I learned three things today: how to drive a manuel car, how to play 'La Vaca', and that while I'm quite good at tennis, compared to some, I suck. The day began way too early, at 10:30, when we went to pick up our rental car. Given that neither Frankie nor I really know how to drive a manuel transmission car, we had to go with Romero (a coach) and Pedro (Gustavo's father) so they could drive us to the rental site, and then one of them could drive the car back to the flat. That was a relatively easy process and we ended up with a badass 2013 Fiat Punto. It's a 'utility' car, so it only has two seats in the front, and then a very spacious backseat for all of our stuff. Gustavo says it's perfect for us, but really it was just very cheap to rent, so it's great. When we got back to the flat we got driving lessons from Pedro. His English is not great, so our lessons were quite interesting. He has two phrases which he really enjoys saying. The first, "You must listen! Listen! Listen to the engine!" We're not entirely sure what's he talking about, but he repeats it endlessly, so we listen. The second is, "You must feel the gears, feel the car! Like a woman! Feel her!" After we got our lessons, we practiced driving in the parking lot and zipping around the block for a few hours, and we're about to go practice some more. Despite my concern about how difficult it was going to be, it's really not all that hard. In fact, I ended up driving to the tennis club later in the day. Granted, it's only 10 minutes away. But with a few more days of practice we'll be ready to go.
Pedro with his finger to his ear. "You must listen! Listen! Listen! Listen to the engine!"
Pedro and I...he's probably to telling me that I must, "Escucha! Escucha Max, escucha!"
Pedro and Frankie
Learning to drive. I'm sure you'll appreciate Frankie's comments. He's just so funny.
At 16:00 I drove Frank and Daniel to the club where we met up with this older guy named Benjamin to train. Benjamin was a rather portly fellow and initially I was a little concerned that he might bring down our level. In hindsight, I'm an idiot. Not only did he not bring down the level, he was one of the best players I've ever played with. Getting a point of off him was near impossible, and by the end he was roaring with laughter because he was toying with us so badly. Despite getting our butts kicked, we were lucky to learn and play one of the most fun training games I've ever played. It's apparently very popular in France and Columbia, but I've never heard of it. It's called 'La Vaca', or 'The Cow'. It's a baseline game with two teams of two players, where the first team to get 5 vacas wins. You get 1 vaca by winning three consecutive points. The catch is as soon as you win a point, the player on the other team who wasn't playing immediately hops in and can feed the ball anywhere they want, and as hard as they want, as long as they bounce it once before they feed it. For example, if I play a long point that ends with me hitting a volley winner. My new opponent can sprint in, bounce the ball, and fire a lob over my head. The feeds are live, so if you miss the feed it counts as a point. The pace is really fast, so not only do you get to play tons of fun points, you get a good workout. We were on opposite teams, but Frank and I were in over our heads and got repeatedly pummeled by Daniel and Benjamin. Not only would these guys beat us at normal tennis, but they were also excellent at this game. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun, and I'm definitely bringing it back to the States.
From my match yesterday. You can barely make it the evil Frenchman on the other side of the court.
As I mentioned earlier we play our next tournament Saturday morning in some town on the Normandie coast. Gustavo says it's very beautiful, so I'm pretty excited to check it out. It's sort of a weird situation though. You see, Frank and I both play in the morning and then if we win we play again in the afternoon. However, a referee from a different tournament called Gustavo and said he needs a 2/6 player to fill a spot in his tournament on Sunday morning. This other tournament is capped at 2/6, meaning no player ranked higher than that can play, so whoever enters will automatically start in the semifinals. If they win and make it to the finals they earn € 60 and if they win the tournament (meaning they only have to win two matches) they win € 100. Not bad. So what we're going to do is register for that tournament as well. That way, if one of us doesn't win both of his matches in the first tournament on Saturday, he will play the other tournament on Sunday and try and earn some cash. Again, if you don't understand the French system this is probably a bit confusing. But hopefully I did a good enough job explaining it.
Driving to the club yesterday. From left to right: Fercho, Daniel, and myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment