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!