The French connection

Everyone knows about backpacking across Europe, but no one thinks of doing that in the U.S. Here’s the story of two foreigners who did.

By Ross Kennerly

Muskegon, Mich.
It starts with a really, really bad sunburn.

Robert Kuhn, the Public Works Director for the City of Muskegon, Mich., strolls out one summer morning to grab the local paper from its plastic pigeonhole.

Normally, he would be heading to his office, where his desk has a placard that reads “We’re No. 1 in the No. 2 Business,” but it’s the weekend, and he woke up a bit later than usual. Up Sherman Boulevard — which dead-ends in front of Kuhn’s house, on Lake Michigan — he spies two young boys clambering out of a pup tent in his neighbor’s yard.

Thinking it a bit odd, he watches them pack up their belongings and head toward the beach, right past his front door. He waves. They approach. Both of their faces are bright pink with burn, and the skin on their backs is peeling off in sheets. They explain that in their present condition, it’s too painful to carry their packs on their sun-wounded shoulders. They say they are traveling French students, then ask, if it is not too much trouble, to store their backpacks and tent in his garage for the day.

Fortunately for the two foreigners, Bob Kuhn has a history of helping strangers. Both he and his wife, Marlene, alternately minister to prisoners at the Muskegon County Jail. Once, in the ’80s, they took in a recently paroled ex-convict for a few months to live in their basement, bought him a suit, gave him their collective reputations as references, then let him drive their Fiero to work and back after he found employment at the Hilton in downtown Muskegon.

Most recently, they became the temporary legal guardians of a child whose mother was on permanent disability, and occasionally house his brothers as well. So it should come as no surprise that Bob not only agrees to store their packs, but gives them sunblock for their day on the beach.

“They wanted to pay for it,” Bob explains, “and I said no, it was a gift.”

When the two students — whose names are Brice Javaux, 21, and Nicolas Raas, 20 — return that evening, the Kuhns have hamburgers and corn on the cob on the grill and invite them to stay for as long as they wish. They stay for three days.

The Kuhns show the two boys the sights in Muskegon (like the submarine U.S.S. Silversides, which was formerly stationed at Navy Pier) and buy them ice cream, which Bob says they were afraid they couldn’t have “because they forgot their wallets.” Brice and Nicolas also happen to be avid gamers — back in France, Nicolas once rigged a PS2 to a projection screen and had an outdoor tournament in a cobblestone alley — so they and the Kuhns’ charge, Cody, play Tony Hawk on his PS2. All the while, the two foreigners sleep in the basement in their sleeping bags, nurse their tender shoulders and visit with Marlene during the day when Bob is at work, managing, despite their fragmented English, to have conversations about their faith.

“They had a whole lot of questions about God,” Marlene remembers. “They were on some sort of spiritual quest.”

She goes on to explain that the two had recently visited some sort of holy place in Europe. “They had a hundred questions about that,” she says. “And it went on and on all day.”

“I think they were naîve,” Bob says, “To think that they could hitchhike across the United States.”

After three days have passed, Brice and Nicolas decide it’s time to move on. They graciously thank the Kuhns for their hospitality; invite them — if they ever to come to France — to come stay with them, quid pro quo; and promise to e-mail with digital pictures when they return home. Bob gives them his daughter’s number and tells them that if they ever make it to Chicago to look her up, as she might be able to help them find a place to stay. Which they interpret as: “My daughter will take you in.”

Which is where I come in.

Chicago

On the way home from a Coldplay concert at Alpine Valley, my girlfriend, Gina Kuhn, receives a call from a man who calls himself Jack. Jack lives in New Buffalo, Mich. (south of Muskegon) and explains that he and his wife have had two French kids living with them for about a week. He also says that they asked him to call her to let her know that they were on their way (Brice and Nicolas had hitched a ride with some friends of Jack’s who were headed to Chicago). Gina thanks him kindly for the heads-up, hangs up, and immediately calls her father.

“Dad, did you say they could stay with me?”

We had already been informed that we may be receiving a call from “the French boys” in the next month; Bob had no way of knowing when or where they were going to turn up. Although Brice and Nicolas had cell phones, they were French Telecom-issued and were only to be used in emergencies due to the high cost of international usage. Our understanding — and Bob’s — was that maybe we could help them out, not put them up.

We have exactly one hour to compose ourselves (and nurse our camping hangovers) before Brice and Nicolas arrive. Jack had said that they left several hours before and should almost be to Chicago. I go to my apartment to shower, and no sooner do I towel off, then my cell phone buzzes. Gina. The French boys are here.

It is important to note at this point that in college I was a French major. I lived in Paris, with host families: one was an elderly woman, a piano teacher in one of the city’s eastern banlieues who subsidized her income by housing foreign exchange students. The other was made up of a wealthy antique dealer and her “businessman” husband and son, who rented out an old maid apartment in the top floor of their building. So I thought that this would be my opportunity to help out some French students, in the way that two French families had helped me out (though for a modest tuition). Plus, it would give me a chance to brush up on my rusty French.

So as I walk into Gina’s apartment, I greet both Brice and Nicolas in their native tongue and, as I seat myself, ask what part of France they come from.

Brice and Nicolas look at each other, frown, look back at me and Gina, and say, nicely: “Hmm?”

Okay. My French is worse than I think. No bother, I switch to English.

Gina and I explain, politely, that she has two roommates and that it would be impossible for the two of them to stay with her. She has two roommates and, to be honest, both of us were exhausted, hungover and in no mood to be generous. We explain that we would be happy to pay for a hotel — when they start shaking their heads.

“No, no,” they say. Brice adds: “We would be happy to sleep on your floor.”

Gina and I excuse ourselves to have a sidebar in her bedroom. Having no other option, and not being willing to ask if they could pop their tent on her back patio (which, in Chicago, just seems mean), I offer to have them stay with me, since I live alone. Back in the living room, where Brice and Nicolas are watching “Nick Cannon’s Wild N’ Out” on MTV, I explain that there has been a change of plans. The pair is moving to my apartment for the next few days. They accept, and I run out to buy some wine.

That night, Gina and I take Brice and Nicolas to Giordano’s on Belmont Avenue for some Chicago-style pizza. On the way, Nicolas notes that there are two types of American male physiques: overweight and musclebound.

At dinner, while we wait for our pie, Gina and I get a chance to pick their brain about what they study and how they came to be in America. Like Penn and Teller, Brice is the face of the pair, and being the most gregarious, does most of the talking, though I have a hunch that Nicolas is secretly the brains behind their endeavor. Frequently, Brice has to have a quiet whisper with Nicolas when he forgets a word or needs to have clarification over something either Gina or I say to him. If all else fails, Brice and Nicolas say the word in French to me and I translate.

“What I thought was funny,” Bob Kuhn says, having noticed the same dynamic, “was that the talkative one would always look to the quiet one, because I think he had the better vocabulary.”

 

The backstory

Both Brice and Nicolas, I find out, are studying to become engineers. (Later, during my research, I discover they attend the Ecole des Mines de Nancy, one of the most prestigious engineering schools in the world.) One night, at a bar in France, Brice met a young woman from the University of Michigan who was taking a semester abroad there. At the end of the night, after some “kissing,” as Brice puts it, she slipped Brice her address and told him to look her up if he ever came to America.

So Brice took her up on it.

Having no other contact in the United States, not even a phone number, Brice and Nicolas decide that summer to fly to America and backpack from one side of the country to the other. Taking only their own money (and not their parents’), which was very little, they packed a change of clothes (presumably assuming that they would wash them along the way), two cell phones, two sleeping bags, a digital camera and a pup tent. Nicolas had booked the flights; the first was from Charles De Gaulle airport in France to Detroit. They had originally planned to fly to Boston, but they would have had to connect in Detroit, which was closer to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. So Nicolas and Brice decided to land in the Motor City to cut some time off their trip. After all, they had only given themselves one month to traverse the entire country. Plus, Nicolas had heard, Detroit was a beautiful city.

“Detroit,” Nicolas says now, several weeks later, “is not so beautiful.”

“No, no,” Brice agrees.

The second flight Nicolas booked was from Chicago to Las Vegas, two weeks after landing in Detroit, which gave them a fortnight to hitchhike from Detroit Metro to Chicago Midway. The third flight was the return trip from Los Angeles to Charles De Gaulle a week and a half after landing in Las Vegas. Brice and Nicolas figured that once they reached Las Vegas, they would spend a few days sleeping in the airport, gamble if they had enough money left (and if Nicolas, being only 20, could get into a casino), then rent a car to get to Los Angeles and fly home.

There are several reasons why this plan never should have worked. First, it is unreasonable to assume that any American would take them in and feed them. Our tendency to protect our own borders trickles down into the smallest microcosms of our society. Second, I believe Europe is more conducive to travel; a tourist in Paris is always a day trip away from a different country, language and culture. There are tourist deals (like the Eurail pass) that allow discounted travel for foreigners and numerous inexpensive hostels to host them. Not to mention the fact a lot of Europeans speak English. Not so in America — we are not required to have years and years of a second language before graduating high school. Third, the U.S. is just so damn big. To cross it, hitchhiking, with little money and a rudimentary English vocabulary, relying only on the kindness of strangers, in a month? Quest or no quest, that just seems, I don’t know, insane.

Nevertheless, Brice and Nicolas arrived at Detroit Metro. After customs, they left the airport and hitchhiked to the train station, stopping once at a gas station to ask for directions from a nice man who they said had long hair and cut-off sleeves. Looking the two 100-pounds-soaking-wet boys up and down, the man said to them: “You guys are f---ing crazy.”

Brice and Nicolas took a train to Ann Arbor. Once there, they walked to the young woman’s house at the address given to Brice months before, and slept in their tent on her yard. (Not having her name, I was unable to contact the young woman to get further details, and Brice and Nicolas did not offer them.) The next day, they hopped a bus to Muskegon, where they spent the day loping south along the beaches of Lake Michigan. At dusk, they knocked on the door of a woman (Bob Kuhn’s neighbor) who agreed to let them sleep in her yard. Brice and Nicolas then spent the next few days with the Kuhns.

After leaving Bob and Marlene Kuhn’s house, they continued along the beach for several days, sneaking onto campgrounds from the beach, which Brice says prevented them from having to pay, since no one ever asked. Fatigued and famished, they finally broke down in New Buffalo and started knocking on doors for food. The first to answer was Jack, who Brice and Nicolas say was in his 70s. They explained to Jack that they were two French students, and that they were hungry, and then asked Jack if he could give them some food. Jack made them show him their French passports, then agreed to let them in. He ushered them into his living room, then excused himself.

“When he came back,” Nicolas says, “he said, ‘I don’t want you to be scared, but I just called the police.’ ”

Nicolas and Brice spent several nerve-racked minutes in Jack’s living room until the New Buffalo police arrived. The officers checked their passports and other identification they were carrying and informed Jack that the two were legit. Only then did Jack agree to take them in.

By this time in our conversation, we have already finished most of the pizza.

“Thank you,” Brice says, holding his stomach. “This is the first time since we have been in America that we are ... full.”

 

Shotgun tourism

Brice and Nicolas are very clean and always respectful.

“They’re a nation that has exquisite manners,” Marlene Kuhn observes of her time with the two travelers. “They would not eat until I sat down.”

Indeed, during the two days they stay with me, they always pick up after themselves, rolling up their sleeping bags in the morning, moving my coffee table to its original position, stowing their packs behind my recliner so they would be out of the way. They ask each morning if they can take a shower, hang their tiny wash cloths over the shower rod, and refuse profusely to let me give them bigger towels. Brice even compliments me on my apartment. Still, I have an inkling that their politeness is a façade. Or maybe it is only my distrust manifesting.

That night, Gina and I go to bed at our normal hour (she stays at my place so as not to have me shoulder all of the burden of entertaining), and I let the pair have control of the television, and free reign of my apartment while we sleep — though I keep my cell phone and wallet on my nightstand, just in case. The next morning, I walk them to the Red Line at Addison, give them my CTA card and pump enough money onto it to allow them a day’s worth of sightseeing. I also give them directions to the Field Museum and get them a transit map. Then I wish them luck and tell them to meet me back at my apartment any time after 6:00. Still a little uncomfortable with giving out my keys. Call me a skeptic.

That night, Gina and I cook them spaghetti at my apartment. Brice and Nicolas wash the dishes. We get a chance to catch up on their day’s activities. They never made it to the Field Museum. They ate a cheap lunch at a Vienna Beef stand under the El downtown in the Loop. They tried to get to the top floor of the Hancock building (which we said was the best view of the Chicago skyline, and used to be free), but it cost about $10 a person and they couldn’t afford it. Basically, they just walked around and took photos of themselves in front of famous landmarks, like Buckingham Fountain. They particularly liked the fountain.

We watch “Kiss of the Dragon” on SpikeTV until Gina and I go to bed. Brice and Nicolas groan at all the commercials, saying that in France the advertisements are saved until the end of each program.

Brice wakes me the next morning to tell me they are leaving. They want to do a little more sightseeing until their plane leaves at 2:30. I give them directions to the Orange Line and my e-mail address and Gina’s, shake their hands and give them whatever money I have in my wallet, which is about $6.

Brice invites me to stay with them, “this time in France,” thanks me and Gina for our generosity and promises to e-mail when he gets home. Then they leave without giving me so much as a phone number to contact them.

We don’t hear from them for almost three months. I wonder if they even made it out of Vegas. One day, Gina receives a brief e-mail from Brice with a few photos attached, some of which are included in this article, apologizing for taking so long to get back to us. Sure enough, there are photos of Las Vegas and Death Valley. My first impression is, “Wow, they actually made it.” She forwards it to me, and I respond, informing Brice that I am writing this story and that I am hungry to know what happened after they left my apartment. He never responds.

I guess that this is the state of American generosity, or at least mine. I don’t expect to stay with them in France in my lifetime, or even see them again, but the least they can do is let me know the rest of their story. I think they owe me that much.

During my interview, Marlene Kuhn mentions that it’s interesting how generous some people are willing to be. Jack had called the cops before he would trust them. Her neighbor wouldn’t even let them in her house, but only on her yard. And then there were trusting people like her and Bob, who just let them walk right in.

I can’t help asking Marlene if, during Brice and Nicolas’ stay, she ever felt like she was being used. She says she didn’t think so, and that it didn’t really matter. What mattered was her intentions were well-meaning, whether theirs were or not. I think, if anything, this is what I learned.

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