Sept. 17, 2006

If I were to rank every day of this trip so far, today would be No. 9. That would be ahead of Sept. 8, which we spent in transit from Boise to Scotland (where they can't speak English).

It rained pretty heavily all day, and the highlight of touring Chamonix was finding a laundromat and getting our clothes partially clean -- maybe.

I stayed up until 4 a.m. last night squeezing more loafs out of the oven, then waiting for the Oregon State football game to come on. I paid $75 online at 2 a.m. for a yearlong subscription that will allow me to watch certain OSU football games over the net. For the first time in days we had a wireless connection in our hostel room, and I realized I could catch the game.

But remember, I'm that guy. So I waited in vein. The game didn't magically appear on my screen at 4 a.m. France time because it wasn't until next Saturday. This is a BYE week. I should have known that. I think that's why we planned our trip for this part of September. I'd miss as few Beaver games as possible and Daren would be back before the Mets started their playoff run.

So we washed our clothes today and got soaked to death. I wore a jacket over my bare skin so that I could wash as many shirts as possible. I was drenched by day's end. The only part of the day Daren and I spent together was our 2 p.m. "breakfast" -- hangover, yes -- and the part where we watched our clothes spin in circles.

We didn't have enough Euros between the two of us to buy detergent, so a nice girl from the UK loaned us the remainder of her "washing powder," which didn't quite do the trick. But everything feels fresher, I think.

Daren walked around and shopped and then maybe slept off his hangover. If you want to know what he thought of today, read his journal. Oh wait, never mind.

I did about the same thing as Daren but I skipped the nap and I shaved off my goatee for the first time in two years. But I was cold, wet and still feeling a bit irregular all day from the huge gap in our LOG book. And some e-mails I'd received from back home were bothering me, too, so I had a very negative day. I even started to think everyone I encountered didn't like me.

Maybe they didn't, because I sort of looked like a bum. If this observation wasn't one completely of the mind, I don't think it's because they're French or because they wait tables for a living.

For the most part, everyone in France has been nice to us and I'd recommend visiting to this country, absolutely! But I sensed some arrogance in the streets and shops of Chamonix today. Especially when a woman in a gift shop rolled her eyes after I successfully completed my line: "Je ne parle (pas) Francais."

If I hadn't mentioned this earlier, Chamonix is an upscale resort town. It's that perfect little mountain hamlet you've pictured in your mind, but I'll bet the amount of money floating around here has something to do with it.

There are gluttonous, gas-guzzling cars here that we haven't been seeing in other parts of Europe. And there's world-class skiing around the peaks of Mont Blanc. This place makes Sun Valley, Idaho, look like Buhl, Idaho.

Along with the rain came the overcast sky, which obscured our view of the incredible peaks we'd seen the night before at dusk.

So it was just one of those days. Too bad it was in Europe.