The One About Badminton

Unplug your phones, lock your doors and ignore the cats, it's Thursday today and that means only one thing here in France: Desperate Housewives night on Canal+ (C'est la saison 4 Simon!) Now, normally I would love to sit around and watch the plight of Wisteria Lane's finest; however for me, and a few others, Thursday night is Badminton Night.
There's a bit of a story behind this (not really, just filling up space), Karim, the German exchange student who left last June, kept telling me that I should find a sport to get involved with. He told that doing a sport outside of school helped him with his french, he made new friends, kept fit, got him out of the house, and the list goes on. He had even offered to help me find a sport! I figured what the hell, couldn't hurt right? So he told me he'd put together a list of the sports available in Uzès. He showed me the list and asked me if I'd like to try any of the sports. I told him rugby. Hey, everyone over here has already decided that I'm a champion rugby player back in Oz, despite my multiple (yet feeble) objections. Anyway, he told me he'd find out when I'd be able to start. A couple of weeks go by. He comes up to me and admits that he hasn't found out about the club. I tell him "No worries" (afterall, I'm not really a rugby champion - I don't even like rugby). So at this point I forget about rugby and sport altogether, right up until a couple of weeks ago (the week before I went to England to be precise - a blog I have been meaning to write by the way...) when a friend of mine was talking about her badminton club. The rest is pretty straight forward.
So here's the rest of the blog: Now Monday and Thursday nights I practise badminton from 7:30 'til 10 (it's not that long, the time just flies by). It's good fun and energetic! Except the Tuesday night session, which is just training for those serious folk. I avoid Tuesday's session for that very reason. Hey, I don't need training - don't you listen to people? I'm a rugby champion, I'll pick badminton up like that!

The Long Awaited Return

This just in, hot off the presses, straight outta the horse's mouth my return date is set: Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008. I'll be catching a plane from Paris (CDG I imagine) to London and then a long flight from London to Sydney, with a stop over in Bangkok (my second visit to everybody's favourite canvass roofed airport) then a leasurely city-hop to Brisbane. We haven't been given definite itineraries yet (not sure how I'll be getting TO Paris in the first place - EF wants to keep up the suspense!) but, given the long flight duration, time difference, scheduled flights etc... (EF flies exclusively with British Airways and QANTAS - that's what they told me anyway) I estimate an arrival time some time after 08:35 (local time) at the Brisbane domestic airport on the morning of Thursday the 4th. See you there!

Guardian of the Flame

A warm bonjour to all readers, how are we all? Hope things are heating up back in Oz as they are certainly cooling down back here in France! From lovely mid-30 degree summer days not (too much) more than a month ago to top temperatures of 22. And that's if the sun comes out...
It's started snowing more regularly in the French Alps, and at lower altitudes.
I've cracked out the winter gear and have started layering again.
Suffice it to say it is getting cold again. It came early this year, at least that's what everyone has been assuring me (it isn't really that assuring).
After freezing off our little French behinds, we decided that it was time to light the chimney. Yay! It's a brilliant idea to have a fire in you house, in a strictly non-destructive capacity of course. Since everyone went off to work this afternoon, and I was home alone (teacher strike, don't ask), they made me Guardian of the Flame. That just means putting more logs on, but hey, we don't have a fireplace at home, so this job, this mission if you like, is something really special. Plus, in french 'Gardien du feu' is a play on words (although only for those of us who live in the number 30). 10 points to who works it out.

The Summer I Enjoyed

Hello and welcome to the blog. By golly it's been a while! I've had a rip-roaring summer (do we still say rip-roaring? I believe the Spanish would say muy animado) Anyway, bit of a summary:

• My holidays actually started around June 16. School only just re-commenced this Wednesday, which means I enjoyed a generous 12 week holiday. In France there are actually more school holidays than in any other EU country (however, french students, on average, spend more hours at school during the week than other EU students... Pick your battles kids!)
• That week I went on a day trip to Montpellier, bought some sunnies and hired a bike for the afternoon. I had lunch with a duck that day too.
• My host father (who is a pilot for fun) took me on a tour of the region in a snazzy little jet. I wasn't even a little nervous. Nope. Not at all. It was a hot day, that's why I was sweating so profusely...
• June 27th went to Paris, met up with (half) the family (they came all the way out from Oz, did I mention that?) at CDG airport. We hung out in Paris for a week, doing the whole "tourist thing" Thoroughly enjoyed it I might add...
• July 3rd we trained it down to the south of France (my domain, as I've come to think of it) where we hired a car, met up with Irene (my fairy Godmother) and hung out chez Anke in Cabannes, just outside of Avignon. We also did the tourist thing down in the south too.
• Then we headed out to Greece (via London, it was 12° and drizzly, in the middle of JULY, their summer) Loitered around Athens for a few days, saw the Acropolis (thats the Parthenon, not to be confused with the fiery horsemen thing...) and then headed out to Naxos island, in the Cyclades. We stayed there for a week then Michael and Mum had to go home back to Australia. I stayed longer in Greece (wouldn't you? comment now!)
  
• Watched the Doctor Who season 4 finale, as it happened on YouTube (hey I thought it was worth a mention - Davros was back!)
  
• After travelling a bit through Greece (destinations including, but not limited to: Ptolemaida, Plati and Thessaloniki) I had to come back to France. Imagine that moment at the airport "oh, I don't wanna go back to FRANCE! I wanna stay here in GREECE" It wasn't all bad, I got to hang in Fiumicino for the afternoon as I waited in between flights (Fiumicino in Italy, I've gone to Italy again!)
• When I got back to France I discovered it was the Summer fête votive season. Basically big town parties, one town at a time, and exclusive to this region in the south. I also piloted a boat (are boats piloted? If they are, then I did)
• Then we all headed up to the mountains, to do some good old fashioned 4x4 in the brand new Hybrid Lexus with Regular Road Tyres. It was cold as Hell (again, nothing Biblical, there is a town in Norway called Hell. The mercury there regularly drops below -20: this means in Winter, Hell literally freezes over) up there, at the top of St Martin De Belleville it was 8° and foggy... Brrrr! The mountains were actually quite spectacular in summer, even without snow (although the tops of the taller mountains actually have snow all year round, such as Val Thorens and Mont Blanc. The latter peak has an altitude of over 4800 m, sorry Kosciusko)
  
• And to top it all off I thought I'd ride my recently repared push bike to the Pont Du Gard, a mean 30 km ride. Watch out for me in Le Tour De France next year...

Oooh! Dot points! Love m'dot points. That about does it for now I think, best not to over do it in one go. I'll try to post some more details up later on (and some piccys) and I WILL send another e-mail, I swear. Those "what happened to those Travel Newsletters" comments are REALLY starting to pile up ;)
FrenchSimon Out.

Oh, and Happy Fathers Day!