Skiing

I realised it'd had been a while since I last blogged so I looked back at my last blog and realised it was only about 2 weeks ago, so much has happened, My whole life here has changed in just two weeks and it's all due to one thing; the ski season (Christmas may have played a small part in it all too(I will talk about my 3 days of Noel in my next blog as it deserves it's own blog)). Every town here has made an amazing transformation, for instance Chantemerle was always a cute little town, I'd go there for the gym, but I'd never see people out walking about past 5 or having fun in the streets, now with the start of the ski season people are still walking around Chantemerle at 10, restaurants and pubs are open and everyone is just so much happier here, it's like everybody's stress has been lifted it's odd but it's just changed everything. I mean it's not like this was a depressed little town before but i never realised how tired and over summer everybody was until those ski lifts opened.

Apart from the whole new atmosphere here one of the biggest indicators that things are about to change are those bloody Brits. Man they're annoying. they talk in very loud voices, can't ski and are always staking right in front of you, I was skiing with some friends and we caught a group of Brits, one of the Brits suddenly swerved from the middle of the slope over the the left because he'd seen a jump, didn't look behind him or check if it was safe. If he had he'd have seen my mate lining himself up for the same jump and going at it with a lot more speed, the Brit got there first hit the jump and then hit the ground fairly hard crashing just as my mate (having committed himself to the jump already) also goes over the jump, my mate, thank god he can ski properly, goes flying over the startled Brit and landing comfortably skiing off, this is probably the only time I've seen where a Brit has crashed and not taken out half the slope. Now I know I may be offending a fair few Brits here, so I apologise for my Brit bashing and I'm sure your not all like that (dad i know you are) but the ones here are and I know I'm not so crash hot but I do know my limits. The one good thing is that they presume i don't understand English. This comes in handy when on ski lifts with school girls. The amount of conversations I've overheard which I'm sure I wasn't meant to hear is enormous. It really gets a good laugh out of friends when i sit there translating the conversations into French without the girls sitting right next to me understanding whats going on.

Overall the ski season has been amazing and even the Brits can't bring it down. I have skied everyday of the holidays plus bothd ays the first weekend and that wednesday afternoon, we've had perfect weather for all but one day, sunny, reasonbaly warm and no wind. Absolutley magnificent. I'm improving to which is nice, getting up more confidence in myself, probably not a good thing though. 2 days ago I did some of the most amazing off-piste with my brother and dad. We couldn't hear or see any sign of human activity, in this powder pulling out jumps and landing in metres of snow, all you could see was rolling white hills, majestic. then we hit the trees and antoine's like Callum follow my tracks, thinking he was going to be teaching me how to ski powder i did as I was told and followed, he goes over this jump which didn't look that big from back where I was, hit it with a lot more speed than was appropriate and I was very rudenly dropped about 2 or 3 metres down, somehow landed on my skis. I hit the powder on the skis going "Merde, Merde, Merde" like a real Frenchie, then as I hit the powder on my bum/head/back/shoulder, my mind clicked back into normalality and all I remember was thinking, "Shit". Thank god it was powder and I came out of it relatively unscathed but had it been real snow or ice I would be lying in a hospital in Briancon, It really hurt. Then boyz being boyz, Antoine starts calling me a girl cause I decide to skip a 4 or 5 metres drop, I don't quite know what hurt more the stack or my pride after not doing the bigger jump. Anywayz in a deperate attempt to regain a little bit of pride I spotted a jump off the side of the piste when we rejoined the real pistes, hit it with a lot of speed (Now I've never done this particular jump before, it's really big) and it threw me up in the air, I thought you beaut I've nailed this, then I saw the landing surface and for the second time in about 20mins hit the ground very hard. I rolled and looked very much like a Brit, the only good thing coming out of it was neither Remi nor Antoine saw. I limped home very sore that night.

I can't real keep going on about the snow for much longer or I will have filled up 5 pages worth of it, everyday I come home with at least 3 amazing stories which even I can't believe happened it's been so jam packed. Actually something the happened today, one of my best moments on skis, made me feel very good about myself was much like the story of the crashing Brit from before. I was trying to find a place called the Melezone so I was cutting between pistes through the trees and all and I'd picked up a lot of speed on one trail as i had no space to turn so I just gunned it figuring the worst that would happen would be i would come out the other end and maybe take out a Brit (Actually that would have been closer to one of the best things I could have done, for the greater good). So I gunned it trying to get out of the trees, best thing to do when your a little nervous, go faster. Anywayz I saw the finish and thought thank god, something looked slightly wrong about the finish but I didn't care I was relieved to have not wrapped myself around a tree. I finally realised what was wrong about the finish when if ound myself in the air looking down on a train of 3 year olds doing a skiing lesson. There'd been a 3 or 4 metre drop onto the ski slope at the end and I'd just gone shooting over it at a pace which I wouldn't normally do a piste at let alone a jump. As much to my belief as to the ski instructors (of which I'm sure he thought he'd have to call an ambo) I landed the jump and went skiing off down the slope. Took me a good 5 minutes to realised I'd just landed something like that and then a further 2 seconds to think "I'm never taking that shortcut again".

Anywayz I must really go and start writing the blog for Christmas, It was one of the most amazing times I've had in my life, 3 days of eating food, skiing and generally having a great time, must go. By the way Congratulations to Oli for making the Aus team for the Youth Olympics and Congrats to all medal winners in the recent State Champs U19, it was really, close would have been great to watch it, and finally good luck to all racing the Chrissie Carnivals wherever you may be this year and also the Bay Crits.

Ciao

Gros Bisous

Cal

Just checking in

Photos: The group at Baptiste's Party. Just some guys at Baptiste's, me in the blue shirt and silver tie. A Long term exposure shot taken at the Villeneurve party.

Well after the excitement of the first student strike not a lot has happened, we had another one today which was a little bit more aggressive but less people turned up. I only went for half of it as it was -4 degrees and I did not want to be standing in the snow from 9-3, (my school hours for today) wearing thin socks and volleys. We chanted random chants outside the local government building, some reporter took our photo of which everyone who were looking quite bored suddenly jumped and threw their fists in the air. After that I'm not really sure what happened as I went home but I'm think not a lot.

All riding has ceased, all road riding. I tried the other day but my wheels could'nt get traction due to the light covering of ice on the main highways, so i returned to mine and jumped on the windtrainer for a session. I'm starting to get quite cranky because I'm still resting my ankle so I can't run and I can't ride properly. I'm stuck inside on an ergo. However soon that will all change as the ski season opens Saturday. I'm stoked, cannot wait. I went and got my skis and boots and poles today, I have my season pass ready to go and all my clothes just waiting there. We already have so much snow I'm not sure I'll be able to turn properly. I'm just skiing with family Saturday as I'm pretty sure I'll need all the help I can get but Sunday maybe I'll try with friends. It's going to be a disgrace with me thinking I'm pretty hot stuff only to have everyone fly past me, with me shouting "Hey guys, wanna wait for me?". Anywayz I believe all my Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesday afternoons will be filled up with skiing, I hope anyway.

Not much else has developed since my last blog, we had a nice party for a mate's birthday, only about 12-15 people but it was, not sure the word in English but in French it's tranquille, translation has it at relaxed but it's not the same meaning it's a little like nice because it was chilled, I can't quite explain it but you get my general gist. Also my mum returned from Strasbourg today, she was seeing her mum up there. It's nice to have her back, she's very much like my mum in Aus, I missed the dinner table antics between her and Marie.

Anywayz sorry not a lot has happened, I'm very tired so i apologise for my writing, it's not top notch tonight. Last thing is for the cyclists, did anyone notice that Cavendish has injured himself? And of all things, he was playing a Wii, apparently it was a snowboarding game which he fell off and banged his knee. I mean as if that isn't embarrassing enough it's now on Cyclingnews, poor bloke, I guess this just once again illustrates the dangers of video games.

Just a little after-note, I re-read that blog just making sure i hadn't made any mistakes (of which I'm sure there still are but it's too late to really look for them) and I found a lot of little sentences that don't really work in English but it's because I've translated them from French into English, like just then I know i can say "don't really work" but it's not good English, in French it would be perfectly exeptable to say "ca marche pas" ,also for instance; "I returned to mine", now I know that makes sense but I also know that there's a better way of saying that, in French that would be "J'ai rentre chez moi". I mean that works perfectly in French but just not in English, weird how little things are starting to become more comfortable in French than English, quite often i find myself translating what I would say from French to English, it's weird but slightly satisfying; proves that I've come a long way.

J'ai besoin de Dormir J'ai le Creve, Ciao for now

Cal

Une Seulle Solution, La Revolution!

Well since my last blog it has snowed so much it's not funny, and the french blood has been boiling.

From Left to Right the photos: President Marchello adresses her troops. Michelle's Car. The dumpsters blocking the entrance and two of the banners. The chants and people shouting on top of the dumpsters in the snow. The table outside, it had no snow on it the night before.

First to the snow. Monday night, I went to Remi, you know, I reckon it'll snow Thursday night. Thursday night we got over 60 cms of snow. It just came down in 2x 2 hour blocks and it was huge. This morning I walked to the bus in the snow and i fell down the steps outside the house because i couldn't see where they where, but because there was so much snow it didn't matter it just ended up like a slide. The table at the moment has about 80 cms-1m of snow on it as it's built up over the past week. We still have another week until the ski season opens and at the moment I'm worried about there being so much snow that we just sink into it and can't ski. I can't wait, so excited.

Now to the French blood. Every Frenchman believes Revolutions are in there blood. the french have a nasty habit of beheading their kings and queens and starting a revolution every decade. i guess us Aussie had the whole convict thing in our blood, so we honoured that with our Bush Rangers. Back in those days the french where pillaging towns and burning castles and beheading various nobles, these days they put dustbins in front of every entrance to the school and declare another revolution. At the moment the French government are trying to change their 'Bac' (same as our VCE, or final two years of school). However the kids at the school all over the country aren't to happy about that. Yesterday there were a few whispering about a student strike today, of course I just thought it'd be 20 kids outside the school not going in because they felt they had a cause, then the principal would come out, shout at them and that'd be that. I was planning on joining in just for the sake of it. This morning I packed my bag ready for school expecting to be already in by 2nd period. When the bus dropped us off we all walked up the hill, slowly the news trickled down, the school had been blocked. Sure i thought and few kids won't let anyone in the gate, then I heard the shouting and cheering and chants. I was still about 300-400ms away. We turned the corner and saw the cause of all the commotion, the school really was blocked. The boarders Had woken up at 6.30 that morning, waiting untill all the teachers were in the school and then proceeded to block every possible entrance using dumpsters. When Marie and I arrived there people were standing on top of the dustbins leading chants, shouting random things. We had banners up and like all true protesters we were ready to resort to violence when necessary, armed with snowballs. Whenever a teach showed their head at a window 4 or 5 snowballs would go barrelling into the window. Finally at 10am (we'd started around 7.30am) the government phoned with 3 different deals which we could choose to except or not. Lead by our president Eliza Marchello, she outlined the deals, of which we agreed to one of them , this was a meeting of 8 or 9 different school's student Presidents and the Minister of Education in Paris. To really force our point home for the next two weeks every kid will receive absences from every class so the government believes we're still striking however we will go to school. We got the rest of today off while the teachers moved our dustbins etc and I now have a long weekend :). It was a very odd scene, it reminded me slightly of some sort of industrial revolutions where the proles rise up against the upper class. We had our head (Marchello) who was locked in the Principal's office refuses almost all the offers placed on the table untill she got a free trip to Paris and we got the day off school. So the Revolution has started and apparently we expect to strike again in January after the Xmas holidays if nothing is done and that time we're going down to Marseille to join 2 other schools to really make a point.

Anywayz that was my best day I've had here so far.

Now I'm off to do nothing when I expected to be working, how good is that.

Ciao to all

Cal

I know I just posted a blog but this one will be quick. You should see the snow at the moment! It is ridiculous, I cna't see further than 15ms in front of me cause it's snowing too heavily, it's a just a blanket white. We've had 10cms in about 2 hours and it's getting heavier. it's going to be hard tomorrow shovelling the drive way. Anywayz just thought you should all know that and tomorrow we will have over 60cms of snow, as at the moment it's already 50cms and its just 10.00pm.
Catchyaz all
Ciao
Cal

Paris, with the school.

Well this one was extremly different, just a completely different experience. First off though, thanks to Penny for the really nice comment on the last blog. Anywayz we left Sunday night at 9.30pm in a bus with only one seat each. Of course you've got 50 rowdy teens in a bus on a school trip, I mean did the profs really think we were going to sleep? We watched movies, ate junk food, threw the footy i brought around a bit and generally jsut disturbed the bus driver. Because it's law in France that a bus/truck must stop every 2-3 hours everyone would pile out for a smoke and drinks and food at the gas stations along the way. This was great as we had a small rugby match every two hours and got a bit of excersise. It also meant everyone woke up every 2-3 hours. I know I feel asleep around 4 in the morning and I was one of the first. We finally got there at 9 in the morning, got our bags into the hotel and had breakie which consisted of a bowl (yes a bowl, not a mug, not a cup, not a veyr large glass but a bowl) of hot chocolate, a crossant and some bread. Then it was off to some museum to see some painting which i think was called the Nymphes.

That arvo we had lunch in a park, chasing joggers and interviewing randoms cause someone had a fake mike. A really good moment was when the girl went up to a couple and asked to interview them and they replied with "sorry we're American we don't speak French". So the group called me in to translate, it was cool because it showed they had enough faith in me that i could easily translate in both languages, I don't know I guess that just showed me how much I've improved. I don't actually remember that afternoon but I think it was another museum somewhere which we did nothing but imitate the statues and take odd photos. I actually don't remember anything else in order except for the last night, so I'll just write about odd things that stand out in my memory.

Of course the Louvre stands out, I mean Mona Lisa took me forever to find, I may have walked past it abotu 4 times jsut because i couldn't see it due to the amount of people in front of it, also the fact that here it's called La Jaconde didn't help my cause. I eventually found it and it's actually pretty small and i'm not sure my but pretty spectacular. I also saw Milo and she's fair cool too. The other museums we saw included Musee D'Orsay which is like all monnet and van gough and those dudes, that was pretty cool and it was good when I recognised the painting however some you just got to think whether it was the painter or their 5 year old kid. I mean I know they pass it off as abstract but seriously one was just white, I reckon he just couldn't be bothered on a Friday afternoon. We also went to Musee Du quai Branly which is like all primitive arts which was cool when we got to the Aboriginal arts. I thank my parents for that trip to Central Australia and various school trips to aboriginal art gallerys because I could actually say a few things about the paintings and not make a fool of myself. After that was some mussium that sounded like Musee du Bonbon, which is translated into musium of lollies but it was more abstract futuristic art which mostly just gave me a head ache. Sadly after all the museums I have realised I will never be an art lover as I developed a tendency to pick apart paintings when the reasons I didn't like it were the reasons it was famous.

The next major part of the trip was the plays. Three all up; 1 was awful the other two were great. After the first play I thought maybe I wouldn't be much of a theatre person either; I slept for 2 hours of the 2.10hr play, much to my luck so did more than half the class and 2 of the 4 profs with us, hence no trouble ensured. I mean I no that was bad of me but I was really tired, it was late and the play was awful it was a Samuel Beckett play, Fin de Partie or something along those lines, Samuel Beckett's like huge but this was just 2 guys living in a dumpster, with lot's of angry rants and this one guy throwing jsut about everything against a tin wall, it was just awful. However the second one was Fantasio and I stayed awake for that one, very odd storyline but very clever and I enjoyed that one immensly. That one was at Commedie Francais (Melbourne's Playhouse however it's more like Broadway) Very famous and absolutely stunning theatre. The next one was a two man skit which looked dull to begin with but turned out to be hilariously funny and I am so glad my french is better so that I can understand it because it was just great.

And of the course the third and final part of Paris, which is without a doubt the most important part was the social aspect. 50 Kids in a Youth Hostel Seperate rooms spread over a large distance, as soon as lights went out the fun started. There was a group of Canadiens also staying in the same palce and they had the same lights out time as us: 11pm. At 11.30 once all the profs had finished expections, if you sat at your window and looked out over the courtyard, you'd see so many shadows sneaking around the edges, whisper and lots of giggles. Most nights people slept at about 3 or 4 and generally it wasn't in the right room, more often than not they'd left their keycards back in their own rooms so some interesting, ways of breaking into the rooms where developed. My rooms way of preference was through a 4 storey window, next door to ours then onto the roof of the hotel and down through the skylight. There were easier ways this was just the most amsuing to 3 16 yr old boys at 4 in the morning. We were also given a lot of 'Quartier Libre' (free time) quite often we were given maybe an hour before a show or just 30 mins while we waited for the other group, two times stood out for me the first was when we were given 2 hours, we all started at Jardin Du Luxembourg and were told to meet at the Louvre for lunch. O' I forgot to mention the Louvre has a shopping mall attatched, how many museums have shopping malls attatched? This became our favourite palce to eat as it had everything from Italien - Mexican - Chinese - Greasy Burgers. Anywayz yeh my group of 5 decided to walk it instead of taking the metro so we could hit the shops along the way (I'm not sure what the other groups did when they got there with another 1.40 hrs to go, probably more shopping) it was really cool just stopping in random small shops, buying small trunkets, mucking around in the Paris streets, just generally being over excited kids. The second time was the last night when at first we were given the option that afternoon of buying a Pique-Nique (how do you spell it in English?) or eating out at a restaurant on the Champs Elsyees, half the class went for the P-N the other for the restaurant, now as I thought I was pretty low on cash after the shopping spree that arvo I went for the P-N. After the show it turned out now of the restaurants would let us in (snobby parisian restaurants) so we were given free time for 3 hours from 8.30-11.30pm in paris to find dinner and to meet back at the Louvre. I went with about 10 others to Maccas (weirdly in France it's called Macdos) and we had the best night there. I had my disgusting P-N (Indian bread with various meats and salsa dip) and the rest had maccas, it was funny watching people get freaked out by my food including other tables, then we whipped out the music and got some dancing going, the favourite was Hugh Grant's dance in Love Actually one girl did a solo including the stairs part of which we used the Maccas' stairs, it had everyone in hysterics and nobody minded really, it was a good show. We then mucked around outside maccas and danced for cash (of which we got none) before finally trapsing back to the Louvre.

That night we drove home at 1 in the morning, no-one slept till 5 or 6 in the morning and then every1 slept untill we arrived back home at 12 midday. When I left for Paris, there was no snow where I'm living a lot about 200ms higher than me but now where I am. When i returned I can't go anywhere without getting dumped with snow, we ahve 40cms and it's been snowing since 3pm and it won't let up tonight. Tomorrow morning I'll clear the drive way and the steps. It's so cool, everythings white! Anywayz I need to sleep, no ridign tomorrow again due to snow and gyms closed so maybe a run or an ergo? We'll see, good luck to all ridign the scratch and pursuit today at Metros and Countrys and congrats to all in the sprint and 500m yesterday, some good results floated through, special congrats to Gracie Harry and Ferg for good times/medals. Sorry if others got good times and medals, I haven't heard much about the day just small things.

Anywayz ciao

Cal

Paris and the last four weeks, I am so sorry

Wow well I guess it's been about 4 and a bit weeks since I've last done this. I apologise profusely for how slack I've been. A lot has happened in the past 4 weeks so this is going to be a long one, I'll run through the weeks in order.


The first week was actually fairly uneventful, nothing much happened, it was the last week at school and probably like most schools in the world, the kids are just thinking about the holidays and can't be bothered working and the teachers are the same. Finally Friday came, everybody said they're good byes and we all jetted off to our various destinations, some off to Italy, some to Belgium, Switzerland, England, Germany and still no one went further than Melbourne to Brisbane. For me it was off to Poitiers and then onto to Paris :)





After 8 hours in the car we got to Poitiers, famous for two things Futurscope; an amusement park which is supposed to be all about the future (hence the name) and second, the fact that the Tour de France prologue was held there a few years back. Our reason for going there was to see Marie's older brother; Hugo, who studies at the university there ESCEM which is the 39th best business school in Europe. We spent a nice time there wandering around Saturday arvo, Marie hit the shops with Michelle while the boys went for a walk, saw the local church and had a drink. Its probably about the same size as Bendigo. very cute little town with lots of old buildings and winding streets which suddenly open into massive squares. That night Hugo, Remi and I went to a local pub to watch the soccer match Marseille vs Paris, for the french this is like Essendon vs Collingwood. We were supporting Marseille, however unfortunately they lost, it was a good game and a nice night. The next day was spent at Futurscope. It's an interesting, somethings are a little lame but they had some great movies, a lot of them where u sit in a simulator and it threw you aroudn according to what the actor was doing. As I said a little earlier it was interesting and I'm glad I went but it doesn't measure up to our parks on the gold coast. That night we dined out at an American restaurant, basically it was just fat and oil but it tasted good. Matters were made worse by the fact that the next we were back in the car and therefore had no opportunity to work the junk out of our system however my mood quickly changed when we arrived in Paris.

we arrived in Paris and I was immdediately hit by how big it was just by how far out the outer-suburbs stretch. we joined the throbbing line of cars trying to get in. we knew exactly where we were trying to get to however the number of one way streets prevetned us from doing so for at least an hour with much frustration and tooted horns. At last we got to our hotel (Hapimag) and made it up to our room.

Now because I did so much at Paris I can't remember which days i did everything on (however I will never forget what I did) So i'm just going to lay it all out.our hotel was near Notre Dame, it was on the left bank bank so we had a pretty classy quartier with lots of shops. I think it was the first night we were there that we went for a walk to Notre Dame, when we got there it started absolutely bucketing down so we took shelter inside. It's a pretty big place. I can't really describe it but it had paintings on the roof and massive alcoves on each side with gold everywhere, it was very spectacular. After that we gave up waiting and just decided to sprint home. We also visted Sacre Coeur and Montmarte, Sacre Coeur was even more impressive, i think mainly because it was situated on the top of a hill and you could see all of Paris. inside was greatm made even better by the fact that they had their own crazy guy. There were signs out the front asking people to take off their hats and not to take photos. Anyway as soon as someone with a hat walked in he'd be right by their side asking them to take their hat off in about 6 different languages. However the funniest thing was when someone would walk in with a camera around their neck; this guy would watch them like a hawk. Then as soon as they took a photo he would sprint over to them, grab them by the arm and manhandle them out of the church, Remi, Hugo, Michelle and I sat there waiting for about 30mins giggling everytime a flash would go off.

We also saw the other main attraction such as Tou Eiffel, Arc de triumpg, Champs Elysees, Mini and Grande Palais, the obelisk and the Lourve (Outside). All of thses were amazing and fenerally so much bigger than I'd ever imagined them, you hurt your neck just looking up at Tour Eiffel. Champs Elysees is like a massive freeway but with some of the world's biggest brands lining the sides, Arc de Triumph is massive and so many cars cars just drive round and round it looking at it. The artwork on it is amazingly delicate and theres so much of it. The Mini and Grande Palais live up to their names of palais, I'm pretty sure any Monarchy would be happy to live in there. The Mini palais I believed is wrongly named, may be a better name would be "slightly less Grande Palais". The Obelisk is well, an Obelisk. It's very tall, stunningly beautiful yet very otu of place in paris. And the outside of the Louvre is like all the pictures and films. It has three glass pyramids, one of them quite big, and fountains all around, in the middle of this massive courtyard. The Pyramids and fountains looked very out of place in Paris also, amazingly stunning but just so weird, so modern in the middle of such an old building. The other main attraction we saw was Versaille.

if this place sold off it's gold we would be able to fix all of the world's poverty problems. it is amazing, everything is gilted with gold. The front fence is fold and so is every doorway, when I saw the fence I was kind of struck by the irony; fences are for keeping people out, so they can't steal anything, yeh? People don't need to go past the gate to get something worthwhile, they can just steal the gate. Apparently during the revolution the place was torn to shreds however over the years various associations and the French government over the years have bought pieces back. One of the biggest donours was John Rockafeller, there is a plaque in the main hall saying thanks to him. It's a very overwhelming place, you just got to wonder how you could live in a palce like that, with so much gold, silver and marble, i'd feel so guilty. The gardens are also impressive, they seem to stretch on forever. I mean to maintain that place would take the army.

All of these things in Paris were amazing and blew my mind btu none more so than a small street that we walked up one afternoon. It started off as the seedy area of Paris with street games and prostitutes on every corner, a few sex shops and what not, then a little further up all the shops turned into tailor shops. Remi was tellign me that the day after any big brand comes out with a new line of clothes all these shops are closed and the day after that their shelves are stacked full of the famous brand's clothes. You could buy this stuff for a tenth of the price you can on Champs Elysees. That street then faded once again and was replaced by something that looked like it was out of Greece, then Turkey, India and then various African countries. It was amazing, I felt as though I'd just travelled the world in a couple hours worth of walking. Somewhere along the way Michelle and Marie got picked up off the street and taken down some back alley to get their nails done, there they spent 30-40mins while Remi and I went for a drink. It was great to see another side of Paris which showed me it wasn't all glitz and glam at Paris.

So many more things happened in Paris but I just dimply don't have the time to write about it all sorry, I could write all day but you have to experience for youself to truly understand it. If you have never been, pack your bags and go now, it will be something that you will never forget for the rest of your life.

When I got back I fell sick and had 3 days off school, it was nice to sleep, Paris had been tiring. Since then the weather has start to get really cold, two days ago it snowed in the morning and these past few mornign it's been -3 and -4 degrees when I headed out for school. I've been trying to ride as much as possible but it's getting harder and harder, my Basso needs excersise! I did one ride a little while ago however, where I rode up to the base of the Col du Galiber and they already had more snow there than Mt. Buller will ever get. I've had a couple of parties recently, including one at mine last week but tomorrow night (actually as I right this it has just become tonight) I have a very big one, so far 150 people have bought tickets, which is huge considering the town we're having it in would be lucky to have 150 people under the age of 20, it should be a lot of fun. the before party will be at mine because we're going to watch the Aussies vs France at Paris, that should be fun however if the Aussies lsoe it's going to be a very sad night. This morning I had to do a presentation on Australia, of course it went wrong right from the start; my powerpoint refused to load. in the end I just jumped on Google and puleld up pictures and spoke about them, wasn't the wya I wanted it to work out but I got my point accross and now every wants to come to Australia however I thouroughly freaked them out about the snakes and Crocodiles, I showed them a photo which i think will have them awake all night, if you google images "Snake pulling Cow out of water" you will see what I mean, it is quite a scary picture. The difference between Australian and French schooling was driven home to me when one of the slacker kids in the class asked in earnest if I wanted the class to take notes? I mean in Aus we would have been stoked to get an easy hour, not trying to make it harder than it needs to be. Anwayz I leave for Paris again on Sunday night with my class. 5 days in paris with mates should be an amazing experience. I've actually got a pretty packed weekend with a run, a ride and a gym session tomorrow, the game and then the party saturday night and then sudnay I guess will be spent packing and making sure I'm 100% ready to go that night.

Actually wait, wow I completely forgot to say something about Paris. I went to an Aussie bar! They were serving Toohey's new beer and watchign the AUS vs GBR Rugby league watch on the big screen. It was a great night, msot of the servers were Aussies and I walked up to the bar to order some drinks and I started talking to the barman in French, he gives me this very confused expressions and in very slow calm English goes "I am sorry but I do not speak French do you speak English?" I nearly burst out in laughter but also felt quite proud that he took me for a native speaker. I then asked him how long he'd been in Paris for and I'm pretty sure that gave him the shock of the night, to hear another Aussie accent. Turns out he was a Queenslander who's back packing around Europe and needs some money. The drinks were on the house. I also spoke with a Suede (I'm sorry but I've forgotten how to spell it in English only French, it's people who come from Sweden) who spoke with an Aussie accent. That was one of the best nights I had in Paris.

Anwayz I could go on gasbagging about Paris untill 5 in the morning but for now I need my sleep, I'm still considering sleeping outside but I'm not sure it'll snow tonight, it's 2 degrees at the moment and the winds blowing so strong I think if it snowed the snow would get blown straight past us. I will try and blog Sunday after the Party and before Paris but I will be busy that day so don't hold me to it. Good luck to Gracie and the rest of the girls contesting the womens omnium on Sunday, also for Metro and County riders contesting those events next week and get better soon Ol, hope you're alright, we all wana see you right for states.

Ciao
Cal

Slow week but also a(n) historic one

First things first with historic is it a or an I know H isn't a vowel but still a historic sounds weird an sounds better but it defies the rule, a comment on it would be greatly appreciated.

Anywayz the slow week was kinda nice, I didn't do a lot. Had a great ride Wednesday rode up into the the rich part of the area, up a great col and into Italy, it was nice, decent weather went alone and its a great decent no brakes needed just go. Tuesday and Thursday nothing but school, although Friday was also nothing but school however I found out that there's another Aussie girl coming in December. Shes a Brighton girl which is cool, it'll be nice to have another person from my area around, really nice. I miss the Aussie accent and Aussie slang.

Anyway Saturday was X-country. I raced my first race of 2.5km with Savanah we came in at 42nd which wasn't bad, it was fun, I spured her on in french which was cool and it was fun to run. Anyway i finished with her and jogged down to pick up my pants from the start line and met a mate who was running with his gf's little brother so i ran with them again another 2.5km and this time we came 7th. It was funny because the kid in the last straight had another kid coming up behind him and we were screaming at him to keep going and he's going i cant i cant and my mate Juan was shouting shut up and keep going it was great. Anyway we won and finished 7th. After that run which was a bit harder i was asked to run with savanah's cousin who was older and had to run 3km, I said yes. It was fun we lined up and took off, it was like normal Melbourne High X-country, elbows flying people shoving and lots of people ending up on the ground. We made it through the first part and kept going anyway after about 500ms i hit a rock and sprained/twister my ankle. Took the lap out then limped to the finish. We finished at 22nd which was cool, but my ankle is the size of a tennis ball and it's strapped. I can't walk and it's actually a good feeling. My first injury and it took me nearly 2 months, I'm pretty proud.

That night I had another party which was nice. Small, cute and nice just 15 or 16 people, we had Carbonara and hung out and went to bed late. Nothing much happened at the party two of my friends broke up with their bfs/gfs which was sad but such is life (a favourite french saying in English). And today I slept in 'till 10.30 went home and went to sleep at 1 and woke up in time for dinner at 6.30. I needed the sleep. I think this week everything really caught up on me and i actually had my first cry last night.

I was hanging out at the party and went outside with a few others, there's a huge area out the back of the house, which i don't think is owned by any one, but its about 10 acres probably just stretches on forever. it finishes with these massive mountains and the sky was cloudless. Anyway i was just lying there looking at the stars and they're all different. It was about 1 or 2 in the morning I was tired, the stars were different, I was sick of not being able understand during conversations and i don't know i just cracked. It was nice, I haven't cried since I've been here and i think it doesn't matter who you are you're going to cry eventually, it's inevitable. Any exchange student that says they didn't cry is a liar, it's hard work being here, the amount of fun I'm having and the rewards of what this will do to me as a person far outweighs the difficulty but the difficulty is still always there. Anyway I had my little teary looking at the stars surrounded by mountains and just open land, I felt pretty small and all i wanted was my mummy. After that I went back inside and danced and felt ok. I guess this week I slowed down and had time to think about everything and it caught up with me. Morale of this story; never slow down.

It was good though, I'm ok now, going to have an early night and tomorrow morning I'm hitting the pool and the Gym in the arvo, I'm going to go early in the morning to get a bit more of a practice in. So at 6am tomorrow morning I'll be swimming in the 2-3 degree (hopefully less, I want snow) weather chasing away the penguins. It's a nice feeling (once your warm). O and congrats to all that raced in the VSCC, CCCC collected some great results, and congrats to those that completed the Bay In A Day.

Ciao for now
Cal

Big weekend and of course stupid Callum doesn't check details before aggreeing to something

Pictures are of a week ago at Jeanne's, They're of Kathleen, the 4 boys including Myself and Pierre (the one who organises all the parties and did the strip tease), Table and of course me:).

Well this weekend was Michelle's (My host Mum) birthday. As a surprise both ehr sons were coming home for the party that night, Michelle didn't know and she went off to get a hair cut, marie went into town and I went for a ride, Remi drove to Oulx (the same place where I arrived) in Italy to pick them up. It was a beautiful day and I ahd a great ride all alone got my first piece of road rage from some italian driver going at like 70kmsph on a decent and i went round him, felt good to cop a bit of abuse, felt like beach rd. Anyway I got home and there they were, michelle grinning from ear to ear, she was stoked. Anotine the older one had brought his girlfriend, she was pretty and nice. Hugo came alone. Hugo is massive like 195 and Antoine is probably 187 or 188.. Antoine came out and had a look at the Basso and we had a discussion on it, he was very impressed, then we all went inside to have lunch, prepared by Marie, Michelle and Antoine's gf Celine. The boys speak pretty good english with Hugo fluent as all his classes at Uni are in english, must be tough. We had a nice lunch then just lazed around in the sun chatting.

That arvo I went into town to see soem friends and hang out, when I got back Hugo Antoine and I prepared the oyster, and something that looked like Pipis but I'm sure weren't, for that nights dinner. It was cool standign outside shelling the oysters and chatting about unis and future plans. Turns out Hugo's School isn't actually a Uni but a Private Business School. The difference is is more exclusive, harder to get into costs 8,000 a year (of which he thought was huge, private school boys in melbourne would laugh at) and it is internationally recognised as being a better school. Schooling here is free, Unis and High schools, theres no such thing as a private high school here so 8,000 a year is a lot for people here, however Remi explained it to me once, whiel you don't pay for education up front you pay for it when you buy a coke or a chocolate bar which is true, things are taxed pretty heavily here. Antoine goes to a normal Uni however it's ranked jsut below Hugo's in Europe i think Hugo's is 36 and Antoine's is 42 or something. Anyway they're really cool guys, Antoine strikes me as more confident, but perhaps just cause hes the oldest.

That night was great, it was seafood speciality with Oysters, Crab, those pipi things and somethign else I didn't recognise o and prawns. It was fabulous, we've still got a lot left over so I'm having Crab for lunch and dinner atm its cool. Anyway about halfway through hugo dasshes off to somewhere and comes back in a ridicoulus blue outfit looking liek something an 80s hippy would have worn to an aerobics class. This was proceded by a one man show of various femine or jsut bizarre items of clothing. It was funny but also a little strange the french have a word for it its marrant it means like quirky it was useful that night.

The next day we slept in and Antoine and I went for a small ride before TTing it back, slightly downhill, thin air, its nice you jsut sit at between 50-60, Antoine just held on so we got back quicker than expected, teh Alititude really hurt Antoine whos been living in Starsbourg. That arvo we went to a jakuzi at a friends place, it was really nice with a great view. Celine has a mad tatt on her shoulder blade, looked really good.

We drove the boys back to Oulx and that ended our weekend. Marie and Michelle were quite sad and Remi went and watched soccer but i think he was sad too. We're seeing Hugo again in 2 weeks when we go to Paris and Antoine is coming for Xmas and a ski.

The stupid decision without checking all the facts I refered to in the title happened today during a small 15min break were Kathleen, a friend, asked me if I could run with her sister Saturday morning. I said sure would be happy to (I was smart enough to check how far this time just 3km). Later on i found out I'm not just taking her for a run, I'm actually racing with her as part of a team. As part of a Government Inititive all College kids (not sure but i think thats like sub yr 8) must run their X-Country with a parent or person outside of the the College. It's to get Parents into sport. Kathleens parents can't do it, Kathleen can't be bothered, so I'm stepping in. We must run it together, with me going at her pace or vice versa. Should be interesting I'm looking forward to it. Apparently she's pretty fit so we might go alright.

One last thing before I go this morning (Moday morning) L'Equipe announced that Bernard Kohl has returned a negative for CERA. For those I've spoken to about his subject, I just gota say I hate it when I'm right. This is also really bad for Cadel considering Silence just signed Kohl so now they have a wad of cash sitting there with no one to spend it on, I say give Cadel a raise. Anyway the new rumours are 5 CSCs are under suspicion (not sure how true that is) and an Australian is involved in all this (Let's hope I'm wrong).

Off to bed now I'll keep checking L'Equipe.

Ciao for now

Cal

The Basso returns home

My bike arrived today! I got home from and school and there it was. My host mum said I squealed like a little girl when I saw it, I made a good mess of the box and the packing. I quickly got it out and built it up, It's beautiful and light as for an aluminum bike. It's a Basso and its running Veloce. The gears change smoothly the wheels role beautifully and the bike is responsive and quick, it's so nice to have a decent bike to ride around on now. A huge thanks must go out to Richard and Basso team for getting me the bike, I can't thank them enough. It's perfect, I am forever indebited to them.

I rolled out of the house and met up with Jean-Pierre my next door neighbour and got a good whistle out of him, he was very impressed, I rolled through a circuit near my house just to make sure it was perfect and nearly crashed about 3 or 4 times just because i'd corner and not being used to a light and responsive bike i'd over compensate and nearly run it into the dirt but I think i got the hang of it, the campy will take longer though.

I took the bike for a good 70-80km bash around the hills and into Italy and back, the bike like me ahdn't been in the country over 24 hrs b4 it was off into italy. Jean-Pierre and I rode out to Bardochenia (spelling is wrong so don't look it up) the ride took us up over the Col Du L'Echelle which is pretty and the top was surrounded in clouds then down the other side, the Italian side of L'Echelle has been hot mixed so you can fly. One moment Jean-Pierre and i are next to each other the next he's 100ms behind me the road and bike are a good mix. I got down a 7km 4 mins quicker than Jean-Pierre and there was only 4 hairpins. We spun into town then rode back, its funny i was only marginally quicker than jean-pierre with the old bike now i'm fine a the top and hes weazing. Thats not saying anything about me consideirng i've lost so much form its ridiculous.

We TTed it home and into the wind, felt good and bike doesn't flex much either, I mean it doens't match up to my Basso laguna but its still one of the best bike I've ever ridden.

Anwyay photos of chambery, the bike and samedi soir chez jeanne are on facebook.

Once again thanks to Richard from Basso and the Basso team.

Ciao for now

I think the altitude is messing with my sense of judgement

Well I will get to the alittude later first off Sunday.
Remi took me and one of his friends to a Handball match in Chambery. Now I dno who actually knows anything about handball but we went and saw a european championship match, Chambery vs some sloveinian team. Chambery has 3 world champ/olympic champ players including the French captain, Daniel Narcisse. It was a really good game 37-30 to Chambery, they played well. Its quick and they sorta just have the ball idly playing with it before suddenly the ball's in the back of the net it's great. However while it was a great game i think the msot exciting part of it was when we drove up we went straight past the main entrance and through a back entrance, VIP entrance :). Turns out because Remi is a big player in Hummel and because Hummel sponsor Chambery we got 3 VIP tickets. Free drinks, free food, got to meet the players after the game, and we sat behind the telecastign place so we got replays and all it was awesome. We had coaches and officails and players coming up and shaking our hands.

Anyway today. Pierre has been bugging me abotu running for a while now and I haven't really wanted to, being a snob here i thought this kid drinks and smokes I thought a run with him would be like 3 km at 6mins per km, anyway i though maybe i would run to Pierre's (4km) run with him then run home a good 9 or 10km, longest run here. But no turns out pierre had other ideas. We set off on a decent pace and i was surprised. Anyway we get about 1 km down the road and Pierre stops, o yeh i though he already needs a rest, anyway he points to a village about 2 or 3km away and goes "on va" we go. Yeh cool sounds good, lol whatever i thought. Anyway he goes off again on this pace and we run and run and run. We pass through the town he pointed at and keep going, all this is uphill and I'm starting to hurt, Pierre's still running fast. And then it kicks up again, we start going up this stupid mountain, After 9 km pierre points at a sign and in english goes "our destination" its says 6.7km and 10km, "are you serious!" a few other words were used considering i was looking forward to 7kms at an avg of about 7 or 8% on dirt roads. Anyway we kept going and at abotu 5km up the hill we run into some cows, with massive horns, we stopped and deliberated abotu wether to try and run passed them at full pace, anyway we were goign to try until the big one starts moving towards, Pierres make the exucitive decision to turn around, after an 11km so far I wasn't disappointed. We get 100ms back down the road and Pierre finds a bush track, we take it (with a few more choice words from me) and skip the cows. We made it to the top (18kms). I was cramping and feeling awful, we stoped to stretch adn drinka dn then Pierre takes off again. What is wrong with this kid! Anyway we ran and took the bush path, which lead onto another bush path and then another. This stuff was steep, it's hell on the legs to instead of trying to pick up the pace we were tryign to slow down, abotu 20mins comign straight down instead of winding down the mountain. Anyway we were wrecked and walked for about a km (thank god) and then took off again, I couldn't bend my knees anymore due to cramps and we were going slowly, finally after 30kms and 2 hours and 48mins we were back home. I quickly discarded my idea of runnign home and jumped on the bus. The longest run I'd done before this was 7km, never try 30km it aint fun especially at altitude and when you keep going higher.
Anyway i cant walk now so I'm really scared about tomorrow, thank god school starts at 10 I'm going to need the extra sleep.
Ciao for now
Cal

Ice Hockey and an amazing Geographie teacher

Today I was supposed to have 4 hours worth of school and 3 tests. One hour of French, one hour of English and Two hours of Geographie, all tests. Anyway went to the French test, it was hard but I think i got it right, if i understood the question then I was correct. Then i went into the geographie test and the teacher met me outside and said na don't worry about it it's

too complex so just go home. So i did, I went hoem for 4 hours before I had to come back for an easy english oral comprehension test. It was an easy day and tomorrow I have 2 hours of school including one hour of english it's great, then off for a ride.

The picture is of the Ice Hockey match The black/red/white it Briancon and the grey is Grenoble.

Anyway the 25euro tickets (40 dollars Aus) were given to us as a present, 2 of us, so we went and it was great. The Briancon team is the pride and join of the town, it was awesome, the people there got so excited. The first third went by fairly uneventful and then with about 5 mins to go Grenoble scored the first goal and the arena errupted with boos. The next third Briancon hit back and the crowd was spastic. It was like the MCG at a Collingwood home game when they kick a goal after the siren to win the game except it was only 3,000 people. During the break I went and bought pizza and i got through it without a weird look, it was a good feeling. The third third went through without anything happening, briancon looked dangerous but couldn't score. There were a few huge hits, even in front of the refs and they did nothing, I mean i don't understand the rules but I could't quite believe it, hilarious. The at the end of the game 1-1 turns out they have golden goal. I was sure Briancon were guna get this, they were looking heaps fitter and stronger, however 5 minutes in grenoble got a quick break and scored, no defense just the goalie and there was nothing he could do about it. The mood turned sombre as we left but it was still a great night. I think I'll try and go to some more games, it's an awesome sport, pity we don't have it in Aus.

It's aggresive and fast and the changes/subs are quick as the whole team goes off at once sometime (5 on the field plus keeper, about 16 or 17 in the team) It's fast and hard to follow the puck, but it's still awesome. I think I'm going to try and play during the winter possibly for the local team because the season starts soon.

Anyway its 11.20 at night here and I have to go to school in the morn
Ciao for now
Cal

a month down as of tomorrow!

Well after this post i will finally be up to date and tomorrow I will have be travelling/in France for a month. It's weird it feels a lot shorter but then again I'm comfortable here, great city great people it's great fun. Anyway onto last week.

The photo is of a group of us who by conicedence are all going to paris in novemeber with school (coincedence being that the only people in the photo are the Paris people) From left to right Louis, Me, Jeanne, Coralie, Melissa and Lise (excuse Lise, not quite sure whats happening there)

Monday started with the swimming which I've already blogged about and I got quite sick that night, was coughing up flem everywhere, i guess all the activites have taken their tole on me. Tuesday it got worse and I took the day off school which was nice, I slept untill 12 then watched movies and the U23 world champs TT, which was great considering Cam Meyer got 3rd, awesome result also for Travis Meyer at 19th.

Then Wednesday I went to school considering I only have 2 hours so I figured I could handle it. Then that arvo iw ent to the market, bought a pair of shoes, and then just hung around Lise came over and we mucked around for a bit before she went off to Dance.

Thursday I can't really remember and Friday I got my footy! That was an awesome day, read the Footy post and you'll know what i mean.

Friday night I went to a Crepe party at Jeanne's that was cool, but fattening, I ate a pancake with nutella, Sugar and Maple Syrup on it o and Butter and not the crappy Margerine stuff in Aus but real full fat butter, it's great here.

On saturday I decided my cough was well enough and I needed to burn off the calories from friday night so i went for a ride, I felt awful and got domianted up a tiny hill by the guy that I ebat by like 4 mins up the Galiber so that was depressing but i still managed to beat him on the flats, these boys can't move fast. They cruise out to the hills ride up and down them then cruise home, they don't know how to peddle at 45kmsph it's great fun. But anyway they can climb so it levels out, back home I can climb here i can ride flats.

That night we had an Bon Anniversaire party which was cool, photos are up on facebook and if you don't have facebook drop us an e-mail thefryer_99@hotmail.com and I will e-mail some to you. It was great which ended in a rather disturbing strip show by Pierre to the music of Joe Cocker Baby you can leave your hat on. He ended in a G-string which was really disturbing but brought great laughs to everyone. The party was for myself and two other girls jeanne and Charlotte it was awesome fun only about 40 people but it was cosy and i met a few new people which was cool.

Then Sunday I went to a small village's 'Fete de la Ville' it was cool everyone had tables set up (including Marie) and you could buy food and everyone sat on table on the lawn outside the town hall and mingled. It was a nice arvo. Then I got back to watch Ballan destroy the worlds and I don't care what bike NZ president has to say the favourites didn't let no names win, they could do nothing about it and even if the favourites had been in Ballan's group he still would have won (with the exception of Bettini and that would have been because of team tactics not because Bettini is stronger).

Now today, had another 10min TT in the pool. We had to beat our previous distances, mine wa 525 although he said 550 today so I dno. But anyway I felt awful this morning and thought I'd put a couple of Tumble turns in this time and though perhaps i could 500 again and if i was really moving mayeb a 600 anyway I hit the wall finishing at a 725 so I was happy with that. Next best was a 375. It was funny the first lap i decided I'd start with Backstroke and swap every lap with freestyle because I was a little worried about my breathing and I wanted to tumble turn at the deep end, anyway I went off and spoke to a guy at the end who said after the first lap he was surprised because he was ahead of me then i turned and it was all over, he tried to stay with me but ended up cracking and finished with a 300 something. I guess it's like riding a hill just gotta go at your own pace.

Tonight I went for a run which was nice to get some exercise in, I'm still a little sick but whatever I need exercise it's killing me. I got word today that my bike is coming on Friday, I think i'll ride Grannon this weekend on a lighter bike just to see how I go. if the Bike is say 9kgs then I'll be 5kgs lighter which will be 6.25% faster according to Michael Ferrari in Tour De Force and if i did a time of 1.07 last time 6.25% faster should be around 1.02.40 (approxiametly it's late and I can't be bothered and i can't be bothered looking for my calculator). Thats annoying I want to go under 1 hr before the snow closes in, I should be able to I'll just lose some more weight and push myself harder. I'll keep you up to date on that.

I've spoken with a few people from home which is cool and it's starting to become a shock to hear an Aus accent, I now know what everyone means about the accent. I guess the track season is about to kick off soon, good luck to the NTID boys and also oli, gav, harry, ferg, in the U19 pursuit and Pistol, Trent, Nathaniel, Steph, Sas, Jack and the CCCC team and all the JDP boys and congrats to Jack for the 1 in 20 race, the kit looks good. Good luck to Gracie in the pursuit, I reckon you can do it bonne chance, Just ride faster it's not really a hard concept is it, you push the peddals harder so therfore you go faster, so do it :p. I want photos from everyone over the summer too. Sorry if I forgot to say good luck to you but I'm tired and good luck anyway

It's off to bed now, I start at 9 tomorrow which is nice, a bit of a sleep in is always appreciated.

Ciao for now

Cal

Cyclingnews is actually slow

I spoke to Oli the other day and he mentioned an interesting thing. Here in France I'm more up to date than cyclingnews is. I never realised it but Cyclingnews gets all its info off L'equipe and various european newspapers. So today because of Oli I thought I'd give you guys an update on Cycling

news before cyclingnews can.

BTW the photos are of last night's party, a birthday party for me and charlotte and Jeanne. The first one is of a group of us Left to Right: Lise, Me, Lou, Louis, Charlotte and Melissa. The second one is of me and the Danish girl; Lise Lerche, Charlotte is her host sister and cause it was sorta my party also I went early to help set up and we got dressed there, jesus girls take forever to get ready for a party.

Anyway back to the original subject of this blog.

Ballan just destroyed the World Champs. He attacked with three kilometres to go and went solo. When he went the others looked liek they were starding still. Sorenson pulled hard but Ballan was too strong, the Italian team was ridicoulous with 3 riders in the final group. Ballan put a lot of effort in all day, he deserved the win, it wasn't like he was protected then won a weak sprint.

Noone knows what the deal is with Schleck and if they do no one is saying anything, multiple interviews with dopign experts and team riders/directors and Pat Mcquaid and they all say the same thing; They'd be very disappointed if it was true but they don't know either way.

The real big news however came from the Pat Mcquaid interview. He spoke about the new doping tests and how they're goign to retest a lot fo them. Apparently there are 12 riders who they indentified early in the season and deliberatly froze their drug tests there were also 30 others who were identified as being "suspicious" during the tour. Directly from Mcquaid's mouth; The podium will change a lot and so will the top 10. Top 10; Sastre, Evans, Kohl, Menchov, Vande Velde, Schleck, Sanchez, Kirchen, Valverde, Valjavec. How many will fall? Mcquaid: "There's a lot of racers who won't sleep easy this week".

It's going to be a big week in cycling, let's see how quick L'equipe is compared to Cyclingnews.

Stay tuned

Cal

Ok finally it's here! In this blog I'll update you all on the past two weeks. its been pretty full on and I've nearly been here for a month, it seems so much shorter but it is getting weirder to speak english which is good. Also yesterday i spent 2 horus with some kids in my year level and we spoke french the whole time, the only time i spoke english was cause one of the girls wanted her friend to hear my accent in english.

The picture is of Lucie and Jeanne to friends from school. Lucie did an exchange to America with marie and Jeanne (Pronounced Jan) to England so they know what its like, but they speak french to me most of the time and occasionally explain stuff in english.

Anway since Marseille; Tuesday was my birthday. Because I get up at about 6.30 for school Remi and Michelle were still asleep but the previous night they'd layed out everything that had arrived for me in the past few days on the table, it was a pretty cool thing and I was nearly late for school because I was opening them all. the cards were cool and I've still got them up on my windowsill, thanks goes out to everyone who sent me a card. My sisters oen gave Marie a good laugh it said: "I smile because you are my brother, and I laugh because there's nothing you can do about it". Anyway that arvo the Chouissas gave me their present which was a Hummel Sports jacket which is pretty cool. It's white with Blue V's down the side, I would never wear it playing any sport though it's too good looking. That night we had a special birthday dinner were we had Carbonara which Marie cooked, it was pretty good too, Maries a great cook.

The day after on the Wednesday I went and rode the Cold Du Grannon. It hurts. it's over 10% for about 11km, when I did it I weighed in at something around 73/74 kilos (including bike) and compare that to State titles (61) it was very hard. I did a time of 1.07 hours. Jenny Longua (sorry to her because I'm sure I spelt it wrong) who is a French woman of i think 49 years of age, 4th at the Beijing Olympics beat my time by 19.50 minutes. It was slightly depressing to learn that. However just before the road gets closed due to snow I'm going to ride it again on the Basso and I'll be used to the Altitude and stronger by then and hopefully I'll go sub an hour.

Thursday and Friday were fairly unspectacular, Friday night was another party which was fun, actually it wasn't a party but a Fete which is like a gathering. it was good and I crashed out at about 3am, fell asleep with 3 stunning french girls in the same bed (Mum I kept my hands to myself like a good boy). It's not actually as good as it sounds one was Marie and another was a girl called Jan who's become my best friend/older sister here. It was a good time and I woke up at about 11 the next morning went down stairs and for breakfast was given a tub of Nutella and a spoon.

Went and rode the Cold D'Izoard that saturday. It's a pretty deceiving hill, you look at the gradient and you think yeh whatever (I think it's at about 6 or 7%) however it starts off at about 6% for 3km then for abotu 10km its only at 4 or 5% and the last 7 or 8km it slowly gets steeper, theres no rest as it slowly goes up before finishign at a fun 12%. I won the race to the top however not by much I was pretty nervous and didn't want to go too hard too early and I'm glad I didn't it would be a pain fo a hill to crack on. The descent was fun and a car had to pull over to the side to let us go through. The one benefit of riding on such a heavy bike is that I can go down hills very quickly now, after the hairpin section at the top you didn't need to touch your brakes and just sat on about 80 or 90, it was a nice day and a quick run home. On the way home ridign through the streets of Briancon I saw 2 mates Pierre and Arnould walking down the main street carrying a massive eski, i presumed it was full fo beer turns out it had Wine in there also for the party that night, anyway they went past two of my teachers, stopped chatted to thema dn then kept on there way, everybody here is so relaxed the teachers are really friendly and relaxed outside school. O and takking about teachers After the friday night party on the saturday i got a life home from my Biology teacher, it was really weird he's the dad of a friend of Marie's, I didn't say a word on the way home.

That night was another party/gathering type thing but this time it was more a dinner party. It was a roclette party. It was like mashed potato melted cheese and different types of meat. It was a very sophisticated occasion, with a lot of them swirling and comparing different types of wine comapring white and red. It was fun. That sunday i rested, God knows I needed it too.

Anyway i'm off to yet another party this time it's mine and I'll post about the week tomorrow or tonight.

Ciao for now

Footy!

I'm sorry more blogs are coming soon but It's late and i just need to say this one thing.

Guess what! I played a game of footy in the rain this arvo it was magical. I taught a few of the french boys the basic rules and we got a game going on the asphalt it was great fun, these boys can tackle hard and kick far but none can mark, it was so much fun.
I brought a ball over from australia and I finally got around to inflating it today. it was funny trying to teach them how to play, some were surprisingly good as they were rugby players but they had real difficulty getting their heads around the whole handpass thing and a lot of freekicks were given away but it was fun and noone got hurt. There's a girl here who has just got abck from an exchange in Aus and she lived in brighton so she knows all about footy and she was a real help in explainign the rules. The final score after 2 hours of play was 136-110 high scoring match but the pitch wasn't that long we could kick goals from the other end lol. It was the best agme of footy i think i've had, lots of blood as it was on asphalt but noone seemed to care adn when it rained it reminded me of home.
Anwyayz Ciao i will catch up on the last two weeks over this weekend, fingers crossed

Marseille

Well it’s been nearly a week since I actually went there and I apologise and put the blame on ongoing weather problems, the internet is cutting in and out.

The picture is of the beach were we ate lunch on saturday in marseille.

Anyway Marseille. It’s about a 3 hour drive but the scenery’s nice, we drove though some cute little towns and we went past the turn off for Gap and past Embrun. Remi explained to me about the Embrun Ironman which is like a normal Ironman plus it’s at altitude and the 180km ride goes over 2 HC Climbs, it’d have to be the hardest Ironman in the world. Remi and I also had a good debate about Armstrong and drugs and like a true Frenchman he thinks Lance cheated, with blood transfusion being the weapon of choice this time.

When we got there it was nice and we didn’t actually go into Marseille but into a small town about 15km away called Cassis. It’s very cool. We drove up this ridge and into a complex of houses, it was sort of like a housing commission except I doubt any of the houses were on sale for less than 1 mil Euro, and when you saw the view from almost all there balconies you can understand why. It looks across Cape Canai and the Mediterranean, It was spectacular. I ate dinner on the balcony at the house of Family Friends (Bruno is in some of the photos from the race).

The next day we slept in and the Bruno, Remi and I drove out to Marseille Uni to pick up numbers and see the set up. The run these things pretty well, they had sponsors like Look and Corima and all minor one who had tents set up around the place. The actual Uni itself is pretty cool, the registration area was in the sport science facility and that looked pretty good and reasonably modern (although I’m not actually sure what modern looks like). Then we drove down to a small restaurant in this little inlet thing. The way you get there is by going along a road only just big enough for one car (it got pretty hairy when we had to pass another car) and you go over the ridge and then drop down towards the ocean, it was spectacular. The restaurant itself was pretty small but the food was great and the view was just amazing. We went for a walk down to the beach after lunch and would have swum but the wind was too strong and too cold. You can buy and rent houses there, which are more like tiny shacks, sorta something out of a small Greek island, very cute. After that we drove around Marseille and visited the church and then went and wandered round the streets, stopping in every shop which stocked Hummel (Remi works for them not sure what but he is obviously very high up in the anarchy). We also walked down a small backstreet market were everything was shit and nothing safe. Michelle commented that we had entered another world; it was pretty cool and definitely another world. After that we sat in a pub, had a drink and watched the pub fill with people coming in to watch Marseille play an away game (soccer). These people are like Collingwood supporters except there are a million of them and no one in Marseille would ever consider supporting a different team, it would be a cardinal sin. The people in Marseille are different from Briancon, I can’t say why they just dress differently, act differently, hold themselves differently, not necessarily bad just different. Overall I really enjoyed my day in Marseille and would definitely come back, for sure.

The race the next day was awesome. It’s like two races in one. The first is a serious race with about 10 categories, I think, for all different age groups starting at 18 and finishing at about 70 and over. Everyone went off at once all 1600 of them, it was good fun however 3kms out was a climb of 4km at about 4%, not hard but enough to break everyone up. I road with Remi Daniel and Luc, it was cool we just took it easy and road. The course was great with 6 climbs with the easiest the first one and the toughest a 6km at 6/7% that was fun and the descents were quick, I found an aero position and just went, Remi’s pretty handy down a descent but he needs to work on cornering, I gain about 10-20ms each hairpin, I have CCCC summer Crits to thank for that. But yeh there was one point were we got split by a traffic policeman and I found the other 3 at a feed station, when I got there they left and told me to catch up. I had 3km of flat then the 6km hill ahead of me so I took my time ate some cheese and lollies drank some coke and texted a mate before I took off and started hunting them down. I started at a TT pace so around 40kmph (no wind and I felt good) and slowly picked up people as I passed them, a few jumped on the back and by the time I hit the hill I think I had about 15, I dropped them at the base of the hill and really got to stretch my legs up the hill. It was a good feeling and because I’d been going slow I was riding with the slower guys so up the hill going at full pace I passed quite a few and caught the boys about a km from the top. We road home and the wind started to pick up o and I nearly got ran over because I took a corner and faded into the left lane, I wasn’t paying attention and naturally I thought the left lane was my lane. Yeh the driver wasn’t too happy about it. But anyway the run home was fun but Luc had taken off and Daniel and Remi were tired so I pulled the last 20km, for the first 5km a guy refused to let me sit on the front, he felt it was demeaning to be pulled by a kid (he actually told Remi this) so when he finished his turn I accelerated and dropped him, then we just rode home. It was a really nice day, we worked out what my time would have been (based on riders who I’ve beaten here plus past avgs from road races like Modella and I would have finished around 30th and would have dominated my age category (that’s not saying much there was only 2 of them and they both finished around 10 mins ahead of my actual time). The whole race was put on by the one club, Marseille, and they did a great job it was a really great day out.

For now I must go, I need my beauty sleep today I have been swimming, running and to the gym, it’s been a good day. We had a small TT type thing in swimming for the school where we had to swim as far as we could for 10 minutes. I sorta set myself a goal of 500ms in a 25m pool, I don’t normally swim and at the moment I’ve got a cold and I really couldn’t be bothered doing tumble turns so I though 500ms was reasonable, 50ms per minute. Anyway I lost count at about lap 12 so I had to rely on my counter and I just kept going. I felt awful and was hacking water up everywhere, it’s hard to get enough oxygen in with a cold, got out of the pool expecting to hear a 400 something, anyway I hit 575 with the next nearest at 400, wasn’t bad. And the other kid in my lane finished swearing and out of breath on a 225. All I could understand was the words “I need to quit smoking and drinking”. I think it summed up a lot of people’s feelings after today. While everyone is skinny, it’s becoming rarer to find a genuinely fit person because none of them can breathe because of their smoking.

Anyway Ciao for now
Cal