Audrey Heard sent this link to me a few minutes ago. It has very little to do with politics. It’s written by her grandson, Sam Greenfield, brother of Jay Greenfield, who was an avid volunteer campaign worker in Groton a few years back. Sam is a junior at NYU, but this year he’s studying in Prague. He and two friends saw fit to take the Red Bull Challenge:
The team was Brett Morell, Will Lawton, and myself. Three juniors in college, studying together at New York University in Prague; one might say with stars in our eyes. The week-long challenge pitted 200 teams of three college students each in a rat race from one of five starting points (Rome, Madrid, Budapest, Manchester, or Berlin) to arrive in Paris, France on Halloween.
The challenge part consisted in the fact that the participants were allowed no money, credit cards or cell phones. All they started with was 24 cans of Red Bull, which they proceeded to barter for the wherewithal to make their way across Europe. At various milestones, their supply of Red Bull was replenished.
Since Sam is from Noank, and from a family of mostly good Democrats (I’m not sure about his Dad) it seemed like a good idea to give his piece a plug. There’s some very funny bits. Here’s the last section, at a point just after (this is just before the election) they had obtained some Obama paraphernalia from an American in Geneva, who was working on the Obama campaign. When they got to Lyons they put the Obama stuff to good use.
Random people on the streets, the Red Bull girls, our competition, they all loved the pins. They all loved Obama! A handful of French men and women tried to buy them off of us and we actually sold one for 8 euros. Amazing, as only Brett spoke patchy French, but at least we weren’t considered imperialist villains. And finally, the abilities of American iconography were put to the ultimate test.
We crossed the park from the Lyon checkpoint to the train station and let Obama do the real work. We found a conductor dressed in blues and explained our story. Of course, he loved our pins. Suddenly there were two conductors, three, now four TGV conductors dressed in their blue suits with black trim eagerly listening to the circumstances of our trip.
“Will you help us to Paris, today?” we pleaded.
They spoke in rapid-fire French, and then the dark-haired woman spoke.
“You will wait here for an hour. We will come back,” she instructed with a wink.
And in an hour she returned, grabbed one of the three trays in our possession and guided us out of the waiting lounge and down an escalator. It was on that descent I saw a crowd of nine TGV conductors and controllers talking and pointing. We approached the crowd, and a tall black man stepped towards us.
“Two can travel in front, one in back. Enjoy your trip.”
Quickly I looked over my shoulder, and couldn’t stop myself from smiling at the sight of a Hungarian CYMI team with their faces pressed up against the lounge’s glass window, jaws dropped, glaring in jealousy.
He began walking away in strict fashion, paused, and turned around. He pressed the palms of his hands together and said in broken English.
“We hope for Obama too. Pray for change.”
Red Bull Can You Make It?
Yes we can.
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