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