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.