Week 1 (and a half)

So I have now been in Limoux, France for one week. The jet lag is not longer controlling my every move though there are still some lingering sleeping effects.

My flights over were relatively uneventful. I managed to sleep 4 or 5 hours on the first leg although I think in the end that did me worse than had I not slept. Heathrow airport was a trip! Here I was feeling glad to be in an English speaking airport and I could not communicate with the waiter in the 15 minutes I had between flights to get breakfast (or dinner?). I asked for oats and got hot milk. Then I asked for a bagel with lox and got scrambled eggs, a bagel and enough smoked salmon to feed a brunch party. Yikes.

When I arrived in Toulouse I was greeted by a fellow American (thank goodness because my brain just couldn't quite handle sign language at that point). Lovely British Airways decided to leave my bike in London so we filled out the paperwork to have it (hopefully) delivered to my apartment in Limoux, date and time unknown and undeterminable. What should have been a solid night's sleep after exhausting travels turned into a 4 hour nap and then a wide-awake party at 4am (great time to check Facebook). The next day Chris told me he had heard from the airport and that I needed to be at my house sometime after noon... ok, what time? "Oh just be there all day. You never know." And so I did. And my bike was FINALLY delivered around 5:30 PM. I managed to build it quickly and get out for a ride in the storm brewing weather. Phew! Day one survived!

Since then I have been adjusting to the HOT weather. My second ride was a bit of an adventure. For those of you who know me well you know that my sense of direction is, well, less than stellar. So of course, I got lost. I ended up climbing through some type of forest park, thinking I was on a completely different road. I kept climbing and climbing and climbing until I finally decided something wasn't right. At this point I had been riding for over 3.5 hours and had only eaten a banana (all I had in my house). I finally arrived in a town I knew, completely cracked. I walked into the first store I found, grabbed some chocolate cookies and a 1.5 L bottle of water. The women running the store could not help looking amused as I (completely drenched) pulled out a 50 euro bill to pay for a 1.82 euro basket. Sorry, I'm a stupid American who got lost and has yet to make change :) As I rode back into Limoux I glanced at the pharmacy digital clock and saw a temperature reading of 43 degrees! No wonder my brain was a useless pool of mush!

Then I had my first picture ride. My favorite kind. For those of you who watch the Tour you know that this time of the year is sunflower season. Driving from the airport I saw my first yellow fields and must have sounded like a little kid in a candy store. They are UNBELIEVABLE in real life!

Anyway here are some photos of where I have the absolute pleasure of riding for the next three plus weeks. Some of it reminds me of home actually.



























On Mondays Chris takes his guests to a farm house up on top of a hill where the owner of the farm cooks a completely homemade French meal. He was kind enough to allow me to join the guests for a DELICIOUS meal. He had made tart de fromage (quiche-like pie), roasted lamb (that he had raised himself), zucchini au gratin (which I didn't have but it sure looked creamy and delicious) and a heaping plate of fresh sliced tomates with homemade vinagre de vin and salt. Yummm.

The next day, Einat and I went for a phenomenal ride. It is one of my favorite loops so far. We ascended a long, gentle climb. The day was overcast and muggy and the air smelled like rain. Everything is so green here! I am surprised, considering how hot it has been but I'm certainly not complaining. On our way up we saw maybe two cars and three houses. All of a sudden I rounded a bend and saw this car (picture below) sitting in a field on the side of the hill. Inside there was a man with no shirt reading a newspaper. Ok, kind of strange conisdering he was nowhere near a house. But it gets even better... just chillin next to him outside his door was his goat. What a photo op.

At the top of the climb we had four direction choices. But first we had to visit the cows who for some reason were VERY interested in what we were doing. Enjoy the video below.

I wish I could post all of my photos here but I fear that would send my blog into despair so I will be loading all of my photos on to photobucket.com. The rest of the photos from this ride will be there. Take a look. I couldn't believe the terrain changes we went through. The only other place I have been to that changed so dramatically is Colorado Springs. We left fields of grass and moved through pine trees and then emerged into areas of red clay dirt and then back into the valley with vineyards and hay fields.

AND my last story for this blog... we climbed the Col de Pailheres! This is apparently considered one of the hardest HC climbs in the Tour. It will be the first of two HC climbs that the guys will do on the 18th (and I will be doing it again that morning so look for me on TV in the crowd!!) As the photo below shows, the top is 2001m (that one meter is very important) high and you ascend to that point over 15km at an average of 8.5%. It was a beautiful climb and by far the longest hard climb I have ever done. We took our time and, clearly, I took lots of photos. While it was a fun tough climb it was an AWESOME descent. I was easily hitting 45mph on the straighter stretches and getting practice descending switchbacks with no railings or trees (yikes!). Great day! (pictures were too difficult to choose from - see the photobucket album!)

Visit - http://s727.photobucket.com/albums/ww280/hecht_lauren/Limoux%202010/ - for more photos. The password is "france". Hope you enjoy! (And please let me know if you cannot access teh photos...it has been a while since I've used this and I am not sure that it will work)

Thanks for reading!