The Longest Weekend Part 3: Saturday Fencing and Drinking

The next morning David and Keith awoke on a floor in the Irish College to discover they were covered in pink permanent marker. A crude drawing of a penis seemed to be the most popular design with one or two each adorning their foreheads. There was also an address to a Bebo site scrawled down one arm and multiple penis down the other. It wasn't until the next day the Keith spotted the large pink swazkita on his shoulder, however. That being said he didn't realise about his forehead till well after he'd enter a bakery to get a baguette at 8 o'clock that morning.

I had spent the night in my own bed (which was still a sleeping bag on top of a bed, as they had interupted my house shopping on Thursday). My plan for the day was to head for the French National fencing championships which were to be held in a large stadium near Parc de Prince at Porte de St. Cloud (home of Paris St. Germain Football Club and the recent riots after the shooting dead of PSG fan as he was part of a mob attacking a Jewish Tel Aviv fan by a plain clothes police officer).

But I digress. The top 32 in France were fighting it out for bragging rights over one another. I arrived around 2pm with the finals at four so got to see all the semi-finals across the six weapons. By the time of the finals it was amazing how few of the national teams across the weapons had actually reached them. All in all the finals were disappointing, save for the Men's Sabre. The lads who had dragged themselves in just before four and who had found me during a break in the women's epee agreed. When I get a chance I'll try and post the final of the Men's sabre somewhere (Julien Pillet Vs Nicolas Lopez) - it was a very exciting match.

...

Once the dust had settled, it was agreed that we all needed sushi. Paris is littered with sushi restaraunts of various standards, we found a cheap one and tucked in.

There was business to be taken care of however and we were soon back at my place for an impromptu house warming and some wine. With the six of us in my tiny apartment it was pretty much packed so at around 11 we decided to seek out more space. Keith and David returned to the Long Hop (where the staff there would continue their attempts to kill the two of them). I decided to go with Phil, Liz and Rachel to a Reggae club that Phil had heard of.

Thinking that the club was only at Nation I decided not to bring a coat and wore only a light fleece instead. The club was actually near Mo Nationale, which is much further away in the South of the city. We found it slightly amusing that there was a reggae club on a road called Rue Des Noirs (french racial segregation in full flow), less funny when the road actually Rue Dunois and even less funny when after travelling the length of the road we found nothing resembling a club or even an open pub on it's entire length. On the return voyage the result was exactly the same.

Phil rang his friend from the jazz club to find out where it was. Apparently the small community hall we had passed was the place where the gig was on and it finished at 11 O'clock, not started at eleven o'clock. Either which way it was very much closed when we reached it at twelve. Suspicions that the rasta who gave him the information may well have bin praisin' de almighty Ja wit dem holiest mari-ji-juana spread quickly about the group as we wondered how the hell we'd get back to civilisation, or at least the proto-civilisation that was the Long Hop.

We ventured forth to Place D'Italie where a massive taxi queue left us pondering our next move - until we saw a bus to Gare de Lyon. This was in the general direction that we were going and we thought we could get that towards the Long Hop. Although the bus said Gare Du Lyon on it several stops later we realised we were heading out towards the Banlieue. Rather than go through a midnight stroll in some of the most dangerous areas in France, maybe in Europe, we decided we needed to get off the bus. The minute we had, we saw another bus for Gare Du Lyon heading the opposite direction and hopped onto it without a second thought.

On this extra-pleasent, journey a woman threw-up at our feet and a drunk who smelled of petrol approached us for a light. Declining we got off at Place D'Italie, where we'd started, and began to walk. Highlights of the walk included the Paris zoo where we saw some ostriches and the several times where I felt I might be coming down with hypothermia (see my mention of only wearing a light fleece).

Eventually, we reached the Long Hop only to find it closed. David and Keith were at the lock-in ongoing inside. While the staff of the Long Hop did their level best to end the lives of my two friends, the rest of us went to the Pomme D'Eve to wait for them. It was at this point, as I sat down in a chair in the cave that three nights of excess began to catch up with me and my eyelids became intolerably heavy. When the lads arrived they were in a similar state perhaps induced more by having vodka poured directly into their mouths rather than tiredness but none the less the spirit of the evening had turned distinctly tired and/or emotional.

Whatever was going on in David's head he decided that we should leave, minus Keith, and having no more energy to resist I gave in a followed him out of the bar. We paused briefly to have a photo taken with the South African flag outside and then headed back to David's for a respite before tomorrows fun. Keith eventually followed after an hour or two later with the assistance of Phil. This didn't stop him from trying the door code on the wrong door for a good while but that is a story for another day...