Paris in the Spring

Sometimes I get so caught up in what’s going on around me: trying to listen in on a conversation, trying to formulate verbs in the future simple, humming along to Dougie Maclean, that I lose track of the bigger picture. I’m always reminded of what I’m doing out here when we’re in the bus on the way to training and we descend into the Paris basin and we come flying round a corner, the Eiffel Tower just sitting there. It never fails to strike me as a reminder that I’m sitting in a bus on the way to training in Paris, with French people in a French team. It sounds silly, especially after 6 months (!) but it always makes me sit back and think ‘Crikey!’

And so it happened this evening, increasing my good mood even further. I’ve been saying to anyone who’ll listen today that summer has arrived, cue jokes about 13 degrees and full sunshine being my normal summer. I even cracked a gag about sun cream, went down raucously well. There has been a comfortable atmosphere around the club these last few days, perhaps because the Espoirs (u23s) don’t have a game this week so the place is generally more relaxed. And then there’s the sun, of course. In fact, when I arrived at the training ground this afternoon, I nearly walked straight through a game of boules being played by several of the top pros and members of the management team. I stood and watched for a bit, enjoying the Frenchness of the scene in the spring sunshine. Have I mentioned that it’s been sunny all day?

The biggest news of the day, however, is that I began my Sorbonne career this morning with an introductory first French lesson. There are many positives: it begins at 10, giving me a bit longer in bed; it’s really close to Luxemburg station; it finishes at 11.50. This is all forgetting that the prof seems a really nice guy and the class seem...well... I am the sole male in the class of 15. I am about twice the size of everyone else (except an American heffer) and feel a bit like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians (until I reach training in the afternoon). I remarked on my facebook that the class can be split into either North Korean Communist Party Member or American Nun. This is a slight exaggeration as there is a Columbian and an Iranian too.

This weekend promises much. Tomorrow I have to go and buy textbooks which should be the dullest part of the day before heading to the pub for an afternoon of relaxed rugby viewing. I’m trying out The Great Canadian Pub on the recommendation of a friend as apparently it’s easier to get a seat than the Auld Alliance, which, for all its charm, isn’t always the easiest place to watch Scotland. Sunday means another train trip from the Gare de Lyon to Lyon (believe it or not), a route I feel I know very well by now. Tonight’s run through was appalling, simply awful, so we should play wonderfully well what with our breathtakingly continuous off-loading and support play!

A la prochaine...