Ukraine Is Game To You?!

We leave for our Europe Cup match in Odessa on Sunday... Wish me luck.

And the Winner Is...

Today I had the good fortune to glimpse into the world of a French high school. As part of our team's community outreach/exposure we were supposed to present the prizes for a school-wide cross country meet this morning at Lycee Bellevue here in town.

The whole thing was mostly what I expected and the details are insignificant... save an entertaining few.

First off, the winners' prizes were nothing short of awesome. 1st prize, for who I deduced were grade 12 boys, was an electric tabletop grill. Camping style, it came complete with green aluminium bottom and interchangeable grill racks. Second place was a more conventional (and far less funny) backpack but third place came through in a big way and the winner was awarded not one, but two decks of cards. Sweet.

The girl's prizes did not disappoint and the proud winner was awarded an box-less, opened coffee maker (in classy red plastic) while the 2nd place prize was none other than an oversized can of meat paté - the ground ham variety, to be exact. Could there be anything more French? I was waiting for someone in a beret to emerge from the bushes with a couple of baguettes on which to serve the paté.

Deck of cards? Ah yes, the ultimate prize.

Awkwardly required to give the French bise to the winners...

The best part was that these kids were practically beside themselves with excitement and I distinctly remember seeing a friend of the grill kid grin and mouth, "Ah c'est bien ca! Ca va!". Loosely translated, this works out to "Sweet yo. BBQ on the soccer field after last period." Luckily, the girl winners agreed to provide the meat and beverages.

Also, Halloween is coming up. Since the French school system is sweet, the students have a week of vacation every 2 months, so today was their last day. Halloween in Europe is already a weird thing, but as a result of the impending vacation, apparently everyone just moved Halloween up a week... We figured this out after seeing more than one boy run by in straight-up underwear with a dishtowel tied around their necks. Ah, the naked makeshift superhero.

We saw some interesting (read: pathetic) costumes but unfortunately didn't have a camera on hand for most of the day and my descriptions won't do anything justice. Suffice it to say that my favourite costume was the kid in the Asian rice paddy hat, wearing a poncho and carrying a guitar... What was he supposed to be? Well, I was as lost as last year's Easter egg until I noticed the sign he was wearing around his neck that said simply, "Mexico" (yes, it was in English). Doesn't that betray the unwritten rule that you can't just carry a sign explaining your costume (or its country of origin?) if it sucks too bad for people to figure it out on their own? That sentence didn't even make sense but what I'm getting at is neither did most of the "costumes" we saw.

Leprechaun or this cat's everyday attire? You be the judge.

I'm thinking this might be partly due to the fact that there's no motivation to concoct a decently respectable Halloween costume since there's no such thing as trick or treating over here. I guess the French just aren't into giving away loads of low-quality candy to strange children toting pillow cases and yelling on their doorstep. Seems weird.

On the way off school grounds we were mobbed by a group of little kids who insisted on comparing their heights with me. They were all about 10 (I was wondering why they were at a high school too...) and thus, maybe 4 feet tall. Apparently they wanted to be eye-to-eye with me, so they attempted to do so by jumping repeatedly off the ground. The girls were nicer and rather than remind me of my gargantuan-ness, just asked for our autographs...

I couldn't be happier to be alive?

In other news, I'm off to Paris for another match tomorrow. Wish us luck.

Horse Face

So after starting this excuse for a blog last April, I meant to write about my summer journeyings around the great United States of A. Unfortunately actually living in real life rather than on a screen, and ok, the real reason - not having internet at most of my stops - put a cramp in my style.

Fortunately, I'm now bored and live 75% of my day online (when I'm not hitting balls and speaking le French) so it's time to take a trip down memory lane and relive some neglectedly (real word? nobody knows) undocumented adventures. In other words, tuck in kids. It's story time.

One of my first stops was the great state of Nebraska. I was semi-psyched to be checking off another state on my list and heck, who wouldn't love a place whose main University's team could be respectably named the Huskers. Those who know my family history know I have a long and sometimes hate-filled relationship with corn... Those who don't know my family will think that sounds weird but perhaps intriguing. Too bad that's a story for another day... Anyway, I figured these people were obviously on to something and I can say they did not disappoint.

For example, after coaching the 2nd volleyball camp in rural Nebraska w/ some former U of N legends, we were in a legit parade for this little farmtown's "days". I mean PARADE, complete with candy, BMX's, horses and teenagers indiscriminately shooting elderly bystanders with water guns. Ah, the simple country life. It was all too lovely - I experienced the great American culinary legacy in the form of Funnel Cake and Sno-Cones and rode atop an old school firetruck. Little did the townsfolk know, I was an imposter in Husker clothing but luckily I did a good job blending in... other than my Canadian accent and glaring pasty white skin, I was a local.

Anyway, after the parade we were invited to one of the camper's farms to ride horses and I was jazzed to show off my riding chops. That is, until I climbed atop Snickers, the family pony. Snickers was a loveable fellow and even gave hugs - complete with horse snot on my shoulder - but was unfortunately a little smaller than your average horse. This was a problem because I could comfortably gallop along with Snickers while remaining firmly planted atop his fuzzy back...

Horse hugs... Never a good sign when you have to bend down for the embrace.

Snickers is having about as much fun as me.

Luckily, last week, my team here in France went riding as a form of team bonding and this time we were treated to full-sized beasts. I felt a strange sense of deja vu since I took riding lessons at the local village Pony Club as a wee 6-year old in France and hadn't been back in the (English) saddle since then... Those were the days when I was small enough to sit on the pony, and not the other way around.

Somehow riding was supposed to equal team bonding... I guess something about being uncomfortable and wearing ridiculous headwear brings a group of people closer together. I'd say mission accomplished. Anyway, this time, everything was going according to plan... until I was chosen to demo how to saddle the horse. Good thing my first French vocab lesson back in grade 1 covered saddling a horse in public, so I was saved. After doing so, I climbed on (and actually up this time) and galavanted through the French countryside. Nothing like being around creatures more awkward looking than me to make a kid feel better.

Pensive? I believe I was thinking "Don't screw up"

Poochie obviously lost the staring contest

Aah the simple country life.

0 And 1

Paris, normally je t'aime. Just not this weekend.

We had our league opener vs. Nancy Vandoeuvre this Sunday in the city of lights and unfortuately brought nothing close to our A-game. It was a ridiculous match and the scores indicated it - we lost 25-17 in the first set after bringing like, our D-game, and then decided to show up in the 2nd to win 25-13. And it went on like that until we finally lost 18-16 in the 5th. As the scores show, we played really consistently... We'll not discuss my play since it was less than stellar for about half the game...

(This is worthy of a closer look... click for fabulous facial expressions...)

We should've won in 3, or at most 4, but I was told it was an exciting match to watch... I guess ya gotta give the people what they ask for every once in a while.

Anyway, match results aside it was awesome to be back in Paris and I would've sold my firstborn child to live and play there. Then again my team is supposed to be better than the one there so I'm not complaining. It'd just be nice if we could demonstrate that on a regular basis. No worries though, I'm feeling good about things this week and we should bounce back strong this weekend vs. Hainault.

We didn't have time to see any of the city but did get lost on the walk to our hotel so we saw plenty of charming sights on foot. Luggage was also lucky enough to came along for that. Based on the looks we got, I think we also brightened the people of Paris' day piling in and out of the Metro as we are obviously all Amazonian and were carrying 13 huge bags to boot. It was roomy.

Welp, sorry this one's a little bit of a downer but maybe the 4 hours of sleep I got on the way home is getting the best of me. Ah, the Meek sleep deprivation gene rears its ugly head. The Meek gigantic-ness gene also got the best of me, since attempting to tuck into the tiny train compartment cubby that pretended to be a "bed" didn't work out as well as I'd have hoped. Curse my gangly limbs.

Warm-up confusion

Die-Hard Fans

Lost In Translation

Yesterday the American and I became national French celebrities.

There I said it.

Ok, not exactly. But I did have an interesting day yesterday... Allow me to paint a picture.

I wake up, late as usual, and roll to practice for another day of fun and games in the gym. The day before, my freshly haircutted coach (see video) informed us that the local news was coming to practice to do some feature on my team before we start league this weekend in Paris. Little did I know, they wanted to do some kind of feature on the new recruits. That's all fine and great until one realizes I'm the only one among the new kids that supposedly speaks some brand of intelligible French (this is debateable for reasons to be made clear very shortly).

Anyway, halfway through practice - just about at that point where my rugged good looks are being highlighted by my loose ponytail & the beads of sweat running down my forehead - the newslady ("it's anchorMAN, not anchorLADY!") asks if she can interview me for a second. At this moment, my coach also informs me that he neglected to mention they also want to come over to my (really clean) apartment after practice to interview me in my native environment. Shwa? Say WHAT. I had no choice and basically spent the entirety of the interview trying to remember not to pee my pants. This left little cognitive effort to be devoted to actual thinking so it was a rousing success.

So there it is - the rags to riches story of my rise to French fame and glory.

Actually it was horrendous and I apparently forget how to speak french since, as mentioned above, coherent sentences were too much to ask for and my accent takes a significant turn for the worse. All in all I make a great impression. The best part is that at one point, I say "Je suis excitée" (my pronuciation is debateable on camera but that's what I was supposedly going for) which translates to "I am excited". At least in my head.

My lovely brother informed me however, that upon watching the video today with a French Canadian teammate in the Motherland, he was told "je suis excitée" actually means other things...Wow. In the interest of trying to keep this blog PG rated, I'll leave you to do some Sherlock Holmes-ing... but I'm pretty sure an online translator can point you in the right direction... Fortunately, my friend reminded me that nobody expects athletes to say anything intelligent anyway. Unfortunately, I reminded him that nobody expects them to make sexually explicit comments either, so I'm still toast.

Moments before my life would change forever with one slip of the tongue...

Luckily though, the story takes a turn for the better because today an actual, bonafide Frenchman told me it can in fact mean BOTH I'm excited and I'm "excited" so I'm not as brilliant as it initially appeared. French-Canadian vs. Frenchman? No contest. I'm taking his word for it.

Anyway, the video is online in all its glory so y'all not living in la belle France (make that anyone outside my region in France... the 'national celebrity' part might have been a little embellished...) can also partake of the bounty of me at my brutal finest. Click here and then on 'Mercredi 08 Octobre' to enjoy. The volleyball part starts about halfway through...

Feel free to comment away on the trainwreck...