Wow well, this is a late arrival for sure, I need to try and update this blog more often. I have travelled all the way into central Paris. So far the biking has been easy to difficult (depending on the wind). The first day was the hardest yet. I found myself pedalling downhill because the headwind was so strong I stopped otherwise.
Calais was great I stayed with Benoit and Patrick who have a wonderful house pretty central to Calais. They were happy to have me stay and I got a nice bed to sleep in before setting of to Le Touquet, where friends of Benoit had heard about my journey and happily agreed to have me stay.
The bike ride to Le Touquet was fairly good, got lost a few times and ended up doing nearly 15km more than expected. Stayed with Julian and Stephan who cooked me a meal fit for a king! No surprise then I wish I had stayed longer than an evening but I resolutely biked down to Amiens where I’d arranged with a Couchsurfer Anne to stay.
The bike ride to Amiens was over 114km in all pushing me to a new limit. The wind at my back made progress a breeze, I easily got there with time to spare and saw the Somme in all it’s glory as I ventured on. Once there I got a good nights rest and managed to have a few great days meeting other Couchsurfers Anna, Gion, Simon, Sofie, Somie? (the spelling of her name always eludes me) and Julie. Who took it upon themselves to help my awful French (thank you so much!).
After some self reflection in a globe trotters and a bit of French study it occured that I am travelling for 3 months through French speaking countries and this is my best opportunity to get a grounding in another language. So I’ve taken it upon myself to try and study, study, study. To be able to do more than say “I would like” and “I’m sorry” is almost a dream of mine, I hate being the tourist who doesn’t attempt to speak the language of the country I’m in.
Anyhow from Amiens I biked to Beauvais and then after a single night there I travelled on to Paris. Biking into a major city wasn’t as bad as expected. But was a little unnerving at times. Cars don’t obey the road rules at all, other cyclists seem to be colour blind (red means stop you morons!) and the Arc de Triumph is a free for all where there are no rules… Period.
So the biking is going really well, the people with the exception of one crazy guy and one snotty waiter who wanted us to buy food rather than just coffee, everything is going fine. I am staying with Pascale in the heart of Paris and have a good amount of time to explore the city in glorious sunshine before heading of to Orleans for a few days.
Hopefully I’ll write more and more often on this blog but for now, I have to upload more images. I am lagging waaay behind (still uploading my trip to Devon in December :-/). I hope to have caught up by the end of the month at least. Paris is so photogenic that I may use up a months worth of uploads just here.
On a final note couchsurfing and youth hostels may have dominated the first weeks of my trip but soon all the campsites will have opened (April the 1st seems a constant here) so I will soon be travelling and camping 90% of the journey but with people offering me homes to sleep in and arrange things for me, I know that the rest of this trip will be just as enjoyable. This trip has already rewarded me more than I could imagine, and there’s still nearly 2 years left to go 
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. Till next time
