Back On The Grind

Sorry for the my blogging absence but the last few days have been a whirlwind. We've registered about 1,000 KM in the car, been to two awesome concerts, and have found possibly the coolest part of France. But before I let you in on our new found secret, I'll start where I left off, in Paris. After my first day in Paris I realized I may have passed judgement too soon. I like Paris, it's history and architecture is amazing, it's certainly not my favorite part of France, but it's still very cool. 

Frankie always like jumping in front of the camera when I'm trying to take a picture. So to get even I'll post this moderately embarrassing picture that come from this practice. 

We began our second day in Paris by playing tennis in the Luxembourg Park, which if you're familiar with Paris, is basically right downtown. You wouldn't think it would be possible to play in downtown Paris but for only 8 euros my dream became a reality. There are 6 courts and most of the people playing are recreational hacks, so when Frank and I started hitting a small crowd of 15-20 people gathered to watch us. It continues to amaze me how much people love tennis here. As we were walking back to the flat after the hit I noticed a huge plume of smoke off in the distance. It was a bit concerning at first, but eventually we learned an old hotel that was being renovated had caught fire. A big fire, but no injuries or anything so it was okay. We spent the rest of the day walking down Champs-Elysees, seeing Arc de Triomphe, and a few other sites. 

2 of the 6 courts in Luxembourg Park. 

I was the only one who even seemed to notice the smoke.

Except for the pigeon. He was outta there.

Ridiculous Lamborghini a couple of Saudi Arabians got out of one Champs-Elysees. 

The Louvre. 

That evening we met up with 2013 Pitzer graduate Caroline Spurgin, her Alaskan friend, as well as a collection of Australians, Italians, and English. We drank a good deal of wine in the shadow of Notre Dame Cathedral and had a pretty fun time. The only unfortunate thing is that because everything in Paris is so expensive, that's pretty much all you can do nightlife wise without dropping 30+ euros. 

From left to right Jesse (PZ' 13), Julian (CMC 12) and Frank (PO' 13). Now that's some 5C diversity. 

Jesse working on his Faxe. This is a bizarre beverage. 

The next day we said our goodbyes to Julian and Jesse and moved to Saint-Denis, another part of Paris a bit north of the touristy area. The reason, of course, is because we were going to see Eminem that evening and wanted to stay close to the concert venue. He performed in Stade de France, which is the Stadium France constructed for the 1998 World Cup, and it's really something to see. We took the metro to the concert and when we arrived I was shocked at how many people were there. The stadium was completely full, except for the areas behind the stage where they had removed seats, and there must've been at least 50,000 people in attendance. We had seats in the 'pelouse' which was basically just open standing room on the ground level of the stadium. Eminem absolutely killed it, he played a set that was over 2 hours long and of course played all of his classic songs. I wasn't entirely thrilled about my time in Paris, especially because it cost so much just to be there, but seeing Eminem absolutely made it worth it.

Frank if you continue to jump in front of my pictures this is how I will make you pay.
That's Stade de France in the background.

No good pictures of Eminem or the crowd during the concert. But this was 10 minutes after it ended and still this many people.

The next morning we were awoken at 5 A.M. by the fire alarm. False alarm. Of course. After a few more hours of joyous sleep we started the 10 hour drive southwest to the town of Hossegor. Hossegor is one of the most famous surf towns in the world so we were excited for what was in store for us. Now during the course of the drive there was a rather large elephant in the room, or car, whatever. We knew we weren't going to arrive until around 23:00. At this time no camp grounds would be open and hotels were out of the question because we'd just spent so much money in Paris, so our sleeping situation was precarious to say the least. When we finally arrived we just drove to the beach to try and figure out what we were going to do. Keep in mind, we'd heard that Hossegor was a big party town but what we arrived to was still unexpected. When we parked we heard thumping bass not to far away. We grabbed a bottle of wine and started to meander in the direction of the music, because why not? It seemed better than our alternative option of continuing to sit in the car. What we stumbled upon was a wild party in a huge square right on the beach. There was a great DJ and at least 1,000 people dancing up a storm. We quickly joined in and danced the night away until 2:00 when the music stopped. Then we proceeded to find a nice nook on the beach and slept until about 7:00. Since we have a tournament today (in a few hours in fact) throughout the night we repeatedly assured ourselves that professional tennis players probably participate in similar activities the night before a match. 

Hossegor beach party.

So now we are in Hendaye (close to Hen Day, meaning it's got to be the Hen's day) where we are set to play our first rounds of another tournament, this will be my 12th (Frankie's 11th) tournament in just over 40 days. A quick aside, Hossegor and Hendaye are both in the southwest corner of France and are absolutely beautiful as well as tons of fun. If you ever visit France, you have to check out this part of the country. This tournament is 'open', meaning people of all rankings can enter, so it's unclear where exactly we are in the draw, but certainly not near the finals. I play at 14:00 while Frankie plays at 15:30. Finally we're not in the same bracket so unless we make it to the finals, which in an open tournament is a big unless, we won't be playing each other. This tournament is also back on the red clay, our first time playing on the dirt in over two weeks, so we're both pretty excited. Our only concern is our lack of strung rackets. I have 1 and Frankie has 2. Although he's been switching off between them for quite some time so he's unsure when they are going to break. Me thinks we need to find a stringer. I'll have good internet for a few days so I'll report back later tonight on how the tennis goes.

Because it's difficult to eat healthy without a place to cook or refrigerate we haven't been doing a fantastic job. To remedy this Frankie has a new daily ritual of eating an entire tomato. Here he selects his next victim. 

-Max