It’s only taken me 4 months but I’ve realised the sort of people that hang out at the back of the RER B in the middle of the day. I always board the train at the back so I can get out easily, and in time-honoured transport fashion, the back is where all the fun is had. By fun, I mean sitting with some sort of ghetto-blaster and smoking some sort of pungent illegal drug. It’s a pleasant idea to think that I turn up to kicking practice thinking every strike is the best ever, as I am transported to some sort of elevated sense of being, or that instead of sprint practice, I’m flying...
Tomorrow is my final day at the Alliance Francaise, and it promises to be an emotional one. As us pillars of the class, Seung-Hee, Helene and I are all leaving, we’re having a small party to celebrate the times we’ve had. It has been fun. Yes, something shifted in my attitude and mindset after my sojourn in October, but that wasn’t deliberate and probably had more to do with the turnover of people in the class and the ambiance changed. From smiley Luis from Bueno-Aires to Larissa the over-smiley Rheinmädchen to unidentified depressed German male and Robert the Texan who ‘never understood a worrrd she sayddd”; from Israel to Beirut to Brazil to Australia, from the lovely Swiss Laura to the deluded 28 year old portly Peruvian who would share her dreams of celebrity and fame with me. I hope she’s worked out in which field she intends to find her fame...
The Venezuelan with the pronunciation impeding plastic surgery, the Chinese wannabe pastry chef and the Australian ballet dancer: clearly I’ve met some extraordinary people.
Then there’s the prof. The most French person I’ve ever come across. She is a Jean-Jacques Rousseau-ist, and a follower of Buddhism and Cartesian philosophy. She enjoys balancing a dictionary on her head and walking round the room as we ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’. She represents Paris: a fervent traditionalist, staunchly believing in shops being closed on Sunday yet extremely open-minded to however anyone wants to spend their life, a fan of pure opium as a painkiller for a toothache, anti-American, pro-Sarko one day and raging against him the next. All that, and always with the round red spectacles on the tip of the nose! Crazy...
Just like my daily routine, from class to rugby. Preparations for Clermont are being stunted by this snow! Training was cancelled last night then cancelled again tonight. Hopefully a thaw will arrive tomorrow and we can train tomorrow and then another session has been added on Saturday morning. Pilgrimage...
On the 1st Team front, we have superiority in Paris after beating Stade Francais. Several exciting games coming up though. Racing v Toulouse will be played at the Stade de France next year and Perpignan v Racing will be played at the Camp Nou in April. Half-thinking about travelling to that if possible. Now that’s a pilgrimage of a different sort!
not my own...
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