Livin' on the Fringe

Bonjour from Avignon! I'm at another screwy French keyboard again, so it'll be a short message, unfortunately.

I've had PLTB---"Post-Le Tour Blues---these past few days. It was just so surreal (especially for an avid biker like me) to be witnessing the holy grail of all bike races on Monday...and then it disappear so suddenly. But we may have a 2nd chance to catch it on the big finale in Paris this coming Sunday. That would put away my Le Tour blues and definitely be the icing on the cake.

After Le Tour left Foix, the rains came through and made the day quite depressing. We climbed up to the Chateau du Foix on the hill overlooking the town. It's a 1000 year-old castle which looks pretty cool, and since it's the only thing to do in town besides the jazz festival at night, we went up it along with the other gullible tourists. We then walked the 2 kilometers back to Camping du Lac. This campsite wasn't too bad...except for the French lady with the purple hair and her horrible gyrating on the disco dance floor beside the restaurant. Just watching her made me sick to my stomach. It felt like I was at Deiter's Dance Party. And I don't know where they dug up that horrible music. It was Euro-pop from the 80's which I had never heard. It sucked. They could have at least played "99 Luftballoons" and I would have been OK with that.

To block it all out, Eric and I drank wine, ate our experimental frozen pizzas which we cooked over Eric's hobo stove (Note: don't attempt putting the insides of two frozen pizzas together to make a stuffed pizza...especially when cooked over a grill. It doesn't work), and watched this really nutty French game show called "Interville" where towns across France compete with each other. They dress up in big-headed animal costumes (such as frogs, alligators, rats, beavers) and then run through crazy obstacle courses. Then they have this live bull come and ram into you while your standing on pedestals, throwing you up in the air while wacky sound effects are played as you hit the ground in pain. All the French kids at the campsite were laughing their heads off at that part. Then between all the crazy events, the French fly-girls come out with their pom-poms and shake their bootylicious stuff like the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. And this is family television for France. What a country!

We got out of Foix on Tuesday, and after a long day of catching trains...and missing trains...we finally made it to Avignon. We helped a German couple from Frankfort (who looked like Velma and Shaggy from "Scooby Doo," except with German accents) find the campsite we were hiking towards. Once we got there, however, the sign said it was all filled due to the big enormous arts festival going on in Avignon. Eric and I about turned away...until Velma and Shaggy solved the mystery and showed us that backpackers with tents were still welcome inside. Jinkies! This campground is a hoot...I feel like I'm at Woodstock with this giant tent city filled with grubby stinky hippies. Last night, some drunk French granolas were serenading us on the guitar outside our tent with their renditions of American tunes. It's a real treat to hear Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" sung by a bunch of people who don't quite know the words.

We spent all of today inside Avignon's city walls observing the really cool fringe festival going on. It's probably similar in a lot of ways to Edinborough's Fringe Festival. Here, hundreds of theatre troops from around France and bordering countries were giving performances. The city is slathered in theatre posters, giving the place an off-Broadway feel. I attended a clown/mime show called Housch-ma-Housch that was a lot of fun. It felt like watching Mr. Bean with sound effects. In Blue Man Group fashion, Housch-ma-Housch unraveled several rolls of tape and passed them up into the audience to continue pulling on. The lady in front of me kept getting pissed at me when the tape I was pulling kept catching her hair and messing it up. All I have to say is "Tape happens."