“Girls, is everything OK?”.
We turn to face the three, fully geared-up gendarmes (French police). I gather all my effort and harness the little composure I have left to reply: “Aha, yes, very good thanks.”
“Is there a reason why you were lying in the middle of the road with your bikes?”
Noa and I glance at each other and attempt to contain the explosion of hysterical laughter which threatens to spill out of us at any moment.
“Hmm, good question, well, it’s a big hill, and we were tired” we mutter unconvincingly.
It is about 3.30 AM, we are in a quiet seaside town on Brittany’s Presqu'île de Crozon. We are very tired, maybe a little tipsy. Truth be told, we would do this sober and in the day, surely there is nothing quite like the sheer thrill of lying on a road with a bicycle. This is following an incident of going to pee on a beach and realizing that a large group of guys may or may not have witnessed the whole fiasco.
The policeman looks at us with a queer gaze of care and concern, taking us to be a lot more intoxicated than we are. He clearly hasn’t met Noa and I on a normal day.
“Right, well don’t do that again, it’s very dangerous, take care girls”.
And with that the ominous black van drives away towards the club we have just left, on the hunt for more disorientated youths. Feeling that we got off easy, we let out that laugh and cheerfully continue pushing our rusty bikes, which really are on their last legs, up this unforgiving hill between Crozon and Morgat. An unlikely encounter with two more traveling cousins who happen to be walking up the same hill ensues, followed by a more-than-sketchy bike ride on a winding unlit road with no visibility thanks to the sea mist. More than once, we throw ourselves onto the grassy sides of the road at the sight of headlights. Miraculously, we make it home to our cottage in the hamlet of Kersiguenou in one piece, and sleep, a lot.
Merci my dear baleine zen, for quite the night.
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