...not for long. The cycle path soon disappeared and for some reason when this happens it makes me feel like I shouldn't be cycling on the normal road. Possibly, the fact that I had no rolling tobacco and had drunk far too much the evening prior didn't help. Anyway after some ample route confusion and some retracing of steps I got bored and cycled on the normal road. Its funny the things that become confusing when you have noone to tell you what to do any of the time.
Paris was a couchsurfing stop and the guy had said he might not be back from work until half 7 so I wasn't exactly pushing it. The worry of getting into Paris then realising I was desperate for the loo and had a bike with at least a million stealable items on it was rife. Anyway I managed to hit the Paris suburbs just in time to find out that the guy was in fact off work and heading out at half 5...new deadline. This, of course, should still have been fine if is wasn't for the most epic getting lost of probably the whole trip so far (I'm writing this in Chamonix).
The stort goes that some prick wanted to freak me the fuck out while I quietly went about my lunch and fag break on a Parisian pavement. He decided it would be totally sound to sit and stare at me from a bench for AGES and then make kissing noises as he walked after me when I moved. What an idiot. I kindly asked him to "fuck off" which of course he neither understood or was interested in.
Feeling mildly abused I set off for Montmatre but ended up taking a right far too early and cycling in the wrong direction all together. At one point, confidence waning, I decided to ask some folk who struggled to explain the whole wrong direction thing but eventually succeeded. What a gutter. Back from whence I came except that all the road signs wanted me to go on the motorway, stress stress and then I was officially in Paris proper. Time now: 4.50 pm. Distance from couchsurfing: (a mere 7 miles). No worries you say? Well i'm in a city I don't know, without a map and its rush hour. In addition, France and Algeria had both won at football that day. Oh the fun and games of Parisian cycle lanes!
In the end I got to the allocated square at 5.41 pm pretty stressed out and pissed off but at least I was in Paris! The guy I stayed with, Julien, headed off for his pints so I could sit the fuck down for a bit then wash and eat and smoke and generally make myself feel better. What made me feel even better again was the visit to the pub later on. An excellent establishment with a drunk barman and the allowance of bringing food from an adjacent restaurant in (plates and cutlery and all).
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