A most incredible piece of mail!

Today I got a very unexpected letter from Paris, and when I opened it, I found the contents of my wallet that was stolen in St. Etienne last February.

Unbelievable! It was mailed to me by the American Aid Foundation of Paris, who had received my cards (sadly not my nice wallet or obviously any of the money that was inside) from the US Embassy. I can't believe they made it back to me!

After my wallet was jacked, I filed a police report in St. Etienne but despite checking back several times, it was never returned. It was the most irritating thing to happen to me, after just moving to a new town, subsequently breaking my foot, and having to find a new apartment without money or ID. This random act of thievery nearly forced me to leave France, as it took me more than a month to try to sort out my bank accounts on both sides of the Atlantic, and survive on borrowed money while doing so.

Most of the things in my wallet were replaceable, but I can't tell you how happy I feel getting this letter and this stuff again! I think about how many people cared about getting these cards back to me- whoever mailed it from St. Etienne to the US Embassy in Paris, the people from the Embassy who decided to send it to the non-profit group American Aid, and the people there who- free of charge- mailed it all back to my house in California.

Wow, I guess that for every bad person out there (ie the person who stole my wallet in the first place), there are many more good people who want to do the right thing. This miraculous return of my driver's license, insurance card, student IDs and French bus pass has temporarily restored my faith in humanity!

Yay nice people! And yay for having duplicates of everything that I can now keep in a safe place in case my wallet is ever stolen again :)

A visa, a flight, and too many endorphins?

Well the fantastic news of the week is that I got my visa! Yayyyy!!! Although I was confident I had all of the paperwork I needed, I nearly did NOT get my visa because the French people didn't like the letter I had from the school (ie. my admissions letter). They read through it and were like "this isn't sufficient."

I couldn't believe it, since I had used the same letter to get my approval from Campus France (the annoying organization that you are forced to pay $150 to "check out" your university admissions). Not to fear, my extensive experience with French bureaucracy has taught me not only to bring 5 copies of everything, but also to bring every extra paper you can think of. Does the consulate ask for your high school transcript? I bring my grades from elementary school as well, because it is inevitable they will want to see your kindergarten transcript just for kicks. But anyway, being the prepared person I am, I pulled out another paper from my arsenal (which, PS, seemed to be to be completely useless as it was merely a printout of my online application to the school) but shockingly, it did the trick. Nothing quite as satisfying as seeing a French bureaucrat nod in approval at something they couldn't really care less about.

Also, my favorite thing about my visa is my newly photoshopped official passport-sized photo, which will also be used for everything else official this year. The french always want you to provide your own picture, for everything from your student ID to your train pass, bus pass, and even your grocery store discount card. I was glad I could photoshop mine into something cute that I won't mind seeing on everything. Not only did I save money by printing 12 copies of my official picture for 50 cents, but I also look good. I highly recommend DIY photoshopped-for-perfection multi-purpose passport-size photos, just for reference.

Anyway- with visa in hand, I was finally able to get my flight back to France, yay! I will leave on Sept 3, which will get me to France just in time for the new handball season to start, and to make it to my Master's degree orientation. Couldn't be better.

On the training side of things, I've been keeping up with my Kathy-designed weight lifting program (AKA "The Viking Plan"), and my French coach's delightful running program. All in all, I feel pretty good. Definitely in fighting form, although I realize that the transition from the track to the handball court will still be hard. I am kind of sad I left my handball in Paris accidentally and don't have a ball to practice throwing around at home. It might be a little more tragic than I would like in the beginning as I get used to throwing a handball after three months and a half months. Hmmmmm. I will try to use some sports psychology visualization techniques instead.

Overall, I'm really looking forward to going back to France; there are a lot of people I want to see, and the year seems filled with possibility. Despite some bad news on the Team USA front (apparently we are withdrawing from our international games this November due to lack of preparation as a team), I feel very motivated about everything I have going on in Lyon.

Oh, and as an aside, I find myself writing this blog post at 7:00am, which may make it seem like I have some kind of intense discipline that forces me to get up on Sundays and be productive- but really, it is just too many endorphins. I had a really hard run last night (too late, I guess) and despite staying up to watch USA basketball win a brilliant gold medal game and going to bed at 3am, here I am, wide awake a few hours later. Lame! This is the second or third time this has happened to me since starting my more hardcore running program. Hope this annoying side effect is somehow representative of me becoming a human machine, because it is ridiculously irritating for someone who is trying to relish as much sleep as possible before starting the "real world" of school and practice in one week!!

Hopefully I will fall back asleep until noon, at which point I will wake up, see a movie, do practically nothing all day and enjoy my parents home-cooked Sunday night grill-out. Until then, maybe I will dip into my cache of downloaded episodes of The Shield :)

Blisters, must be a good sign

After amping up my running over the last few weeks with some more intervals, I was starting to prepare myself for what would be some way more challenging pre-season workouts.

I've been working with my new coach in Lyon (via the internet, since I am still waiting for my visa), to design a new running program to help me keep up with what the team is doing now that they've started their official pre-season.

Before he would give me the program, he had self-administer some fitness tests to see where I was, and what I needed to do. I was actually dreading this, knowing that the endurance runs have always my weak point, but was pleasantly surprised with my results. Guess those interval runs were actually doing me some good.

Today was my first day on the new running program, and while it was definitely intense, I felt pretty good afterward. "Good" as in I wasn't completely dead and didn't vomit.

There was a real sense of accomplishment in pushing myself through a 45-minute running workout that I probably couldn't have done a month ago. I love progress!

Also helping my cause was when one of the other runners on the track stopped me to ask what my 100m time was. I laughed and said I had no idea, I'd only ever run 40m for time (on our national team fitness tests), and I didn't remember the results. He was like "well, I think you are really fast. I'd love to know your time, because you seem really speedy." Even if the guy is totally full of it, it made me feel good.

Even though I didn't have a lot in me at the end of the workout, I still felt strong and fast, and as I've realized in handball, the mental part is important.

I'm going to be really nervous to show up to my first practice with the girls in Lyon- D2 is a huge step forward. I just hope these intense workouts get me up to pace so I can at least be close to their fitness level, since their handball skills will be far superior. We'll see, it is certainly motivation to keep pushing myself!

When I got home tonight and took off my shoes, I realized that both of my feet were covered in blisters, with some nice blood blisters on the bottom of my feet. Since Kathy mentioned that her first week of pre-season in France resulted in everyone on the team having blisters, I knew it was a good sign. If you don't have blisters during pre-season, your not running enough. So, the good news is, it looks like I'm right on track (pun partially intended)!

We'll see how I survive the rest of the week, but I have a positive feeling about things. I have an appointment with the consulate on Wednesday, so keep your fingers crossed!

Getting ready for France

It has been a really nice summer so far. I spent all of June traveling through Europe with Clay and Rachel, made it back to LA by the first week of July after stopping through upstate New York VERY briefly. I also just got back from a week-long trip to North Carolina where I saw a bunch of my old friends for a wedding. Good times.

As you can imagine, all of this traveling, and well, just general relaxing, has not been keeping me in tip top shape. But, never fear, while I may not have touched a handball since the end of May, I have recently been hard at work on the Viking workout program, courtesy of my dear friend Kathy.

There have been a few stops and starts, but I am feeling pretty good, and am hoping that by the time I get to France in a few weeks, I will at least be in good enough shape that I won't embarrass myself. I keep my expectations fairly grounded- just try not to show up and get beaten by any of the goalies on the run. One part of me was thinking maybe I would try for a six-pack, but then the other part of me remembered that I promised to gorge myself on all of the foods that I missed out on all year in France.

My body was kind of freaking out at the beginning of the workout program, not just because I'd spent the last 4-6 weeks doing practically nothing (unless you count walking around the Balkans and the occasional bike tour/kayaking trip), but because I hadn't really lifted weights in a year.

I have probably mentioned this before, but the French just aren't loving "musculation." It almost doesn't exist; finding somewhere to lift in France is like finding a Chick-fil-A north of the Mason-Dixon line...good luck. On the plus side, not lifting very much in combination with running a ton (which the French like to do, despite smoking a pack a day) helps a girl get down to French weight. Still, as tempting as it is to lose 10 lbs, losing 10lbs of muscle just isn't as exciting.

So, my goal this summer was to get my strength back a bit so that I could try to maintain some muscle with body weight exercises when I got back to France. Strength has always been one of my more important qualities, so I'd really hate to lose that, especially at my position where the ability to overpower your defender can mean getting 2-3 more shots or penalties every game. Even as my strength wained over last season, it still helped my confidence to know that I was stronger than 90% of the girls who were trying to defend me. I may not have the same skill or experience, but I can definitely bring brute force to the table!

On the physical side, I definitely feel like I'm on my way to being ready to start the season. Paperwork-wise, which has seemed to play an even bigger role in my French handball career so far, is probably not quite up to snuff. I have submitted all of my papers for the visa, but am waiting on a "confirmation" from Campus France before I can make an appointment with the French Consulate to get my visa.

Campus France is a huge scam- despite the fact I already have all of the papers I need for my visa, including an acceptance letter from the University in Lyon where I'll be going to school, I am forced to RE-APPLY to school using this dumb website, and then pay them $120 to say that yes, you have received your admissions letter and you can apply for your visa. Scam.

So, right now I am waiting for the letter...I am kind of afraid to buy my plane ticket until I KNOW I have everything, since last year paperwork was drama for all three of us going to France. So we'll see, keep your fingers crossed that this year things go a little more smoothly on that front.

Other than that, I feel pretty calm about my "rentree" this fall in France. I feel like things will go much more smoothly the second time around, now that I know how almost everything works. There is only so much you can do to hurry the paperwork, but at least now I know what to expect when dealing with the French government. I also already have a bank account, a phone and a social security number. Yay for that! Oh yeah, and all of my stuff is already there, so hopefully traveling back will be a cinch.

For now it is just keeping up my fitness and getting myself mentally prepared to go back to the french-speaking world, where doing almost any task takes twice the effort. At least this awesome summer has me renewed and ready to face the challenges of a new year! And if all else fails- here is always Plan B...working on a farm in Australia?