Getting up and going to the bathroom was very hard and painful. Several times, it hurt bad enough that I had to grunt and curse. I was constantly wincing.
I woke up for good about 9am and my first impulse was to get out of the house. My plan was to stay away as long as I could to avoid another evening like the last one. My first task was changing the dressing on my arm. It was hellish removing the gauze that was stuck to my wounds. It didn't look bad and I took picture that a friend later called a self-portrait.
The entire house was crammed with stuff and the bathroom was no different. There were clothes in the bathtub so I didn't even consider taking a shower.
I quietly limped down the stairs only to see Teri sacked out on the couch, dead to the world. I went out without a key having no idea when I'd return or what I might find when I did.
Angouleme is a larger, older city. The area where Teri lived had narrow, cobblestone streets full of shops and small squares. I found a boulangerie and bought two pain au chocolates. I had a hot chocolate at a cafe and eventually walked down to the central marketplace where I bougth and ate some fruit.
Angouleme is on a hill overlook the Charente river and its plane.
It also has a majestic town hall.
I wondered over to the Tourist Information office to see what I might see while I was there. As it turns out, Angouleme is a major comic book center. They even have a statue of Herge (Georges Remi), the creator of Tin Tin in one of the public squares. Unfortunately, the Comicbook Museum wasn't open until the afternoon. The other thing of interest, the war resister's museum, wasn't open until the afternoon,either. I went to a pharmacy and bought some "bruise cream" (Arnican) and some more ibuprofen. I walked down the pedestrian mall to the Place de Concorde, a large plaza with a underground mall.
I passed an internet cafe with low rates (3 Euros/hour) and asked if the clerk there knew of a Chinese or Indian restaurant in the area. He gave me directions to three of them and I went in search of lunch. I eventually found all three restaurants and the only one that had anything vegetarian to eat was an Indian place that closed just as I found it. I ended up eating pre-made Chinese back at the underground mall. It was food is all I can say.
I, then, spent several hours at the internet cafe reading and responding to email, writing up a trip report, and even talking to my wife over Skype. It was about 5pm when I was done working on the net and I realized I had no where to go but back to Teri's house. My plan was to go to bed and try to sleep for the rest of the night without having to deal with Teri or Boo. I didn't want to seem ungrateful for Teri's hospitality but I also didn't want to buy her dinner, so I bought some flowers on the way back to her place as thanks.
After taking it easy all day, I was feeling a bit better. The best news was that nothing hurt worse and I was having no problems breathing. That said, both walking and sitting weren't painfree activities.
When I got back to Teri's house, she was just getting up. She said that her and Boo had stayed up until 7am the night before. I told her I was tired and went right up to bed, where I had the same problems getting down to it and finding a comfortable position.
I dozed off and on until Boo came into my room and asked to see the bruise on my leg, which was quite large and purple by this time. He touched it, shook his head, and left. A while later, Teri came up and did the same thing. Fifteen minutes later, both Teri and Boo came up and checked the bruise out again and started in on me again about going to the hospital.
I tried the same gambits from the previous evening: I don't need to go, It's my body and I'm not worried, let me alone to live my life as I want, etc. But, they kept it up. At one point, Teri asked me if I'd ever known an Algerian before. When I said that I hadn't, she said that they are very concerned people and when an Algerian is worried about you, you have to do what they say. I was getting pissed off at this point and wondered what my options were. It was clear that this hectoring wouldn't stop and would only get worse as they drank more. I wondered how much it could cost to go to the hospital and then thought that it couldn't hurt to be seen by another doctor and it would certainly get these two alcoholics off my back. So, I agreed to go to the hospital but that when I returned, I was going to leave.
Since they didn't own a car, their plan was to get a friend to drive me to the hospital. When I got dressed and came downstairs, it became clear that their friend wasn't home and they had called the emergency ambulance number. Boo was busy trying to convince the person on the telephone to send an ambulance to get me. He would occasionally asked me a question like "How old are you?" but most of the conversation was in French. After about 10 minutes, it became clear that no ambulance would be sent.
At that point, I got up and announced that I had had enough and was going leave. I went upstairs, packed my bags and brought them down. This took about 10 minutes. Both Boo and Teri weren't quite sure what to do. At first, they tried to talk me out of it. I told them that I was leaving because my presence was causing them concern and the best way for me fix that was to leave. Teri caught on but Boo seemed to get offended. He started asking me where I would spend the night and when I replied that I intended to rent a hotel room, he asked where I would find a hotel room. I answered that I would go to the train station. Almost menacingly, he asked if I thought I knew everything. I said that I knew where the train station was. This dialog was repeated a couple of times.
Since my bike had been taken apart the previous night, I had to assemble it before I could leave. This required Boo's help. While I got this together, the above dialog was repeated yet again. As soon as the bike was operable, I put the bags on it, somehow managed to get my leg over and was off. It was just after 9:30pm.
The cobblestoned street that Teri lived on jarred my ribs so much that I yell "ouch" several times. No matter how much it hurt, I was relieved to be out of there! I didn't need to pedal, as it was downhill to the town center.
At the bottom of the hill, I stopped at the first hotel as was told it was full. I struggled back onto the bike and coasted to the next one. It, too, was full and the clerk told me that all hotels in Angouleme would be full because there weren't enough hotels in Angouleme and this was always the case. I asked where the nearest available hotel room would be and he said 6 kilometers down the main road. This news hit me like a punch in the stomach. I wandered out of the hotel wondering if there was any chance that I could ride 6 kilometers in the dark.
Finally, my brain kicked in and I realized I was right down the street from the train station and I might be able to get a taxi to take both me and my bike to the hotel. I rode over there and was able to explain to the assembled taxi drivers what I wanted to do. The one first in line said that he could get my bike in his car and started moving things around. We were able to put the bike in the back of his small van-like taxi without having to uncouple it.
He knew where the hotels were and drove me there. We talked a bit in French and I started feeling much better. The first hotel we stopped at was full. I got a bad feeling but the next place, a Formula One around the corner has a vacancy. The Formula One hotels are bare bones establishments that don't even have a front desk. Instead, you put a credit card into an ATM-like machine, punch up what you want, and get a code to enter to open the door of the room number displayed on the screen.
The taxi driver helped carry my bike and bags up the stairs, as there was no elevator. I was very grateful for all the help the driver gave me and tipped him well. As it turned out, the room and the taxi ride cost me the same: 29 Euros.
The hotel room had a double bed and, above it, a single bed-sized platform. It also had a sink but no toilet. Both the shower and toilet were down the hall. This meant that I had to carry the room code with me whenever I went to the bathroom.
I was greatly relieved to be out of Teri's house and have a bed for the night. I prepared some pasta and managed to get undressed and on the bed and to sleep. Here is what the bruise on my hip looked like 24 hours after the event. While the bruise is dramatic, it didn't hurt much. The real pain was my ribs, which in this picture look completely normal.
