TOUR DE FRANCE PUBLICITY CARAVAN

Here’s something that happened last Sunday in Paris during my amazing day with the Luxembourg car in the Tour de France Publicity Caravan. 

-After following the course past the Louvre, Tuileries Garden, Place de la Concorde, up the Champs Elysees and around the Arc de Triomphe, then back down the Champs to the Place—all of it lined six-deep with eager cycling fans, our car pulled into a barricaded-off parking area for the caravan’s 200-plus vehicles. There’s a bit of fun, end-of-Tour mayhem as the caravan’s young folk chase each other around the vehicles, squirting each other with water and just letting off some steam. 

They’ve driven some 5,000 miles in the previous three weeks, not only each day’s racecourse—during which they smile and wave, toss swag to the crowd and in general, be the appealing face of Luxembourg—but also the many miles between each stage’s location. Just the day before, after caravanning the day’s stage, they’d driven some 400 miles from the Alps to Versailles. Their days are so full that they pretty much never get to see the race itself. 
Personally, I had no steam to let off, plus I’m 30 years older than most of them so I wasn’t inclined to get in on the chasing and squirting. Besides, I was already drenched myself. Just before parking, our car was water-bombed twice by another vehicle. (I’m not sure by whom; it might’ve been the Madeleines float.) So much so that not only were my clothes soaked but everything in my wallet was wet and in my running shoes, my feet had that inches-deep-of-water feeling.

So I went to have me a look-see around. How close were we to the finish line? (The racers wouldn’t arrive in Paris for another hour or so.) Can I get some good pictures? Are we close to the obelisk and those fountains at the Place de la Concorde? I took note too, of the poor slobs—that is, fans—lining the racecourse on the other side of the barricades that surrounded the caravan. What chumps, I thought to myself. Packed in like sardines. Sweaty and no doubt stinky as hell on this brutally hot July afternoon. Earlier, I’d heard that we caravan folks would have a special area from which to watch the racers pass by on their multiple circuits. I had to admit: life was much better on this side of the barricades.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a gendarme charges toward me, yelling for me to get back on the other side of the barrier. (I assume that’s what he was yelling; it was in French.) Apparently, he thinks I’m one of them—the folks on the other side—and that I’ve climbed over the barricade and am now trying to pass myself off as one of the caravan people. 

“But I’m with the Luxembourg car,” I plead. 

And pretty much as soon as I hear my own American-English, born-and-raised-in-New-Jersey voice say these words, I know I’m done for. I have no credentials; no cool, laminated I.D. badge thingee around my neck. I’m just a 51-year-old American who’s soaking wet for some reason and is hanging around near the caravan vehicles. I wouldn’t have believed me either. And given what happened at this year’s Boston Marathon, I can’t blame the gendarme’s overzealousness. My hosts from Luxembourg’s Ministry of Tourisme rush over to plead my case, but to no avail. Without credentials or an I.D. badge I’m not supposed to be there.

With the gendarme’s hand in the middle of my back pushing me forward, I’m forced to the other side of the barricades and left to fend for myself.

Just like everyone else.

LUXEMBOURG LANGUAGE MUSINGS

-Before I moved to Luxembourg, if I read on someone’s Facebook profile that they claimed to speak three or four languages, I’d have one of several thoughts: 

1) Bullshit, they’re lying. Nobody speaks that many different languages except maybe the Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis commercials and he’s made up, OR 

2) if they really do speak that many different languages and they’re posting about it on Facebook, they must be some needy, insecure type and are only posting about it because they’re seeking attention: “Hey, look at me everybody, I speak five different languages, aren’t I the Shiz?” 

Or 3) if they really do speak that many different languages (alternative supposition), they must have super-human intelligence and crazy-mad life skillz and be of such a higher level of all-around life competency that were I ever to find myself in their presence, I’d automatically start drooling down the front of my shirt while mumbling incomprehensible dumbness. In short, I’d turn into Homer Simpson.

Well hey, guess what—EVERYBODY in Luxembourg speaks 13 different languages! OK, 13 is an exaggeration, but at least 4, which usually means six or seven because along with Lëtzebuergish, French, German and English, they usually also speak “a little Portuguesish, some Italian and I’m just learning Spanish, but I’m not very good yet.”

Even folks working behind the counter at McDonald’s? 
Oui.

How ‘bout the hoagie-makers at Subway? 
Ja.

Starbucks? 
There are no Starbucks in Luxembourg.

How ‘bout the public restroom attendant lady who takes the money when you pay half a Euro to go potty? 
Jo. (That’s Lëtzebuergish for ‘yes.’)

I’m more than a little embarrassed that I speak only English. Last week though while on a bike ride with some Lëtzebuergish and Dutch cyclists, one of the Dutch riders tried to ease my embarrassment. 

“You live in a big country, so you don’t need to speak another language,” he said. “If you live in a small country like we do and you want to talk to people who live next to you, you need to speak other languages.”

That’s a good point and in my defense, I do honor my neighbors to the north by being able to speak some Canadian: ‘May I have a serviette, eh?’, ‘Where’s the washroom, eh?’, ‘Can I get some vinegar for my fries, eh?’, ‘Where’s the nearest Timmy’s, eh?’ ‘May I have a couple loonies for this toonie, eh?’ However, when it comes my neighbor to the south, Mexico, sadly I speak no Spanish beyond ‘No problemo,’ which I don’t think is even correct.

It’s a way of doing things that I don’t want to continue during my time here in Luxembourg. So, meaning nothing but respect to the Grand Duchy’s three official languages, I’ve come up with McQuaidembuergish, an ever-evolving mash-up of Lëtzebuergish, French and German. Here’s a sample:

Ah, c’est une schöne dag! Ech gehe Vëlo feuren unter den Soleil an blau … uh, skyen. Ech Vëlo feuren op grossen Biergen und entrer den Pain Cave. (Maybe that should be ‘Mal Cave’; I don’t mean ‘bread cave.’) Alles ass gudd mat le monde! 

Pretty sweet, eh?

Esch-sur-Sûre Mountain Biking

Amazing ride on Monday with the excellent Ferdy Adam, Claude and Christian (who own 

S-Cape Sports in Redange, and some friendly Dutch folks whose names completely escape me. We rode up, down and around Upper Sûre Lake (Stauséi Uewersaue), a reservoir that is Luxembourg's largest body of water and main water supply.

 It's a beautiful, sparsely populated area in the rolling hill country of the Ardennes. Speaking of which, we passed a spot that had two big guns from the Battle of the Bulge and passed through a forest where during World War II, some Luxembourg citizens hid in the woods for several years to avoid having to join the German Army. This place just drips with history!