Rain Dance, Hail Dance

Fontainebleau is a huge reason why I would live in Paris again. It’s only a 45 minute train ride away from the city, and you could spend a lifetime climbing the boulders here. I am definitely coming back.

The first day I arrived in Fontainebleau, I got picked up by the hostel owner, who was super nice and accommodating. His hostel (and just the Fontainebleau area) is in a really small town where everyone probably knows each other.

When I got to the hostel, there were maybe a total of four of us staying there. I asked my new roommate, Joe, if he wanted to come along with me to check out a climbing area nearby. We walked about 45 minutes through town, past a large field, and into the forest.

We were warming up in the main bouldering area when it started to sprinkle. We thought it was weird since just earlier as we were walking there, it was sunny and beautiful. Because you can’t really climb on wet rock, we decided to start walking back.

As we were leaving the forest area the rain was pouring down harder every minute. Our things were getting wet, and the layer of water coming down from the slope we were walking on was getting my shoes wet. But that was nothing…

The walk through the fields felt like an eternity. The wind picked up. The rain was going sideways. It started hailing sideways. It was unbelievable. Now, not only was I soaked from head to toe, I had to protect my camera in my bag, and the food I was carrying with me was just destroyed because everything fell apart.

Joe and I shared one umbrella, but it basically was doing nothing. The wind against the umbrella was slowing us down. We tried running, but the hail hitting our faces hurt and we had to go back to the umbrella method.

We thought the buildings in town would block the wind, but it barely helped. Even worse now, the rain was coming down so hard that it was like a flash flood in the streets. When crossing roads, there was no way in getting around stepping through maybe at least three inches of water.

Because of the water in the streets, we of course were getting splashed by the cars passing by. There was no avoiding this either with the narrow sidewalks.

We finally got back to the driveway to the hostel, where we ran into Mads and Bevan, who Joe was climbing with the previous couple of days. They ran back as well but from another direction. No matter–everyone was drenched.

Maybe it was because of this hilarious beginning, but we all bonded quite well during the few days together. I kept on thinking, “Wow… This is the kind of shit that only happens in movies,” but nope, now it’s definitely something that happens in real life. 

We could have been upset about the unpredictable weather, but it really was mostly hilarious.