8. Half dream or half way through a full dream

Half dream or half way through a full dream

Today (20^th Aug) I was crying too much but certainly less than the rain which is falling down over Vienna … so it is already an optimistic view of life, isn’t it? I should stay in plaster for 5 weeks. It is not the full me, only my leg, but it seems to be enough to make the end of our bike trip. We will try this evening with Damien if it is possible to bike with one leg and the other just hanging down but the chance of success is very low.

I had this incident on the 9th august. We were going out of  Budapest, the asphalt was wet after rain, we were crossing the rails of the train and suddenly our straight line of 4 bikes fallen down like a wave at a big football match… Damien’s bike slipped on the metal rails and Mira’s bike, which was attached to him, turned on its side with Mira inside… I was so shocked from the view, just like a stupid hen, so I screamed, break sharply and strongly, and fall down like an avalanche. My sudden and sharp scream stressed so much Sashko so he also break and fall down… Funny scene to watch.

There were nice people at the accident who helped us a lot. Later Damien’s friends arrived with their camping car (it was our first day together with them..) to collect me and Sashko. This night we slept at camping for first time during our trip and for first time in my life. I arrived sad and in pain at the camping entrance but the owners – couple with their daughter – met me so nicely: they almost carried me to the chair, they put my leg up and they shared with me their usual ‘evening glass of clean water’. I felt warm with them. Next day the man put a bandage on my knee and assured me it will be ok. It is not the end…

The next day, 10^th of August in the evening, Damien and Pit took the bikes and went to the supermarket to buy things for the dreamed quiet, pleasant, slow and tasty dinner with nice food, good red Hungarian wine, nice green meadow next to the Danube River in the beautiful old village of Szentendre…  It stayed only a dream. 10 minutes after they left, Pit came back – white like our white silk sleeping inserts. While biking happily and freely Damien bumped into a small stick hidden in the grass and fall down on a pile of stones with metal fence around them. We arrived at the place – Damien’s face, hair and ear covered with blood; 2 policemen standing next to him trying to keep him quiet and trying to stop him from escaping with the bike (he was arguing a lot with them, wanting to leave with the bike, to wash his face in the river and to renew again his travel to the shop…), an ambulance car coming very fast and very noisy from the direction of Budapest. The ambulance was for Damien, it was called by the policemen…

Damien and I had our first trip with an ambulance car to Budapest– driving at full speed with the well known relaxing melody of the ambulance cars at max volume. Sorry, Pit but we had to mention one small detail: during the time we were travelling to Budapest by ambulance, Pit used the opportunity to go shopping as the accident was so close to the shop (how to miss such chance…) and left Elodie alone with the kids, without camping car and any luggage.  She was trying to manage the 4 hungry kids, splashing mud and wet sand on themselves and jumping in the river with their clothes on… She succeeded!!

The ambulance car brought Damien to a very nice, modern hospital (almost like a space shuttle station from the Star wars). There they made him stitches on the 7cm long crack of his head and the 1cm long crack on his year… Doctors’ conclusion: no changes in the brain from the hit. For me it was enough only to ask for the near by pharmacy (as I wanted to change my bandage) and the doctors grabbed me, cleaned my elbow and changed the bandage and put my leg into a gyps. We were funny, going back to our tent – me, walking slowly with the heavy gyps covering my leg from the top till down, Damien – with a bandage on his head and dried blood on his face. People were asking us if we are coming from the fight which took place at the concert at Szeget…

Damien after the hospital:

10 days later, after the removal of the threads, Damien’s head looks like a Bulgarian asphalt road tired from the damages caused by a strong winter.  His right ear is as beautiful as his left one (in the beginning it was little hanging down… but Damien managed to give him the right direction). His glasses – a little twisted of course (as usual).

Nina after the hospital:

4 days spent in the camping car… Removal of the gyps, half hour ‘physiotherapy’ in a swimming pool under the professional guidance of Damien, put on the bike…and another big disappointment – I was not able to turn my leg and to bike… Again in the camping car for one more day – the last one as our friends (Pit & Elodie) had to leave in the evening back to France. The evening came, we said goodbye and we stayed little more in a small café to collect some courage before trying the bike again.  While Damien went to look for a close place to put the tent on, I was trying to train my leg (making circles in the air) and my mind, and soul – I was so very afraid it will not work again. Damien discovered a place 3km away from the village, we put all our luggage on the bikes, Damien was holding my bike and asking me to go (as if it was just a normal day of biking), go, go, go … and I went!!! It was such a happy moment for me and for Damien!

Next day we did 26km, the days after – 31, 47, 29, 71km! We arrived in Vienna! We were so happy, I was so optimistic - I thought I am already able to have Mira’s bike attached to my bike again (for the last days she was biking alone in order to be as easy as possible for me), in front of us was only beautiful landscape, magic evenings in the tent, Austria, Germany, Switzerland (wanted so much to see it!), so colourful pictures in my head how Damien’s parents and relatives will meet us – so proud and happy, in Orleans… We anyway decided to visit a doctor to check my knee as it was a little swollen and still not so flexible. Once more fears from the conclusion… When I said to the doctor I did 70km biking she asked me why I came to the hospital at all… I felt so happy, I wanted to run and to jump and to sing but I just was sitting on a chair, impatiently waiting to pass the obligatory x-ray and to escape with the good news to Damien and the kids! X-ray was awfully quick: 2 photos (front and right side) and immediate conclusion – 2 cracks in the patella (the cover bone of the knee). All that requires minimum 5 weeks of gyps. I cried so much in the hospital that the doctor told me she is so sorry they put me in gyps. She was very, very nice, I liked her smile – I needed such smile a lot.

Packing for home

Damien just packed Mira and my bike and sent it to Bulgaria.

I was packing the luggage today (22^nd Aug) - for the first time during our trip in separate back packs: one for Mira and me, and another one for Sashko and Damien. Tomorrow Mira, I and zaicheto are taking the train Vienna-Sofia and Damien, Sashko and mecheto are taking the Danube cycle path, direction Paris. I miss them a lot, I miss the evenings with the tent: Damien collecting wood for the very slow wood cooker, cooking spaghetti or omelette with toasted on the fire bread, kids: talking fast, loud and a lot in the beginning , and slow, quiet and a little at the end as they always became  very sleepy after a biking day, me: every time trying to impress Damien and the kids with the speed I can make the tent, failing consistently every time (either the earth is very hard and difficult to put the sticks keeping the tent to the ground, either I cant stretch the tent enough or it is enough but in the wrong direction, or I manage finally with everything but it takes me 1 hour and Damien is asking me for 3^rd time to go for dinner as the food is getting cold); I miss the cold air of the evenings and the pleasant feeling to go in the warm sleeping bag; I miss the star sky before bed ; I miss the mornings when Damien is buying bread and chocolate for breakfast and kids are still sleeping like babies. When I was packing today, taking with me the sleeping insert of Mira, it was smelling so much of the grass from the fields next to all small villages in the countryside. This smell made me cry and reminded me again that I finished with the bike trip. Damien told me today that we managed to do half of the dream, so I felt like in the song Vesi and Descho recorded especially for me on an MP3 for the trip – Lucky You! ‘We are chasing the moon and the falling stars, after we land on the ground which make us see how the things really are… we can’t stop the rain – it will fall on every roof, I have a proof.’

I am so happy that we saw so many people through our way - in Bulgaria: the big, nice gypsy, guarding a lake with fish and feeding it with blood from chickens killed in the close factory, who took Mira and Sashko in his boat for a boat trip on the lake, protected us from the scary big dogs and at the end helped us to push our bikes up on a steep hill; the old woman who was looking after goats, who came to talk with us a little and gave us banica as it was her grandson birthday; the gypsy family who allowed us to sleep next to their garden, tried to put more grass on the ground to make it softer for us, gave Mira a ride on their donkey, invited Damien to drink rakia with the men in the evening and prepared for us home made bread; the man, who after discovering that we were sleeping on his field, gave us four full hands with tomatoes from his garden; the woman who was so happy kids like Mira and Sashko can bike to Paris and she gave us cucumbers from her garden; my friend Elza and her mother who prepared for us so delicious dinner and so warm welcome late in the evening; my cousin who was so helpful together with her husband when our green bike broke; the bike repair man who woke up at 5 am from the thoughts how to fix our bike; the old, very old woman, living just before the boarder with Serbia, who gave us water and kissed 5 times Mira and Sashko; in Serbia: the couple from the hotel we slept the first night, who gave us huge quantity of hand made lemon juice when they saw we like it and after made for us sandwiches for the day; the family who agreed us to sleep in the garden of their nice farm, prepared for us dinner, showed us all their animals in the farm and gave us hand made jam; the man who managed to find bread for us at 8.30 pm in a small village where everything was closed and brought us after to beautiful meadows next to a small river – a reservat which he owns as he assured us and we were welcomed to put our tent there; the 3 middle aged pensioners who invited us for a drink and ‘nazdrave’, told us their stories and asked a lot for our trip; the grandmother who cooked our soup for us after she saw how slow is our wood cooker and her angry looking daughter who prepared coffee for us in the morning and helped me to wash our plates and pots; the very nice family with 3 kids (all boys!!) and their friends  who invited us for a beer and sweet talks on the street, invited us at their home and watched with such enthusiasm our internet site, gave Mira and Sashko a ride with a big and powerful motor bike and prepared lunch for them; the lonely guard of a castle under repairs who invited us to sleep there and gave us clean bed sheets, showed us the view from the roof terrace where we were the closest possible to the big full moon and all the evening was sitting and watching us silently; the skinny man-nurse and his wife who invited us to sleep in their garden, prepared for us dinner and wanted to give to Damien so many of the hand made salami as they saw how much he liked it; in Hungary: the hotel owner who prepared for us dinner as the only shop in the village was closed; the family from the camping where we slept after my accident, who helped me and gave me lots of courage and warmness; in Austria: the cheerful man with big belly who was so excited from our trip and offered us his map of Vienna in order to find the place we were looking for and finally Raimund, Elly, Florian and Johanna who welcomed us so well in their beautiful house and accepted patiently the unexpected prolongation of our visit until we manage to organise ourselves to depart in two different directions…

I am also very happy and very proud that Damien and Alexander continue. Now I will be one of the readers of the internet page and will be so impatient for news and photos. Damien and Sashko will breath for us the smell of the meadows of Austria and Germany, of the cows of Switzerland and of the perfume of the Paris mademoiselles...