French Day Camp

In an attempt to foster team bonding/remind me how much I hate kayaking, our team had a quasi-day off Thursday and spent the day engaged in various ativities that chanelled an adults-go-to-summer-camp feeling.

Archery was first on the schedule and let's just say I'm considering giving up volleyball to take up RobinHood-style crimefighting thanks to the discovery of a new hidden talent. The highlight of precision and newfound skills came about an hour into the day when I deftly shot an apple off my assistant coach's head. Showoff, I know, but we spent then rest of the day baking traditional French apple pastries from the remains of the slaughtered fruit...

Actually, I was pretty brutal and my team of 3 got shellacked by the coaches and Team Russia in what can only be described as a dramatic archery showdown. Team Russia, as I like to call them, consisted of the Bulgarian, the Ukrainian and the Latvian who speak only Russian to each other, probably at my and the rest of the team's expense.

The rest of the morning was spent climbing trees and flying across the surrounding lake on a zip-line cable. My life flashed before my eyes more than once and I learned that 1. I look ravishing in a harness and ping-pong ball helmet (see below) and 2. carabiner in French is mousqueton.

Only a mother could love this face...

Running to my death

After a lunch of very very rare meat and creamed celery, we resumed the day's activities by setting off on our kayaks to tour the lake. The American and I saddled up with hot pink paddles to form Team North America and quickly learned that we've been confined to land sports for a reason. Fortunately, due to my Canadian heritage and familiarity with the wilderness, I taught my boatmate a thing or two about paddling the ol' canoe and we finally started to pick up some speed after a couple hundred strokes.
To add to the adventure, I was mistakenly under the impression that the kayak excursion was to be short & sweet. 2 hours in, I figured out I was misinformed. Needless to say, I was over the "fun" long before that and it will be a good couple years before I feel the call of the wild again.

Otherwise, it was a very enjoyable day and that's about all I have to say. This is already too long and I'm not sure why I've gone into as much detail as I have so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves....

Our team mini-bus... Or what's about to be my 3rd home once season starts.

Trying to be incognito. Someday my day on the side will come...

Jerome tells us what's up


Mad skills.