You can thank insomnia

So thanks to my bad sleeping habits I've decided the best thing to do, possibly the only thing left to do, is write.  Didn't go to bed last night until it wasn't really night anymore and the crows that haunt the trees of Pere Lachaise were beginning to caw.  Got up just in time for class and then after Eren invited me back to his place in the 13eme arrondisement near the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand for a traditional Turkish lunch - or late lunch - or early dinner.  It was absolutely delicious.
He lives in a little studio on the 8th (that'd be the 9th) floor of some mini-high-rise that is maybe half the size of my place, but also about half the price.  It's rather pleasant, but Eren may have decorated with a bit too much red (bed sheets, table cloth, place mats, napkins yes even the napkins, paintings, curtain, utensils, and I could go on).  That's not to say I don't like a good color scheme, but I'm more of a blue guy myself.

Really, this post has nothing to do with that.  What I was meaning to say is that after dinner we walked along the water, through the park, the bibliotheque (beautiful) and at about six o'clock I went home.  I laid down without a moments pause onto my bed, sprawled out a bit bloated and defeated - and then lost the battle for sleep once again.  It's now eleven o'clock and I'm suspecting the vacant black-eyed stare in the mirror tomorrow is laying in wait.

My head is in a dull trance, but as I said - not what this post is about.  It's about Normandy.  And a little about helping me sleep.

I think it's been about a week, yes a week or more, since I decided to take the train out of the city to Caen, then to Coutances, then take a bus to Avranches.  I left after class on the 11th, later in the day from Saint Lazare.  I waited around the station as train after train was announced and my time for departure drew ever closer but my train was no where on the ticking board above those hundreds of Parisian suburban fugitives elbowing and teething their way through the six o'clock rush.  I paced up and down the station trying to decipher what to do, which train was mine.  Departures were only being posted mere minutes before the trains were scheduled to pull from the quay and I had no idea where my track was.  Ten minutes to go, I start to panic ever so slightly, more of a subdued "proper reaction" let's say.  I went to each track and looked to see if any were headed to Caen, tracks one through fifteen, before it clicked.  When I was in the Munich train station with my dad I remember that the trains departing for other countries or for further reaches of the same country left from the remote far end of the station, and where at first glance it would seem that the station ends in fact it curled around a wall and opened up to a completely different array of tracks.  I started running.  Five minutes.  I made it from one end of the station to the other and there it was.  A partial wall that when you walk around reveals an entirely different section of the station.  Three different trains were set up to depart, and after quickly checking with the board (a completely different departure board for this section) I found my track and boarded my assigned car.  Two minutes to spare.
It was four and a half hours of travel.  Transferring at Caen to Coutances, a smaller well kept commuter style train not unlike the one that takes you over the border from Germany to Strasbourg.  Night fell soon after that and there was nothing to see out the windows except for my own glassy, shadowed reflection looking not unlike an emaciated Marlon Brando at the beginning of The Godfather.  I kept to Pynchon and furrowed deeper into the beautiful black mess that is Gravity's Rainbow.  Coutances arrived and I transfered to a bus, smashing my forehead into the dangling television screen above the seat, and then spending most of my ride to Avranches trying to figure out how I did that.  It seemed almost impossible unless I really am taller than I think.  Or just clumsier.
The bus dropped me off at Avranches "train station".  I use this term lightly, hence my compulsion for quotation marks.  The "station" was really more of a white, weather worn facade of some Hollywood western set piece placed on the wrong side of a very active highway to the actual city of Avranches, which, to my travel logged dismay was on top of a very imposing hill.  I hadn't eaten, and when we pulled in I saw a McDonald's so I walked over ordered a number one (same thing in any country) and plotted how to get across that very inconvenient high way.  Some of you, the responsible ones, may have been wondering if I had a map with me.  The answer to that is of course no, because otherwise what would be the story?  Actually there may still be a story even if I had a map, but that comes later.  Sitting there, eating my Big Mac I decided that there were two possibilities.  One, this was not my favorite idea, was to try out this highly active mega bridge that spanned across the highway next to the McDonald's and see if I might get lucky and not be hit by a truck from behind then thrown over the guardrail to the equally active highway below like some kind of spongy pinball.  The second idea, this was not as "proactive" but definitely not as bad, was to walk back towards the "station" and see if there was some other, smaller bridge that I could use to cross (though I hadn't seen one when I was there).
I went with the latter.  I took my fruit pack to go (no I didn't order the fries) and headed back out into the dark.  A single light hooking out from the edge of the "station" to illuminate the clock there was the only thing that made the road visible.  I stood there in the parking lot, doing my best comic 360 spin-around, before finally spotting a bit of black cutout from the Avranches city lights.  A thin pedestrian bridge a little ways down a dirt path from the station crossing the highway below.  Success.
The whole time I was working my way down the path and then turning up the bridge which was built with high solid walls on either side to impede jumping (or falling I suppose) I couldn't help feeling like this was a very pleasant spot to mug somebody.  Now, Avranches is no "big city" but it wasn't hard to notice that the whole lack of light, proximity to "train station" feeding out beleaguered easy targets, and the high walls of the bridge to block any hope of a would-be good Samaritan seeing a mugging going down and then alerting the police made that spot a bit sketchy to say the least.
Luckily nothing happened that I know of, but after crossing the highway I was forced to climb perhaps the steepest road I've ever seen, forcing me to in fact use for the first time the plumber's pipe handrail that had been installed into the blacktop just not to fall backwards upon myself.  At this point I was regretting bringing my computer, which in a situation like this is much heavier than advertised.  I followed the signs to the city center, passed the tourist information desk, and being that it was well into nine o'clock at this point (almost ten really) the whole town was shut down.  Made some lucky guesses and found my hotel just before ten o'clock which was also lucky because that's when the front desk closes.
The room was nice, small, something that would resemble a Comfort Inn or (my personal favorite motel pun name) Americ Inn.  The real treat was the Granny and Pupup sized flatscreen that was crowning my bed.  Ah, French Tv.  My first exposure really, and it was...disappointing.  Not only was the TV the same size as Granny and Pupup's it seemed to have the exact same tastes.  The only thing on were old reruns of NCIS dubbed over in French so that even if I wanted to watch I wouldn't be able to bare it.  And then a French music channel that was far too confusing and bizarre to explain here.
I took a shower and went to bed.
In the morning I went to a cafe, got a coffee, a pain au chocolat and started writing a letter to Em.  A letter that just today I received back in my mailbox because apparently I didn't do it right or something, which is a little surprising since I followed the instructions on La Poste's own website as to how to label and send the letter.  But that's neither here nor there.  Well, no I suppose the letter is right here, but it certainly isn't there and that's where this story is supposed to be so let me get back to that.  This is the very thing my high school english teacher would have highly disapproved of - digressing.
Right, so, after a time (this was just after ten thirty or so) I found my way back to that tourist office I'd passed the night before and went inside.  Now, some of you are wondering (those of you that don't know French geography or haven't already broken away from this stunning narrative to google search "Avranches") may be wondering why I was even there in the first place.  As my past tense self walks in slow motion through the blue framed doors of the tourist office I will now reveal the secret: Le Mont - Saint Michel.  A UNESCO World Heritage Site plotted out on a little sometimes island surrounded by a quaintly soggy area that is in itself so beautiful and unique that it also made it onto the UNESCO list.  That and I hadn't left Paris even once since I arrived and thought that now was better then later (for once).

Now, very quickly before I go on and describe in detail how I used my wonderful new mastery of the French language to ask the clerk if she spoke English I would like to make a small disclaimer.  I'm alive.  I wouldn't be writing this if I wasn't.  I survived the following and despite the overall stupidity that may have initiated these events I actually used a lot of common sense and skill to get myself back safe and in one very sore piece.  And also I would just like to say for the record "oops".  Now, Mom, if I hadn't already told you this story, this would be the part were I would have said "it's probably best if you sit down for this and prepare to cringe".  So for everyone that cares about my well being I'm passing that message on to you.  Take a seat, get comfortable, and bask in the knowledge that I am in fact all right.

Okay, on with the show.

You see, though Avranches is in very close proximity to Le Mont Saint Michel it still requires that you take a bus to a town some twenty or so kilometers away and then take another bus another ten or so kilometers to actually arrive at the monastery.  When I asked the lady at the desk how I could take a bus to get there and then return I was met only with the crinkled nose of bad news.  As it so happens, this not being prime tourist season, the buses were running rather infrequently and I could get to the next town and then transfer and get to the monastery, but I could not return to Avranches.  Basically I would be trapped on the island almost thirty kilometers from the hotel I'd already paid for.  I walked outside for a breath of fresh air.  This was not good news.  Idly I glanced at a map hanging in the window checking out the terrain between me and the monastery when I noticed something rather interesting, a little dotted trail labeled GR-22 that followed along the the whole of the coast starting at Saint Michel and continuing on past Avranches, but not before meeting up with that same dirt path I had happened upon the night before when crossing the bridge.  I went back inside and asked the woman about the path.  She informed me it was a hiking trail that was very rarely used but could be taken all along the coast of Normandy if you wanted.  I asked her if she had a map and she gave me a look as if I had just inquired about her private banking information before saying that I could buy one at the bookstore down the street.  That's it then.  I'll take the bus to Saint Michel and then I'll just walk back.  I was not going to be defeated by their shoddy bus schedule.  And besides I wasn't traveling with anyone I had to convince other than myself.  This kind of thing usually would turn into some kind of back-and-forth about how it's too far or it's stupid or it's not worth it, but not this time.  No, I was going to Saint Michel, and I was going to walk back.  I'd done enough hiking with my dad not to be afraid of a little GR-22.  Scoff.  (You might slowly be coming to realize the purpose for the disclaimer now)  The next bus didn't leave until noon so I took the time to buy a map (if I was going to do this I wanted to be prepared) and to walk down to the Jardin des Plantes and catch a quick view at Saint Michel off in the distance before returning to the tourist office and boarding the bus.
The bus took me to an even smaller town south of Saint Michel.  I had to wait almost two hours for the next bus to arrive and take me north, so I stocked up on some provisions for the walk and ate a pizza at a local restaurant.  Then the rain started.
About thirty minutes camped out underneath that town's ""train station"" (one set of quotation marks would not be enough in this case) overhang shivering to the bone before I finally boarded up again and headed north.
It was a short trip and I was the only one on the bus except for the driver, passing through the Normandy countryside small beige farmhouses, endless expanses of green always with a thin layer of mist hovering just above the surface.  Finally we turned onto the long land bridge that connects Saint Michel to the mainland and I was there.  I departed, with a quick Merci to my private chauffeur, and got in line behind the hoards of Japanese tourists funneling their way into the entrance.  It is always tourist season for the Japanese.


The walk up to the monastery takes you through a street of vendors and miniature hotels, boarding rooms, bars, restaurants, speed lightening French, banner colors, and cobble stones.  Up on the ramparts in just a moment and the whole bay is opened up looking not so much like land but the solidified twistings of milk poured into tea.  It was beautiful.  I took my time getting into the actual structure capping the island, barely able to break away from the breath taking view.  Though I had come there to see the church itself, so after a time I did finally break away from the walls make my way up those long steps to the top.
The interior is spectacular.  It's no Sacre Coeur, but that's not necessarily the point either.  Instead the majesty of the building is not so much found it its main church, but in the endless switch-backing stairways opening up to yet another balcony or courtyard over looking yet another stunning portrait of the bay.  The place seems never ending.  Once you think you've descended your last set of steps into your last giant chamber making you wonder what these people intended to do with so many big empty rooms you only ended up finding yourself in yet another.  On and on.  It reminded me in many ways of a castle and less of a church, which makes sense considering its strategic position on the island and the fact that it was attacked several times and never fell.  As I was getting to the end of my visit I came to the room of the "Big Wheel" - cunningly named.  It was a literally a big wheel in an elaborate pulley system to bring things from the base of the Mont up.  Or at least that's what I gathered.  I decided not to buy the fancy audio guide for seven euro.  I walked over to the window where the chain from the wheel disappeared out, but as I leaned from the ledge I spooked a pigeon that was roosting just below the frame causing it to spring up and crap on my shoulder as it disappeared into the beams above.  This should have been a sign.  Well, the real sign should have been all the pigeon poop on the floor of that room, but still lets all stop for a moment and consider how many ways this was a sign of all the literal and figurative crap I was about to encounter in the next several hours.  Though I didn't know it.  No.  Instead I just pulled my ticket from my pocket and scraped off as much as I could and then found a bathroom to deal with the rest.  As you might have imagined that little treasure was a bit of buzz kill, and so I decided that was a good as time as any to leave.  Besides I knew I needed to leave soon.  I had already been there for an hour and it was getting close to four o'clock.  If I didn't leave soon who knew how long it was going to take to get home.  Not to mention that tiny itsy bitsy problem of well: night.  A thought that had crossed my mind fleetingly and now might be crossing yours seeing as I brought it up.  Okay, so it's spring - or the very end of winter - and sun sets around what?  Seven o'clock?  In fact I wasn't really sure.  It wasn't something I'd really paid attention to in the last couple of weeks.  I had noticed the days were getting longer, but how long could they really have gotten?  Who knows.  Either way it was time to leave and as the rain had slowed to a drizzle it was feeling like now or never.

So I left, pack slung over my shoulder, boots strapped tight.  I had with me as follows: One pair of Steve Madden leather boots that were already falling apart along the inside, one pair of jeans, socks underwear that whole lot, a black wool sweater over a t-shirt, my gray spring jacket with a hit of bird crap still on the shoulder, my trusty messenger bag containing two books, a crossant, an apple, a bottle of water, three journals, an entire art store of writing utensils, my multi-tool (a last minute idea but a good one), a box of matches, a map, and my iPod.  Bulletproof.  Basically as well equipped as that guy that got his arm stuck under a boulder - but my knife was sharper.
I wasn't sure exactly how the trail started.  On the map it said it led right down the landbridge and then turned east towards Avranches, but I didn't see any signs the whole walk down the bridge and thanks to the low tide it was hard to tell when the "land" started and the "sea" began.  But I kept walking and kept my eyes open.  I was used to spotting trail markers thanks to my dad and I figured I know it when I saw it.  The road went on for a ways and eventually opened up into the town on the other side and a small dam on the west side of the road.  I stopped and took out my map.  Best I could tell, the trail was supposed to start right where I was standing just north of the dam, but looking around all I could see was farm fields and some kind of Saint Michel Supper Club already filled with patrons looking for a little aperitif.  On the west side of the road was a small fence and some kind of head stone so I crossed to get a better look.  The stone, as I got closer, had written in French the instructions for deciphering the trail markers of the GR-22.  Okay, that's a good sign.  This must be the start of the trail.  But where is the trail?  The only thing that could have been a path was blocked by a large gate that was chained and padlocked.  Not a good sign.  On the other side of the gate was a bit of field leading towards the supper club and bordered on the north by a low dyke.  I contemplated my options.  Head towards the road see if I can follow that towards Avranches or see if I can hop this fence.  I knew the road was bad news so I walked left, away from the supper club and parallel to the low dyke.  There was a fence here as well, a low one maybe just past my waist but armed with barbed wire.  Perhaps this is why that tourist lady gave me that look.  Would have been nice to have been given a warning.  But was this the trail?  Was I expected to jump this fence?  Probably not.  But I did anyway.  A found a post that was sticking out a little sideways and climbed up and over it without much of a problem.  Okay, so I'd either started my journey or committed a crime.  I wasn't sure so I climbed up to the top of the dyke and what should I see but a small post hammered into the ground with a yellow horizontal stripe painted on it identical to the one marking the GR-22 on that headstone.  Alright, I guess I found it.  Time to walk.
I followed along the top of the dyke for about a kilometer before I came upon my first farmhouse.  You see the way the trail is designed it follows along the top of this dyke which acts as a kind of natural wall for sheep that the farmers let in and out depending on the tide to eat up all the lush grass on the north side of the dyke.  As it was getting later in the day the shepherd at this particular farm was already letting his flock home and the dyke followed (as well as the trial markers) all the way back to the barn with his flock.  I felt as though I was just another sheep being herded in by those yelping dogs, following after the lead with its little clanging bell all glassy eyed and thoughtless.  Once I'd followed the signs as far as they would go a small fence (marked in yellow) needed to be hoped before I could get out of there.  The only problem was now I was on the road and there weren't any more trail markers.  I looked around confused.  I knew I was supposed to hop that fence.  I was sure of it.  It was built low with a little foot step so you just clamber right over but the sheep couldn't escape, but then where was the trail?  The map did me no good.  It said the trail just kept on going along the shore.  Okay?
I started out onto the road continuing east looking around for where the GR-22 was supposed to cut back onto the dyke, but nothing.  As car after car whizzed by me at daringly sociopathic speeds I decided that I needed to do something.  This was stupid.  There was no way this was where I was supposed to be.  This is not a trail.  This is the shoulder of a road.  I looked north across a corn field and saw the dyke running parallel to me.  That had to be my trail, but I had already gone too far from the farm where I'd gotten lost so it wouldn't do me much good to turn back.  I would have to cut across the farm.  It seemed simple enough.
I waited until there seemed to be the clearest bit of land in the field, a small ditch running straight through towards the dyke - I didn't just want to go marching across some one's property willy nilly.  I figured this was my best bet, so when there was a break in traffic I made a break for it.  Crossed the road, jumped the ditch and started walking.  The ground was drenched and the mud made it difficult to walk.  By this point my pants were already soaked from all the grass on the dyke and I was wishing I had a raincoat.  The best thing I could was pop my collar and try and keep my balance.  Just as I arrived at the dyke I discovered my new problem. The little ditch I was following was full of water, some kind of irrigation system I assumed, but it cut me off from the dyke which was also surrounded in another barbed wire fence.  It would be one heck of a jump if I could make it and then even still the ground being as wet as it was my just give out underneath me if I made it.  I looked around and realized I wasn't wrong, but there weren't any other options.  Okay, all those years of climbing on my house, jumping off of things, running and creating a nuisance of myself at local children's parks was finally going to pay off.  I found the thinnest part of the stream and aimed myself towards the a post in the fence, took a couple steps back and went for it.  I hit the other side and quickly grabbed at the fence post, stabilizing myself so that I could quietly celebrate.  A moment later I'd hopped the fence never once getting caught in the barbed wire and climbed back up on the dyke where (as I'd hoped) was another trail marker.  Time to keep walking.
This went on for kilometers and kilometers.  Switching through and back towards more and more farms, more flocks of sheep, more farmers and their dogs.  Marker after marker, sheep poop after sheep poop I walked.  I kept taking glances behind me at Saint Michel gauging it against the far-off image of it I'd seen from Avranches' park trying to determine how close I was getting.  Not very.

Almost seven, I had made it to La Pointe de Roche Torin which the trail markers had been clicking off the distance to since I started.  The Pointe was spectacular.  I took a moment to walk out to the very tip where someone had stacked up a column of rocks thinking from a distance "Are those rocks?  I bet they're rocks.  Yup, they're rocks.  Awesome."  I finished off my water and took a look at my map to see if I could find where this spot was exactly.  Where is it exactly you might ask?  It's only half way.  I had been walking for over three hours and I was only half way.  Holy crap.  That's not good.  You see I wasn't particularly tired (though I was covered in mud and crap up to my knees and no that's not an exaggeration - some ways back I had stepped on what looked like just another bit of ground but turned out to be a quicksand like spot of mud that nearly swallowed me whole) but I was noticing the time now.  Almost seven?!  I looked up at the faceless gray sky and noticed for the first time that it was darkening.  This wasn't good.  I'm only half way, maybe less than that and it's almost night.  I did some quick guess work in my head and figured if I humped it I could make it to Pontaubault (the next town) by eight, but that the way things were going it was likely going to get too dark to see out here before then.  I figured I had till 7:45 before total black out.  The sky was too covered for stars and the moon was only half-full that night and wouldn't do me much good.  Not to mention the fact that I shouldn't be expecting any kind of lighting out along the coast between bleak farmland and nothingness.  No this wouldn't do.  I needed to think.  The map showed that just after the Pointe the trail curled back momentarily along a country road before heading back out to the water.  Okay, so I'll start walking, gauge the coming of night against my speed, do my best to hurry, and make a decision when it comes to that.  What else could I do?
I was on the road in a minute and I started walking with that renewed sense of determination that can only be urged from the conscience oncoming of disaster.
I kept to the shoulder of the road, still following the trail markers that were now painted on to telephone polls and quickened my pace.  This wasn't time to sight see.  This also wasn't time for panic.  It's good to use fear to encourage yourself but its foolish to let it get to you so much that you don't think straight, especially now.  Especially now that I'm haunting the shoulder of this country road while the sun sets invisible behind me.  No, this is the time to move and keep moving and keep my head.  And laugh a little.  Things that I remembered my dad telling me about hiking: never do it at night, French trails are the worst marked trails and some of the worst trails in the world, and never never never walk along the road if you can help it.  It's hard not to laugh when you're blatantly doing everything you're not supposed to be doing.  Things I suddenly came to realize: I didn't have a phone, no internet for my iPod, I had told no one, and I mean no one, where I was going, and if I died out here the maid would definitely steal my computer.  Keep walking.  I only had one goal.  Get back before the bar closed at 10 o'clock.  There was no way I was going to beat the sun.  I was going to be walking into the night and that was that, but I could get back to Avranches in time to buy my first drink at a hotel bar and say cheers to not dying anonymously in some French ditch with bits of somebody's headlights stuck into my back like the aftermath of some homemade bomb.  It seemed like a good goal at the time.
A small farming town appeared ahead - a collection of maybe three or four homes - and the trail banked north back towards the water.  It wasn't night yet, but it was getting very close.  I'd already had a few close encounters with some cars on the other hand and I stopped at the crossroad to think.  I took my map from my bag and squinted through the deepening dusklight to see if there might be an answer there. The trail would cut north and head that direction for some time before meeting back up with the water and then heading east again, the direction I needed to go.  The road on the other hand stayed a country road, never meeting up with any of the other major roads and yet was basically a straight shot to Pontaubault.  There was no choice to make.  Stay to the road.  I closed my map and put it back into my backpack.  It wouldn't do me any more good now.  It was getting too dark to see.
I kept up along the road, walking as fast as I could lighting matches every once in awhile to keep myself busy though it wasn't so bad yet that I couldn't make out ground or the road, but I toyed with the idea that doing so would somehow alert cars to my existence should they not see me.  I kept to the wider shoulder, switching sides when a bend in the road came so I'd be more visible to traffic coming around, but luckily didn't run into much at all.  As the sun finally set I walked under the outlying streetlights of Pontaubault.  Perfect timing.
It was eight o'clock and by the sign I'd seen on the road it was still over ten kilometers to Avranches from here.  I would need to cut through the town and then head cross the bridge that connected this side of the river from the one Avranches was on.  With the help of the streetlights I could read my map again and see that after I crossed the bridge the road continued straight to Avranches, actually turning into the street my hotel was on oddly enough, but was definitely no country road like the one I'd been on.  This was a major road connecting these two towns.  What to do, what to do.   I thought for a moment of taking some of the more winding smaller roads to avoid traffic but decided my odds of having streetlights  and guardrails to protect me were better than anything I could get from those old back roads.  Besides I know how people drive on those roads.  Flash backs to high school were filling my mind of friends of mine (me sulking in the back seat) throwing pumpkins from the windows of their cars as they zipped up to 90 miles per hour.  No, at least on bigger roads there is some kind of law.  At least on major roads I can get home sooner.
The bridge came up ahead and was equipped with a sidewalk.  I continued as far as the town would allow before I plunged back into darkness, now keeping well to the right shoulder but with enough space not to fall into the ditch that had grown aptly deeper than the last one I'd walked along.  Thanks to a bit of luck and some common sense I hadn't been listening to my iPod and so had full battery.  I took it out now for the first time and switched my lock screen to the brightest picture I had on file, then held it to my back pressing the home button every couple of seconds so that it would stay on and I would be visible to cars.  I didn't have any reflectors so this would have to do.  It was better than nothing.
This went on for over an hour.  Me trucking along, keeping to the outside of guardrails when they were available and waving my iPod around behind my back.  Secretly I was hoping that a car would stop and offer me a ride.  I kept practicing what I would say in French over and over to keep my mind busy and away from thinking about all the things that could go wrong.  My biggest fear at the time was actually not the cars.  I figured my little iPod trick was a good one and cars were giving me a wide birth when they came by.  No, instead I was worried that in those moments when the traffic thinned and I fell into complete darkness that I would lose my footing and slip into the ditch.  I was in a bad enough jam without having a twisted ankle or worse and so when I could I brought my iPod out in front of me and used it like a flashlight to light my way and make sure I hadn't wandered too close to the drop-off.  You see I have a bit of a history of falling off of things.  As some of you may know when I was younger, back in Tennessee with the family I absently walked right off a bridge and into the water below while up in the Appellations, which ended with me walking back wearing only my skivvies and an oversized sweater.  Then there was that time that I fell off my bike in Colorado, flipping right over the handle bars and skidding along the pavement, which ended with me walking my bike back into town and then pouring disinfectant on my arm for a week afterwards.  But not this time.  I was going to keep my balance and I was going to remain intact (of course this was still my secondary goal, if I could make it back to the bar before ten o'clock with a broken leg it'd still be a success though albeit less of one admittedly).
More walking and I was almost there.  Some seven kilometers from Avranches and signs of civilization began to appear.  The most interesting one to me was some kind of weird TGI Fridays like steakhouse with a symbol above it looking not unlike the Mooby Cow from the movie Dogma.  You see at this point my light snack was a thing of the past, a kind of minor ancient biblical text that had all but been forgotten and I was looking for a new thing to worship.  The Mooby Cow here I come.
I crossed the road and stumbled into the filled parking lot of French autos.  As I went inside I was met with a kneejerk hospitality as well as a far more revealing French glare at my boots and overall appearance.  I must admit I wasn't exactly dressed for the occasion, bird crap on my shoulder, sheep crap on my feet, stinking of my own manly musk.  Clearly I'm not their usual patron.  But I had money and they gave me a seat away from the other patrons and served me quickly.  I ate as much as I could take.  A big burger and fries, an entire carafe of water, and then I thought (why not) order desert.  I ordered the rice pudding and called it quits.  I asked for the check and wasn't until I was back out on the road still seven kilometers from home now painfully aware of every muscle in my body that I realized it wasn't such a good idea to have ordered the rice pudding.  In fact it was just stupid.
Fighting now through stomach cramps and the sudden surge of fatigue that follows any oversized meal I carried on.  An hour later I was back on sidewalks and streetlights were shining above me.
My hotel appeared up ahead and I walked in with five minutes to spare.  Without a moment's pause I turned to the woman working the front desk and asked her if the bar was still open.  She smiled and I ordered a cognac.  A big one.  Plopped down in front of the hotel lobby TV and drank every last drop slow and smooth while watching some special on ancient peoples in Mexico reenacted with painful authenticity even going so far as to show the cave man peeing on the ground and then picking up the soggy dirt in his hands like it was some kind of miracle.
I'd like to say that after this I went back up to my room, collapsed into blissful sleep, and that was that.  But the truth was that after I payed it was another hour of me cleaning my boots and pants in the shower with the complimentary towels that I now fear to think what the maid thought of when she found them the next day after checkout.

But I was alive.  I was exhausted as well, but I still had to set my alarm early so that I could make it back to the city the next day on the bus scheduled to leave at eleven.  Back down the steep hill, across the bridge, down that dirt path mocking me with its little yellow trail marking.

See really this whole story is an explanation for why when I finally did make it back to Paris it was of the upmost importance to buy new shoes and why it was okay in fact to buy two pair and then go to Zara's and spend my life savings on an entire new wardrobe to go with my cool new shoes and it's not really my fault after all then really, so yeah.  I didn't have a choice really.  That's not entirely true.  I did spend a lot at Zara's and Andre's but not my life savings.  On the bright side I look smashing and I didn't die.  Which really only leaves me one last thing to do.  Go to bed...

Oh, but before that I have a quick announcement.  For all those that actually read this entire thing and made it to the bottom (can't believe there isn't a character limit on these things) I would like to let you know that I am going to Africa.  Morocco actually, Marrakech.  I will be there for a week in April and if there is some nick-knacky thing you want me to pick up for you from the souks just let me know!  Here's where I'll be staying:

http://www.equity-point.com/en/hostels-marrakech/equity-point-marrakech/general-information-marrakech-hostel.html