Stranger Danger

It's funny what speaking the same language in a faraway land does to connect people.

Case in point - the other day The American and I were in need of some nourishment and decided to get some kebab from God's gift to humanity, this little kebab shop downtown I don't even know the name of. It's that good.

As we're waiting for the taste of succulent spiced meat to greet our palettes, we hear the sweet sounds of familiarity behind us. Our mother tongue being spoken at close range. By young bucks. Who, by all accounts didn't seem to be tourists. Say whaaaaat. Now, even though I speak French, hearing English spoken by people other than myself and my American partner-in-crime is music to my ears and it happens about, umm wait, yeah. Never.

So being that we were stoked and maybe somewhat out of our minds due to dangerously low blood sugar, we strike up a conversation with the two young English gents. They're over hurr takin' a year off "uni" in London and well, the details of the story are unexciting except that within approximately 3.42 mins of glorious English conversation, we go from strangers to good-enough-to-ask-you-to-my-birthday-party status. It was their "joint 21st this weekend" and we got an invite. Belieeeve dat. I go to school with punks for 12 years and don't reach that level...?!

Nobody can even claim that it was our rugged good looks that won the boys' hearts because we were makeupless and in usual post-practice street gear aka sweats, an old t-shirt and our team parka... and makeupless. For anyone lucky enough to have seen me uncoifed and sans at least some mascara, they know that it's not a pretty sight. For example, I regularily get asked if I'm feeling alright and have I slept in a few weeks by concerned passers-by. Or 50 cent these days... his eyebrows seem to be conspicuously missing... In short, without help, my blondeness is a curse on the invisible eyelashes/brows/face front.

His makeup artist is on vacay?

So, it's pretty obvious that it has to all be attributed solely to the fact that we could converse freely in the language of our forefathers. Strangers to BFFs. Just like that. We'll probably never see nor talk to the fools again but the fact remains, that's English uniting people at its finest. Warms my heart.

Cheating Death

So this has been an interesting week. A collection of recent happenings...

First off, I had the rare opportunity to eat with wooden utensils at a post-game meal Tuesday. You read that right. A game on a Tuesday. It's unprecedented. Just kidding. But yes, wooden silverware, circa 300 B.C. I suppose silverware isn't really an accurate name at this point... But take a moment to appreciate how much more exciting a meal gets when you're eating off uncoated wood. A fool's just beggin' for a splinter. Lip splinter... now that's something you just don't get to say everyday.

Livin' on the edge

The highlight of the evening came when I showed the above "tools" to Matt & The German upon returning home (you better believe the American & I kept those. Collector's items, no doubt), whose first comment was "Hey, this is balsa wood.". Balsa you say... That was definitely my first thought when I saw those and put the first death-cheating forkful of eats in my mouth. Luckily my lips survived unscathed and will live to see another day.

Second, in keeping with the death-defying theme of the week, it snowed quite a bit ("quite a bit" in France means literally about 2 cm) and the country was in a panic. We decided it would be an opportune time to head to Carcasssonne, a sweet medieval city supposedly about an hour and a half away. The way there was an adventure since the GPS took us the back route through some sort of mini mountain range and it got down to a record -9 degrees Celsius which just blew the American's mind. Since I talked to my moms last week and she reported it was -31 out, I celebrated by pullin' out the flip flops and rolling all the windows down.

Family picture in the mountains

Unfortunately upon descending from the mountains, we discovered that not only had it had snowed at lower altitudes as well (and this was accompanied by a biting easterly wind) but the trip taken more like 2 hours. Lucky for us, this means we arrived in Carcassonne at exactly 5:03 PM, aka 3 minutes past closing time for EVERY shop, cathedral and restaurant in the city... Of course we did.

We did a quick once over of the ville, which was a crazy deja vu for me since the last time I was there was as a spry young 6-year old, navigatin' the cobblestone streets on one rollerblade while my brother was rockin' the other boot... Ah yes, 1992 was a good year and back in those days, a pair of rollerblades went far in the Meek household.

Anyway, we saw the outside castle-y bits and after finding that though every sign of human existence had vanished, the main cathedral was unlocked. If you've ever been inside a pitch black, empty, 400 year old building, you know how creepy it can be. The wind picked up at a key moment, knocking the half-open door about, which made us think they were lockin' up the place and we'd get stuck inside for the night. But we made it out alive and I cheated death for the 2nd time this week.


On the way home, it was sheer chaos. Apparently 2 cm of snow is cause for mass hysteria in France and people were driving at approximately 20 km/h (aka walking speed for the Americans out there), hazard lights a-flashin'. We saw one guy going maybe 40, but he was leading one of the convoys of cars we saw travelling in packs and so was just takin' one for the team to chart a course in the treacherous conditions.

Being that I've seen my fair share of winter driving conditions that put this "storm" to shame, it was time to show I had the skills to pay the bills. I was going a reasonable yet cautious 80 km/h and I think I gave more than a few monsieurs cause for concern. Plus it only took us 2.5 hrs to get home so we drove for 5.5 hours to spend 1.5 hours in Carcassone. A successful trip by all accounts.

By the way, to show that I wasn't just tryin' to be a rebel without a cause, all the snow melted the very next day... there was kind of a lot.
'

By the way, I neglected to mention we finally got new cars a few weeks ago.
It is now much more difficult to break traffic laws on the DL.

Finally, this has nothing to do with anything but it was my Frenchest moment so far so I feel the need to share with the class... My teammates were trying on each other's berets before practice yesterday. That's some realness. Who, under 50 or otherwise, owns a beret, let alone wears it, let alone compares it to someone else's and has beret envy? Only. In. France.

P.S. Today I learned that the French do not, in fact, call the delicious breakfast staple below "french toast" but pain perdu aka lost bread. Free lesson for the kids.

Raw Pig Parts

The holiday vacationing continued with a train trip from Munich to Paris en route to Barcelona in the wee morning hours of December 27th. After hangin’ out at the train station from midnight to three AM (during which my aforementioned German convo with a drunk Britney Spears fan took place), we saddled up for our journey across The German’s motherland back to France.

We finally arrived in Paris at 10 AM and were feeling great. “Hey everyone! Come and see how good I look!” A quote was never so fitting. We were also tired and hungry but lucky for us, only had 9 hours to kill before our flight to Barcelona. Also lucky for me, the high quality bag I packed all my goods in decided to fall apart piece by piece such that by the time we arrived in Paris, the extendable handle had long since lost a screw and wouldn’t come out of its home, I had only one wheel and one strap. Don’t worry though, the other wheel and strap would fly off at untimely moments before the trip was through, leaving me to carry the bag in both arms as if it were a small child rather than filled with dirty socks.

Anyway, it was cold and the wind was angry that day so we sought refuge in a mall where I promptly fell asleep for a couple more hours sitting totally upright… My neck never felt so good. We took our luxurious RyanAir flight (I’ll not go into further detail but I know y’all out there that are familiar are shaking your heads right now) and finally arrived in Barcelona a full 24 hours after we left Munich.

The next few days were a delight. It’s hard for me to use that phrase seriously but in the spirit of a new 2009 (as opposed to an old one…?) I’m trying to do better with the cynicism. Update: It’s been a week and I’m already struggling. I digress.

An American friend of ours – also known as Matthias - decided to make a pilgrimage to the continent of his forefathers and met up with us in the citay so it was three’s company for the rest of the trip.

The man, the legend.

The next 4 days consisted of shopping, old buildings, a lot of walking, and a bit too much fast food in the form of kebab, aka delicious spiced meat of the gods. We saw the requisite sights; Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, Catedral de Barcelona, Las Ramblas, etc. and it was in a market at the the latter that I witnessed my first pig head just chillin’ for sale, complete with eyelashes still attached. And a bargain at only 4 Euros! Just the perfect belated Christmas gift I was looking for. There were also a plethora of cured pig thighs hanging about, also with hoof intact, in case you wanted to take your leg for a brisk jaunt trip the block before digging in. I was tempted.

Smile and some pig heads smile with you.

New year’s eve in Barca was interesting. We went for dinner and were enjoying a lovely meal when we remembered they have a tradition where you’re supposed to eat 12 grapes, one at each stroke of midnight, to represent good luck in each month of the new year. Or the old year. Crap I forget. But we definitely missed the boat on the first half-dozen strokes of the clock (or in our case, waiter banging a pot lid. Stay classy Barcelona.) and were forced to shove the grapes in 3 at a time to get ‘em all in in time. That’s tougher than it sounds when there are seeds involved. Anyway, I’m not sure if that’s a bad omen for those months in the coming year or a representation of 2008… but either way I’ve been a little on-edge since. Right right right, now I remember why I don’t let fruit decide my fate.

After dinner and the grapes incident we decided to walk down Las Ramblas which can only be described as a complete gong show. From what I understand, there are no laws against public intoxication or consumption so the Spanish just cut loose and wander the streets in droves. The specific street they frequent is Las Ramblas and the ground was literally wet all over with alcohol… It’s raining wine! Hallelujah! I was offered drugs by at least 8 shady lookin’ fellas and only tried a couple different varieties of Spanish Charlie before deciding it doesn’t compare with the pure coke on the streets back in my ‘hood. Just kidding mom. It was enlightening though and for the first time in my life I actually felt somewhat unsafe (I tend to delusionally believe people aren’t gonna eff with a 6’+ giant. There are some perks to being this large & in charge after all) and was pretty glad to have The German & Matt as wingmen. Fortunately they had bought the same black wool coat and aviators - their rugged individualism had kicked in – so they looked like bodyguards and I was just giving them some work.

The German and Leroy were sleeping soundly when I peaced out the next morning at 7:30 AM since they stayed in Spain for a couple more days to see the FC Barcelona game on the 3rd. The early morning New Year’s Day wakeup was the highlight of the trip but I had to catch a train back to Albi to get home for training on the 2nd. Someone has to work around here.

And that pretty much sums it up. Hope you all had a good one. Here’s to a solid 2009.

Breakin' it down

Starting 2009 off right with 5 desserts for 3 people...

...5 was a bad choice.

The American legacy abroad.

About to chocolate key a fool

The carnage

Juuuust around the riverbend

Contemplating the meaning of life
or how anyone could construct something so... stunning? Ahem.
Outside Sagrada

Rogue Sports

Saturday night I witnessed my first rugby union game as the local pro team had a match against Narbonne. My overall impression? Overwhelmed but impressed. I learned that my rugby "knowledge" (by which I mean I know you can't throw the ball forward and it's called a try not a touchdown) was wholly insufficient to understand what was going on exactly 98% of the time.

To attempt to reconcile this to something I am somewhat more familiar with, I like to think that if soccer and American football had a lovechild, it would be a beautiful 7 lb. 3 0z. baby boy named Rugby. He would be a stout little fellow, and would blaze his own path in the sports world... Short shorts and all.

Unfortunately, I was informed that my little metaphor is pretty much totally incaccurate due to the fact that American football evolved from rugby... or was it soccer? Something like that. Either way, it's all backwards. History aside, those are some crazy fools.

Some of the barbarianism I was privvy to included a player getting a knee rammed (that was for you Heids) in his nose and another guy picked up and straight flipped upsidedown, mid-stride. One minute, he's enjoying the crisp September air, the next, he can't remember his own name let alone what sport he's playing... Poor little lamb.

It was another solid weekend for Albi sports and the boys managed to pull off a 28-22 W. After the game was a VIP dinner of sorts for the supporteurs and the lady that gave us the tickets to the game got 4 teammates and me in. What a champ. I somehow forgot that mealtime in France translates to at least 3 hours à table so we finally rolled out around midnight having gorged ourselves on foie gras, bread and yet more cheese. K, actually I hate foie gras and the cheese plate was a little disappointing but I'm trying to maintain an image here.

Anyway I vowed that I'd brush up on my rugby trivia before the next match, and also due to the fact that a bonafide rugbyman is soon to marry into the fam (Sarah - tell Chris to take pity on my patheticness). Unforunately, so far I'm just more confused than before. Maybe I'll just learn the chants the locals were singing all game long in the stands... If that doesn't work out I could also probably audition be one of the fans playing the drums since last time we somehow got prime seats RIGHT behind the "band"... it was 2 hours of incessant pounding and confetti filled delirium... Allez les jaunes et noirs.

Blinded by the light

Nice hair bro

You'd be making that face too if that guy was coming after you...

Cute English-speaking children