Salut Lenni et Vera,
I woke to the sound of raindrops on my tent, but I didn’t care. I was so tired that I fell asleep again in an instant. Would have been better if I didn’t. The bags I left open to dry were now all wet again – shit happens.
When the first fisherman settled right next to my tent I packed my things and moved on. After two hours I passed Schengen and all of a sudden everybody said Bonjour instead of nobody saying Guten Tag. So I realized I had entered France.
In the second village I joined up with Alicia an English school-assistant, who was on her way to a bicycle-rally in Èpinal. She lowered her pace a little bit so I could keep up and we drove onto Metz together, chatting most of the time. Thanks to her company I didn’t realize the heat and the sun so much, but when we split up in Metz the exhaustion caught up with me really quick. Usually I take a lot more breaks.
I spent a while hanging around in front of a city map next to a hostel,that match pretty much Alicia’s description of hers, trying to decide whether I go on or stop. Alicia, who obviously split up with me one bridge to early, came by and told me about that cheap camping-area right around the corner. It didn’t take me long to stop there and relax.
I just took my tent out to dry a little in the sun and headed to the showers to get lots of water. Right in front I met Denis recharging his cell-phone. We talked and smoked for at least an hour until I was enough re-hydrated to do my laundry. He told me where I could find his tent and we spent the rest of the evening lying on the grass, smoking pot and telling stories of our journeys. He was on his way from the Vosges to Amsterdam. I told him about the Kashmir Lounge and he gave me some good advises to travel easier in France. Of course we exchanged lots of bullshit life threw at us, like all the good-old potheads do during a nice pow-wow.
A Bientot,
your Michael