First week in Paris

This first blog is going to have an excessive amount of detail…as in I describe what time I wake up each morning and what I’m eating at my meals. I have a lot of spare time on my hands haha. I’m also posting it in one large chunk because there isn’t wifi in my apartment and I don’t want to take my computer to the gym. As soon as I get wifi and get settled in to a routine I’ll probably post about once a week to tell the results of my matches and anything exciting that’s happened. I promise I won’t describe my eating and sleeping habits for the next nine months.

Day 1

Two representatives from the club, Jean-Pierre and Jean-Marie picked me up from the airport in Paris. We drove for a little over an hour before we reached Melun (pronounced like the Disney movie Mulan with a silent “n”, not “meloon”). The city is fairly large, but definitely walk-able.  The Siene River crosses through the middle of it, so I have to cross two bridges to get to the “downtown” area.

 They showed me my apartment, which is the top floor of what looks like a house from the outside. The house is actually divided up in to multiple apartments…1 on the bottom, 2 on the middle floor, and mine on top. I love that I have the top floor because my apartment has two huge skylights that open up all the way if I want to climb on the roof! The kitchen area is tiny, and the fridge would be considered a mini-fridge in the US. Overall I love it though. It’s super cozy and only a 10-minute walk to the gym.

After we dropped all my stuff at the apartment we drove over to the gym. The gym is fairly new and pretty big. It has enough room to set up three volleyball courts across or you can set up the main court and have tons of room around the edges…I’ll try to remember to take pictures when I get a chance.

By this time it was about 8:00pm so we walked across the street to get dinner. They took me to a restaurant that I think was called Buffalo Grill…it definitely had the work Buffalo in it, but I can’t remember the rest. It was a steak place, so I had steak kabobs and French fries (which are just called potatoes here…duh.). By the time we had finished eating I was exhausted, so they dropped me off at my apartment and I passed out.

Day 2

The sun woke me up about 6:30am and I said, “not happening” and went back to sleep. I woke back up again around noon and decided that 13 hours of sleep was probably enough so I got up to eat breakfast. The club was kind enough to buy some food and put it in the apartment before I arrived, so I ate toast and had orange juice for breakfast.

Jean-Marie picked me up at 2:00 to take me on a tour of the city. We drove to the city center then walked around from there. He pointed out where there were banks, post offices, grocery stores, and farmers markets. After walking for an hour or so he asked if I wanted to go watch water-skiing (he looooves waterskiing). I said okay, so we walked back to the car, made a pit stop by the volleyball offices so I could use the wifi, then headed to the river.

It was a beautiful day out, and we spent the rest of the afternoon on a boat towing water-skiers around. Jean-Marie’s friend, Andy, is the coach and he was giving lessons to kids, preparing them for an upcoming competition. Andy spoke English, so he told me a little about his life and I learned that he speaks five different languages (Italian, English, French, Spanish, and some German). That gives me hope that maybe I can master French and bump my number up to two!

After a few hours we left the river and he dropped me off at home. It’s really weird that I just referred to this place as my home haha I just sat here and thought about that for a few minutes…but I guess it really is my home for the next 9 months! I was really tired from the day and still a little bit jet lagged so I ended up going to sleep around 9:30.

Day 3

Once again the sun tried to wake me earlier than I wanted to get up. Since the earliest thing on my schedule today wasn’t until 6pm I decided that sleeping til noon was definitely okay. After waking up for the second time I got dressed in real clothes (no more Lulu and Nike for me L ) and walked in to town.

I was hoping to go to one of the farmer’s markets that I had seen the day before, but because I slept in so long the market was closing right when I arrived. Luckily there was a grocery store right next to it, so I went in there to grab a few things to stock my tiny kitchen.

On the way home I passed a florist and saw a little cactus in the window! I decided I wanted it for my apartment so I went inside to buy it. I ended up buying a little orange pepper plant too.

My last stop before home was at a little grocery mart a block away from my house to get iced tea. And what did I find…??? Arizona iced tea!! Woo hoo! Between the cactus and the tea it feels like I never left AZ.

I spent the next few hours at home just killing time until practice. I got to the coaches’ office at 6 so I could use their wifi before meeting with my coach at 7. Then practice was scheduled for 8-10pm. I’ll have to get used to practicing so late…At UNM our practices were like 3-6 and at Metro they were something like 2-5. My bedtime is usually about 10!

The meeting with the coach went really well. Another club representative, Francis, was there too so he could help translate. The coach, Karim, speaks English but isn’t fluent and he wanted to make sure I understood everything he was saying and could answer any questions I had. Basically the meeting was to discuss the season and what their expectations are for the team and me. The goal for the season is to win the Champions Cup. By doing that the team will get to move up a division for next year. Karim then explained my role on the team. He said I will be playing L1 (OH1) and playing all the way around. He and Francis explained to me exactly what percent of the budget for the season was spent on me and basically said they need me ready to go each match and expect me to lead and set an example.

After that meeting ended I walked next door to the gym to wait for the team to arrive. Right now there are only 8 girls on the team, but I was told they’re expecting at least two more players within the next few weeks. Almost all of the team speaks some English, which is helpful, but the practices are conducted entirely in French!

We started off with 30 minutes of running…No, Omnia nation that was not a typo. I, Amy Wong, ran (more like jogged…) for 30 minutes straight. Then we did a short circuit of exercises like step ups, abs, planks, dips, etc. By this time we only had about an hour left of practice, which we spent doing simple passing and ball control drills. We ended with a little serving and Karim came over to work with me on my serve and change my technique. I am now supposed to serve without moving my feet at all. Sounds easy right? NOPE. No step with the toss and no follow through with the back foot is waaaaay harder to do than I would think. It becomes all upper body.

After practice I walked home, ate a snack, then went to bed around 11:30.

Day 4

I slept in again…I got up around 10:30 and just watched episodes of Top Gear in bed. Around 1:00 I went to a grocery store in town to get olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and bins to organize my stuff.

Jean-Pierre picked me up at 6:00 to take me to the Dr.’s office, which is in the same facility as our gym. I had to get a physical before the FFVB (French Federation of Volleyball) will clear me to play. Getting a physical when the Dr. doesn’t speak your language is…interesting. There was a lot of pointing and motioning, and at one point he told me to sleep because he wanted me to lie down. But all physicals are basically the same, so most of the time I had a pretty good idea of what he wanted/was asking. I got cleared (yay!) and then Jean-Pierre dropped me back off at home.

When I got home I decided to try to cook something for dinner. Up til this point I had been eating salads, yogurt or fruit for every meal…mostly because I was being lazy. I decided to cook what I believe was a chicken sausage patty. I never actually translated it, but that’s what it looked like, and I recognized the word “chicken”. My first foray in to French cooking did not go well. I had the stove on too high (story of my life, right Kelly??) and the chicken burned while I wasn’t looking. I don’t mean like singed a little bit, but you can scrape it off…I mean like BLACK. I had to hold the frying pan with the chicken still inside it out my opened skylight just so it wouldn’t completely fill my apartment with smoke. Once it stopped smoking I tried again and managed to cook a second patty well!

I went for another walk around the city a little while it was still light, then watched a few episodes of Top Gear before going to bed. If you haven’t heard me preach about Top Gear yet…you need to watch it. Funniest show ever. Not the American version though- that one is stupid. You have to watch the British version.

Day 5

I got up at 9 and made myself eggs and toast for breakfast (Paleo doesn’t exist here…too hard).

I hadn’t gotten around to unpacking yet so I figured I should probably clean my place up a little bit since one of my teammates was coming by later. I put everything away, made myself a salad for lunch, and waited for her to arrive.

We had made plans for her to take me to downtown Paris and show me around a little bit, since neither of us had anything to do before practice. It takes 25 minutes by train to get to Gare de Lyon, which is one of the main train stations in Paris. From there we took the Metro to see the Eiffel Tower. I had already seen it once with my sister when we backpacked through 2 years ago, but I can’t live in Paris and not see it again!

From there we took two different Metro lines to meet up with Hochou’s friend, Dimitri, who she had gone to school with. Along the way we saw some crazy Parisians performing street art that consisted of them in stretchy suits in weird prints just walking around posing with each other. We sat down for lunch at a café and hung out there practicing my French until it was time to go back to Melun for volleyball practice.   

That night’s practice was similar to the first. We jogged for like 5 minutes, did a circuit for 12 minutes that was ladder and footwork drills, had one volleyball drill, then went back to a different circuit that was cardio and body weight exercises, and ended with more passing and serving.

After practice I went with Hochou to her friend’s birthday party. We had delicious chicken and a salad that had avocado, crab, tomatoes, cucumber, corn, a little bit of lettuce, and a dressing that I’ve never had before. It was so good I even took a piece of leftover chicken home with me to eat tomorrow. I probably gave more cheek kisses today than I have in my entire life combined. Anyone at the party that walked through the door gave me cheek kisses…all random people that I don’t know. They didn’t introduce themselves; just said bonjour gave kisses then walked away. I think it’s going to take some getting used to. 

I’ll try to post more when I get a chance! Hope everything is great back home.

Chocolate croissant count: 0. Crazy, I know.

Cheek kisses: waaaay too many to count

-Amy