le Tour

After a very late start to the day, I went to the pâtisserie to purchase sone pain au chocolat for Rafys as well as find out what time le Tour de France would commence - making its way up the nearby Avenue de l'Ecole de l'Agriculture Gabriel Bouchet. I was met almost immediately on this sourjourn by a lone, bored-looking policeman.

"Well, at least we won't have to go far to see the riders go by," I thought, but at what time zould they actually go by? Stepping into the avenue, I saw many people lining both sides of the street in an expectant air, causing me to quicken my pace as I continued toward the pâtisseri. There, I joined a short queue of people waiting to join the even larger group standing outside eating the various breads and pastries from that particular shop. (I had been coached very thoroughly on the pronunciation of 'pain au chocolat,' and was quite confident of my ability to be understood with that particular order). Unfortunately for me (and my practice), pain au chocolat is a very popular pastry among the French (at least among those waiting for le Tour), so there were none available at 12:20 PM, although I suspect they were making more in the back. Therefore, I decided to bucher the pronunciaction of croissants avec aumandes et chocolat and a brioche (also avec chcolat).

After paying the lady and wishing her bounjour née, I crossed the street to the tabac, and purchased a paper for 1€ after unsuccessfully trying to ask the man what time le Tour was going to pass. I then headed back to Rafys'.

The paper said something about a procession leaving the place de la comedie at 12:45, so I decided to head out to catch it before it passed us by. What I failed to do was read further, for I would have then learned that "procession" didn't mean "race". However, this didn' happen, and out I went to catch the procession.

The procession was a motorcade of the sponsors, with pretty men and women throwing things to the crowds. I collected a few things, including three hats, a bag, gummy bears, newspapers, a mouse pad, and clothes detergent. (I was hoping that Škoda would be giving out cars, but no such luck). At some point, Rafys joined me outside, and we both waited for le Tour to begin. At some point, there was a lull in the procession, and she suggested we moved to a space of grass further up the avenue in order to wait for the riders in a little more comfort.

After our move, and a little more of a wait, eight or nine brightly clad riders with their escort of police and cameramen flew past. After they were gone, there was a lull, which was followed by another group of nine riders and escort about ten minutes later. Had I read the newspaper closely, I would have (possibly) understood that the teams would be riding together in today's stages, each about seven minutes apart. No exciting peleton today, but there continues, even now, to be teams racing the 39 km around Montpellier.