So I may be a nerd...
Ok, maybe just a failed nerd.
Failed because it took me over two years to successfully acquire the most powerful nerd-tool available. Last month, I finally earned my St. Paul Public Library Card. An important merit badge of nerd-dom.
But when I finally get around to 'going' there, I 'go' all out nerd... with my new free license to knowledge.... What did I check out on loan?
Travel books.
NERD!
Travel books on a then-upcoming trip to Montreal. Internet searching is painfully slow here. But a book! A glorious book! I can take that along in my travel bag. I won't even start in on how useful the pocket sized, folded, waterproof map will be!
I spent a good week skimming those pages and geeking myself up.
My legs hit French colonized soil. The book only came out while I was afoot in the city. Pointing my toes in the right direction. That little laminated piece of illustrated city - sooo useful. I knowledgeably walked that whole freaking city.
Once Steph joined me our strides carried us down to the Vieux-Port (Old Port) in Vieux-Montréal (Old Montreal) along the Fleuve Saint-Laurent (Saint Laurence River). Yes, that is all the French I learned. 17th Century building span the waterfront of the Old city. Towering behind that wall of history is modernism in full force. G-Force even. Glass ribboned skyscrapers lurking behind the Roman Catholic figures lining the Port. As all rivers do, the St. Laurence seemed to run forever. We needed a better way to cover further ground.
All throughout Montreal, you see these:
Commuter bike rental stations. The Bixi. Directions in French, of course. I searched my photographic memory (exaggerated for the sake of the story) for flashes of the Bixi. I vaguely remembered a blurb saying something about them being $5 for a half hour, but that $5 can get you a whole day of riding if you manage to check in at one of the stations within that 30 minute limit. Of course, that article was in the book that I left on my living room table, not the book in the bag that straddled my aching shoulder...
We're women of the gambling nature, so we put all our money on my vague flash and let it ride...literally. We start shoving credit cards into the French machine and pushing any button that leads to anywhere. At one point the screen reads $250.00. The four eyes between the two of us grew wide for a second, but the trust was deep and the idea was grand. Continued to button mash until a receipt printed with a numeric code at the bottom.
Bingo. Punch in our code. Rip our bikes from the rack. And ROLL!
The Bixi stations are whizzing by on our right as the river dictates our route on the left. Well, as fast as anything can whiz when you are riding a 70 lb. tank of a bike with 4 inch tires. The stations flew too soon and frequent. We ride into our 20th minute and realize the trail is starting to look less 'commuter' and more 'leisure'. We start wondering where and when we may see the next station.
You see, despite it's appeal to foreigners, Montreal's Bixi is not a tourist system. As we pushed all those buttons and tried to decipher the giant red sign that flags each station, we realized one thing: There's no map. There is no way of visually identifying where this program takes you. A huge red sign with a big blank back to it. Perfect for a starred map of the city. But no. We had no point of reference. We also had no idea what would happen if we didn't make the 30 minute limit. Was that the context of the 250 dollar amount we saw stated in foreign text?
This was my brain at the 23 minute mark:
Hmm, another tunnel up ahead.
The trees are growing more dense.
I think the last Bixi was 3 minutes ago.
Uhhh... when is the next one?
I can't see one!
I can't see one!
This is starting to look kinda rural....
Is that red thing....? Nope, not a Bixi sign...
Maybe we should turn BACK.
Maybe we should turn BACK.
How long would it take us to turn around?
AHHHH it's minute 27!
My voice in my head was quivering, so I finally let my uncertainties vomit aloud. Steph's head was doing the same. We both just spent the last 10 minutes panicked, unable to enjoy the view. Some leisure ride! We decide to turn around and huff it to the sure thing we passed 4 minutes ago. Well, at least as much as one can huff it when you are riding a 70 lb. tank of a bike with 4 inch tires!
I spot the red flag of a sign and as we near..... The entire Bixi rack is full minus one spot! We strategize in quick, sharp tongues as we dismount our Bixis. She got her bike first and is less one minute than me, so if she checks in and then checks out really quick... I can follow suit. Fast forward button mashing!
We end up making the time crunch but our nerves are so shot, neither one of us are ecstatic about the idea of continuing on. BUT now we are stuck! The option of checking both bikes in at this location isn't possible with only one slot open. We forge ahead with no direction and diminishing fun. The sure bet would be to point our front wheels towards downtown. That's where we head.
An hour and a half time spent and we ditch our bikes at the first station we see with two stalls. We walk away knowing that our feet won't stress us out. Good old, reliable feet. And then we laugh.
We laugh at how great the idea was to explore a foreign city via bicycle. We giggle about how pedal commuter friendly this city is and how badly we wanted to be apart of that. We chuckle about how we thought we were figuring out this French system in our own stupid, American way. But mostly, what got us to the point of tears was that we were bested by the Bixi. Somehow an idea that had so much potential for fun turned into the worst, most anxious moments of travels together.
The day continued on and ended up with us at a bar late a night with a friend of Steph's playing tour guide. The host had a short walk home, which left us to our own means of making it across town. We had learned the hard way that although bars stay open until 3am, the city metro latched the revolving doors at 1am. In a 2am moment of brilliance we both thought.... the Bixis! We thought we'd give it another shot since the money was good all day. We had the relief of knowing there was a station directly in front of the Chateau Versailles. We commit to that plan and start walking her friend home with the promise of seeing some stations along the way.
I see one, hmmm... Wierd, that's empty. There was a soccer game that night maybe everyone rode them out of downtown drunk? Another! Empty. Third? Empty. Just our luck... it must have been Bixi maintance night. Every single Bixi in the city had been collected as we downed beers while taxadermied ostriches loomed overhead.
DAMMIT it's 3am and we were bested by the Bixi's AGAIN!
So you'll understand why my heart jumped to my throat when I saw this driving home last Wednesday:
THE BIXIS ARE COMING!
And then on Thursday:
THE BIXIS ARE HERE!
....at least MPLS' got a map: http://www.niceridemn.org/
Oh and I ended up with a big nerdy fine of those travel books.... what an idiot!
