Real Men

While the French were going nuts last weekend when the national handball team won the world championships for something like the 4th year in a row, there was a collective yawn from the other side of the Atlantic.  Handball -- you must be joking.  This Sunday is the biggest sports event for Americans: the Super Bowl.  I won't be watching.  To be honest, I wouldn't be watching even if I were back home.  Football?  Not my thing.  Even less so when it's Green Bay vs. Pittsburgh. 

The macho game on this side of the pond is rugby.  And thus you might be surprised to learn that the Parisian team (Stade Français ) wears pink uniforms.  Yes, pink.  And hot pink at that.  Check it out.

And it's a pretty good bet they eat quiche too.

Follow the Yellow and Red Striped Road

If you've ever noticed these bands of yellow and red tape on poles holding up Parisian street lights and street signs,and wondered what they might signify, I have the answer.  The stripes indicate that you, the pedestrian, are on the path of the Grande Randonnée du Pays (GRduP),  part of a larger system of hiking trails that pretty much covers France and connects with similar systems in Germany, Spain, and the Benelux countries.  The system is maintained by the Fédération Française de la Randonnée Pédestre which in total is responsible for some 115,000 kilometers of trails throughout the country.  The organization's Paris chapter has three suggested itineraries for those wishing to cross the city in one fell swoop. At approximately 20 kilometers each, these represent a full day of walking without a lot of time for coffee or wine sipping, museum going, or window shopping.

So lace up those walking shoes, make sure you have plenty of water and snacks, and perhaps a Metro ticket in case your aspirations exceed your abilities, and get out there.  And if you see these markings on the back of a stop sign, do not worry.  The black helicopters are not coming.

You can order the maps at http://www.rando-paris.org/Commander-nos-TopoGuides-r.html

Sunday Ride

I like riding my bike. I don't like body sacrifice, or even the threat of it. Hence, my idea of a good Paris bike ride is the Bois de Boulogne. On Sunday. When most of the streets are blocked off.

But just one word of caution. Should you choose to take a Velib or even your own two-wheeler into the Bois on a sunny Sunday morning, do not, I repeat, do not attempt to make a circuit on the long stretch of road around the Hippodrome de Longchamp.

Oh sure, it seems like a nice idea. There's a bike lane and the surface is relatively flat. But all those other cyclists out circling the track? They're not happy weekend bikers. No, that's a peloton and those guys are Tour de France wannabes. They are serious and they hold no quarter with middle aged women and their somewhat erratic bikeriding children, something I learned the hard way. (Or maybe it had something to do with the concerned gentleman on the other side of the road frantically yelling "Madame, Madame" and flapping his arms at me.)

I'll keep biking in the Bois. But from now on, I'm sticking to the path or maybe a lazy ride around the lakes. That's about my speed.

Finale

I'm making an exception to my general rule of not blogging on Sunday because the final match in the World Cup is tonight. Despite not having a clear favorite in the game, I'm going to be watching anyway. And yes while it's been great seeing world class players at their best (what ball handling!), what I've enjoyed most about watching the matches is the crazy enthusiasm of the commentators. They don't yell "GOAL!" but they go nuts all the same. My favorite is when something goes wrong and then it's nothing but a string of "oh la la la la las."

So here's the best video clip I could find just to give you a flavor of the reportage. No comment on the performance of either team here.

But de Klose : Argentine 0 - 4 Allemagne, 89ème (03/07/2010)

Abandoned

Despite genuine World Cup fever here in Paris, I've been following it only half heartedly. I check the scores and watch the highlights but somehow I haven't managed to get myself in front of a TV set to watch anything from start to finish.

And don't get me wrong, it's not soccer that's the problem. I actually played the game from the age of 10 straight through my junior year in college. I was a youth soccer referee and played on club teams that went to the Southeastern regional championships several years running.

It's just that, well, it's kind of hard to have skin in the game if your team doesn't have a prayer. And that seems to be the case for both the U.S. and France. And what could be more symbolic of France's recent drubbing by Mexico? My eagle-eyed friend Carol (the one whose early morning walks were responsible for this post) passed along this photo snapped with her cell phone late on Thursday evening.



Not sure what that might be? Take a closer look.




Oh French fans. Fickle or just forgetful?

Allez Les Bleus

If you root for the underdog, then here's a deal for you. If you buy a big screen TV at Carrefour between now and May 29, and the French win the World Cup, then it's yours for free. Yes, you read that right. The catch is that Les Bleus are not expected to do well at all and the controversy surrounding their win over Ireland in the qualifying match has definitely cast a particularly dark shadow over them. The members of the team were announced last week and that has generated even more grumbling. But then what's a sporting event without a bit of armchair quarterbacking?

Special thanks to my husband for tipping me off to the Carrefour offer.

An Afternoon at the Races

It was a beautiful afternoon at the Hippodrome de Longchamp yesterday, first time I had ever been to the races. (The closest I'd ever been before was getting stuck in traffic before the Preakness parade in Baltimore.) And how lucky we were to go with a group guided by Gina Rarick, a former writer for the International Herald Tribune, turned horse trainer. She explained it all to us, shedding light on everything from how to read the program to making sure we knew which older man in the group of owners was the Aga Khan. I had no idea the track was so big (despite having been by there many times before -- on foot, on a bike, and in a car), that the saddles were so diminuitive, that the jockeys sometimes don't have any experience with a horse before race day, or any of the differences between the sport in France and in the U.S. We watched four races and got a peek behind the scenes at the jockeys weighing out after the race, the horses being led around the presentation ring before, and even a look at the stables and training area.

The minimum bet at Longchamp is 2 euros and with my ignorance, I wasn't even willing to risk that. But there are races there again next Sunday (the 23rd) for those who are more game. And visit Gina's Web site at http://www.gallopfrance.com/ if you want to learn more.










Thanks to Mark for organizing.

Gear Up

Forget about all those big names on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and those fab boutiques in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. If you want a real, one-of-a-kind Parisian shopping experience, then pay a visit to Au Vieux Campeur which stocks all the gear you'll need for any kind of outdoor experience. Camping, hiking, skiing, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, scuba diving, snowshoeing, whatever your needs, they've got it: great brands, lots of inventory, and priced at about what you'd expect. The only problem? Space being at a premium in central Paris, this department store of the outdoors is housed in 26 (count 'em) separate boutiques in a six block area in the Latin Quarter. Check the Web site before you go to locate the spots that match your shopping list; otherwise you'll be walking in circles around rue des Ecoles and rue Saint Jacques. Then again, maybe that's all part of the plan.

Jeux Olympiques d'Hiver

I'm not really a sports fan. I don't follow any teams and frankly I can't even remember at the moment who just won the Super Bowl. And having been raised in the south, I don't have much personal experience with winter sports. But still, I have a special affinity for the Olympics, perhaps learned from a childhood of afternoons spent watching The Wide World of Sports and seeing that poor ski jumper crash to smithereens each week, synchronized perfectly with the announcer saying, "the agony of defeat."

I've been trying to follow the Winter Games on French TV and it's been a bit of a stretch. First of all, the coverage each evening flips back and forth between France 2 and France 3; the dude at the desk tells you to switch the channel and when you do, there he is again, picking up the commentary right where he left off. And second, naturally, the French coverage follows France's best hopes for medals. So the other night, we watched the women's 10K biathalon, you know the event where they cross country ski and shoot at targets. Americans don't do well in that event so I'm not sure I've ever even seen it. But the French had a crack competitor so we watched the live coverage (en direct as they say in French). The French gal came in third and we saw her crossing the finish line, tears of joy in her eyes. Now in that circumstance, what would the American networks do? Why go straight to an interview, another event, game over, story done. But not so here. We got to watch all 56 competitors slog their way to the end; I think there was even an American back in the pack there around number 46.

Apparently, there's more coverage on Eurosport but our basic cable package doesn't include it. And while I tried to watch some of the American highlights on the NBC Web site, they correctly detect my French IP address which makes much of the content unavailable to me.

So I'll keep following the French, doing my best to learn who the competitors are and to understand the commentators who insist on talking over each other. The French are having a great Olympics so far, with the exception of Brian Joubert, who expected to medal in men's figure skating, ended up in 18th place after the short program, and Marion Rolland, who blew out her knee on the top of the mountain in the women's downhill. Heartbreaking for both of them.

Les Pompiers

This is one of the sights of Paris you won't find noted in Fodor, Frommer, or The Lonely Planet: the local squad of firemen out for their morning training run. Just because I've been happily attached for almost 25 years doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the view. My husband looks pretty good in tights himself.

Tennis Anyone?

There's a lot of talk about tennis right now in Paris because the French Open is underway at Roland Garros. But while the superstars of today and tomorrow battle it out on the clay courts, I had the feeling of stepping back in time when I saw this sign. Paume is the old French term for tennis, made famous to the rest of us for that moment in French history, the Tennis Court Oath (or serment du jeu de paume), when members of the Third Estate pledged not to disband until a constitutional government had been formed. It came by that name because this revolutionary act took place on the tennis court at Versailles. Louis XVI was pretty much toast after that although it was another three years before he met his death.

Nowadays, the sports page is focused on just plain old tennis. That is, of course, you're a member of this presumably aristocratic club. Do you suppose they serve champagne between sets?