reverse. I went back to the bike place to turn it in and found Leo there. We said our sad goodbyes to the Bike Girl that I was in love with and headed back to the hostel.

The next day was a travel day. We couldn´t get a train to Biarritz til 2:00 so we got up leisurely and headed to check out the town of Blois. We actually had the good fortune to see my Bike Girl again as we asked her to hold our bags for use (which of course she did cause she was just the sweetest little thing). So we walked around town, so a couple 600 year old cathedrals, did some window shopping, walked up 80 million steps, you know, same old same old. The highlight of the day for me was when I went to Dominoes to get a 2 euro pizza that I had seen advertised (as it turns out you had to buy one at regular price to get one for 2 euros, so I ended up getting two pizzas). As good as two pizzas is, that wasn´t the highlight. The guy working their had studied in America for two years (Oklahoma City, no less) and he was more than eager to have the chance to speak english. He just kept talking and talking, much to the delight of the other guy working their who thought our English conversation was the most amazing thing. The guy talked to me about the Michael Jackson trial ("its no coincidence that he got off on all 10 major charges!" he said, clearly an MJ fan), his lack of trust in the American media, and of course his dislike of "W Bush." (the other guy working there told me he didn´t care about "W Bush," he didn´t care about Chirac, he only cared about two things, money and women - oh and he loved Mariah Carey). While I thought I was going to miss my train from this guy talking my ear off it was interesting to hear this french take on "W" and the war, given that you hear about French objections all the time.

The rest of the day was spent on two trains and we arrived in Biarritz that night. Our hotel greeted us with but one double bed and I realized quickly that I would be spending the night in much closer proximity to Leo than I ever wanted to. But it had a private shower and even a TV (half french and half spanish, no english). We threw our stuff down, watched some TV, and set out to see what these French beaches looked like. I really enjoyed the first night, it was still light (cause it never gets dark over here) and there were people surfing at like 10:30. We got some ice cream and walked down on the beach, all of it very romantic except for the aforemention close proximity to Leo.

Next day was all about some beach. The weather was so-so. Sometimes sunny, sometimes kinda cloudy. Even in the sun the constant breeze kept it cool. Not cold by any means, but not hot. The beach was packed by mid-day, bodies everywhere. There were definitely 1000 bodies, but only like 2 were perfect, this was a bit of a disappointment, but it was still a good time. Paddle Ball and topless sunbathing were both quite popular beach activities. But just like paddle ball, the topless sunbathing wasn´t as fun as I expected. It turns out that the only women who don´t mind showing off their boobs, don´t have boobs worth showing off, but oh well. I went for a swim and the waves were HUGE, biggest I´ve ever been in (yea yea Beas, I know you saw bigger ones, ok), but the swimming area was really limited cause certain stretches were saved for surfers and stuff. So we were pretty much crammed in. I did a little bid of body surfing, but you had to go WAY out to get to the big waves (my mom and Ellen would have been screaming at me from the shore) and when I got to them I was too scared they were going to kill me. We hung out at the beach most of the day and then headed back to our hotel and watched some french and spanish reporters talk about the day´s tragic events in London. I took a walk that night to a lighthouse down at the end of the beach (where I saw a girl walking her dog, that I immediately fell in love with).

We went to bed that night hoping that we were prepared for the journey that would be Pamplona. Leo will take it from there.

This blog feels particularly long (and probably quite boring) but thanks to everyone who is posting back to us. We love to hear what ya´ll think and what´s going on at home, so if you´ve been posting keep it up and if you haven´t, get your act together! It feels like we´ve been gone for ever, the days are so long over hear, even just the running of the bulls feels like weeks ago and that was just yesterday. Tomorrow we have one more day in Barcelona and then an overnight train to Geneva. Will write again soon. Look forward to hearing from you (and don´t forget to put your name with your post, these anonymous one´s are tough to figure out).