In which France turns up the heat.

 

The road was hit. We found a highway that (regretfully) amputated la Bretagne and made our way toward the love handle of France. The car got warmer the more southerly we drove. Then warmer. As we neared the coast, the genuineness of the architecture (for lack of a better description) started melting away, oozing toward a more summer-boomtown-tourist-mecca the closer we got.

Fellow Roadtrippers had driven this route before and knew generally what was up, and many hours and buckets of sweat later, we finally found a cheap campsite that wasn't fully booked. No success finding hidden nooks for secret wild camping amongst these tourist-trodden fields. The location we found was a maze of hills dotted with colorful tents and towels, trees, and was surprisingly overridden with German school kids. They eyed us suspiciously as we started pitching our own tent in the last clearing we could find, smack dab in the middle of their little cluster. A buff-but-pimply (I don't actually remember if he was pimply, but I'm going to choose to remember him that way) adolescent dude in a hammock next to our tent construction spoke openly (and loudly -- in German) about us with some of his pimply friends (same story), trying to guess our nationality as we quietly talked amongst ourselves. "Hey, I think they're speaking German! Can you tell? Can't be sure. No, wait. Well,..." Eventually one of us just answered him outright, to which he exhaled deeply and said something along the lines of, "Thank goodness! I don't know what we would have done if you were French!" Whatever that means. All my warning bells were going off to be in such close proximity to so many young teens, but it was getting late and there wasn't anywhere else we could go, so I sucked it up. The Fellow Roadtrippers then proceeded to blow our neighbor's piddly, pimply little hammock out of the Waters of Coolness by skillfully stringing up three of our own in close succession. Suckas.

Once settled, we asked directions to the beach to catch the sunset. Getting to said beach entailed walking over 20 minutes down an obscure footpath through the forest. Eventually the sound of waves replaced the heaviness of the silence and relieved the weight of potential lostness from my lungs. We were on the right track after all and, shoes kicked off, we scrambled over the sandy dunes just in time to see the sun do its last fairwell flaunt and plop into the ocean. Not as spectacularly I had hoped, but really there wasn't anything to complain about. We then made ourselves cosy in a wind-sheltered dip atop the dunes, tested a new local wine and polished off the rest of the caramelized pistachio dark chocolate -- all that was left of our short visit to the cute little country to the north. It just so happened that it was a holiday (Assomption?) and tiny displays of fireworks exploded from unseen shores around us. Dusk seeped into darkness as the waves crashed below and we eventually made our way back to the campground, navigating the forest path with our faces pointed up rather than down, making out the trail of sky through the blackness of the trees. We didn't meet a single soul, alive or undead. (Which was a very good thing, as I would have had a heart attack.)

Thanks to my trusty earplugs, I slept surprisingly well that night. Not so for the Fellow Roadtrippers, who finally woke in a grumpled state with a tangible repulsion to German school kids. It was that morning that I spent some time sitting in the middle of a field, waiting for my cell to ring for an interview with the CEO of a company I was hoping to have a job with upon my return to Germany in a few weeks. Needless to say, it had been difficult and frustrating to get this whole job thing figured out while living in a tent in another country, stopping by McDonaldsz along the highway to eat ice cream and use le weefee when possible. (This is the only occasion in which you could quote me for being grateful for MickeyD's. Just so we're clear.) Luckily I'd already had an interview in person and had taken my test the week before departure. Long story short, my faithful but piddly dumbphone rang as scheduled and I had a nice chat with my future boss. You know, just chillin' in a field somewhere in France. Confirmation of employment came within the next couple days and I was relieved beyond belief to have a reason to stay in the Deutschland past September/a way into the Real World, or at least a valid reason to apply to stay. (For the record, that was August, I applied for my first work visa upon my return in September, and after a painfully long dis/approval process, finally picked up my visa... when was it again? -- Oh, yeah. That happened yesterday. YESTERDAY. IT'S FEBRUARY. But that's another saga for the passé.)

 

Back in Longeville-sur-Mer, it was time to distance ourselves from the loudness of teens and find a more accessible beach for summer fun. Hotness. Driving. A beach with a more than packed parking lot was located, valuable possessions collected, surfboards slung over shoulders, tally ho. We found a nice spot for the Strandmuschel (sand shell, teehee) next to a very convenient fence upon which to dangle our wet laundry. Surfing, splashing, body boarding, napping, snacking, sweating, shadow seeking. It was full and getting fuller by the minute, despite the waves creeping ever closer to the sun soakers snoozing on the sand. Then there was no more creeping, just things getting wet. Clearly that meant it was time to pack up and hit a grocery store to restock our food supply.

That evening we prepared a feast next to a nature preserve, which happened to be separating us from a beach where we were intending to sleep once it was dark enough to stow the car in a hopefully unnoticeable place. We'd been warned that this area was somewhat dangerous and that it was not uncommon for cars parked by the side of the road at night to be broken into. It was also a beautiful area, complemented by a glorious cloudscape, though also somewhat uncomfortablified by the sudden prevalence of mosquitoes that sent us bundling up sooner than expected. Hunger satisfied and darkness fallen, we carefully went through the car and packed all of our not-to-be-robbed-able things into a couple backpacks, piled together our sleeping bags, locked the surfboards inside the car, and trudged along the path through the nature preserve to the beach on the other side, swatting mosquitoes all the while. We were hoping that the pesky beasts would quit being a nuisance once we got to the other side of the dunes, back in the big, wide, open air of the sea. Once we'd finally reached the beach, however, we needed only one glance at each other's scrunched up faces, hoods tucked tightly around ears and socks pulled up over pant legs, to know that our plans to sleep in the sands had already been marred by these mosquito hoards. After all of a minute on the beach, we turned around and schlepped all our things back to the car, swat swat swat. We unloaded and repacked as quickly as possible and drove off into the night, knowing we couldn't stay there and risk our sanity.

It was already late and not only did we have no place to go, we also had no clear idea of where we were for the first time, making our map somewhat useless. We passed through white, boarded up ghost towns, lacking any sign of life and lit eerily yellow by the garish streetlights, windows down to invite the mosquitoes to exit the vehicle, night blowing coolness over our itching faces. Finally we came to a rest area between towns that was laid back enough that we felt safe sleeping there, but not not-public enough that we thought we'd have our throats slit in the night. One Fellow Roadtripper strung up a low hammock between two piddly trees next to the car while the other just spread out his sleeping bag right there on the ground and I fetaled up as much as possible in the front seat of the car. Thankfully, sleep came, wooshing toward us as swiftly as the passing headlights, only softer.

The morning arrived later with great umph and sunshine. We had a slow start, repacking the car after the chaos of the previous evening and breakfasting with the help of the GDR-era Gas Cooker. After blasting a bit of salsa music, we were ready to move on and did so, quickly figuring out where we had ended up and set back on the track to where we wanted to go.

The houses lost their color by now, and the architecture in general had lost its friendliness. Our nocturnal adventure from previous hours was somewhat relived as we passed through town after town of what looked like boarded-up buildings, though they were certain to be inhabited. White panels shuttered all windows, hid all doors from view, blocked out sunlight and its corresponding hot, sticky fingers. Shadowless ghost towns in the blaze of day, interspersed with fields of dead sunflowers. Acres and acres of them, brown and slumped, wilted and forlorn, over the hill and past their prime. And boy, didn't they know it.

The day progressed, getting hotter and hotter. It was hard to tell who was sweating more -- us or the cheese we'd picked up the day before. All our bottles of water were hot, but we emptied them down our throats anyway. By the time afternoon rolled around, finding shade was becoming a necessity. And then we found it -- a magical place. Cue cliffhanger ending.