Two wheels, some gears and the European road

Martha Marino

PART 1: The Unexpected

Day l -June 25th: Paris

The long 14-hour flight to Paris is something I always dread. This

time, however, my seat companions made it as pleasant as a walk on

the beach.

Paul, who sat next to me from Orange County to Philadelphia, was a

medical scientist who kept me entertained with stories about his

research. He recently had worked on a vaccine for Alzheimer’s

disease, called anti amyloid and from Elan Laboratory. He mentioned

that the results from the first trial with a control group were so

encouraging that he predicted we would see it on the market within

five years. Exciting news for us aging seniors.

My next seat companion from Philadelphia was a free-spirited,

middle-aged psychologist, named Jane, traveling alone to Europe for

the first time while her ex-husband took care of their three children

for six-weeks. Gutsy, I thought, to begin backpacking at her age.

Our conversations made the time pass quickly. We talked about her

work with special needs children and her interest in spiritual

subjects, a topic I also like to discuss. She also loaned me her

magazine called Parabola, which had articles on spiritual topics from

the viewpoint of different religions. Very inspiring.

Jane was taking some special pills, called No Jet Lag from New

Zealand, and offered me a few. Every two hours I swallowed one and

took another upon arriving. They seemed to help. When I stepped off

the plane, I didn’t feel as woozy or “out of it,” as I usually do,

reducing, thank goodness, the chances of losing my travelers checks

on the first day!

When we landed at the Charles De Gaul airport early the next

morning, the customs and baggage claim areas were jammed with crowds

of people. After a long wait, I collected my duffle bag and bike box

and wheeled them on a cart to the outside of the airport to find a

taxi. I wanted to go to the suburbs of Paris where I planned to stay

a few days with my biking friends, Natalie and Daniel. I met them

while cycling along the Midi Canal two years ago.

I stood in a long line until a large station wagon drove up with a

driver willing to take my bike box. Then the unexpected happened.

When I climbed into the back seat and told the driver that I’d like

to go to Horvilles, he said there was no such place.

“No such place?” I exclaimed. “That’s impossible. I was there last

year.”

Wrinkling his forehead he just sat there and wouldn’t budge.

A pain of anxiety shot through me like an arrow. “Of course,

Horvilles exists,” I said to myself, “otherwise my letters to Daniel

and Natalie would have been returned.” At last, I scribbled down the

address and zip code on a scrap of paper and handed it to the

skeptical driver. While he plugged them into his GPS machine on the

dashboard, my heart beat at a marathon pace.

At last the painful silence ended. “Oh, it’s “ou-ee”, the driver

exclaimed.

“What?” I asked. The name didn’t sound like a word at all, but

some kind of exclamation that I might use if served a plate of

wiggling worms.

“OK, take me to ‘ou-ee’,” I repeated, trying to stress the first

syllable correctly and hoping we were talking about the same town.

Later, when I reflected about why I thought the name was

Horvilles--and not spelled Houilles--I remembered that Daniel’s

handwriting was difficult to decipher. Like most Europeans, he had

his own style of penmanship and wrote his letters in a strange way.

My former Italian husband used to remark that all Americans write

exactly alike, something I considered an advantage.

After we arrived in Paris another drama enfolded, adding to my

“already” nervous state. Instead of following the main highways, like

Daniel had done last year when he picked me up at my hotel in Paris,

the driver began zigzagging down narrow, crooked streets. “Where are

we going?” I demanded, fearing that he was he was taking me to some

forsaken place where I would end up minus all my euros.

“I’m going down back streets to avoid detours and traffic,” he

explained. For the next hour, we inched through town after town,

while the meter ticked away at an alarming rate.

Just when I thought my trip would never end, I spotted my friends’

two-story corner house peaking over a tall hedge.

“Here we are,” I shouted, elated to have arrived and to find that

Horvilles was really Houilles after all!

Next Episode: My Visit in Houilles

* This is the first of five pieces on Marino’s travels by bike.