Lax to London, London to Barcelona, Spain.
It was a almost crazy day, but I made sure to make the most of it and not get carried away and running around town like a “chicken with my head cut off”. In the morning I said my good by’s to my wife and child and as they went about their day I finished packing my bags and cleaning the house. I’m not a “neat freak” however I hate clutter. So I cleaned the house from top to bottom and it took me about 2 hrs to complete.
I went out to the valley with my friend Todd to handle some things then we ate Chipotla for lunch. By this time, its about 4 hrs before my flight to London so I’m home and I don’t have cable TV so the only thing on were the soap’s to I fell to sleep and the only reason I woke up is because my dad called and ask if I needed a ride to the airport.
I get to the airport and the rest of the guys in the odd size line with 15 bike boxes and 20 bags. United said that each rider could only take one bike bag a piece and two bags. Allen Lim paid 120 dollars a piece for 10 extra bike bags. I hope the team pays him back.
So I'm on the plane and ready to take off to London. The flight time was just around 10 hrs so I popped a few melatonin pills and fell out. I don’t even remember taking off. I slept through both meals, dinner and breakfast so I woke up very hungry with 2hrs to go in the flight. So for breakfast I had trail mix.
The lady next to me started to talk and I saw this Las Vegas party bracelet on her arm and I ask her if she did some partying in Vegas. Wrong move. She talked, talked and talked my ear off and she also started to pass gas and it wasn’t pleasant.
After arriving in London we had to get a bus to the other terminal for our connection to Spain. We got so lost and didn’t know which gate to wait at for our connection because; there was no gate yet. So after we figured that at, we sat down in the mall looking area and paid 20 bucks a sandwich. The pound is really strong compared to the US Dollar.
Mike Creed and Danny Pate are so funny together; they did some funny things to piss off some Italian couple that was late for the connection. Creed raced them off the shuttle the he raced the guy up the escalator…he got to the top and celebrated, hand up and everything. It was so funny.
We finally get to Spain and the weather is warm but the sun is starting to go down at around 6pm. We get all of the bike and notice we have one extra bike, we look inside and it’s a United Pro team Bike and not sure why its in Spain. We think it was Sterling “grease” Magnail. Anyway we get all the stuff through customs and the staff is there to welcome us and take us to Girona. It was a long 1 1/2 drive but we made it. The apartment is right down town Girona on the tiny little street. The inside of the place…not so cool. I have some pics and you can see where I’m laying my head.
Today (Wednesday) we went for an easy 1 1/2 ride because the team van leaves with all bikes today at noon for France. We fly out tomorrow morning. My first race is Friday. It’s a one-day race called (Classic Loire Atlantique). Saturday we have off then race Sunday (Cholet-Pays De Loire). Then Tour de Normandie starts right after that.
Ill try and keep you up to date. The house doesn’t have a phone, Internet, TV or anything; it’s just a place to rest. It’s a cool apartment but it needs some money thrown into it so you can live comfortably in it.
