Thanksgiving...french style

Well, first let me apologize for my slackness in keeping up with my blog. I will have to blame that on the difficult month I've had. Not that I didn't have access to the internet, just that I didn't have anything particularly positive to write about.

Not to focus on that, but to recap the last month: I'm having major issues with my paperwork. The French government has decided to take their sweet time with my "carte de sejour" (residency card), which I need to do everything. Most importantly, which I need to get my handball license. So, I haven't been able to play any "real" games since the season started- a major bummer.

But anyway, I find myself here, on Thanksgiving Day, after a really rough month and it is hard not to be a little bit sad (or a lot, really). France has been on strike for the last 8 days, so the trains are running sporadically and the university is closed. I have one American friend at school, but haven't been able to get in touch with her to find out if she has plans today and/or something I could invite myself to. Additionally, I've tried to explain the significance of the holiday to my French friends, but they just don't get it. And no one has an oven, and turkeys are hard to find.

And even though I shouldn't dwell on the fact I'm far from home, this is the first time in my life I haven't spent Thanksgiving with my family, and it is making me ridiculously sad. Every year the number one thing I am always thankful for is that our family can be together, no matter what else is going on. I am missing that a lot right now.

I guess everyone comes to a point where they don't spend Thanksgiving at home, but I feel like most of the time, you are at least spending it with someone. I went to school today, but it was still closed because of the strike, and then ended up coming downtown to the internet cafe. I thought maybe I would check out the French-American Center to see if there was something going on, but when I went there, it was closed. A guy came riding up on his bicycle, and was like "It is closed today for some holiday." I was like "Yeah, Thanksgiving...that's why I came."

It was definitely a little Oliver Twist-ish of me just to show up like some orphan at the door, but in my fantasy, someone would have opened the door, said "Oh no, a poor American student all alone in France...come home with us and eat Thanksgiving!" But sadly, just a French guy on a bike informing me of "some" holiday. So, then I walked back to center-ville to try to at least make myself feel better by having noodles at my favorite Chinese place.

Sadly, the walk was longer than I thought, and by the time I arrived at my favorite noodle place, it was 1:55pm, and they told me they were closing the kitchen. So, I found some Chinese place that is open all day and bought myself some chicken lo-mein, and ate by myself. I would have probably broken down at that point, but I thought about that movie "A Christmas Story" when the dog ate their turkey and they had to eat Christmas dinner at the Chinese restaurant. It made things seem a little better until I realized that at least they were together as a family.

When I walked back onto the street, it started to rain. Out of nowhere, a torrential downpour...I was soaked. Then I just laughed, thinking about how ridiculous my whole day has been and that seriously, my life must be some kind of real-life French farce.

Since then I've been online, trying to avoid people's chirpy "Happy Thanksgiving" messages and keeping myself afloat with the schadenfreude of knowing that at least my friend Kathy (one of my friends from the National Team playing in Bergerac) is just as depressed as me. We both agree that the coke we drank at lunch was the highlight of our day.

Soon I will be off to practice, trying (unsuccessfully) to explain to my teammates why I am depressed and what makes Thanksgiving so damn special. No, it isn't like Halloween or Fourth Of July...it is a time to be together with people you love, to share a meal and take a moment to be thankful, not just for the things you have, but for the people. I definitely am thankfully for a lot of things, but being alone at Thanksgiving reminds me that what I cherish most- my family and friends- are far away right now.

So, Happy Thanksgiving...

Cliches come true

Today I saw a mime in the street. In France. And also a guy playing the accordian and wearing a beret.

How much do I love it when French cliches turn out to be real? Beaucoups!

France Rant 1: Bureaucracy

OK, I've tried to keep my blog fairly positive, but now I've come to a point where I just have to rant a little bit about the French. Sorry.

Before I blast into them, I would just like to say there are some things I love about living in France. Delicious baguettes for example...cliche, I know, but also true. Nothing like getting some damn fine artisan bread hot out of the bakery oven for less than a euro.

I also enjoy being able to buy a decent bottle of wine for 2-3euros. And the general culture that revolves around eating good food and drinking nice wine. All big plusses to la vie francaise.

Par contre (but, on the other hand), there are some really annoying things. Mainly the bureacracy and the fact that there is no such thing as customer service. Here, the customer is always wrong.

My first run-in dealing with French inefficiency (on a grand scale, not just the fact that it takes 30 minutes to get your food at McDonald's, totally defeating the point) has been over the last few weeks while I anxiously waited for my handball license from the French Federation. Whereas the US Olympic Committee was exceptionally fast and diligent, receiving all of my paperwork and filling it out and returning it the same day (thanks Mike!), the French took their time. In fact, it was almost four weeks before I heard anything from them. And the result? License denied!!!

My freaking license was denied because I didn't have my carte de sejour, which is the document that declares I am a temporary resident (for a year). So, I went in search of my carte de sejour. Even though we checked with the French Federation before and they said all I needed was my visa. Liars.

So, I arrive at the prefecture with every piece of paper I could possibly need, with 5 copies each. The prefecture is kind of like the Los Angeles DMV- a billion people there waiting to see a few pissed off bureaucrats who have no qualms about stepping outside for some coffee, a cigarette, and a 15 minute conversation despite huge lines and only two other people "working." You can spend your entire day at the Prefecture only to be told you are missing some inane piece of paper and will have to come back.

Luckily, after only waiting a few short hours I was told that since I was a student, I should go to the "Maison Etudients" to file my paperwork. So, I went about trying to find that building and then standing in line there. And of course, comme l'habitude (as usual), I didn't have everything I needed. I was missing a copy of the backside of a driver's license and, oh yeah, something that proved I had 1300euros in an account in France.

So, I spent the next two days collecting more random pieces of paper that they might want, and the things I was missing before. THey told me to bring 2 stamps, but I bought a booklet just in case. And an entire packet of enveloppes (even though they said to bring 1). I went to the bank to deposit the cash I pulled from my American account, and then the shit hit the fan. I asked for a copy of my statement to prove I had the money in my account, and they were like "sorry, it takes 1-2 days to get that."

I flipped. And I channeled my inner French person and refused to leave and pitched a fit until they got off their asses and did something to help me. They fought with me for 10-15 minutes before finally sitting down, opening the computer, and printing something that took 45 seconds to do. Seriously? And then they told me that I was lucky they were willing to make such an extraordinary effort on my behalf. Yeah, merci. Lazy asses.

So, with all of my papers in hand, I went back to file for my carte de sejour. And, a major miracle, I got it, on only the second try! Hooray! And thankfully I brought along the extra things, because I definitely needed 3 stamps and not 2, and also some papers they didn't ask for the first time. I'm telling you, they want all of this stuff, and they bitch if you don't have it, but they don't even read it or look at it if you do.

With that finished, I can only hope that the French Federation will unblock my license in time for me to play this weekend. I'm getting really anxious waiting!!

Great French Moments!!

OK- I thought the first one was an isolated experience, but now that I have two of what I call "Great French Moments"- I'm going to share them with you!

As we all know, the French are a little different than Americans. However you want to describe them, I think it is kind of like Eddie Izzard says- "They are French, they are spikey, because...well, they're fucking French!"

Things that I doubt you would see in the USA, or at least not with the same emotion:

1) I was walking down the street downtown a few weekends ago, right off of the main shopping district at the Place de la Comedie, when a girl comes out of what must be an apartment door. She is dressed in normal clothes, and walking calmly down the street. 30 seconds later, a guy (who happened to be really cute and have a nice bod) comes running after her, dressed only in boxer shorts. He is yelling at her, begging her to turn around, which she finally does and coldly says something to him (which I wish I knew enough French to understand), then keeps walking. Then he starts crying. A grown-ass man, half-naked in the street crying...like, for real crying, tears and the whole mess. Then he starts walking after her, begging her to come back, and crying while she completely ignores him. I try not to stop and stare, but well, I stop and stare, because I have NEVER seen such a dramatic movie-like scene in my life. It was like that scene in Bridget Jones when Bridget goes after Colin Firth in her underwear, only reversed and in French. This continues for several blocks until they are out of eyesight, at which point I have to move on.

LOVE it. Almost as European as dropping kitchen appliances out of windows like they do in the movies when they are pissed.

2) My second great moment came yesterday when I was eating lunch with a friend in a restaurant downtown. We were enjoying ourselves when all of a sudden we heard the crash of pots and pans and screaming coming from the kitchen. The restaurant, which was packed at the time and had been filled with the sound of loud conversation, fell silent as everyone listened to the cook screaming at someone in the kitchen. He literally slammed something down on the floor and SCREAMED, as loud as possible. "You do NOT talk to me like that, you DO NOT talk to me like that- I said, DON'T EVER TALK TO ME LIKE THAT, I am NOT your dog!" Seriously? A French chef throwing things in the kitchen and pitching a royal fit so loud that everyone in the restaurant stops their conversation in awe. Fabulous. I have never experienced anything like that in my entire life!


I heart France, these moments just lighten my life!!

Jen Drives Stick 4: Elle na marche pas

So, over the last few weeks my little car has had a few hiccups, and not any attributable to me. It has stopped randomly and not wanted to start again, most of the time in harmless places (like the parking lot at the gym), but once in the BIG round-about in Montpellier. That did not go well.

Naturally, I alerted my host family that there was a problem, and they took it into the garage last week to be checked out. "Oh, no, la voiture marche bien...pas des problems!" said the guy at the garage (Oh no, it is working just fine, no problems at all). So, I looked like an idiot American that doesn't know how to drive a French car. But even an idiot American can start a car, I mean, really. When it just sits there and refuses to crank up (well, you can crank it, but it doesn't turn over), it isn't because I'm used to driving an automatic!!

Anyway, I was hoping that the problem would remain rare or go away completely, but I guess mechanical problems don't fix themselves. The car stopped again yesterday when I was driving downtown, but eventually, as usual, it restarted again after a few minutes of trying. So, when it did it again on the way to school today, I was concerned, but at least I made it to class on time and the car was running OK.

I thought maybe it was frustrated because it was low on gas, so I took it to the station to fill it up and it broke down in line at the gas station. Some people behind me got out to push my car into the pump, but after I filled it up, it stopped again!! I cranked it and cranked it and finally got it going, only for it to die 15 seconds later in the middle of the road (THANKFULLY in a turning lane so I wasn't blocking TOO much traffic).

Then, the same people who came to help me before, turned around the road and came back to help me out. Of all of the luck, after speaking bad french for a minute, the woman was like "Do you speak English" and I was like, YES! Turned out she was Irish and her fiancee was American and they were my good Samaritans of the day.

Simon, the American (who comes from Pasedena), got out and pushed my car into the parking lot where he and his fiancee Ceira helped me phone the tow truck, the garage, and finally a taxi to take me home. They stood by me in the parking lot for an hour trying to help me sort everything out. I couldn't believe my luck! Of all people to stop and help (I guess it shows that the Americans, and apparently Irish, are MUCH nicer than the French who didn't stop to help but instead honked at me and yelled obscenities when I was broken down), two people who speak English! And luckily they'd been living in France for 5 years, so they also spoke very good French, and that helped me make it through all of the phone calls I couldn't have done by myself.

Yay for guardian angels! So, now my little French car is in the shop- HOPEFULLY getting fixed this time. Thankfully I have a rental now so I can go to class and practice tomorrow, it was kind of strange having to get around without it this afternoon.

Jen goes to the Rugby World Cup: Take 1

Yay rugby! As most people reading this know, I used to be a rugby player in college. I love me some rugby, and rugby people are also pretty special. Short bus special, but I'm loving them.

Since the Rugby World Cup began a few weeks ago, Montpellier (which is one of the cities where the matches are taking place) has been overrun with rugby fans (and players) from around the world. It is pretty fun, mostly because they are overwhelmingly British, Australian, and American and are loud, obnoxious and English-speaking just the way the French like it. Besides the amusement of watching grown men cry when their team loses, it is also pretty funny to observe the French people sneering at them on a regular basis as they walk down the street proudly advertising their foreignness with their country's respective jerseys.

Anyway, I have been enjoying the World Cup since it started by watching rugby games on TV (even one of my 3 free channels shows the games) and downtown on the big screens they put up in the town center. But Wednesday night, I got to see my first game in person!

I was really excited when my friend Paul emailed me to tell me he wanted to come visit and go see a rugby game. So, we got tickets to the USA v. Samoa game in St. Etienne, since Paul couldn't make it for the other USA games being played in Montpellier. Besides cheering for our boys in red, white and blue, we figured of all of the games in their pool, this was the one they MIGHT have a chance to win!

So, Paul and I left Montpellier on Wednesday afternoon for what turned out to be quite an adventure! He rented a car- the "Panda" (made by Fiat, that's its real name!) and we took to the autoroutes to make the game. We were making pretty good time cruising through the southeast of France, until we hit MAJOR traffic coming out of Lyon and into St. Etienne.

Tragic. We barely moved for an hour and started to watch the minutes until kick-off count down...from inside our car. Finally we made it into the city and the neon signs on the highway pointed us toward the stadium. We later found out that there were 35,000 people attending the match, in a city which usually has a population of 140,000, so I guess the town isn't really equipped for that kind of influx of people.

We parked French-style on the side of an access ramp to another road, REALLY close to some woods. Thankfully the Panda handled it, and once we had her jammed up on the edge of the road, we started running- and I mean RUNNING toward the stadium, with a bunch of other people.

Paul and I ran hard for a few minutes before we finally saw a bus-stop where busses were taking people closer to the stadium, thankfully, since we seemed to be a few miles away. We jumped on the bus, and then when the bus stopped, ran the rest of the way to the stadium as fast as we could.

We arrived about 25 minutes into the first half, sadly, but at least we were there. The seats were great, but we had to sprint about 8 flights of stairs to make it there! My quads were burning by the time we got to our seats, it was definitely a work-out.

The stands were packed, which was kind of cool considering it was the two worst teams in the pool playing each other. There were a lot of people with both USA and Samoan flags, and everyone seemed to cheer for both sides. It was an atmosphere of sportsmanship, and people just seemed to enjoy good rugby (or bad as the case may be), which was the fun part.

Half-time also brought an interesting surprise when Paul and I went in search for the bathrooms. Not only were they down the 8 flights of stairs, but they were communal (read: men and women) bathrooms, and there was no line, just 200 people pushing and shoving their way in. I was NOT amused by this because men are gross, and men's bathrooms are usually much dirtier than women's. Not to mention, I was being pushed around by a bunch of rugby guys. Oh yeah, and it was those disgusting third world bathrooms that were NOT toilets, but holes in the ground and a place to put your feet while you squat.

I was totally grossed out, but at least I had some antibacterial hand wipes in my bag which I used to totally disinfect myself afterward. Ew.

The second half of the game proved totally exciting. The USA scored two tries and made a penalty kick, but sadly, wasn't able to make up for the lost ground of the first half. Samoa ended up winning 25-21, but it was a really fun half, and Paul and I were convinced that if the USA had 5 more minutes, they could have won!!!

After the game ended, Samoa did their haka again for the crowd....five times. It was pretty fun, and the guys were obviously happy (hey, they won 1 game!) and then received their "Thanks for participating in the World Cup" medals. How tragic, and little league-ish.

At that point Paul and I headed out of the stadium and started our (very VERY cold) hike back to the car. The upside of parking so far away is that at least you don't have to wait in traffic to get OUT of the stadium! So, we got on the highway really quickly and started back to Montpellier.

It was quite a long hike back, but we stopped mid-way and bought a baguette and some sandwich meat at a gas station as a little snack. We arrived back in Montpellier around 2:30am, not terribly late, but late.

I'm SUPPOSED to go to see USA v. South Africa on Sunday, but I haven't heard from the people with my tickets in a few weeks, so I'm hoping that's still on! We'll see what happens!

Business lunches revived

Since Kathy decided to come back with me in Montpellier, I decided to give myself a "jour de conge" and skip my classes on Monday so we could hang out. I didn't feel exceptionally bad about this because 1) I figured it would be a LONG time before I had friends in town again and 2) It was still the beginning of school so lots of people are making schedule changes and trying to figure out what classes to be in.

Monday morning was pretty leisurely, we just hung around the house and had breakfast, watched some french TV, napped during "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader (French edition)" and then woke-up in time to head down-town for a classic Kathy and Jen business lunch!

I took Kathy down to the Place de la Comedie, which is the main commercial center of downtown Montpellier. It is a very nice place to hang out because there are several streets of restaurants and stores, but no cars. We were both in the mood for a bento box, but after searching several streets, didn't find a Japanese place open. So we settled for a Chinese/Thai place that I had eaten in before that was very good.

I rarely eat out, but the nice thing at lunch is that you can get the "Midi special" which is usually fairly cheap and includes an appetizer, main course, and meal. We both got a glass of wine, some appetizers (including some really good samosas) and I had the shrimp satay. It was good and we enjoyed sitting outside, chatting, and of course eating.

After spending some time at the gare (train station), trying to get Kathy's return ticket, we decided that it was time for desert. So we stopped for a coke and a waffle with chocolate (waffles are desserts in France, by the way). Certainly we won't make French weight if we keep eating crepes and waffles with chocolate, but it was a special occasion, so we enjoyed the indulgence.

The evening was also pretty fun, and like most things that Kathy and I do, revovled around food. I cooked fajitas and we drank some Muscat and watched more french TV. Including a series called "L'hopital" which looked like a combination of every successful American medical drama of all time (Grey's Anatomy, with some ER and a bit of House thrown-in). Although, instead of Dr. McSteamy, it was Dr. McTepid- the French need to work on having hotter TV stars, I mean, I can't really understand what is going on, but at least I could look at someone nice!

Sadly, Kathy had to leave Tuesday morning, but we had an awesome time, and I totally hope that there will be more business lunches in the future!!! I miss the Ho-Ho buffet and bento boxes at the Plum Tree!

Reunion in Toulouse!

The week passed by pretty quickly, I finally got my schedule sorted out at school, and went to my first classes on Friday. I had art history in the morning, which was pretty cool, and then two hours of grammar right after that. I was surprised that I could follow along with everything pretty easily, although I definitely feel like I am behind most of the other people in my level in terms of grammar. Need to get to work on that soon!

Anyway, Friday night I went to practice and then just came home and chilled. Saturday was also pretty relaxed, I cleaned, studied some grammar and then helped my host family's little boy with his English homework. After that I got showered and pretty to go the Montpellier men's professional game against Trembley.

It was really fun to see the Montpellier game, especially since I had VIP floor seats! I could talk to the players on the court if I wanted to, I was so close. Thankfully Montpellier won the game, so it was exciting.

Sunday morning I woke up and decided to go to Toulouse to see my friends Megan and Kathy play against each other! The trip was pretty easy, 2 hours exactly (direct) by train, so that was nice. I arrived around 1pm, and Megan was there waiting.

Christian had come to watch the game also, so the three of us went in search of chicken kebabs for lunch. Yay Chicken! We walked through Toulouse downtown, which although it is cool and definitely a bigger city, I have to say that it is not as pretty as Montpellier!!

After we finished lunch, we took the metro to Megan's gym and watched the younger team play. Soon Kathy arrived with her team and we were sitting and talking and having a great time catching up.

It was funny to see the look on everyone's faces when we talked- I can imagine it would be the same if my teammates could see me with my friends talking in English- I talk 100 times more!

We had a really great time chatting and then Megan and Kathy started warming up with their teams.

As expected, Megan's team won the game (her team dropped down from the second division last year, but are trying to move up again so they are very serious), but both Megan and Kathy played fantastic games. I had fun cheering for both of them despite the bizarre looks from the people in the stands who couldn't figure out why I was cheering for both sides....in English!

After the game, the girls showered and the four of us went out to dinner downtown. I was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but happy that Kathy had decided to come back on the train with me to hang out for a few days!

It was a really fun weekend of handball and friends.

First "Real" Match!

OK- I haven't posted in a while, but in my defense I do NOT have internet at my place, and since I get home really late from practice (11pm), I can't bust up in my host family's house and steal theirs. Dommage.

But, I'm working on "finding a solution" to my internet problem ASAP, because otherwise I will go insane.

Anyway, back to my update! The team played its first match last Saturday in our awesome home gym. My license still has not been processed, so I was not qualified to play. But there were six other people who were in the same boat as me, so we sat together in the stands.

I was actually REALLY excited to see my team play a real game, and very nervous. I was sweating through my clothes just sitting there wondering what was going to happen. The team we played against, St. Julien Denize de Gleise, was one of only three teams we lost a game to last season, and they had a lot of big players, so I was a little concerned.

The first ten minutes were disastrous, but after that, things fell into place. We finished the first half up by five, and won the game by eleven! 31-20 was the final score, and everyone was really happy.

It was Laurent's first game ever as a coach, and I think he was pretty stressed through most of it. I looked over and saw him pulling his shirt over his head or banging his head against the wall at times, but as usual, he was really positive when he spoke to everyone, so I think that helped people not freak out. You could tell the first few minutes of the game everyone was really nervous, and it was only after we calmed down that we started to pull ahead.

This game was a fun way to start the season, winning in our home gym by 11 points! Next week we play away at Lyon, who is supposed to be a very strong team (they have a D1 team as well), so we'll see!

Yay winning!!

Le weekend

Although by no means strenuous, I had a fairly productive week last week, so I was definitely looking forward to the weekend. Friday night I ate dinner with my host family and watched the opening match of the Rugby World Cup, with Argentina beating the French in a very fun game.

I had plans to go back to my apartment and finish unpacking after the game ended, but instead was lured into my bed to begin watching the first season of HBO's Rome, which has turned out to be totally addicting! So, I left the mess in my apartment for another day.

Saturday morning I woke leisurely, made myself some tea, watched an episode (or two?) of Rome in my bed and then finally motivated myself to put my apartment together. A few hours later, all of my clothes were unpacked, and my room was clean, and I finally felt like I had a home. It is sooo cute!

I decided to enjoy the rest of the day by taking a walk downtown and buying some bread at the bakery and a few items at the local store. It was really nice outside, very sunny, but not too unbearably hot. I enjoyed the walk around town, it also felt good to stretch my legs a bit which were still sore from the games and practices of the week.

I made my way back home and then got ready to go to my handball game. I left "early" so I could have some time at the gym to get my mental game on, but when I arrived, the game was already in progress. I totally flipped out! Apparently I had misunderstood what time we were supposed to be here. My coach had said "dix-huit et demi" (which is 18:30, or 6:30pm) and I just heard the "huit heure et demi" (8:30pm), thus, I arrived at half-time.

It was the worst feeling EVER. I couldn't believe that I had missed half of the game because of not understanding French correctly. I was extremely upset, but sat on the bench and cheered my team on during the second half. We ended up winning 29-16 against the Spanish team, which was a nice victory, but I couldn't feel too happy because I had made such a terrible mistake.

Thankfully the girls and my coach were super nice about it- they realized how upset I was and told me it didn't really matter, it was just a friendly match. But I still wanted to crawl into a hole and die. After the match there was a barbecue and then a bunch of the girls decided to go "en ville" to party a little bit. I was excited when they invited me to come along!

So, my crappy night had begun to improve as we set-off for some wine and snacks at one of my teammate's apartments. After chit-chatting and having a glass of wine, we headed into downtown Montpellier to go to a bar. It was a lot of fun to be "out" and it was my first real night in my new town.

After hanging out with my teammates (who spoke progressively more English with each drink) and meeting some fun foreigner's who also spoke English (a Canadian, some Swedes and a Swiss guy), the bar closed at 1am. Since I had agreed to play in a tournment with the younger team on Sunday at 8am, this is where I called it a night, much to the disappointment of my teammates who wanted me to come party with them at the disco until 5am!

Sadly, because everyone can smoke in the bar, I had to take another shower when I got home at 1:30am. Haven't had to do that in years, since maybe I was a freshman in college and smoking was still allowed indoors? Crazy! So I showered, put my clothes outside to air out and finally hit the sack.

7:30am came around early, and I really had to drag myself out of bed and into my handball clothes. I arrived at the gym around 8am, and there were very few people there, so I had the gym and the goals to myself. Since I am working on improving my shot technique, I spent 30 minutes or so shooting from different places on the six-meter line, trying desperately not to lean too much.

The day went by fairly quickly, and I played four games. The level was not nearly as strong as with the first team, but it was good to build my confidence. I could be a little more agressive and try some new things because there was nothing to lose. In between games, when the court was free, I practiced my shot, so by the end of the day I was completely exhausted and my shoulder was ridiculously sore.

I left the gym at 5:30pm, showered and enjoyed the rest of my Sunday evening relaxing and taking it easy.

French vocabulary lesson of the weekend: Trompe l'heure (to screw up the time)

Jen Drives Stick, Take 3: Stuck

Just for your amusement, I have decided to recount my latest adventure driving stick shift. Before you get the idea that I completely suck, I to give myself some props, I have been driving all around Montpellier for the last week or so with relatively no problems. My little car (needs a name, any suggestions?) and I are getting along very well, and I am actually quite fond of it.

Sadly, I guess I am not the complete pro I thought I was!

I was coming out of the mall parking lot yesterday (think underground parking structure) when I got stuck, and my perfect little world of driving stick shift came crashing down around me.

It went something like this: I put my ticket into the machine, the gate lifts up, and I pull out toward the sunlight. Sadly, I had to stop halfway up the ramp because the stoplight at the top of the ramp had turned red, and the two cars ahead of me stopped. So there I was, at a dead stop in the middle of a steep ramp.

I figured I would have to gun the engine a little bit when it was time to go, but I did NOT think I would continue to roll backward as this happened. And there were 4 cars behind me honking their horns. I stalled out twice, missed two lights, and still went nowhere besides back down the ramp. I wanted to cry, but instead settled for panicking and screaming obscenities.

Finally the guy got out of the car behind me and started yelling in French. I panicked more and was like "I don't know what to do" in French. He took pity on me when he heard how bad my French was and realized I was foreign. Then he came over, put his hand on my shoulder and said "OK, tu calme, tu calme" (calm down). Then he asked me for the keys, tried to explain how to work the car in French, and I pretended I understood while I hoped he would just move my car up for me. And he did.

So, with 15 cars now backed up behind me annoyed as hell, Mr. French Guy in the Green Peugeot pulled my car all the way up the ramp until the ground was flat again and I was safe. Yay! I made it! Thanks to the kindness of a stranger.

The important lesson I learned here is that I will NEVER ever stop on a hill ever again, because I still can't figure out how to get my car to go forward instead of backwards on a steep incline. I hope this doesn't mean I have to avoid the mall though, because it is pretty nice.

Pre-season Match 3

I spent today taking my entrace exams for the University, to determine my exact level of French. I was surprised when I scored so highly on my oral exam, placing me in level 4 (advanced intermediate) out of 6.

I guess having been here for the last two weeks has already affected my oral comprehension and speaking skills. So, even though I FEEL a long way from being fluent, I guess I'm understanding a pretty decent amount of Frech.

In the afternoon I took my written exam, which was 4 pages of grammar excercises and then two hour-long essays. I felt OK on about half of the grammar excercises (I think I bombed one section though), and fairly good about my essays. They aren't terrible complex, but I think they turned out OK. We'll see, if I do OK I should stay at level 4. If my grammar was really bad, maybe I'll have to drop into level 3, I'll have to wait another week or so to find out.

The cool thing about spending the day at the University taking exams is that I met a bunch of people; a few Americans, an Austrian, and some Norweigens. They were all really cool and I had a fabulous time talking to people in English. I know, I'm here to learn French, but it has been a while since I could actually carry on a conversation with people in English!

So, I'm looking forward to classes starting so I can make new friends and start to have a social life. That will be fun.

Anyway, when I finished at the University, I had a few hours to kill before going to the handball gym. I went downtown and hung out at the Polygone, the big shopping mall near the Place de la Comedie. I was on the look-out for a new school bag and some shoes, but didn't see anything interesting. So, instead I had a smoothie and a waffle with chocolate while I browsed what was "la mode" in French fashion. When did MC Hammer pants become sexy? That is NOT acceptable, and will be another fashion item I avoid along with skinny pants and 80's clothes.

When I finished my snack and had had my fill of nauseating fashion items like overalls and hammer-pants, I headed over to the gym.

As usual, I got lost for 40 minutes before I found it, but at least I had given myself enough time that I could arrive early for practice. We started at 7pm, but only ran through plays and did general passing and shooting warm-ups to prepare for the match at 8:30pm.

I didn't start this game, but went in around 15 minutes at the circle, after the other circle dominated with 4 goals. I didn't feel particularly confident on offense after strugging to connect with my backcourt in the last game against Nimes. I also have a hard time understanding the nuances of the plays, so for the time being, I feel like my backcourts are really frustrated with me. I scored one goal on a nice pass from the right back, drew a penalty on a second, and then hit the goalie in the stomach (arggggh) on the third, which really threw me off.

As a team we were killing the other team- they didn't even score for the first 18 minutes. We finished the first half 16-2, and then won the game 29-8 in the end. I played 40 minutes in total, and actually felt pretty good physically. We were finally able to run the fast break as a team and I enjoyed being on first wave. So, even if my offense is struggling at the moment while I get used to playing circle with a different group of people, at least my defense was solid and I was able to run like crazy through the whole game.

Laurent was pleased to see that some things were finally coming together (I say it is thanks to our awesome team-bonding weekend!). The plays that we practiced earlier in the evening looked good and we significantly reduced our turnovers. It is definitely looking positive for us if we can continue to keep it together.

New Apartment!

Monday I finally moved into my new apartment. Yay! I am really close to my host family, so I can still go over there and eat meals with them when I want to, and for the time being borrow their wireless internet since I haven't gotten it set-up in my place yet.

Hooray apartment!! Now with my own place, and the car, I feel like I'm starting to have a real life here. I went tonight to buy a bunch of things at the Wal-mart equivalent for my new place (even though it was almost completely furnished).

So cute, so now I just have to get it organized and then I will feel like I am really settled.

Pyranees: Pictures!

Want to check out my pictures from the Pyrenees? Click on the picture below and view the album in Ofoto!

Pyrenees: Canyoning!

Sunday morning was pretty relaxed. Laurent let us sleep-in, and then we had a leisurely breakfast outside. Bread, fruit, and various cantines of tea and coffee that Pierre brought over from his house.

After rinsing quickly in the creek that ran through the vineyard, we took down the tents and packed our bags into the van.

We spent the rest of the morning laying around and chatting, and resting in the sun. Around noon we had a quick lunch, and then we were off to go "canyoning."

Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I had never heard of canyoning before. And, like most things since I've been in France, my lack of language skills leads to everything being a mystery or a surprise. This was no exception, and I had no idea what to expect when we arrived!

We drove up the mountain this time, and parked at what looked like a scenic lookout off of a mountain road. The views were amazing, and there were mountains on all sides with a very deep canyoning running between them. The canyon was quite deep, but very narrow, so even though we knew there was water at the bottom, we couldn't see anything.

Our guide, Jerome, soon arrived. He is what I would describe as a French hippie. Very skinny, with long hair and a rugged look to him, clad in a speedo with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Classic. He sets us up with full-body westuits, including rubber socks and shoes, and of course, to top it off, a stylish pink helmet!

We started our hike around the mountain with just the rubber socks and shoes, and our wetsuits in hand so we wouldn't pass out from heat stroke. We hiked a few kilometers around a small road at the top of the mountain until we got to a place where we could hike into the canyon.

Sidenote: We were told to leave everything in the van except the swimsuits we were wearing and the wetsuits we needed to go canyoning. The exception to this was a small plastic jar that we carried for emergency items that could not get wet. Despite what you might think, that was not a cell phone or wallets or anything like that it, the "emergency items" were everyone's packet of cigarettes and a few lighters. And a granola bar in case anyone had a blood sugar issue. Love it. Seriously, a waterproof jug so that everyone would have their cigarettes! Welcome to France.

When we arrived in the canyon, we put on our wetsuits and helmets and started "canyoning." Here is my best explanation: Basically, it is like hiking in a river in a canyon. There are places where the water level is low and you are hiking through ankle/knee-deep water on rocks. Other places where it is very rocky, and you are pretty much scrambling over large rocks. There are also places where the water is deep, and you swim, or flow with the current, and better yet there are places where there are large drop-offs and you end up cliff jumping into the water below (if it is suitably deep). Very very cool!

The jumps were definitely the best part, but the views inside the canyon were also amazing. The mountain walls were really high and the canyon very narrow, so once you climbed in and got going down the river, you could not get out until you reached the end. It was a funny feeling to be inside the canyon, with these grand mountains towering over you, making you feel tiny and insignificant. At the same time, it is refreshing to be in awe of nature like that.

So, at times it was scary and took a lot of nerve to make some of the jumps. There were some where Jerome would tell us "if you are not absolutely confident you can jump farther than that rock, then don't do it, or you could get hurt." Luckily I am not afraid of heights, but I definitely had to give myself a pep talk to jump 30 feet into the river below! After doing it though, I felt invinceable, like I could do anything. It was also a nice feeling of comraderie with my teammates as we sang and cheered each other as each person prepared to make the jumps.

By the end of the 4 hour trek through the canyon, my legs were like jello, and my wal-mart watch (waterproof to 100meters) was completely busted from what I can only guess was the force of hitting the water during the jumps. The hike back out of the canyon was murder, and was more like climbing a mile of steep stairs than anything else. But it was a beautiful day and a fabulous weekend, and when we finally reached our mini-buses at the top, we were exhausted but happy.

We ate like we hadn't eaten in a year, stuffing bread and granola bars in our mouths at a rapid pace. My hair was all nappy and when I took off my wetsuit (ie. had 3 other people pull it off of me), there were bruises and marks all over my body!

When we'd finally dried off and put on some clothes, we got into the van to head home. I passed out right away, and when I woke up in Montpellier I was sad the weekend was over, but SO happy I'd gotten to go.

The point of the weekend was team-bonding, and I think it accomplished that. We all had a great time, there was no drama, and for the first time I feel like people on the team are getting to really know me as a friend. Taking on all of those challenging activities also gave everyone a good kick of confidence, and I think we all finished the weekend feeling like we could do anything.

Pyrenees: Going Climbing!

I've decided to break-up my awesome weekend into three parts, since there is a lot to say about it!

We started off for our trip at 7:30am on Saturday morning. We met at the gym, where the "club" (our social area) was open and there was tea and coffee and croissants waiting for us. Then we packed up the mini-buses and headed off to western France!

My favorite part of the drive was sleeping. Clearly. I was kind of tired after a week of getting up early and actually doing stuff. Although, I also enjoyed that in our 2.5 hour trip, there were multiple smoke breaks for the coach and the players! God forbid people go an hour without a cigarette.

So, after a leisurely drive to the Pyranees, we arrived in St. Paul de ????. Some small little village at the base of the Pyranees an hour or so from the city of Perpignan. We drove around a bunch of roundabouts (see: Jen Drives Stick Take 2) for another 30 minutes until we finally found the road we were looking for.

We pulled up in front of a gate at what turned out to be a gorgeous vineyard and orchard full of grapes, apples, plums, figs, and blackberries. It belonged to a friend of our coach named Pierre, who was a true outdoorsman. He told us not to touch his fruits, but we couldn't help ourselves and would reach-up to grab a fresh plum or some grapes when the temptation got to be too much!

After settling in a little bit, we set-up our picnic lunch and enjoyed the beautiful day. Soon after, Pierre brought us a bunch of climbing harnesses and got us ready to go for a climb!

We drove 3 minutes away to the base of a mountain that has several nice faces for climbing. We hiked 30 minutes through the brush until we reached the first face, where Pierre hooked up our ropes. Then, we got down to the climbing!

I'd been climbing a few times before, but it had certainly been a few years. I was confident before I got started, but about 6 feet of the ground I got stuck for a minute and my adrenaline started pumping. After I got past that one tricky part, I was good and shot up the rest of the face without too many problems. When I reached the top, the view was amazing, and I had a major high from the rush of making it all the way up!

We climbed 1-2 at a time, so once I got up to the top, I hung out for a while with some of my teammates while we waited for the others to finish. The views were amazing, and everyone was in a really good mood from having successfully completed a challenge. It was a positive atmosphere the whole time, with people helping each other out by yelling out encouraging words or telling them where there were nice footholds in the rock.

After we all finished the first climb, we started on the second. The second face was much more challenging, and the top was especially tricky. I was feeling good at this point and ready to go. I started my climb when the other person was 2/3 of the way up and was pleased when I raced past her and made it to the top first. Not that it was a competition, but it was a good confidence builder for sure.

I've felt like the last few weeks have been a challenge for me, and my body has been totally stressed out even if I feel OK mentally. Being on the mountain and really getting to know my teammates and do physically and mentally challenging tasks really had a positive effect on me. I could feel the stress leaving my body and I felt much more calm and relaxed than I have been since I arrived, like I was finally finding some balance. I love that about being in nature!!

After we finished the second climb, we started our descent back down the mountain before it could get dark. We set-up the rappelling and got down to business! I was a little scared because I couldn't understand ANYTHING that was going on during the explanation process. But, when it was my turn, my coach looked at me, told me not to worry that he had my ropes and he would make sure I made it down safely, and I sat back and started to rappell. It was smooth as glass, and a great trust excercise!

The trip down went quickly, and soon we were all on our way hiking back to the mini-buses. Everyone got excited when they saw there were "real" toiletts at the basecamp, so there was a mad rush for the bathrooms. Face it, it is much easier than going in the woods!!

All in all the climbing was fabulous! The day was gorgeous and the beautiful views and sense of accomplishment had everyone feeling like they were on top of the world.

Pyrenees: Camping, french style!

When we arrived back at the vineyard, we started to set-up the tents before it got dark. That was another fun team-building excercise as we tried to put the damn things together while explaining things in a mixture of French and English (clearly for my benefit). But, with 14 people, we were able to get 6 tents up pretty quickly, and after that, the work was pretty much done.

We spent the next few hours relaxing, building the fire, eating, and playing games. Fun times!

My favorite part about the whole evening was when someone busted out the snacks. Only in France does camping mean that you have bread, 10 cheeses, wine, olives, and cashews on the table before dinner. Camping, I repeat, we were camping! But food is never lost on the French, and absolute care must be taken to prepare only the finest quality cuisine even if you are living in a tent in the woods.

With wine and beer flowing, and after some delicious snacks, we started to work on building the fire. All of those years in the girl scouts totally payed off as I helped my teammates construct a brilliant campfire. Soon it was going strong and we got ready to cook the rice and tomatoes that would accompany the high-end sausages for our dinner.

The evening was a lot of fun, and after a few beers, a lot of my teammates started speaking some English! I love that alcohol makes everyone bilingual. So, I was finally starting to get to know some of the girls, and they were finally starting to see me as someone other than just the random foreign person that never knows what is going on. Of course, there were lots of jokes about me being American, and especially how pale I was, but it was all in good fun and I was really enjoying myself.

Once the sun set and it was really dark, the sky was amazing. There were no clouds and the sky was exceptionally clear, so you could see thousands and thousands of stars. I couldn't even count the number of falling stars I saw as we all laid on our backs and took time to enjoy the beauty around us. We pointed out constellations and planets that we recognized, but it was harder than usual to spot things with so many stars shining brightly!

Finally, we ate dinner at what was probably 10:30 or 11:00pm. Although I had overseen the cooking of the sausages, I passed on that part of the dinner. "But you can eat this," my coach said, trying to put a sheep based sausage on my plate. "No thanks, I'm really not into eating sheep either." But even sticking with the rice, tomatoes, and bread, it was good. Oh yes, and of course the swiss chocolate we had for dessert! And the plums and grapes I had stolen from the orchard earlier. Delicious!

When we finished eating, we built the fire back up and sat around in a circle, camp style. We played some "get to know you" type games where we went around the circle talking about ourselves, or our teammates. It was a challenge for me since my vocaularly is limited, but then they had me explain things in English while they tried to translate them as a group. Very amusing. Then we played the game where you write a name on a post-it and put it on the forehead of the person sitting next to you. Then, you ask questions to the group to try to figure out who you are.

I put Mandela on my neighbor's head which seemed to be extremely challenging for some of the girls. I cringed when my neighbor asked if this person was American and a few people said "yes." So, maybe the French education system isn't THAT much better than the American one!

I had Edith Piaf on my forehead, which I guessed pretty quickly, much to the amazement of my teammates. They were very impressed that a stupid American would know who she is. Major shout out to my mom for having "La Vie en Rose" on repeat in our house!

So, after games, and laughter and general shenanigans, I finally went to bed. It turned out to be VERY cold during the night, and I was shivering even in a tank top, two t-shirts, two long sleeved shirts, a sweatshirt and my sleeping bag. But, I slept decently and Laurent gave us a nice "vacation" by letting us sleep-in until 9:30.

Jacou vs. Nimes

It's Friday, hoooray Friday! Today was pretty relaxed- I ate lunch with the kids, and then went to the movies with Thomas, the older kid, to celebrate his last day before school starts!

We went to see Harry Potter...in French. I was excited though, because I am a dork and love Harry Potter. Thankfully I had already seen it in English (at midnight on opening night, because that's how I roll), so I could follow the dialogue without too much difficulty.

Sadly, I tore my contact as we were walking in, so I had to watch it with one good eye :(

Anyway- after the movie we went to pick up the little kid Maxime and then head back home for me to prepare my things for the evening. I left around 5:30pm to meet my teammates at the "McDo" so we could carpool to our match in Nimes.

Nimes is a big town for handball too, and it is only 40 minutes away. They have a champions league team on the men's side and a very good D1 program for the women. They are known as a developmental center for handball in the region, and they have a lot of young players that go there to play in the Nimes system.

When we arrived at the gym, frankly, I was expecting more! I think our Laurent Puisegeur brand-new gym is much much nicer, and probably bigger. The big plus, though, was that Nimes is sponsored by Perrier, so there was a ton of Perrier sitting around for us to drink. Love that!

I was really excited to start the game at circle, especially since we have four circles now and I had been sick earlier in the week. That was a confidence booster. We started out pretty strong, and I scored two goals again in the first ten minutes. After fifteen minutes, I was pretty beat and Laurent changed us out.

Nimes was a young team, but very very quick. What they lacked in experience and strength they made up for with their speed and fitness. They ran us up and down the court, but part of that was our fault for throwing away a bunch of balls!

We started out strong on offense and defense (even if fast-breaks looked bad), and were able to put the ball in consistantly from the backcourt. We experimented some with the 4-2 defense and then dropped back down to a 6-0 which looked strong.

In the end we won by 1, although it was way closer than it should have been. I don't even want to think about how many turnovers we had! If we can clean-up our fast break, we will be golden. Thankfully that shouldn't be too hard. If Laurent doesn't have a hard attack in the mean time!

After the game we showered and came back to Montpellier. Everyone was pretty tired so we didn't go out, especially since we were meeting the next morning at 7am to leave for the Pyranees!

Yay for winning against Nimes!

Jen Drives Stick: Take 2 (Driving to Practice)

I believe I mentioned in a previous post that my host family had installed a GPS navigation system in my car to help me get around. I believe I also mentioned that I turned it off after 5 minutes because it seemed useless, especially in French.

But, since I was attempting to drive myself to practice today for the first time, I decided to give the GPS another shot.

BAD idea!! I live in a south suburb of Montpellier (Lattes) and the gym is in a north suburb about 15-20 minutes away. Not a bad drive at all if you know your way around town, but for someone like me, who does NOT know their way around, it can be a disaster. Also, the GPS does not know what it is talking about, and was telling me to do things that I knew were not correct (like "tournez a gauche" when "a gauche" was right into a parking lot).

So, I decided to wing it instead. In fact, my driving experience tonight reminds me a little bit of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels that I used to read when I was a kid. You know how every two pages, you have to make a decision and then it tells you what page to turn to based on that decision? That is like driving in France. Every minute or two there is a round-about, with five or six choices that, regardless of which one you choose, will bring you to another round-about, and so on and so on until you find yourself driving around the flaming round-abouts of hell.

So, with the GPS rattling in French while I circled infinite round-abouts, I eventually found myself enjoying a scenic tour of the beautiful Languedoc-Roussillon region of France. While I would normally have gotten frustrated pretty quickly, the cute villages and chateaus and grapes growing by the side of the road had a calming effect on me. More than once I was tempted to stop in one of these villages, order myself a nice glass of wine in a cute little restraunt and just resign myself to the fact that I am lost forever, but at least lost forever in a good wine region.

But I trucked on, enjoying the feeling of having totally mastered my little French car, as I upshifted down long country roads and downshifted into the roundabouts. Who is a pro? That'd be me. OK, maybe that is an exageration, but I can totally drive places now without stalling out. Hollah.

The good news is that I actually made it to the gym! I'd like to thank my fantastic hippocampus and its amazing aptitude for spacial and visual memory. People were still putting their shoes on when I arrived, and I joined the warm-up just in time! I totally cut it closer than I would have prefered, but at least I didn't miss anything.

Practice went well- and I have the complete satisfaction of coming home tonight with one missing toenail, stick-um in my hair, and bruises and scratches all over my arms and legs. Hooray handball! We practiced our 5 on 6 and 6 on 5, as well as our 4-2 defense which I usually dislike, but actually was impressed by with this group of players. Shooting was a bit frustrating because I am being re-taught how to shoot a ball (apparently I lean too much, too early and need to straighten myself up more), but I'm trying to be patient and take as much as I can from Laurent.

Tomorrow we have a game against a really good team in Nimes, who not only has a top-ranked N1 team (who we will play) but also has a very good D1 team they feed into. Basically, the N1 team is a bunch of 16 year-olds who will eventually work their way up to the D1 level. We will play in their home gym, so no doubt it will be a challenge!

We will also have a few more players (and 3 more circles?) so I'm not expecting to play as much as last week, especially since I missed practice on Monday and Tuesday because I was sick. Still should be fun, though, and I'm really looking forward to it!

French weight...almost there!

For the last year my handball friends and I joked that when we got to France, we would at some point have to make our "French weight" which, as I mentioned before, is much skinnier than our American weight.

The strong and muscular build of American athletes is not so appealing to the French girls, who value their svelte figures. Lifting weights? Drinking protein shakes? They might as well wear large shorts that actually cover their asses.

French girls may have a genetic advantage, but they also get a lot of use out of living purely on coffee and cigarettes, which is a good way to keep a slim figure. Apparently the smoking also helps your handball skills, because the smokers on my team are the best players! I also noticed many of the men on the professional team smoking before/after games. I also distinctly remember watching Brazillian and Argentinian players smoking in the bathroom at the Pan-Am Championships banquet, with gold and silver medals around their necks. So, if I didn't have asthma (and also hate the idea of smoking), I would totally pick up smoking as part of my training plan. Hey, if it works for professional athletes and national team players, it will work for me!

Only joking. Kids, don't smoke, it is bad for your health.

But anyway- I figured as the year wore on and I adapted a more "French" lifestyle (and less Coke and Ho-Ho buffet), I would eventually make my way down to a French weight. I expected the fact that I do not eat pork, cheese, or milk-based products to aid me considerably since that is all they eat here. However, unexpectedly assisting me in this process has been my bad luck!

Anyone can get sick, but it was definitely bad timing for me to be dragged down with tonsilitis/strep my second day in France. I spent most of last week getting over that, and then thought I was done with being sick at least for a few months. I had a fairly relaxed weekend and finally started eating again and then BAM- Monday night I got sick again with some kind of stomach bug/food poisoning.

Ridiculous. I'm feeling better now but starting to wonder if I am actually going to survive here! My host family must think I'm never well, since I've been out of it pretty much since I arrived. I missed two practices this week (Monday and Tuesday) and so now my coach is wondering what is going on. Great, I love to start off like that.

Thankfully today is my day off so I'm just trying to take it easy. I slept 12 hours last night and woke up feeling much better today. I really want to get settled and start having some fun!

Now the question is, even if I get down to French weight, will I still have an excuse to avoid fashion trends like tights and skinny pants? I hope so. I just can't get into that, even if I am looking more French!

Lazy Sunday

Reflecting back on the weekend, if I had been thinking more clearly, I should have taken advantage of the opportunity to travel, or go visit some people in other parts of France. From now on, I will have a game every single weekend and most likely won't get a chance to spend a full weekend away until December!

I guess I was thinking I should rest since I spent most of last week sick, but I got a little bit bored by the time Sunday rolled around and had really wished I'd gotten out of town for a bit!

Ah well, next time.

Sunday started off with a trip to the local farmer's market, which builds up in the middle of the village where I live (Lattes). Actually, the fruits and veggies looked amazing, and there were a lot of interesting foods around, including rotisserie chicken, local honey, homemade jams, ect. This is apparently the place to be every Sunday, and it is nice that it goes on throughout the year.

Once I have my own apartment, I will definitely try to buy a lot of my fruits and veggies from the market. The prices are really good, and the people selling it know how to pick out the good stuff for you.

I have to say, the grapes I tasted were probably the most delicious grapes I've ever had. So flavorful, like nothing I've ever eaten in the US! The peaches and nectarines were also really good, as well as the melons. As a fruit-lover, it is heaven!

The rest of the afternoon passed rather slowly. It was ridiculously hot, but really muggy. Sadly the family had drained their pool on Saturday, so it was hard to find a way to cool off.

Toward the end of the afternoon I got bored enough that I took a walk through town, down to the ports where there were a few cafes and a boulangerie open. I got myself a little "mini-baguette" and coke for a grand total of 1.50euro and sat outside by the water under some shade just taking everything in.

The rest of the town was quite dead when I walked back, and it wasn't until the evening when things picked up again as the town celebrated the last day of their village festival. We were too late to see the bull run through the town (they closed the streets every night and let a few bulls run through the close streets), but there were fireworks, music, and carnival games. Too bad I wasn't very hungry, because there were lots of good looking carnival treats like funnel cakes and crepes with chocolate!

So, even though it was not a very exciting weekend, at least I rested a lot. Hopefully that will make this week's handball practices a little easier!

Jen Drives Stick-shift: Take 1

Today I took the car out all by myself! Yayyy! And I didn't die or kill anyone, although I did stall out waiting to get on the round-about once or twice and people honked their horns at me.

I actually had my first experience driving my cute little Renault Clio 2 yesterday, but only 2km to the bank and back. And not by myself, but with my highly concerned host family.

So, today I thought I would discover the town a bit, go shopping, and learn to drive my car. Sadly, it started out kind of tragically when I stalled out 3 times in the driveway because I forgot to undo the hand break. Whoops. Jerome, my host dad, looked extremely worried that I was not going to make it there or back.

"N'inquiette pas" I said ("don't worry"). He laughed nervously and replied "OK, bon courage!" (roughly speaking, "stay strong/good luck").

I made it out of the neighborhood with the help of the GPS navigation device that Jerome put in my car for me, programmed with "Home" and the shopping center I was looking for. Sadly, it is in French, and meters don't mean a lot to me, so when it says "Tournez a gauche en 160meters" it really doesn't help me much. So, I turned it off, turned on the radio and went driving around.

I spent the first 2 hours looking for the shopping center that apparently I had driven past in the first 5 minutes. But the good news is now I know how to find the beach, the McDonald's, and the highway- in both directions. And I know how to find my way back to the main round-about in my town. I found it from every direction, I think!

When I finally ended up at the Carrefour- I was covered in sweat from driving through all of the traffic, learning my new car, and trying to figure out the damn rules for the round-about. I decided to treat myself to a Coke at the McDonald's inside the shopping center to calm my nerves, and it worked.


I looked around some of the shops and ended up buying myself a new bag for my handball stuff, so I can carry both my handball stuff, my shower things, and a change of clothes. Should be useful. I also tried on some clothes I didn't buy, but now I know how to find everything so if I have some time next week I can go back and shop around.


Yayyy! I'm learning how to drive in France! I will try to go out again tomorrow so that I'm ready for anything starting Monday. Like driving myself to practice? Hmmm, that should be interesting!

Sidenote: European Shorts!

Handball players love short shorts- and most of them are tall and skinny enough that they look good in them. Even what I would consider to be "normal" shorts by American standards, are wayyyyyy too long for the Europeans. Its a good thing they never saw the practice shorts we used for the US National Team, because I think they would die before they put on a pair of shorts that went to their knees!

I thought it was really hilarious at the game last night when they emptied the uniform bag and there were fights over the small and medium shorts. Even the girls who are 5'10-5'11 were taking people out trying to get their hands on an "M." And even girls my size (5'7"-5'8") clearly thought than anything bigger than an "S" would mean the end of the world. I'm not even sure if I can get one leg in an "S"!

So, at the end of the craziness was a pile of larges, which I gladly took, and which still felt short and tight to me! But I guess in the future if I want to look more European, I'm going to have to throw myself into the ring so I too can fish out a medium :)

My first game!

I really did not think I would be playing a game this soon after arriving, but Laurent set-up 4-5 matches for us to play before we have our first game of the regular season on September 15.

So, even though we didn't have any "real" handball practice (we ran through plays and did fast-breaks on Thursday, but I definitely didn't take more than 2 shots or do any defensive contact), we played our first game Friday night!

I really did not know what to expect- from myself, from the girls, or from Laurent. The game was in Nimes, about 40-45 minutes away from Montpellier, and we left here in cars at 7pm. We arrived at the gym by about 7:50 and started our warm-up shortly after 8pm.

Laurent was pretty laid back- of course, I didn't really understand anything he said to us in the locker room other than the usual gist of things that coaches say (take care of the ball, work together on defense, use the fast break), but I looked as attentive as I could.

The warm-up was almost exactly the same warm-up we used to do with the National Team before we amped it up. Jogging, skipping, karaoke, defensive shuffle for a few minutes up and down the court followed by some passing, goalie warm-up, position shots, and fast-break. At least I could do the complete warm-up without having to understand anything!

I was surprised I started the game, but was excited to be playing. There were four plays we had practiced the day before, but I could not understand ANYTHING on the court. To confuse things, there is another Jennifer in the backcourt so when they would yell "Jen" I didn't know if they wanted her to cross or me to come set a block. So, at some point I just figured go with the flow and look for opportunities to move without stressing about the plays.

I scored the first goal of the game, and then another one a few minutes later. After that our backcourts went to town, and were scoring great shots from 9m, so I was mostly setting blocks and picks for them. I'm excited to be playing with a lot of girls who have a lot of experience, even if it will take me a little while to learn how they move and what they want from me. Hopefully Laurent will help me get their sooner!

There were parts of the game that looked really good, and some of it that was as ugly as you would expect from a team who hasn't practiced together or played in 4 months. The positive part is the potential is there- we have strong players who can shoot well from every position. It is impressive. The fast break is ugly and we threw away a lot of balls by rushing, but that will get better as we practice and play.

Still trying to figure out the defense- I think we started with a 5-1 and dropped down to a 6-0 that worked much better. The girl who used to play on top of the 5-1 has retired so no one else seemed that excited to jump into that without much practice.

The team we played against ran a lot of what I think looked like the Canadian play "passage" whereby they pull one backcourt all the way to the other side and create a quick overload. This proved tricky for us a few times, but once we figured out what we were doing, I think we adjusted well. Laurents seemed pretty content with our defense, so hopefully that won't be a weakness for us in the season.

I ended up playing 50 minutes, which I am still amazed I was able to do considering the week I've had! But I was really excited to play and did my best to hustle for my new teammates and coach, even if I struggled to understand everything that was going on. I made sure I told my backcourts (in broken french) that I am there to work for them, and if they want something different/better from me, to tell me.

Laurent was also super nice, and said some nice things to me after the game. He also told me that I lean too quickly when I'm shooting and that a good goalie (unlike the one we played last night) will be able to read me very easily this way. He said we'll work on that next week. I told him I am here to learn, so please teach me anything you can!

I guess the girls were tired after the long week, so everyone showered and headed back. I was desperate for some sugar, since I'd played almost an entire game on one meal of bread and jam. When I got home I made an egg and tomato sandwhich, had a bunch of juice, and even something with chocolate to try to refuel myself a bit.

When I got home it was around 11pm, and although I was physically tired I was a little hyped up and didn't fall asleep right away. But when I did- it was good.

Yay for my team! We won the game 24-19! Hopefully it gets better from here! I would love to be on a winning team this year :)

Useless day, except for handball

Today I passed what I consider to be an extremely useless day. Still totally knocked out from the strep throat, I woke up, took my medicine, laid in bed again until 4pm, forced myself to take a couple bites of soup so I could take my medicine again, and then laid around resting until I got up for handball practice around 6pm.

Seriously- I have been completely useless since I got sick, and am kind of concerned I will never eat again. OK, maybe not, but it is kind of depressing not to want to eat when you enjoy eating. Maybe this is a totally dramatic reference, but I kind of feel like Tammy Faye Bakker when she said that all she dreamed about was eating a burger and french fries, but she couldn't.

But after I finally dragged myself out of bed and into handball clothes, I went to my first real handball practice in the gym! Yayy! It felt great to put on my handball shoes and some stick-em and run up and down the new floor of the gym.

Tonight was a "tactical" practice, so there wasn't too much running except for some fast-break drills we did in between plays. We learned 4 plays, which we practiced for most of the practice and then broke down into offense/defense at the end.

The plays looked great when were just running through them, but when we added defense and pressure, the timing was off.

As usual, Laurent was super awesome about trying to make sure I understood everything. He took time before, during, and after practice to tell me that if I didn't understand something- just ask. It is a really nice feeling to know that he really cares about me "getting" things. It helps my confidence on the court so I don't feel as stupid if I don't understand something.

Also, apparently it is the "mode" here to shower in the gym after practice, instead of going straight home. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me since most people go right home anyway, but what the heck, when in Rome! So I brought my shower stuff and hung out for a bit with the girls in the locker room, and had a chance to talk to a few of them more than usual. I guess that's the point, so maybe if I continue to do this I will get to know the girls a little better.

So, after my social time in the locker room, now I know that this team does like to party (which is cool!) and that some of the best clubs and discos are really close to where I live! On the drive home (I rode with a teammate), she pointed out the best clubs and what days they are open and what kind of music they play, so now when I feel healthy and have learned how to get around a bit better, I know where to go :)

Anyway, back to handball. Tomorrow is our first match against a team in the division below us- hopefully it won't be too hard, although I've heard they are a really physical team. We'll see, I guess. It is just outside Nimes, so about 40 minutes away from here.

Hopefully I will wake up tomorrow loving food again, because I'm going to need some energy to play a game!! Wow, I'm really excited, I really didn't think I'd be playing a game this soon!!

Chez-médecin...two thumbs up!

I woke up this morning feeling much worse than I did yesterday. I didn't sleep much at all because the pain in my throat was really bad, and no amount of Advil seemed to help.

Despite not having any of my Social Security paperwork (besides the visa), I tried to navigate my way through the French system. OK, I take that back, my awesome host family helped me out by calling everyone and their mom to find a solution.

Turns out I have to complete my registration at the University before I can even get the paperwork for my social security/medical card. BUT- like everything else in France- the people at the University are on vacation and won't be back until next week. We even tried to talk to someone at the Mayor's office in town, to see if they could help speed up the process, but they too were on vacation. Love it.

So, with social security a no go, my host family called their family doctor, explained my situation and she agreed to see me.

I walked in, didn't wait a minute and saw the doctor right away. She asked me some basic questions, looked at my throat, saw it was covered with nasty white spots, and diagnosed me with a bacterial infection. Then she went to her drawer, pulled out antibiotics, steroids, and pain medicine and sent me on my way. I was in and out in less than 10 minutes with no paperwork, no money exchanged, just some medicine and a "feel better soon."

Amazing! I still can't eat, so I'm feeling weak, but thankfully today is our day off from training so I can rest. We have practice again on Thursday night, but I'm hoping by that time I will be feeling much better.

What luck! Not even a week in France and I am already sick! The good news is that everyone from my host family to the doctor were all happy to help me out, and now I'm on my way to getting better quickly.

Also- gotta love French administration and how they just take 2-3 weeks vacation at a time. I also went by the bank today and they told me I can't open an account until the banker gets back on Sept 3. So basically, they just have a secretary working at the bank to tell you that you can't do any real banking for a few more weeks. Love it.

I'm off to sleep now, hoping that I will wake up tomorrow and be in much better shape!

When it rains, it pours

I can't believe my luck- I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, but it wasn't because of the training session, I have some kind of tonsilitis :(

I spent most of the day in bed trying to sleep it off, but the fever got worse and so did my sore throat! Quel dommage, vraiment.

I couldn't eat anything because my throat was killing me, and besides I didn't have an appetite. But regardless, I dragged myself out of bed at 5:45pm so I could get changed and make it to my second training session. I didn't want to be "that girl" who didn't show up on day 2 because I was already punking out of practices. What luck!

Despite feeling pretty crappy, I was happy to see Laurent and the girls. Instead of the lake, we met today at our brand new gym- named after our famous coach- the Laurent Puisegeur Salle de Sports. I love it, and it also has a giant picture of him playing handball on the outside. They just finished it a few weeks ago, so it is brand new and gorgeous!!! This will be our home gym, and I am very excited about that. It even has that new smell right now.

We spent the first 30 minutes running around a soccer/rugby field outside. We were doing intervals across the field, and it was exhausting. It started to rain about 10 minutes in, and at 30 minutes it was raining so hard that Laurent called us off so we wouldn't catch our death of cold (too late?) or hurt ourselves. The temperature was also dropping down so we were shaking when we finally made it back to the gym.

Lucky for us, Laurent had a bunch of extra t-shirts lying around so we could all change. I think we were supposed to do some lifting today, but that did happen and we ended up doing running and ball manipulation inside the gym instead.

The good news is, I survived...and I didn't get passed by any of the goalies on the running :) Small victories.

Tomorrow I am going to try to figure out how I can get my "Securite Sociale" so I can see a doctor if I need to. I hope it will be a breeze, but knowing France and their love of beaurocracy, it probably won't be a simple process. We'll see!!

Lac du Cres

The moral of today's story is that, while I may not understand a lot of French, the concept of "run around this lake until you can't feel your legs" was not lost in translation.

Tonight I had my first training session with my new team. I was very nervous, mostly because I have spent the last two weeks packing, flying, driving, packing, and running last minute errands instead of actually running. I did spend the three weeks in California running and lifting on a consistant basis, but I guess most of that went to waste as I made the final preparations for my trip.

I was also a little bit nervous because my new coach is somewhat of a legand here in Montpellier. His name is Laurent Puisegur and he retired last year after 10 years as the captain and circle for the Montpellier professional team and the French National Team. He won several European Championships and a World Championship, as well as being an Olympic medalist. Basically he is a world class handball player, and now he is my coach! Even though I didn't spend a lot of time with him when I came in June to do my try-out, he was one of the main reasons I wanted to be with this team. I figured I could learn a lot from a World Champion circle!

Anyway, tonight was just as it was described to me in June: run around the lake until you die! We showed up at the Lac du Cres at 7pm and had a quick word from the president of the club and the assistant coaches. After endless kissing of strangers (here it is 3 kisses everytime you say hello), we got down to the dirty business of preseason training.

Running for hours has never been my idea of a good time, but the girls on my team and Laurent made it as pleasant as possible. Laurent especially went out of his way to make sure that I was understanding things, and would take time to speak slowly or re-explain something if I had a confused look on my face. The girls were also really helpful and encouraging, and I felt like they were going out of their way to make me feel at ease even if we couldn't communicate that well.

As for the training session, we alternated running laps around the lake with push-ups, uphill sprints, ab workouts, and medicine ball throws. It was intense, but the atmosphere was upbeat and positive and I left feeling like this was going to be a fun year of handball.

I am particularly excited about our upcoming team trip to the Pyranees on Sept. 1-2, where we will spend a weekend camping in the mountains and doing rock-climbing as a team bonding experience!! Yayy!!

We will also play 4 games before our real season starts on Sept. 15- including one game against a Spanish team (in Spain, I hope!).

For now, it is time to rest and recoup to get ready for another grueling workout tomorrow. We will have practice everyday for the next two weeks except on Wednesdays, and now I know that we will use every minute of the 2 hours to the fullest! But I'm looking forward to it, and will definitely welcome the day we put away our sneakers (and the lake) in exchange for handball shoes and the gym.

Je suis arrive!

I have arrived in France! Yayy France! I had an amazingly easy flight, which certainly helped to get things off on the right foot. Also a plus- my two large bags made it safely, and none of the airline attendants called me out for my extremely large/heavy carry-ons: I definitely overdid it with my "carry-on" as a huge backpack (think travelling Southeast asia for 6 months- it is that size) with all of my books and shoes/boots/random heavy stuff, and my "purse or one personal item" which was a messanger back with my laptop, books and anything else that would fit.

Besides the extra 40kg I took in my abused carry-on allowance, I decided to maximize my carrying capacity by wearing many of my clothes. With everyone else around me in tank-tops and sandals, I looked like a total dumbass wearing my snow boots, jeans, 10 layers of clothing including a sweatshirt and my winter jacket, while carrying another jacket in my arms. Everyone looked at me like "what are you doing dressed like that when we are landing in the south of France in August" only with more of the antipathy you might expect from French people. Whatever. It was cheaper than the $7/kg I would have been charged for excess baggage.

Actually, this was a much milder alternative to the original idea I came up with when I found out how expensive the excess baggage rate was for my airline. What I really wanted to do was sew myself a fat suit and stuff it with a bunch of clothes. I figured they can charge you for excess baggage weight, but they can't charge you for being personally overweight (at least not yet). If only I wasn't one of those people who usually get strip-searched before getting on a plane. Not sure how I would weasel my way out of pretending to weigh 300lbs.

Anyway, when I arrived in Montpellier I was beat, although happy to finally make it to France after what seems like months of preparation. I was met by my host family who helped me take my stuff inside their house, where I will be staying until my apartment is ready on September 1. I am super excited about this! I also saw my new car, a gently used Renault stick shift hatchback. Awwww, how cute and French! I will hopefully be learning to drive that soon? I mean, I know how to drive a stick shift in principle, but will need to learn to maneuver it in France- which is kind of hectic with all of the traffic circles, pedestrians, bicycles, trams, and people on vespas weaving between cars.

For now, I am just finding my groove, getting ready to start practice with the team on Monday night, and French classes at the Universite de Montpellier on September 3. Until then I am determined to unpack as little as possible, besides what I absolutely need. This means I intend to wear the same pants and rotate a few shirts over the next week and a half to avoid having to repack all of my suitcases when I move into my new apartment.

PS: I wanted to include some pictures of my new beautiful town, but one of the various items gone MIA is my camera battery charger. So, now my camera battery is dead and I can't seem to find the charger anywhere. Sigh. Maybe soon.And by soon I mean if and when I actually unpack everything and/or if I figure out how to use French ebay and can get myself a new one.