Weekend of 29 & 30

Hey Again,

So on the weekend of the 29 & 30... I played soccer on the saturday. The coach met me at the Gare in Vaires and took me to the game, he is real nice and likes to bug me. Ha ha... The game was at 4pm but I had to meet him at 2:30pm for the game, He likes to be really early! When we got there the place wasn't even open. Anyway the game went great, I played outside midfield, on the left.. I am always really really nervous for our soccer games and don't have much confidence at all, but I know that I should, I should just go for it and try different things, but it's a new team and I'm a bit scared still! eek?!? Anyway I actually played not bad, if I do say so myself, the coach also remarked on this to me after the game. It felt really good though, to feel satisfied with how I played. We won the game pretty easily, I set up some goals - which was sweet! he he! But k I can not imagine what it would be like at a REALLY important game, or like a professional game, because people here get VERY intense!! Which is great, but wow we very nearly had a brawl in the middle of the field. Honestly!! I guess it would have helped though if the referee had been more sure of what he was doing! At one point a girl from the other team went offside, he blew his whistle and then she scored, and he called it a GOAL!!!?? I was like are you insane? If I could speak french right now I would give you a piece of my mind- damnit!! Well it seemed that I didn't have to because EVERYONE else on our team did! Holy crap it would have sucked to be him, I am sure he knew it was wrong after, but he really messed up!! ha ha.... The other big problem was the linesman were just like friends of the ref's and knew way less about what constitutes the ball actually going out than I know about fashion; which here..is next to nothing!! Anyway on quite a few occasions the ball would touch the line and he would call it out...once again I really wanted to explain to him that the ball actually has to roll a complete rotation over the line to be OUT! But err I can't speak french!!... Anyway this linesman started fighting with our coach and then parents.. OHH it got UGLY alright!! ha ha pretty unbelievable for me anyway! lol anyway it was a pretty sweet game anyway, we won!

On Sunday, I never have anything to do, So the Rotary club mentioned that there was a "fair" in Bussy St. George (Where my rotary club is from) and that I could tag along if I'd like... So I did!! Julia's family was going to Versaille that day and asked me to come and I really wanted to but I figured that I should really go to this fair because the Rotary club was now trying to be interested in me. So this Fair was like a benefit for a childrens hospital, mostly for sick kids with a disease in their chest that prevents them from breathing properly.. sorry I forget what it is called in french (no idea what it is in english though?! sorry) Anyway it was a pretty big thing actually, there were SOOO many kids and many many booths. The kids had to buy tickets and then go around to the booths and they got to play a game, and then would get a prize, or another ticket that they could then collect and trade in for a bigger prize. With the Rotary booth, they had about 5 games, but they had all already been asigned and seemed to be completely under control so there wasn't much for me to do. But luckily where they were situated was right in the center of the whole thing and infront of us was a stage, where they had really cool entertainment ALL afternoon. So that is what I did, watched and took pictures of this, it was soo cool!! Anyway you can see for yourself...


This is one of the first performances...each of those snake costume things has 2 guys in it, who control the costume and make it come to life basicly. The little kids got a little scared because they came really close to you but all the same they were well liked by the audience. The colours were really cool too. They were soo animated!




Here you can see that each one has two guys under it, they had to be real fit because they did ALOT of this jumping up and down and stunts like that. It was sweet!




Here is another type of oriental dancing.. I was told that Bussy St. George has quite a large asian population, therefore alot of different types of dances from China and Japan. Here they were using fans and they were soo synchronized, it was cool, when they all whiped out the fans it made a really loud clash!




This is a picture of some Salsa dancing. They had demonstrations of many different types of dancing; Salsa, hip hop (except they were guys and Believe me, it was NOT what as cool as you think it might have been, the very reason I didn't show you pictures - I don't want to scar you all for life!!) also they had like classical and many others, sorry I don't quite remember. Anyway with the Salsa, that guy just whipped that girl around, it looked like soo much fun and really awesome to do!! I would like to try it here if I can!!





This is just a picture of the inside of the one building where the fair was, it was also outside and in another small building. As you can see it was pretty packed full of people, not alot of breathing room, but that is something very common here. Spaces are small with alot of people.




** Also Veronique's Parents were here this weekend, back from their trip to the United States, they really enjoyed it and had alot of pictures to show us. They went to the Grand Canyon, and WOW... I want to go there too!! It looked soo amazing. Here parents are actually from a town way down in the south of France, right along the border of Spain. That is why they were staying with us, because we live quite close to the airoport. As you will see in this photo, they are quite small, as is everyone here, I find. Also they just look so very french and cute - or so I think so. Veronique's mother, is as she says "a typical mother", ha ha wow!! is all I can say, she loves to talk about VERY personal things, or well they are very personal by our culture, I am just going to leave it at that!! Ha ha culture is such an eye opening experience, sometimes you just gotta laugh!! lol Anyway here I am with Veronique's parents in her kitchen.