Grenoble: March 2015

The Throwback may refer to a 1978 satirical novel by Tom Sharpe where, as with all Tom Sharpe novels (apparently), chaos ultimately ensues! Throwback (Vol. 1) is also a 2004 Boyz 2 Men R&B Funk Album, and a Throwback is at the same time the American brand name used by PepsiCo for its soft drinks that use beet sugar as a sweetener instead of high fructose corn syrup (however since 2014 in most areas they've replaced the name with the -- I guess -- more classic "Pepsi-Cola Made With Real Sugar"). But here, throwback simply means that I'm posting pictures of bygone days when we lived in France and everything was more-or-less photo-worthy.

And there we are just hanging out on the steps of the Château de Vizille, held during the French Wars of Religion by the Catholics until 1593 when it was bought by the leader of the Protestant army, owned later by the Perier family until the late nineteenth century, and becoming property of the French State -- and a summer residence for the President -- until 1973 when it was given to the Community of Isère where it is now the home to the museum of the French Revolution. The sun shone, the birds sang, and the fresh mountain air left our legs feeling wispy, and ready for a rest on the castle steps.

Joelle has always dreamed of heading to the Big City. Strolling through Covent Garden Market, shopping for perhaps an exotic cat of some kind at Harrods, having high tea at the Ritz, taking in a matinee musical before dining in luxury at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, sipping a martini made with the Queen's gin at Duke's Bar in SoHo, and picnicking in High Park. So when the opportunity finally presents itself, Joelle is all over it like white on rice (as they say). She books the very next Munich-London connection, arranges a Monday off of work for good measure, and begins patiently waiting for her Big City Long Weekend to begin.

The Friday finally arrives and Joelle can hardly contain herself. She sets off for work at 8:00 AM sharp knowing that exactly twelve hours hence she will be at a cruising altitude of approx. 30,000 ft. sipping a tonic water, London-bound. The day is uneventful. Despite minor incidents involving peanut butter, epi-pens, a little anaphylactic shock here and there, some late-triggering reflexes of children realizing they need to make it to the bathroom, and a microwaved egg, the workday is standard. And though its passing feels a little slower than usual, the end of the day finally comes and Joelle jumps on her pristine, hand-crafted in one of the only remaining manufacturing sites in West London, sage green Brompton and pedals the little wheels as fast as she can pedal them to make it home next to the train tracks and begins the final preparations for her long-awaited trip.

Meanwhile, Pemulis is slaving away at Company X, innovating like crazy, pushing the human race forward, you can quote him, disagree with him, glorify or vilify him, about the only thing you can't do is ignore him (well actually it's pretty easy), but the people who are crazy enough to think that they can get anything done at Company X, really are just bat s#$& delusional crazy. But it's Friday and though he's been so many times to Londinium that they even minted a commemorative coin in celebration of his previous visit, with appearances by William, Kate, and little George, plus Posh and Becks, and of course Benedict Cumberpatch, he's still pretty excited about the trip too, and given the nearly completely empty office, he takes off a little early as well.

Pemulis naturally rides in style as well on a more traditional 'racing green' 2014 Brompton, albeit upgraded with six gears for those pesky Munich hills, and in little time, in broad daylight, he's within minutes of the train track home. Pemulis is obeying both to the letter and entirely within the spirit of all road rules and regulations plus any and all societal norms of cycling and respect and giving way and humanism and all that comes with it when all of the sudden a huge, beastly, bulging Mercedes taxi van, driven by a man in a blue leisure suit -- the plates are from Kansas I think -- decides to make an abrupt left turn with no signal and most importantly not even the semblance of looking at all, and crashes directly into Pemulis's beautiful once-pristine racing green Brompton folding bicycle (hand-crafted in West London), sends Pemulis tumbling from the bicycle, rolling several times on the pavement, until he comes to a stop against a metal poll and slumps over following the brunt of the unmitigated ferocious attack of the mighty Mercedes taxi van.

Pemulis is in shock and laying helpless sprawled upon the ground. The taxi driver springs out of his car and though this is probably a really really bad idea due to spinal injury possibilities and all that he heaves Pemulis up into a sitting position and begins asking him in German (obv) if he's alright. The driver keeps asking things in German (obv) and Pemulis isn't saying anything due to the dual reasons of (1) he can barely speak German; and (2) he is still in quite a bit of a shock after being literally barrelled over by 2000 kg of German powered cold steel. The driver then asks "sprichst du Deutsch?" which I might add uses the familiar "du" (like "tu" in French) instead of the more formal "sprechen Sie Deutsch" (like "vous" in French) and that's pretty rude after nearly murdering someone I'd say, and Pemulis responds "nein" which is somewhat contradictory since the whole back-and-forth took place in that very language but there you have it.

At this point Pemulis has gained enough wherewithal to be concerned -- quite concerned, actually -- about the state of his once-beautiful hand-painted in "racing green" bicycle. This adds to his anger. First, he should be home by now getting ready for his diamond-jubilee trip to London, and he should still have a pristine racing green hand-welded in West London folding bicycle that he once even hatched an elaborate scheme, detailed on this very blog, to obtain, but instead he's sitting on a Munich pavement with a taxi man yelling away long compounded words his way, and it's all because this taxi man couldn't bother to look up from his phone (I'm convinced he was texting) before taking a left.

A man has stopped his car across the street and walks over. He gives Pemulis his contact information and says (in English) that he saw the whole thing and he would be glad to be a witness and testify against this terrible example of the way German people should drive in a court of law (the statement that is) on any day of the week, provided it's not a Sunday because come on we're all Catholics here. Taxi man interestingly tries to prevent this exchange from happening by telling nice contact-exchanging God-fearing Catholic guy to mind his own business! Seriously! Another taxi man who saw the whole thing from the gas station across the street also comes over and starts arguing with my taxi man and tries to make sure that I'm -- or, Pemulis, rather, is -- OK and also offers to be a witness for poor potentially nearly-dead Pemulis.

Pemulis determines, now that his adrenaline levels have ebbed a little and he really just wants to get home and start packing, that it's time to go home. He gets the driver's contact information, takes a picture of his license plate (obscured below because although he's upset with this taxi man he does not believe in Internet vigilantism), and manages to ride his bike home.

Our heroes pack, head to London, have a great time, but Pemulis -- the worry-wort that he is -- worries about his poor bike all weekend long and really doesn't want to have to go through any lawsuits or insurance garbage or anything like that and thankfully his bruises all over his back, legs, shoulders, and arms, seem superficial, and when he takes his bike in after the trip it's fixed for 12 euros (but the scratches will be there forever you big jerk!!!) and so everything is not all that bad in the end.

And here are the pictures from the actual trip (sorry I got a bit carried away with the whole getting bowled over thing and didn't mention too many details about London itself but they say a picture is worth a thousand words so here are ten thousand more words on our trip plus another 2 thow [pronounced like the short-form of "thousand] for some somewhat recent Munich happenings):