Americano!
Girona, ESP
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Since not much is happening here, except that the condition of my illness seems to be getting worse despite a daily dosage of antibiotics normally prescribed to those who've caught Anthrax. I'd presume that Anthrax antibiotics would be quite potent, but evidently whatever I've got is giving 'em quite a battle.
That's not what I wanted to write about though. I was thinking about America and how much better it is there than it is here. And I got to thinking about this little situation we got ourselves into after the Grimpeurs race near Paris. Evidently someone left a light on or something in the camper, & of course no one had jumper cables... and definitely no one in France has ever jumped a car (especially if they're American) so... we started pushing the camper (quite light indeed) on this little one way road as every team tried to exit on the same road. The idea was that we would pop start it. I don't have much experience here, but I guess the idea is that you get it rolling, and start it in 2nd gear. I guess somehow this generates a spark or something that starts the engine. We tried this multiple times to no avail.
This is where some typical French sentiment was offered. I was pushing the camper with a teammate or two and a handful of very enthusiastic French spectators, when some comment was generated from a group of spectators who were spectating our situation. In reply one of the helping spectators said "Americano!" This cleared up all confusion generated by the situation, and the spectating spectators looked at each other and said awh, Americano!" obviously liberated from the ambiguity of a stalled camper being pushed. It may seem puzzling to you why the French would be so surprised that someone pushes there car, but the answer is simplistic in that the French are in no hurry at all. They'd rather get out of their car and yell at the person they're holding up than consider the notion of perhaps pushing their car. Eventually we got the camper to a downhill section and got a good solid pop and a roar from the diesel below the hood of our high quality fiat motor home. Italiano, eh? Awe, Italiano!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Since not much is happening here, except that the condition of my illness seems to be getting worse despite a daily dosage of antibiotics normally prescribed to those who've caught Anthrax. I'd presume that Anthrax antibiotics would be quite potent, but evidently whatever I've got is giving 'em quite a battle.
That's not what I wanted to write about though. I was thinking about America and how much better it is there than it is here. And I got to thinking about this little situation we got ourselves into after the Grimpeurs race near Paris. Evidently someone left a light on or something in the camper, & of course no one had jumper cables... and definitely no one in France has ever jumped a car (especially if they're American) so... we started pushing the camper (quite light indeed) on this little one way road as every team tried to exit on the same road. The idea was that we would pop start it. I don't have much experience here, but I guess the idea is that you get it rolling, and start it in 2nd gear. I guess somehow this generates a spark or something that starts the engine. We tried this multiple times to no avail.
This is where some typical French sentiment was offered. I was pushing the camper with a teammate or two and a handful of very enthusiastic French spectators, when some comment was generated from a group of spectators who were spectating our situation. In reply one of the helping spectators said "Americano!" This cleared up all confusion generated by the situation, and the spectating spectators looked at each other and said awh, Americano!" obviously liberated from the ambiguity of a stalled camper being pushed. It may seem puzzling to you why the French would be so surprised that someone pushes there car, but the answer is simplistic in that the French are in no hurry at all. They'd rather get out of their car and yell at the person they're holding up than consider the notion of perhaps pushing their car. Eventually we got the camper to a downhill section and got a good solid pop and a roar from the diesel below the hood of our high quality fiat motor home. Italiano, eh? Awe, Italiano!
posted by Tom Peterson @ 4:48 AM
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