Day 33 - Paris to Beauvais - ride total 2,612 k, 17,360 m

After our six days in Paris for the Olympics it was time to go on the bike and begin the next phase of our ride and that is North to Dunkirk. Before we left the Hostel we were invited by Donna to perform the "Japanese Coal Miners" action song! Donna is a Japanese American from Manhattan and is capturing people to do the above song as she is assisting the IOC to come up with a montage of people performing the song to somehow be incorporated in to the closing ceremony.

So what's the backstory behind a Japanese song at the Paris Olympics? You may recall that the 2020 Olympics kind of didn't happen in 2020 and were replaced by the 2020 Olympics being held in 2021 in Covid lock down conditions. Poor old Japan missed out on all the parlava to do with holding the Olympics. And this montage is to acknowledge how tough it was for Japan.

So after the shooting of our video for Donna it was an easy ride out of Paris alongside the canals once again. We stopped so the boys could have their coffee and we grabbed some breakfast. It took us about 23 km to clear the city and that happened as it died over here instantly in that one minute you are in the city and the next minute you are beside a large commercial farms wheat field. After that there mostly small villages (a small village is one without a boulangerie and our Cafe). We did though find a good boulangerie at about the 55 km mark and had a nice filled baugatte.

We made good time to Beauvais and stopped on the way in for a drink and then headed on to the apartment. 

We were there by 2:45 for a 3:00 p. m. Check in, however as one finds with these things sometimes things don't always work out as planned.

Stephen phoned the host however as our French is about as good as their English and thought the gist of it was please wait. We did wait, then at 3:15 phoned again. Our French had not improved not had their English. We did though hear " WhatsApp". So we key in a 12 digit phone number and craft a simple message.

Progress, albeit the response required a bit of deciphering. They had attached two videos on how to access the apartment - literally a video walk through from opening the front door of the Apartment building, to opening the lobby door up the flight of stairs to access the lift and what button to push!

Even after that things didn't go like clockwork but eventually an hour after arrival we managed to gain access to our very roomy apartment - even if it is on the 8th floor - why is it when you have a bike that you ideally want to sleep with each night that the accommodation very rarely is at ground level with ranchslider access?

Now onto something that I find quite sad. That is the extent of the homelessness and beggars one sees in the cities and towns over here - the extent of it is far greater I would suggest that at home and many of these people I am guessing are truly homeless - their place of birth would appear to be many thousands of km's from where they are now - the escape from poverty, oppreshion, slavery or whatever it was that made them risk all for a better life has not eventuated for some and here in a City where billions of dollars has been spent on providing a place for the worlds elite athletes to come and play and countries to proudly show off their sports people.

The people begging are of both genders (or multi should that be) whereas the people who are asleep on the pavement at all hours of the day and night appear to be almost entirely males whose family probably at some time have come from Africa at some time.

It is so sad to see these people and yet I have no answer as to how the problem can be solved.

It does however make my grizzle about the difficulty we encounter in getting our accommodation sorted seem something like no problem at all! 

Another older male person we saw alseep (and waking up as we passed by) was a man sleeping in a bottle on the canal adjacent to Stade France. Yes sleeping in a bottle on the canal. Admittedly it was a pretty big bottle at 6 metres by 2, however a bottle all the same.

Man in bottle.