Tour de France

So once upon a time the Tour de France came through the town of Montpellier where I'm studying!!! My friends from the William and Mary program along with a new friend from the University of Minnesota trekked from our university after classes to watch the Tour de France. My French dad, who is ridiculously nice, drew me a map of how to get to the Tour route and where would be best to stand. He was totally right too.

Our first location, from which we watched the parade, was on a turn/corner. Because of this, when the floats and cars came down the street, we could see them really well, get really good pictures, and rake in some free loot. We didn't get there until most of the parade was over since we couldn't exactly skip class to go see a parade, but some of my friends managed to catch some pretty cool stuff - hats, newspapers, etc. I didn't catch anything, though :(

We stayed in this first location through the end of the parade, and then we started breaking up into smaller groups. Some of my friends ventured up the Tour's route back towards the city center so that they could see the cyclists take off. I, along with a few others, decided to stay further down the route where it was much less crowded. In my opinion, this paid off ridiculously well. We too walked a little further up the Tour route to get to a shadier spot (Our first spot was in direct sun, and while I like to tan and was wearing sunscreen, I didn't need 4 straight hours of blindingly hot sun.). From our new venue, we were able to see perfectly, and we were right next to a lovely bakery from which, of course, we got snacks :)

In Montpellier this year, the Tour de France was a time trial. This means, for those of you who don't watch the Tour, that the cyclists weren't racing each other but rather racing against the clock. So, every 7 minutes a new team, along with its ridiculous entourage of reporters, extra bikes, ambulance, and police escorts sped by us. I made a point of getting at least one photo of every team. It was so cool. Since our spot wasn't crowded at all, we were literally 5 feet away from the cyclists. Awesomeness. And every time a new team would come by, the French police would run out into the streets, blow their whistles and holler for everyone to get onto the sidewalks and out of the way. This one poor man didn't do it fast enough and got in trouble...Fortunately, we understood the word for sidewalk (and the vehement hand gestures), so we were fine. The best part about it being a time trial was that I was really able to see every cyclist on the Tour...including the one and only LANCE ARMSTRONG.

Ok, are you ready for this story? And for all the doubters, I was with friends, and they will all vouch the verity of it. So, we know that Lance's team is next because (1) the teams ride in reverse order of who's winning, and Astana was winning, so they were last and (2) my friend who was up at the starting block called and said he was coming. My friends and I got our cameras ready (I put mine on video setting), and we screamed for Lance as he rode by. Best moment ever - because our spot had few people and most of them were French and don't like Lance, apparently our screams stood out. Lance, while speeding by us, must have heard us, turns towards us, looks right at us, and grins with the "Hey there, ladies" sort of smile/acknowledgement. ACKKKKKKK SO COOOL. I will forever treasure the aforementioned moment. It was pure amazingness.

Sigh. So after the Tour, we walked back up to the starting block where I got a boatload of official Tour de France stuff in a cool tote bag. If you're a fan of the Tour de France, you should let me know so that I can hook you up with some official gear :D

And THAT was my Tour de France experience.