French & Baseball: My two loves in life (Sorry J.D.)

Ah, French and baseball, two things I can't quite get enough of. And this weekend I got both!

It all started last week when I was messing around on facebook at work. I realized when I came back from the copy room that I had a couple of messages from my friend Ludo, who I went on a date or two with back in France. Anyways, it's been a while since I've spoken French really. But the entire time we messaged back and forth in a.) French slang and b.) shortened computer words. I nearly understood all of it, how easily it comes back.

Apparently Ludo's working in the Caribbean now and plans to come to the United States to practice his English, "since he knows someone living there." I thought he was joking and told him I planned to be living near a beach in California within the next two years. That's when he said, in French, "You better not be joking, I'm extremely serious about coming to visit." So apparently he wants to come hang out with la Californienne, practice his English, and continue my French education and get me back in the French-speaking groove for two weeks.

I'm really excited and hope he's serious! It'd be so fun to hang out for a few weeks and show him around my world, after he took me around his for a few months.

I would have had more French this weekend, because my family wanted to go to my favorite French crêperie out here in Stockton. It's owned by this recently-transplanted Breton, who always tries to get me to speak French with him. Since I'm always out with my boyfriend or coworkers, I get really nervous about speaking in French. I'm not sure why I've always been self-conscious about that, especially how everyone always complimented me on my French, even the administrators at my schools when I was living there, as well as my roommate and all her friends. Tant pis.... I'll get over it some day. But it's only open for Sunday brunch and since we had baseball until 4 p.m. last night, couldn't make it out in time to grab some crêpes. But I do have TONS of berries in the fridge, so maybe I'll make some of my own tonight! Those were the first thing I can recall learning how to cook, since my mémée (grandma) taught me how to make them when I was super young.

And while I briefly alluded to it, here comes the baseball part. We had a three-day home stand against the nation's No. 1 team this weekend: UC Irvine. It could have been better, could have been worse, but the best part for me was during Saturday's pre-game. I had just finished my radio broadcast for our softball game at noon (last game of the year, so it was my last broadcast of the year) and had everything in the press box/on the field set up and ready to go for the baseball game. Since it was three hours until go time, the players were starting to warm up before taking batting practice.

And I got to warm up and play catch out there!!! It was probably one of the best things ever. I felt so silly (being a girl playing out there with all the baseball boys), but I miss playing soooo bad. I'm really excited I got the chance to get a little catch and long-toss in before the game!

Un peu de drame

(And now, a little bit of drama)

Watching the Olympics last night, I felt a bit of the tabloid backlash surrounding the French swimmers. Thinking about the prospect of the French standing on that podium playing La Marseillaise actually made me somewhat excited to see the races heat up.

Let me backtrack a little so you know what I'm talking about:

Laure Manaudou, defending gold medalist in the women's 400 Free at the Athens Olympics was facing off against her biggest rival and the current girlfriend of her ex-boyfriend, Federica Pellegrini of Italy. I heard a bit about Manaudou while living in France, especially during the extensive coverage of the European tournaments and championships this past winter. Long story short, she's a huge celebrity in the French athletic world and was touted to be arguably one of the greatest French athletes if she could repeat in the Olympics.


Long story short, both Manaudou and Pellegrini slipped off the radar during that event, in which all medalists came either from Great Britain or the United States. So apparently all that off-season drama got to the European athletes' heads.

Over on the men's side of the pool, the French men's relay team was being touted as the favorite to take gold in the 400 Freestyle Relay. Adding in a bit of color, Alain Bernard told reporters that the French came to Beijing to "smash" the Americans. And while they did end up shattering the previous world record in the event by nearly four seconds, it was the American squad anchored by Michael Phelps and Jason Lezak who took home the gold.


So much for "smashing" the Americans.

I am really proud for the French though. This really puts them on the map as a world contender. And I lived there twice!

And now time for some light reading

Originally, I checked out John Steinbeck's East of Eden from the Médiathèque because it's a 720+ page monster. This was early February when I assumed I'd get most of it finished on the plane back to the States.

How wrong I was. Instead, I watched three movies both ways, played a little Sudoku, ate happily and slept quite a bit. Then I figured, well I'll have nothing really to do at home, but my entire break was action-packed (haha, not exactly that exciting, but I found enough things to keep myself busy)!

Well, either way, I finished it and went back to the médiathèque to check out some more books this afternoon. I get most of my reading done on the bikes at the gym, so you can understand why I'm drawn to the small English section of our library.

However, I keep having constantly recurring thoughts spring into my head: "Wouldn't it be such a shame to have spent all this time in France, and not have read any of the really good-recommended-classic French novels?" So I always wander around the extensive, confusing and overwhelming adult section jam-packed with thousands of French (and translated into French) titles.

Well, later in the day, I kept this thought going and purchased a French magazine in the Presse store downtown. Along with a Snickers bar. So I figured it's a good day of indulgence, candy and Parisian fashion mags.

And do you know what books I ended up checking out?

Two English books, ha! All those good thoughts gone to waste. One Ray Bradbury because I really like him and one short book which I think is some trashy British page turner. I'm excited to begin!

It's official!!

After weeks of anticipation, I finally received my arrêté de nomination from the ministère de l'éducation nationale of France, in the academy of Nice.

That's just a really fancy, French way of saying a big package from Nice was looking at me when I opened my mailbox one hour ago.

I was slightly nervous, because one girl told me that she was placed in a very small, rural (and uncommonly ugly) village by Lyon when she was an assistant anglaise.

But I was not placed in a small city! I will be living in:

ANTIBES!!!

From the Greek antipolis, meaning the opposite city (of Nice) on the other side of La Baie des Anges. So to the East is Nice and to the West - Cannes! Which means when the Festival des Films comes to Cannes in May, I'll be living right by all the action! Oh and Saint-Tropez is not far off either. Surprisingly enough, Antibes is home to some of the only man-made beaches in the South of France. Since the waves in the Mediterranean are very mild, no beach has sand. Instead, their beaches contain large stones and pebbles. Such is not the case on the sandy beaches of Antibes.

In numerical values, Cannes is only 9 miles from Antibes, Nice is 17 miles, Monte-Carlo in the principality of Monaco is 29 miles away, and Saint-Tropez is a little under 60 miles from my city of Antibes!

Antibes was once the home of F. Scott Fitzgerald. As an expatriot (like I'll soon be) in the South of France, he wrote many a novel from his apartment overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Coincidentally, Picasso once lived in the city, and the wall I'm standing by is right outside of the Musée de Picasso.

It's going to be a good year :) Oh yeah, Antibes's sister city? Newport Beach, California. Go figure!

More Antibes for your viewing pleasure (all taken by me):