Wild adventures

(this is one day's worth of tickets)
I am soooo sick of trains. There, I said it. Over the past 2 weeks I have spent close to a total of 48hrs on trains or banging my head against the wall in the train stations. Oh well, at least I will have plenty of practice for next year. It is definitly and easier pill to swallow when traveling with KT but asside from the usuall fun and games the past two days have been super stressful. Both days have started at roughly 4:30am and have gone none stop untill 11pm. On the plus side KT managed to find a really cool little backpackers dorm, were we crashed last night and, a nice little resturant down the street. I on the other hand have not been able to get out of my own way. Awkward train tickets and a 5am run to the airport the day BEFORE my filight have me counting the hours till I can go home and sleep till noon.

Anyway, Nice is Nice and France is.... well... still France. In my opinion, I guess the only way to describe France is with KT's initial words after deboarding the train, "huh.... Why does everyone here think they're so cool?"

carrots and beets,
alex

Spain....

.....Just got hot.

Winding down

The season is over. It feel nice to be done for a while but mentally I am not quite ready to hang up the cleats. My form is really good right now and mentally I am strong as an ox. Unfortunutly there are no more races for me to do over here so I'll be on an air plane in a few days. On the plus side KT is in Spain now and we are having the time of our lives. Off season mean that I have finally taken the opportunity to walk around Girona and play tourist for the last couple of days and I even accepted the invitation of a few new foreign freinds to go check out the disco tecs! Both me an KT were blown away at the crazyness of the Spanish party life style. I don't know how they do it here! They called us panzy Americans when we said we were ready to go home at 2am. Then they said we were whiny Americans when we said we were going home to go to sleep at 5am! They could not understand why we did not want to stay for breakfast! It was amazingly fun but I can not imagine my self doing that again for a very loooong time. The Spanish bells are chiming 11pm and last night did not offer much sleep so it is time for bed. We need our rest because tomorrow is going to be a full day on the beach.

alex

Still in France

This time last week I figured (in fact I was 100% positive) I would be heading back to Girona at about this time and back home to Colorado shortly there after. I guess I was wrong. It all started last Thursday when the team traveled out to the Tour du Gévaudan. A long 4-5 hour drive fallowed by a spectacular ride through the rolling hills of France brought me to the race hotel where I was promptly told that I would not be racing the next day. Or any other day for that matter because I still had a professional license and my participation in an armature event was strictly prohibited. Oh well, shit happens no big deal, right? I was told I had a train ticked for the next morning. No big deal, right? Ha!

My Friday started at 5am. It was supposed to start at ten till 5 but thanks to Kiki's supreme race care driving skills and her mastery of the French roads my P.O.S. alarm clocks malfunction made little difference in my day. Thanks Kiki. After making my first connection successfully I was told at my second connection that bikes were impossible and highly illegal to transport on certain types of trains (apparently this train was one of those types) and that if I wanted to continue my journey home I would have to leave my $7,000 at the train station and proceed. Ha! After 4 hours of confusion (I do not speak French. I am sorry, I really am and I am trying to learn. But, old fat man with the gold chain around you neck (you know who you are) FUCK YOU!) and several attempts to board various other trains I was finally able to continue to a near by town. After that it was all about patience and timing. Patience being the key word. After 5-6 trains (I seem to have lost count) and hours of waiting in various train stations I arrived home at 7pm in the after noon. 13hrs to do a simple 3hr trip. Oh well, could have been worse.

Oh yeah, a shout out goes to my Canadian back packing friends I meet at the station in Marseille: Hey guys thanks for the Leffe and enjoy Portugal!

VC La Pomme....

.... Has been an interesting experience so far. Not much to say about the team so far other than it has been a constant learning experience. So far all the guy I have meet have been super cool (especialy Dan Martin who has taken it uppon him self to make me proficcient in the french culture in only 2days) and a few even speek decent english! I feel like and idiot because I am IN France and the French people speek better English than I speek French. Oh well, I'm learning quickly.

I guess one thing has happened so far.... we killed an afternoon trying to install a new stove. Not sure how I always get suckered into these foreign home improvement jobs but I'm starting to think I should start putting them on my resume.

Ok, I'm going to go make sure the Frenchies don't stick their fingers in the socket,

alex

For those of you who were wondering.....

..... Spain is wonderful

Rollin'

Life in general is just kind of rollin' along at the moment. Plouay (my first Protour race) went pretty damn well. To my supprise I was able to do some decent attacking early and actually spent some time off the front solo! I was even bitterly close to making the main break away (not that I would have been able to keep up with them after 80km anyways). In all the experience was amazing and I am glad I got such an increddible opportunity to do such a prestigious (if you do not think it is prestigious then come hang out in the fully packed grandstands that we finished in or battle through crowds that were 6 people deep on each hill and try and just try and tell me it is not a big deal) race. Thanks Slipstream.

Anyways, back to real life. Right now I am in Spain. Solo. I have never been in a foriegn country all by my sefl before and I have most definitly never had a giant dusty old Spanish apartment with crappy plumbing all to my self either. It is a bit strange to say the least. As I said earlier life is just kind of rolling along. Long hours on the bike fill most of my day and hours of walking aroud town trying to find simple things like batteries and alarm clocks usually fill my afternoons. I have managed to make a number of new friends here (like the girl whos house I flooded when I took a shower and the pipe ruptured) and my spanish is comming along nicely because of it. Although, I think my advancements in Spanish have come at the expense of my English (at least my spelling) and my desperat need to learn French seems to be going unnoticed at the moment. Whoops.

Other than that, not much else to say. Life is good and living in Spain sure beets living in the real world.

alex