Feelin’ Good Feelin’ Great

March has been good to me.

Any month that moves along like you don’t know where the days went, means good stuff went down. And, that means I’m closer to being back in the Good Lan d aka home, so no complaints there either. What’s been up…

First and foremost, we had a weekend off…! That was probably only the second exclamation marked ever used up in hurr but Free Weekend sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble… so it was called for.

When I stop to remind y’all that I’ve been patiently waiting for more than 1 day off at a stretch since September, not counting Christmas, you can see why I was psyched… I originally got all jazzed and wanted to do something crazy since a plethora of countries are on my back step but unfortunately, my coach decided to plan a friendly game Friday against the French jr. natty team so I was fresh outta luck for venturing far outside this country’s borders. I also had to walk a mile uphill both ways to get to the gym. Playing sports for a living can be pretty tough sometimes… I tried to type that with a straight face.

Then again, I once heard someone say weekends really only matter when you're working. Otherwise it's just another day with no $$$. Words of truth, so I’ll shut up now.

So I reluctantly said goodbye to my trip to see the sis & bro-in-law in Wales and went with Plan B which was to roll with The American to Bordeaux where her French boyfriend is stationed for some military hospital duty… Holla if you’ve ever been a third wheel! But it turned out all good and was a beyond sick weekend so my fears were for naught. Shopped, hiked the largest dune in Europe (117 m of sheer sandy goodness in France? I was as confused as you are…), napped on top of said dune, and ate some solid French eats. It was dope. And you just can’t argue with that. Also, I’d post pictures but they’re all on Facebook. If you missed out, clicka clack here and you’re in biznass.

One thing I noticed about Bordelais folks, or whatever people from Bordeaux are called, is they were particularly entranced with my apparently circus-like tallness. Now don’t get me wrong, I came to the conclusion more than a few years ago that Euros like to to stare a little more than your average North American. But I gotta say, this weekend took it to a new level. I had to check my mug in more than a few shop windows to make sure I didn’t have some stray spaghetti sauce dried on my chin. Nope. All clear. Turns out people just looked at my head and then promptly went straight to my feet. EVERY. Single. Time.

Yes, I am this tall. No heels, no lie. This is happening. I never thought I was that gargantuan but what confirmed it: Saturday afternoon, we witnessed a teenage couple brawl in the street while waiting for the tram (sort of a Chris Brown vs. Rihanna volume 2)… After a third unrelated dude stepped in to break it up, his next order of business was to stroll on up to me to compare heights before moving on. Apparently his thought pattern was: Save the day and then whoa, THAT GIRL IS HUGE. I didn’t know to be entertained or what….Bahaha. Nice to meet ya son, I’ll keep doin my thing?

So yeah.

Turns out that’s about all I have to say... It’s been a good month but I’m gettin pretty antsy to get outta here. Season has been long and feels especially so when people I know that are playing in other countries are already done. Apparently May 2nd would be our last game for sure so to all the hundreds of you planning to come visit: time is runnin’ out.

Oh right, I just remembered some random stuff I maybe coulda stretched into some semblance of a full post at the time but it doesn’t seem that important at the moment… So real quick-like:

+ The bagpiper playing at the local Irish pub on St. Patrick’s Day? Dude was born in SLAVE LAKE. Small world? Yessir. I realize nobody outside Alberta knows where that’s at but don’t even worry about it. Small-town Canadian bagpipers are apparently reppin’ for their hood. Good to see.

+ I’ve always had a love for music but having as much free time as I now find on my hands (possible the worst word-choice order ever?), I’m beginning to think it’s been taken to a new, somewhat unhealthy level. That being said, and thanks to internet (I thank the internet for everything that I hold dear in life), I have come across more good tunes in the last 7 months than perhaps my whole life combined. Bold claim, I know. I seem to have gone back to my roots though and have been listening to hip hop approximately 85% of the time in 2009. Rewind to grade 7 when I first heard Run DMC and had my mind blown. My sister was less than impressed when I played It’s Like That for her the same day, but some people wouldn’t recognize greatness if an 11 year old played it on an old ghettoblaster so I’m not even worried about it. Suffice it to say my iPod hasn’t been the same since.

Also, please know that I know what that sounds like so let me break it down: White kid+ From Canada + Hip Hop – Street Cred = This Kid. The math means I’m aware of what that paragraph looks like. But I admit. I’m a fiend for a dope beat.

Aaaand I just lost what few swagger points I had left there…

Hip hop aside, all that is to say that the only thing that brings more happiness to my day than listening to good stuff is sharing the love, so if you find yourself in a musical slump, just know I spend upwards of 12 hours a day finding newness. Put my boredom to work for you. I will gladly hook you up with what I’ve been feelin lately.

I Dunk, Therefore I am

So I just got back from a little trip to Italy on Friday night. Started in Albi, mini-bused it to Barcelona and then flew to Rome and some other Italian city next to Jesi where we played. "France to Italy via... Spain?", you say. Sounds like a logical way to travel. Go west to get east my son!

As predicted we got pretty much owned in 3. I believe the scores were 25-14, 25-20, 25-19 and though we played well, they played better. A lot better. Actually it didn't go as bad as I thought it might so thanks for the prayers on our behalf. No noses were broken and other than a few egos, we got out unharmed. Unfortunately as soon as the game ended, I realized we get to recreate the drama a week later when they come to our house for the rematch next wednesday. All we have to do is beat them in 3 at home and then win a sudden-death "golden set" to take the series...

We played this...

In a word, we're about to be eliminated. And sadly, that means my days of gallavanting across (predominantly eastern) Europe are soon to be over... Pour out a little liquor of your beverage of choice for me.

Side note - back in France, we won yesterday in a record quickness of 1 hr 13 mins vs. the last team in the league. I'll take it.

Also, in keeping with the _______ of ______ album theme (see: "Hats of Romania" post for that reference to make any kind of sense), The American and I almost did an "Artwork of France's Neighbors" album on this trip since we saw some pretty clutch paintings in the hotel and truckstop restaurant throughout our travels... But the title didn't quite have the right ring to it.

Selections would've included a vivid watercolour of hot pink and red wild horses and a still-life of a lobster on a telephone. Not talking on it (that would be a reasonable artist's depiction) but sitting on the phone. Unfortunately we never got around to taking pictures of pictures, or of anything else much for that matter, so this post is conspicuously low on photos... Our bad. Either way, obviously I've been deeply moved since I'm for some reason writing about these paintings and though I don't know who's painting them - keep doin' your thing. I'd try to speculate what the deeper meaning or message behind the art could've been but it will only end badly in puns or stupid metaphors so we'll move on...

I was watching the NBA dunk contest this fine Sunday afternoon, a mere 12 hours late because of the unfortunateness of time zones and my need to sleep at night. And dayum, I wasn't too impressed. Other than ridiculously bad commentating and someone (not naming names, DWIGHT HOWARD...) attempting the oft attempted and boring dunk-from-the-foul-line, it was underwhelming. Nate Robinson, the 5'9" phenom, took the title with less-than exciting displays of physical freakishness. Here's to hoping Lebron does it up right next year.

Re-reading that paragraph, I realize nothing I just wrote really makes sense, so scratch all that. It just wasn't good. For any of you who missed out, this play-by-play was a lot more entertaining. Dude said it right:

"And he dunks the ball into the hoop, and people are ecstatic. Also, keep in mind ... same gag as last year. NBA: Where Creativity Happens."

New Year Newness

Turns out 2009 has started out right and January has been the month of unprecedented events. Haircuts, road trips, and cut up hands, to name just a few.

Let us begin with the hair situation. I blame the American for this since she put the idea in my head one day and I ruminated about it day and night until one day in a fit of spontaneity I finally decided to go for the gold and chop it all off. 3 years of hard work, all gone in the snip of a blade. Fortunately the stylist that was fixing to redo my melon was the world's happiest French girl and hated every second of it. I think we came in, oh I don't know, 2 hours before closing time, and in this country that means 6 hours too late. Sometimes that gets lost in translation. Needless to say it was a fail in a bigtime way and I came home looking like a 6 year old. The German was horrified but pretended to like it and Matt attempted to tell me he didn't know how he'd feel but "I could pull it off".... I'll tell you one thing sir - Nobody pulls off 6-foot 6 year old.

Round 2 came the next day when I went back to our old standby at the salon by the post office. She was so memorable when she cut my hurr a couple months back that I still don't know the name... but the important thing is she did me a solid and fixed the 'do. So I think I've come around and have jumped on the bandwagon. Shout out to my sister Sarah who cut hers a few weeks ago. Sorry to steal your thunder, but you know you're prettier anyway.


Besides the road trip to Carcassonne the other week, I took a couple of trips in this fine month. First was Saturday morning which isn't really a road trip in the true sense of the word since it was only 20 mins down the freeway but I had to test the limits of our new wheels to attempt to get to practice in time.

It all started when a certain friend of mine, who I won't call out by name 'cause I'm a lady like that, was supposed to catch a train to the airport at 9:04 AM but miraculously slept in til 8:45 when I woke him up and we have 3 minutes to leave. I'm shakin' my head. The cat decides to take a shower.

Dudes. I'll never understand.

So we miss the train from the Albi station by approx. 2.3 minutes and decide to pull a Bond move to try to beat the train to the next town on its way to Toulouse. The 90-year old behind the wheel of a white Renault on its last legs foiled that plan though and we missed it once again by 2 minutes. Just how many of y'all can say you've missed the SAME train twice? That's what I thought. Respect.

So at this point it's like 9:40 and I tearfully leave the friend to take the next train at 9:51 and pray he makes his flight. Meanwhile I got more pressing concerns in the form of practice in 20 minutes, no court shoes with me and a 23 minute drive ahead. So I kick the Kia into high gear and attempt to beat the clock. I failed and despite going 170 km/h for most of the drive was 8 minutes late. Unexpected road trip vol. 2 of 3 unspectacularly complete. The GPS lied to me and my coach was none too pleased. Luckily he was a little distracted when I arrived and this is where the next event seamlessly comes in...

The American. I'ma choose my words wisely here - it's obvious we're tight and I've got nothin' but love for her, after all she's my literal saviour in this country - but she has the unfortunate habit of accidentally getting hurt in one way or another everyday. I mean EVERY day.

Case in point, Friday night while cutting fruit (I'll once again not name names but it was produce of the yellow variety, and ends in 'nana') somehow the knife slipped and she filleted off the side of her left pointer finger. So bananas, knives and bits of finger are flying and the blood starts gushing. Luckily we worked some magic and pieced it back together so she made it through the night.

The next morning our coach gets the news and being that The American is a setter and her hands are literally her livelihood, this was kind of a big deal. As he's trying fruitlessly to redress the wound I come flying through the gym door - hair unbrushed, sweating and gasping for breath. I thought I was off the hook for the first 3 minutes and attempted to pretend I had been warming up in the parking lot... but I was busted shortly thereafter.

So in an attempt to redeem a bad start to the weekend we won a game Saturday night. Just kidding. Well, we did, but actually The American and I redeemed it by taking a little trip Sunday on down to the French village of my youth 2.5 hrs away. I've been back to Montagnac twice since back in the day of running those streets as a 6-year old but with the new haircut, this time I finally looked the part. We poked around a little and I found my old house only to sadly discover nobody was home and the front window was boarded up.

#34 Rue de l'Hospice. The house formerly known at #26...
until the renumbering of 2003 came along.

So in the spirit of nostalgia, I took a walk around the way to what my siblings and I affectionately called Geezer Corner to catch up on the latest village gossip and chew the fat with the local elderly. Suckily, I'm sad to say that times have changed and these days, between me and the scraggly pigeon, I'm the oldest thing sitting on that classy cement bench.

Lost as last year's Easter egg

Montagnac tour complete (yeah back off, it's a small place) we were on to bigger and better things to watch a some men's ball in a town next door. Some Canadian players were in the house and represented for the home and native land. Side note - to me, men's volleyball is like the kid to get picked second last in gym. He's the kid that wants to be taken seriously and somewhere under the too much exposed man-thigh, short shorts and cheering & hugging between every point, he has talent. It just gets overlooked sometimes. And don't worry, I would kill to watch it daily and I am bearing in mind I play the women's version of that sport so I'm not sure what that says about me... or my kid brother who tears up the guy's game... but it's all love.

So yeah. That's about all I got. But last piece of newness - turns out since the Ukrainians screwed up their visas for this round of Euro cup, they had to forfeit and my dream to play against Severodonchanka Severodonec was foiled. Fortunately my dream to get HANDLED by an Italian team will finally be fulfilled as it looks like we automatically advance to quarter finals against Jesi who beat Cannes who beat us. That means nothing to anybody but me and French kids but suffice it to say you can all start praying for me now. And for The American please. We need her. Fingers and all.

Crazy castle-y type place we found on the way

My future home

Admiring my future digs

Doin' my best Ray Charles

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.

Back in the USSR

So I got back from the Ukraine* for the first round of the European Cup last night at 3 AM. It was a trip. Literally.

Ok, wow. Bad puns aside, it was certainly an interesting couple days. Here's a quick recap...

We roll out in usual mini-bus form from Albi to Lyon Sunday evening. Not before being informed that the foreign kids, aka the American and me, need our French visa paperwork to get back into the country on the way home. I hadn't seen that piece of paper in many a week...No big deal though. The whole team will just wait for you guys in the car while you go on the hunt...

Luckily I located mine pretty quick... but the American wasn't so lucky and ended up looking for about half an hour before they decided to leave her to come in the second fleet, with the other half of the team, a few hours later... The trip was off to a stellar start.

So we get to our hotel in Lyon that night after taking an extra hour on the road cause one of the freeways was closed due to flooding... but the flight the next morning was on-time and we were finally Odessa-bound. Whoever booked our flights was a gambling man but impressively we made our 15-minute connection in Prague so God was smiling down favourably upon us Monday.

Tuesday, He stopped smiling.

Just kidding... except not really.

Actually, first let me back up. We practiced Monday evening to work out a little of the stiffness that invariably comes as a result of being tucked into tiny airplanes for hours on end. We hadn't eaten anything since breakfast 12 hours before so it naturally follows that an appropriate pre-practice snack consists of Mars bars and oranges. Something about chocolate seems to spell pre-workout nutrition to the French because we have been fed it more than once before games. Strange, but I guess it's my cross to bear while I'm here. I don't want your pity.

Dig in

Anyway, Tuesday we had a light practice in the morning and it was game time at 5 PM. After getting locked in the elevator due to a lack of room key (for some reason it was necessary to get out. I didn't understand it either but had plenty of time to contemplate while I waited for somebody to push the button and open the doors from the outside. Surprise, I'm in here.) and discovering the hotel's public bathroom has a mirrored ceiling (which makes for some uncomfortable moments when the American is the stall next door...), we were ready to play.

Allow me to sum up the game in a few words:
The team we played was Jinestra Odessa.
We lost 3-1. They had a 6'5" outside hitter. Russians can ball.
That's about it.

So we didn't take care of business. God stopped smiling. And it was a long trip... Luckily, we saw some crazy stuff and some of my stereotypes about the Ukraine were broken so it wasn't all bad.
First - it was ridiculously hot indoors. Like everywhere. I was expecting to freeze, but it was quite the opposite and we sweated our ____s off pretty much the whole time. Our hotel room temperature was stuck at 25 degrees and we couldn't turn it down. The gym was stifling.
Second - the food was really good and the gym and hotel were luxe. In this area I shouldn't say I had pre-conceived notions about either being bad but we'll say I was just pleasantly surprised.

To be fair, I should say that certain stereotypes were reinforced. For instance, we saw a lot of babushkas in flowery scarves.

What else. The country is in rough shape and a lot of buildings and such were really really run-d0wn. For example, the aiport was basically a one-room bus station. The people also seemed to be somewhat "run-down" and we saw exactly 2 Ukrainians smile the whole time we were there. The American even attempted a social experiment to see how many people would smile back at her while we walked around downtown Odessa. The final score? Ukraine - 8, the American - 1. She gave up pretty quick, especially after the only person I smiled at returned the gesture and I undermined her whole operation... I was always told only a mother, and I now found out a Ukrainian, could love this face.

So that's about it. We took the 15 hr journey back yesterday and leave again the day after tomorrow for Paris to play Clamart. The Ukrainians then come to us next week for round 2. If we win in 3 sets or less, it's off to Belgium or Germany. If we lose, who knows where we go for round 2. If I'm lucky, maybe back to another part of the Ukraine. Stay tuned for part 2.

Only 9075 km to Vancouver...

They know how to pick store names in this country

The only man to ever smile for an extended period of time in the Ukraine was immortalized in this statue

Roamin' the streets

Worldwide takeover... You have to make that shape with your mouth to say McDonald's in Ukrainian.

*NOTE: I am told it's incorrect to say "The Ukraine" but rather should simply be referred to as "Ukraine". I tried... It sounds weird. I'm sticking with the The. I'm sorry.

Beach Day

Friday morning the teammates and I saddled up for a weekend trip to St. Raphael in southeast France. I was jazzed, and had visions of sipping pina coladas while bronzing my bod the sunny Mediterranean coast...

Instead I got an old gym smelling of spiced meats (Desma pinned it as being of the taco variety) and a shoebox sized, bunk-bedded (?) hotel room. Aah, the life.

Our caravan of mini-buses rolled into St. Raph from Albi around 4 PM and we got the juices flowing about 30 minutes later with a 2 hr practice with/against the locals. Somehow nothing gets me in the mood for volleyball quite like 7 hours confined in a cramped space... Not to worry though, my knees took kindly to the rude awakening that came in the form of rubber-coated cement flooring that moonlights as a court there. And the trip had only just begun. Practice was solid but our libero tore her glut this week so we were a little short on the passing end of things... Luckily I found out my co-middle, aka 6'3" 33-year-old Russian Gisele, also tears up the backrow so she pulled libero duty after straining an ab this week. The woman cannot be stopped.

Practice completed, we headed back to the hotel where the American and I bunked down together. I mean that in the most literal sense, since we opened our bedroom door to be greeted by my childhood favourite - le bunk bed. To make matters worse, I got beaten to the punch and she called Top Bunk so I was relegated to second class on the bottom floor. I soon forgot about my plight, however, since our tiny room was reminiscent of ship quarters and we spent the night telling each other tales of our experiences on the high seas. OK, wow, that quickly took a turn for the lame but you get the idea... Pure, 5-star luxury.

Saturday, I would live out my earlier dreams of beach side glamour after an hour of serve-receive practice in the morning. Actually, the beach trip consisted of a 15-minute jaunt into the sand and back before we walked 40 minutes back to our parking spot, but I felt fulfilled nonetheless.

North America at large...

The Sleeveless Polo. So hot right now.

I'd also just like to throw this out there - Who rolls around the French Riviera in a convertible, with the top down, and an IRONING BOARD riding shotgun? The American and I thought our idyllic vision of life on the coast had come true when we mistook one passing by for a surfboard. Turns out the driver was just really proud of their laundry gear...? Thankfully, right after Desma called out "Suuurf board!" in her best California accent, the assistant coach kindly corrected us. So much for seamless integration into French society.

Anyway, our pride was restored, as the day ended well with our team taking home the W. We could've played better but I guess that's what pre-season is for - workin' out the kinks and middles playing libero... My turn comes next weekend so be sure to tune in for a full recap of the carnage...

My bad.

Sometimes I just drop and crab walk mid-rally...

Desma also took out an unsuspecting child on the sidelines. Luckily it was captured on film...

Before

aaand after...