...and this is the face of defeat, at 16 years old.Tonight, I convinced myself to jump on the dinner train into Cannes which was about a 10-minute ride that cost me 2,40 € roundtrip. And complimentary ocean views all along the way.
I think I owed it to myself, because it's been too long since I actually went out and did something fun here. Yeah, being in France is fun and challenging at the same time, but I stay in and go to bed around 9 or 10 p.m., if I'm not crying about whatever emotional baggage I've left back in California.
A group of girls who I met in Nice invited me to their apartment and then out to watch the Rugby World Cup semi-finals in Downtown Cannes. When I arrived, we made quiche lorraine, lychee kir, and the usual suspect, baguette and brie for dinner. It cost a mere 4 € per person. When that was sufficiently in our bellies, we took our left over champagne into the street to meet up with the boys -- WHO ARE ALSO TEACHING IN ANTIBES!! So the friends prospect is looking so much better from my end here.
Luckily, one who was Canadian was nice enough to explain the general rules of rugby to me. After crashing an English pub, we put on blue, white, and red face paint -- make that red, white, and blue for me because I did it in a mirror, oops -- bought half-litres of Stella Artois and watched the French suffer their second defeat in the semis to the English in four years. Apparently this time was more painful, because with five minutes remaining France was up 9-8 in quite a low scoring game that resulted in an English 11-9 victory. Maybe they'll get their second-second chance in 2011. And for exta fun, check out this video I took of the French singing their national anthem, La Marseillaise, blissfully ignorant to what would come 80 minutes later.
After the match, a few high schoolers from Grasse were harassing us because Americans and Canadians are too close to the English for their liking. To which I rigoled, "Les français connaissent trop bien la perte... même dans les guerres." Low blow, I know, but it was well-received.
At 11 p.m., the bar cleared out with inconsolable French drunks and we found ourselves sans abri. So off to the next bar. I could only stay 30 more minutes in order to catch the midnight train (supposedly the last before tomorrow's strikes) back to Antibes.
On one last exciting side-note, I finally found the Antibes public library and got my FREE library card today. So after 12 hours, I'm already one-fourth of the way through Écrire by Marguerite Duras -- quite an easy read. Access to the library is easily the highlight of my young weekend.
3 comments:
Monique!! It sounds like you had such a fun day, that's great! I'm sorry they lost, but at least you got to experience it. I'll have to learn the rules to Rugby...
Also, what did the phrase mean in English?
Way to go with the face paint :)
a.) the headline is a reference to the popular saying, "Allez les Bleus!" (Let's go France), but "Dommage" is too bad.
b.) My sentence was as follows: The French know losses all too well, even in war...
har. har.
i caught the end of the rugby in disney village (at the end of a long day at disneyland paris) and, oddly enough, i didn't find the french too upset. but then again, maybe that's cuz they were at the sister of the happiest place on earth.
Post a Comment