The Accidental Revolution

When Alexander Fleming stumbled upon penicillin he literally stumbled upon it. He had no idea what penicillin was and hence no way to have been looking for it. True, he had searched for anti-bacterial agents before, but as the story goes he was studying something entirely different at the time. He left for a vacation and, as his work place was not a portrait of cleanliness, several of the cultures he'd left out became infected while he was away. Again a series of further accidents saved a few of his cultures from being destroyed and he noticed the strange fungal growth in the dishes and their particular patterns. Thus was the discovery of penicillin. Entirely an accident, yet not entirely--Fleming was a trained scientist who had studied anti-bacterial agents before. He had the learning necessary to recognize the breakthrough when it finally occured (even though he was really looking in an entirely different direction at the time).
Another scientist, Louis Pasteur, put it perfectly for all of us when he said that "chance favors the prepared mind."
You can't plan for revolutions, but you can be prepared for them. And revolutions come in all shapes and sizes. They can be the revolutions in a particular field of study, revolutions in politics and nations, or even revolutions in the way we live our lives from day to day. All revolutions are accidental, but they all happen because someone was prepared for the unexpected. I submit that the only pure adventure that occurs in life are the revolutionary ones; the moments that you can't chart, but that you can be prepared for.
About 5 or 6 years ago I found myself a volunteer missionary for my church in France. More specifically I was in France, just north of Paris, in a town called Compiegne. It's a lovely little town, but lovelier still was an even smaller town not too far away called Pierrefonds. It was small and quaint, cradled gently in the lap of a few hills and blanketed by trees. The houses were all those of typical french fancy and rising up out of it all was the most magnificent castle I'd ever set my eyes upon (and let me tell you, in France it's easy to set your eyes upon a lot of castles).
For weeks we had planned a trip up to the castle. We cleared our schedules, saved some allotted miles on our car, and on the assigned day we headed up there. We enjoyed walking the streets of such a nice little town, enjoyed the clean air and vibrant trees. We skirted the banks of a small lake and then finally began our hike up to the castle. That was all planned for. It was beautiful and entirely worth a mention even if nothing more had occured, but two of us were prepared, and what otherwise would have been a standard tourist's visit was revolutionized into a once in a lifetime opportunity.
We spent some time taking photos around the periphery and walked the courtyard a little bit just to say we did. For about 4 euros you could tour the inside, but I'd been told it wasn't that impressive and so intended to save my money (a missionaries allowance is not so grandiose you know). Fortunately everyone else wanted to go through, so I pried open my wallet and the gate agent pried the 4 euros out of my hand. About 20 minutes later myself and one other missionary exited feeling cheated out of at least 3 euros each. Everyone else remained inside enjoying the bare walls and talking about how much they weren't seeing.
Meanwhile the two of us were headed for the exit when the gate agent called out to us. "You know the chapel is open for you to visit. It's usually not, but it's available this week if you guys want to go inside." Now, this was all said in French and so naturally was much more eloquent and beautifully worded, but you get the point. Feeling like we could perhaps earn at least another of our spent euros we headed for the chapel. It was at the back of the courtyard and not really accesible by any other part of the castle other than the chapel doors, so in we walked. I'd say it was probably worth about 15 centimes--definately not an euro. We were out of luck again. While we were there though, and still waiting for the others, we figured we might as well walk around. We saw some tourists up on a balcony above us, so we looked for a door, found one, and headed up. After that balcony there was another door and more stairs. At the top we found another balcony and another door. In retrospect there must have been two doors up there and we chose the wrong one because the next thing we knew we had passed through a couple confusing hallways, several doors, and were now on the outside of the castle looking down over Pierrefonds. Whoops.
I admit that our impulse was unadventurous . . . we wanted to get back to where we came from, understanding that this was most likely not where we were supposed to be. Fortunately for us and this story, we failed to successfully navigate the hallways and doorways we'd just come through. We tried to go back but ended up more lost than before and now further down the castle looking out again. It was at that point that our carelessness/adventurous impulses kicked in and we decided, "Hey, let's enjoy this, I see a tower right up there, let's get up as high as we can go."
Up we went. We found some stairs, climbed and were atop one of the round stumpy towers looking out over that gorgeous little town--and it had never looked better. Amidst my romantic viewing my friend tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the next tower over. It had a chimney atop it with a ladder and, since we had intended to go as high as possible, we should probably head over there. So we climbed back down, ducked through some more doorways and hallways, and finally ended up on top of a hundreds-of-years old chimney. From there we could see, a ways down, a tower like ours with another tower on top of it. That definately beat our chimney stack, so back down we went. Through doorways, down hallways, all around that castle. At this point we were very careful to make sure no one saw us as we assumed we probably weren't supposed to be there where we found ourselves. We tried to claim innocence and that we were lost, but at one point on our search for the highest tower we went down a stairway that took us right back into the touring area. There being no one in that particular room to spy us out, we headed back up. At another point we heard voices coming up stairs from beneath us, so we climbed higher and hid behind an old wooden door in a tower loft. As the voices passed we headed back out and finally made it to the top of that double tower. Now we could see everything, including the highest tower on the castle. There was no going back now, our appetites were whetted and we needed to lay claim to that highest of towers. So down and around we went. In and out and around doors, halls and obstacles. The last stretch was across a little walkway that ran the face of the castle where all the tourists parked and took pictures. We almost had to crawl to be sure no one could see us and I've still always wondered if someone got their pictures back wondering what that was up on the castle that looked like a young boy.
In any case we were never found out and we crossed the walk without incidence. The final ascent was the worst of them all. The tower was much much skinnier than the others and there was no railing to the stairs, nor centerpiece--just a hole stretching back down to the bottom of the tower laughing menacingly at us. What made it worse was that some of the stone stairs were so worn that they had holes in them. We made sure to step around the edges where they seemed thickest and to do anything but look down a few times.
There was something unequaled by standing on top of that tower. We knew that we were standing where few had stood since Napoleon built the castle, and that there would be few after us who ever got there. It was a humbling moment. It took us a while to soak it all in, but the first thought to take us away from that moment was "How are we going to get down?"
The answer ended up being simpler than we thought. We ran into some guys cleaning up bird poop (they're the ones who had accidentally left the door open we first wandered through) and told them we were lost. They took us down one of the towers and let us out the door. No questions asked, simple as that.
So that's my story. I'm all for preserving historic landmarks for all to enjoy, but I'm also for taking the opportunities as they arise to enjoy something out of the ordinary. An adventure.
So again, preparation is the key to everything. Chance favors the prepared mind. Plan out your days, activities, vacations, etc., but be sure you're open and ready for those moments when they arrive, because the best ones will always be the ones you don't plan for.
Below I've included some photos for those of you interested in seeing the castle, the tower, the stairs, and the view.