Down and Out... and soon to be blogging again... In Paris

This blog has suffered from severe neglect of late but perhaps no more. The French Domestic season is all but over but the international season for picks up again next weekend in Varsovie (Warsaw). I should hopefully have plenty to write about and in the mean time, I can complain about French banks...

...

Goddammit HSBC! Every time I try to leave they pull me back in. After having enough of their policy of arbitrarily dipping into my current account whenever they felt like it to take 'convention d'avenir' that I never signed up for, or "FRAIS TENUE DE COMPTE" , I went an opened an account with an online bank and basically stopped using the account except to make deposits and then immediately transfer them to the online account.

I cancelled my credit card with them, I cancelled my any direct debits I had with them, I carry out no actions in their branches and I thought I'd removed any opportunity for them to charge me anything... But no! Now they want to charge €2.00 a month for a security service to send a code to my mobile in order to access my account online. Looks like a just can't escape them trying to rip me off!

...

I imagine a time where the internet will be full of blogs written by fencers expressing how poor they are (ála Tim Morehouse's - Flat Broke and a US Olympian, but Worth It or my own various rants against french institutions stealing my money). I'm thinking of writing my own "Trying to live, work and train in Paris on €5 a week" but I'm afraid the post would involve to much boredom and swearing as I got ever more hungry as the week went on.

...

Oh and by the by, if you happen to read this and enjoy occasional rants about fencing, sport, politics, France, food or whatever I feel like writing about why not click the little button that says follow up the top-right.

My Name Is...

Dear France,

I would like to inform the citizens of your fair land that I know how to spell my own name and, despite what they may believe to be their better judgement, my passport and driver's licence are correct.

My name is not Mc Namee, my name is not MacNamee, my name is not Mac Namee... My name is spelt McNamee.

Yours Sincerely...

Now to translate this message and send it to the Securitie Sociale, my mutuelle, my landlord, my fencing club, the Revenue Service and the many other flailing arms of the great bureaucracy who have ignored how my name is actually spelt.

Snatched from the Jaws Of Bureaucracy

The resolution to my tales of Visa's and Rent Allowance...

Monday, of course the Algerian consulate was closed. So I arrived at the consulate at 9.30 on Tuesday just as it was opening to hand in my passport so that my visa could be rushed through. Surprisingly enough this wasn't actually that much hassle, save for having to queue for a bit outside in a queue I'm sure I didn't belong in. I gave in my passport and I was away to the CAF centre to give in my forms for my rent allowance. That was even easier and only took 2 minutes.

...

On wednesday, I went to the Algerian Consulate in the afternoon at the time I was told to collect my visa, fearing the worst... but everything was fine. That was, until I checked the Visa and they had spelt my name Mac Namee. Despite having it spelt correctly on 5 different forms, sometimes several times and despite sticking it in to a passport with my name spelt correctly. They smudged a bit of tip-ex over the offending "a" doing nothing about the addition of a space and gave it a stamp of correction of some kind. I left praying that this would not cause me any grief on the way into this bananna republic.

Yay! Dealing with French Banks!

On Tuesday, I went about ordering my new French Bank card. There is a HSBC not too far away from me and so I strolled in to see if they could help me.

In some of the best French I have ever spoken I explained to them:

"My bank card was lost in Hungary and I've cancelled it. Can I get a new one?"
The Teller who I explained this to understood perfectly but at this point her superior interjected.
"You ze card with Ash-Ess-Bae-See?"
No, I'm just here to annoy you. "Yes, of course my carte bleu was lost and I had it cancelled"
"It's a French Card?"
Not being able to control my annoyance at these questions which were coming from her assumption that I was the stupid one, I answered sarcastically - "We don't have Carte Blue in Ireland so I am certain it is a french Card! I have a French bank account with HSBC. I cancelled my lost card, now can I order a new one!"
"Do you 'ave an account in zis branch?"
"No"
"Well Zhen you ave to go to your own branch to order it."
"But that is over the other side of the city and I have no money because I cancelled my cards. Can I not order a new one here?"
"Well we can give you money here but not order the card"
"Can I move my account to here?"
"Yes but you have to phone your branch for zat because it is on a different system"
"Fine, just give me some money then"

When I got to my own branch on Place Monge, not for the first time, I was held up in the security door and asked if I had an account there. I held up my cheque-book as proof and was allowed enter.

When I reached the cashier it was all going swimmingly up until the point where she explained that the card and new pincode would be sent to the branch. Fantastic! And zis will take about a week wiz zhe pin cod arriving at a few days later. Can I not get it sent to my apartment? No.

As it happens while I was waiting to be served I noticed a chart with the various banking fees. These included a €20 fee for cancelling a card and a €10 fee for the issue of a new card. Fantastic, thanks a lot HSBC!

...

That night at training it felt as if I had been away for ages and it was good to be back... up until the point someone mentioned about the rugby.

Stupid French Keyboards

Iù, zriting this in the Centre Georges Po,pqdu on q french keyboqrd aithout looking qt the keys.

With only one fully functioning hand and typing on a cra...(where the hell is z)...zy french keyboard I don't really have any time to say any more.

à plus...

A Day In The Life Of A Private Health Clinic In Paris

I returned to the clinic Mont-Louis the next morning at 10.30am when the appointment had been made for. Bupa Ireland had yet to get back to BUPA international who could not give a definite answer to the hospital (perhaps not surprising given the day that was in it BUPA to withdraw from Ireland). It was 12.30 before I decided enough was enough and I would pay for the operation and then get reimbursed.

...

I was taken to the top floor of the hospital where I wrote the cheque for €1500 for this minor operation and was directed to the waiting room. My operation was to be at around 2pm.

Shortly before that I was lead to a room to prepare for the operation. The nurse told me to strip absolutely naked. I explained this was an operation on my little finger but she reiterated and I got into the see-through gown and covered myself with the sheets.

Eventually I was brought downstairs to wait for an OR to open up. While I was there a six - eight year old Muslim child was having a circumcision. I remembered him from upstairs resplendent in the equivalent of a holy communion costume and mischievious giving cheek to his mother who couldn't help but laugh. I can't understand this practice to begin with in any religion - why would God give us a foreskin by mistake? But at least the Jewish tradition is perform the operation a set number of weeks after birth - not at an age where the child will likely remember it the rest of his life.

The screams of terror and pain from the poor child are something that I will not forget in a long time. This was the soundtrack to which I approached my own operation, which passed off without a hitch. The doctor spoke good English and was the first person to explain things properly to me in the last two days. A local anesthetic was applied and a curtain was set up in between myself and the doctor as he pottered away.

I had no idea what he was doing. I could only feel the occasional tug on a part of my hand that wasn't numb which suggested a finger was being moved. I decided it was best not to think about it and rode out the rest of the operation to tyring to manipulate my heart rate on the monitors above my head, to no avail.

...

So, my hand is in a tight wrapping to keep the fingers bent while the tendon heals. The tendon and would are sutured and the stiches should be out in just over two weeks. I still can't feel my little finger or ring finger on my write hand. You wouldn't believe the struggle it has been to finish the Longest Weekend and this entry.

Ciao

My Love Affair With Sushi Knives is Over

As I cut into a bagguette to prepare a sandwich for my tea before training, I reached a point where the consistancy of the bread changed and felt painfully like my own flesh.

I had in fact sliced into the little finger of my left hand. Having never had such an injury inflicted on myself before, I quickly washed the wound, clenched my fist around some kitchen roll and elevated it before running around in pain and confusion.

My thoughts came like a kelydoscope -
"Where the hell is the nearest hospital? Do I even need to go to hospital? How the hell am I going to pay for this? Is that bone? Oh good God, that is bone, isn't it? I feel sick"

I was speaking on Skype to both Rachel and Marcos at the time. Marcos suggested sticking a plaster on it but Rachel went for the hospitalisation route. I chose the path less travelled (round the corner to a clinic) and it made all the difference.

The doctors spoke no English at all - hoorah! While I was pretty sure I understood what they were saying, I wasn't completely certain of some minor details and when they started talking about tendonne and operation I was slightly spooked. Eventually the bandaged my hand and told me I'd have to come back the following morning for a minor operation to repair the tendon.

All the while that this was happening I was trying to sort out insurance details with my parents over the phone. It was not a pleasent evening at all - even aside from the pain. To make things worse I had told my team-mates at USM that I'd be bringing the drinks that evening, so I was deathly afraid that they think I was actually some cheap Scotsman rather than a self-mutilated Irishman.

A brief interlude...

There is some construction work going on outside my window. At 7am, they started using a jackhammer. Wanting to regain my strength after the long weekend, I wanted a bit of a sleep-in and tried to ignore it up until 11am when I could bear it no longer and had to get up. At 11.20am they stopped and have not done any further work on the site since.

The Longest Weekend Part 1: Thursday Night After Training

...Some friends visit and I undo any training I've done over the last 6 months.

Although I was aware of their impending arrival, nothing could prepare me for the exhausting terror that lay before us.

After training on Thursday evening, I received a text from David and Keith prompting me to meet them on the quays by Notre Dame. At about 10.30pm I reached the agreed spot on the Seine to find them enoying smuggled contraband. Yes, that's right... Red Bull (it's illegal in France and rightly so). There may have been some Aldi or equivalently cheap vodka in their Volvic bottle but I neglected to ask them. Either way they seemed pleased with themselves.

Our first port of call was to the Long Hop, a bar where David used to work. His friends there (friends I would later compare to being friends with your heroine dealer) were so pleased to see him they decided to try and kill the three of us with alcohol.

As the evening wore on and the Long Hop was preparing to close we began to plan our next move. David lead us to a night club with a student night somewhere near the 7th via another bar with some friends of his, the Vileune Dingue (or VD's -lovely). Unfortunately, the lovely bouncers on the door informed us we couldn't get in. This all lead to our first taxi journey of the evening and undoubtedly the most ridiculous.

I knew that my friends from the Irish College were heading to a big student night in a place called Mix by Montparnasse, so I suggested we try and head that direction. Eventually, we got a taxi and we tried to explain where we were going. He seemed to make up his mind after a while and started off. He dropped us a very small bar. Our suspicions should have been raised when the bar only had a small porthole window in it, through which the bouncer looked out. We walked in the door, myself in the rear. The taxi driver had brought us to a brothel, we made a sharp u-turn, we walked out of the door.

After several minutes of hysterical laughter, we paused to wonder what to do next. In the end we did what comes naturally to people at that hour of the night - we went to get a kebab.

As myself and Keith tucked into our Kebabs it became apparent to us that David had disappeared. As I reached for my French Mobile to call him it also becamse apparent that my French mobile had disappeared and as Keith reached for his, that his mobile was out of credit. I tried calling him several times on my Irish phone but couldn't get a connection. I sent him several texts in the hope that he couldn't answer because he had no credit and told him to meet us at the Irish College, which was nearby and which we all knew how to find.

When we got to the Irish College we managed to get in and to regroup for a while in the Kitchen - it was now pouring rain. Eventually, I heard someone calling my name from outside the window. David had found his way to the Irish College - he didn't seem best pleased. Apparently public urination is frowned upon in France, along with most of the western world. When a plane clothes policeman approached Dave and told him as much, David's natural reaction was to suggest that he should go away in no uncertain terms. David spent the next hour in a room in the police station.

With the three of us united once again we set off for David's where I spent the night sleeping on the floor. In the morning David explained there was some cushion which could be arranged into a mattress in the wardrobe...

Ch-Ch-Changes

I must leave the Centre Culturel Irlandais this Friday and I can't but help the feeling that living on my own is going to be a lot less comfortable in many ways.

I just started to really get to know people here and get into the swing of things when now I have to leave. I've made some good friends here already and that's a massive asset to have here in this country with it's crazy language and people and I'm sure I'll call back regularly.

Yesterday, I collected my keys for the apartment from my land-lady. I met her at the apartment and with all the furniture removed and cleaning materials strewn all over the place for the first time I was slightly less excited by the novelty of having my own place. It really reminded me of Brian Keenan's "Sugar Cube" cell in an Evil Cradling - there wasn't even curtains up at the time and the walls are absolutely plain white. I'm quite convinced I'll go mad there. I suppose it's only natural when I've become confortable where I am to dread changing my surroundings again. Hopefully when I settle into a rythmn there and make it a bit more personal a space then everything will be fine.

...

In terms of training, I feel I'm fencing a bit better this week. The long break over the weekend did me good and I feel fully recovered and ready to get right back into it. Again, last night I fenced a series of matches until I could fence no longer. I feel a bit sharper but I need to start fencing more cleverly and being more conscious of correcting the mistakes I'm making. Hopefully, that'll come with a bit more coaching as well as expanding my repetoir of tactics.

...

You Never Miss It...

My ability to "left-click" is torn away from me.

I've been having some computer problems over the last couple of days. Namely that my touchpad has been the latest aspect of my out-of-warranty Dell to have given up on me. For some reason the computer was convinced that I constantly had the left button held down. As a result, I could do nothing on the computer without going through the right-click menu or using tab to select different boxes on the screen. Basically, it made using the computer an absolute pain in the ass.

I tried everything and eventually I've had to disable the touchpad altogether and use the numpad a mouse (it's some sort of accessibility feature). It's still painfully slow and frustrating but then maybe it suits me that way...

The French Way of Life

A member of the club very kindly gave me a ticket to a wine festival.

It was a ticket for two so myself and Phil, from the Irish College, went on our way to get pissed, under the vague pretence of sampling French culture. The festival was of independent wine-makers and was at the exhibition halls at Porte de Versailles. It is apparently quite a well known event that attracts huge crowds each year. This year was no exception except that two Paddies had crept in unnoticed beneath the radar of the French Cultural Police.

...
Details of the exhibition can be found at www.vigneron-independant.com under Paris 2006. There were roughly 972 stands. Each of the 12 or so French wine regions were represented.
...

The hall was enormous, stretching out in every direction along corridors and corridors of stands. At the door we were each given a wine glass for sampling. The layout was absolutely bewildering, with no order to it whatsoever. They weren't ordered by region or price or by reputation, just spread out randomly across this huge hall. In order to get what we wanted as quickly as possible we bought a catalogue and quickly headed out to our first destination - champagne.

As if to celebrate our newly found pig-in-shit status we stared by sampling one or two champagnes. You must imagine that it was quite evident to these wily vintners that these two student-types, although one of them spoke quite good French (not me), that it was perhaps unlikely that they were going to walk away with a few crates a piece. This seriously cut in to the samples we were given at some stands - most notably perhaps the €70 a bottle Armangnac where we given, after a considerable length of time left standing there, a dribble in the bottom of the Brandy glass. Colour, bouquet, taste, acidity all were carefully mulled over at each stand until we felt we had made it seem like we were considering buying but wanted to shop around just a bit more.

We sampled wines from every region of France - Alsace-Lorrain, Beaujolais, Champagne, Loire Valley, the South-West, Rhone Valley, Loire Valley, Bourgogne - or at least the ones we felt deserved our patronage. Eventually, with a much fuller sense of at least the great range of tastes in wine we decided to call it a day. Chuffed with ourselves, we wandered perhaps slightly less steadily into the sunset to get a Kebab to wash away the sense of pretension which risked consuming us in that place.

Peaks and Troughs...

...On balance it's been a pretty good week.

I'm starting to feel a lot more at home in the club and getting to know people there a little better. Early in the week I got a lesson from Benoit and hopefully I'll be able to get one once a week at least. I think I've started to enter a bit of a transitionary stage in my fencing as I concentrate on adjusting some aspects to my game and tyring to get rid of lazy habits. I've had a slight dip in form against my team-mates as a result but I'm willing to work through that.

The most exciting news of the week though, is that I've finally secured an apartment. It's in the 11th arrondisement in between Bastille and Nation near Metro Charonne, just off ligne 1 (which will make sense to anyone who knows Paris). Bathroom, kitchen and decent living space for a reasonable price. I'm signing the rental agreement on Saturday evening. Maybe once the novelty of living alone wears off, I'll become ridiculously depressed but for the minute I'm very excited.

At the same time, things are going great in the Irish College and I'll be quite sad to leave, just as I'm getting to know everyone a bit better and really getting into the swing of things here. We went out last night to a local bar and spent the evening solving the worlds problems until the early hours of the morning. If only alcohol wasn't involved we could have written it down and presented it to the UN.

...

Mick O'Dea one of the artists in residence has asked whether he could paint my portrait in my fencing gear for his exhibition here in the Centre Culturel Irlandais and Kerry Hardie, the poet and author, is interested in learning more about fencing through me with the possible aim of using this information in a novel she intends to write. So even if I have abandoned my big fish in a small pond status, the Irish here in Paris still seem determined to my ego swollen. What could I say really? I couldn't be more flattered.

...

After a fairly intense first couple of weeks, i have a weekend off in Paris and intend to use it to the full. Saturday is going to be a day of sight-seeing aswell
as lease-signing and I've also picked up free tickets to an independent wine producers fair.

I'll let you know how it all pans out.

saianara

My First Strike

Tuesday night on the way to training I saw my first French strike.

I was trundling along in the Metro Ligne 1 minding my own business, as is advisable on the Metro. As we came closer to my usual stop of Point de Vincennes the Metro began to stop for longer then usual and announcements were being made which I didn't quite understand - something about "manifestastion" and "Place de la Nation". Luckily enough, at Gare de Lyon, three stops before my own, I ran into Naseem from the club. He told me we had to get out at Nation and walk the rest of the way because of the strike.

The strike was aparantly by homeless youths who got somewhat aggitated and set fire to some things. We wandered down the boulevard which was packed with firemen and riot police. The demonstration was very much winding down while I was passing but the police presence, in full riot gear was huge. After about ten minutes walk we reach Avenue De Arnould Netter where the club is located. A line of riot police blocked our path - who very politely told us to sod off. So we had to take a detour through a laneway and up to the club from the other direction adding another ten minutes to our journey and taking us by some smouldering rubble and crates.

Anyway, it was all very authentic...

And worth the journey because I had a good nights fencing at the club. A long series of 15 point matches and a lesson from Benoit, one of the maitres. All in all a packed evening.

Owen Cookbook Part 2

In what is sure to become a staple in everyone's diet, I reveal secrets of my steak with pasta...

Ingredients:
Fillet Steak (only €3 here)
Too much Pasta
Pasta Sauce
Balsamic Vinegar (Secret ingredient)
Orange Juice

Marinade the steak in balsamic vinegar. Start cooking the pasta (with salt but never oil) and once that is well under way prepare a frying pan with a little olive oil to flash-fry the steaks to a perfect medium rare. Just as the steaks a sizzling in the pan accidentally engage the child-lock on the hob grinding all cooking to a halt. Attempt desperately to disengage the child-lock but to no avail.

Take the pan of pasta and the steak up to the next floor to finish cooking them. Drain the pasta and add the sauce without rincing the pasta (this apparently mean the pasta absorbs more sauce). Serve the steak on a bed of pasta for four. Bon appetit!

Those of you who have read the previous installment of Owen's Cookbook, may be interested to know that my second attempt at an omelette went a lot better. The reduction in the oil and butter content made for a much more omelette-like result. The only downside was that as a result of my fear of salmonella, the carbon content of the omelette was enough to give me a case of the squits. Almost there...

Stepping Up Training And Changing Banks

My plan for this week at training is to appear very enthusiastic and serious at training with the eventual goal of next week asking one of the coaches for lessons. To this end, tonight I fenced at least 10 15-point matches - I'm absolutely exhausted and my feet are badly blistered. Only two more days of this and then my plan will be complete. I'll let you know how that works out for me.

I've been trying to set up a bank account here. On the advice of a letting agent I went to BRED (yeah, I didn't trust the name when I heard it first either). Very kindly, she agreed to help talk with the teller and explain my situation. In the end, I had call a special international department since I'm a foreigner. After a brief phone interview, they agreed to end me the forms. They implied that the forms would be easy to fill in and that I could have the bank account within the week.

This morning, a bulging envelope arrived with about thirty pages in it. In order to open an account with this bank I had to post them (since everything had to go through there foreign office rather than just any branch) :

• Two forms of ID
• Two differnt proof of address
• Three last pay slips
• My last income tax statement
• My last three bank statements
• A letter of recommendation from my bank in Ireland
• A cheque so that fees could be immediately

And this was before I got to the 30 pages of forms that I had no idea what they were saying or even what their names meant:

• Fiche de reseignement confidentiels
• Document de demande d'ouverture de compte
• Carton de specimens de signatories
• Document d'option fiscale
• 1er feuillet du document denommé 'conditions particuliéres' inclus dans convention de compte

This was my first smack in mouth of French bureaucracy and I did not like it one bit. To collect all this would probably have taken me the best part of a month.

Just to see if this was the norm I rang HSBC. All they need is the ID's, Proof of Address and a bank statement from home. I'm setting up an account with them Thursday afternoon. What a waste of time...

Goodnight!

Oh so close...

Maybe the title gives away the ending of this story but I thought I nearly had an apartment sorted out today.

While scouring through FUSAC (an english language small-ads magazine) for accomodation and after checking out a number of them, including Mr. nice-old-man-with-an-apartment-without-a-shower (see previous post), I happened across one that had been placed by a letting agent. The actual apartment I was ringing up about was gone but she lined up several others which were in my price range to view yesterday and today.

The one yesterday was so-so but today I went to see this apartment right beside the Metro Palais Royal - Le Louvre (Click here if you haven't already guessed it's a good location). It had a gym at the end of the road, a bakers just across the road, A laundrette was the shop downstairs, a supermarket round the corner, all two minutes walk from the main line of the metro and at a very reasonable price... it even had an up-market Lebanese restaurant and take away.

Even when I viewed the apartment it was small but sunny and plenty of room. The only downside was that it was on the 5th floor with no lift but I am supposed to be an athlete of some description. So, in other words it was perfect down to the very minute detail.

Remember this as I make a momentary digression...

The second apartment we went to see was very near Les Halles. We got the keys from a shop across the road and went to go to, again, a top floor apartment (again, with no lift). From the first floor up the lights weren't working. This didn't matter so much on the second floor as some light was shing but by the third floor we were both using torches on our phones in the pitch black to slowly climb the rickedy old stairs. When we reached the top floor all the keys were tried none of them worked. On the way back down we tried all the other doors as well, for the craic but nothing.

So, back across the road, the land-lady was phoned and it was explained to the best of my understanding that it was the door on the right at the top of the stairs and not the door on the left (I had actually thought it was a broom closet). Anyhoo, long story short, and you probably tell what is going to happenm up through the darkness with torches... and the door wouldn't open.

In the end, I only saw one apartment today but I didn't care because it was the perfect apartment and I busily went about preparing all the things I needed in order to secure it. This isn't as easy as it sounds as the ultra-bureaucratic French really don't like Jean-Francois-foreigner coming over 'ere and setting up bank accounts easily or stealing their hairy women and there bureaucratic jobs.

The process was bound to take a week by the time I had filled in all their forms. So I rang back the letting agent to ask her to hold the apartment for me and that I was getting everything sorted. Hating speaking in French on the phone (try it some time) I had a big long spiel written out but only got half way through it when she told me that the bastard landlord had let his friend have the apartment.

And just like that, back to square one again. At least over the next week I should have in place all the documents I need to secure an apartment when one does become available. I'm not going to mention anything positive about my search for a job just in case I jinx it. I leave for damigny tomorrow (I have no idea where it is) and no doubt there'll be more stories to follow. My search for a job and an apartment (sadly) go on...

Ciao

The Search Continues...

And All I've Found Is Alcohol and Lebanese CuisineMy search for an apartment goes on...

Today I saw a nice, small, cheap apartment in an incredible location. When I say small, it was tiny but I was prepared for that for this reasonable price. When I asked about the cooking facilities I wasn't impressed with a single electric hot-plate but I thought I might be able to bring in a microwave or maybe A George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine.

So, I asked about the toilet and he explained that it was just outside the room (again I could have lived with this for the price). I looked around the tiny bathroom which was to be shared with the whole floor and finally got the catch... I asked whether there was a shower, the old man told me there were plenty of swimming pools nearby. And that was the closest I've come so far to securing an apartment. ...

Life in the club could not be better. Everyone is really welcoming (as if to prove the stereotype incorrect) and there seems to be a really good atmosphere in the club in general - very down-to-earth and not at all pretensious as one might have expected. This evening there was a few drinks after training - free champagne, rum and whiskey as well as nachos and pretsels - something I think should be brought in to all Irish clubs.

My level of french came into play somewhat here again as I have no idea whether this was a regular occurence or whether it was to celebrate something. For that matter, I have no idea what anyone was saying for this hour or so of conversation - I think they were talking about the upcoming smoking ban in France at some stage, although I cannot be sure.

The actual training was again superb and I met the two main maitre d'armes this evening although didn't have the courage to ask them for a lesson quite yet - next week, once I've impress them at Damigny.

More about Damigny and my search for a job to follow.

á bientot

How the other half live...

the half with decent fencing facilities.

I'm just back from my first training session with US Metro - it was brilliant. Going from a situation with very few sabreurs though, the sheer quantity of fencers alone would have been enough to really impress me. The club has six pistes and there was probably close around 25 fencers, all sabreurs and of a high standard, there this evening. I'm really excited at the prospect of getting to train with them for the next year, it's exactly the reason why I've come here - to get such a high level of competition on a constant basis.

It really takes you no time at all in this country to realise how crap you are at French. Luckily enough "Vous Tirez?" seems to be about as much as you need to ask someone to fence. Other than that though I'm bringing up an absolute blank on trying to understand their conversation and even if I did I'd have nothing to offer.

Language classes ASAP... You can check out the club website at http://www.usmetro-escrime.com/ although I think our own http://www.ucd.ie/fencing/ is of a comparably high standard, as a website at least. ... Aside from fencing I've filled my first two days with many little tasks to occupy my time. I've got a french mobile (which I'll text the number of around once I get a minute), started the search for an apartment and a job and sampled two different Lebonesse takeaways. Cooking facilities here at the Irish College are pretty basic but I'm going to try and prepare my own food tomorrow, as eating out everyday for a year is neither feasible nor likely to improve me as an athlete.

I spent yesterday evening chatting with some people from the Irish College they nearly all seem to be hear on Erasmus for a year studying in various French Universities. They seem like a nice bunch although I'm not sure how I'll really get to know them better since they socialise in the pub when I'm at training in the evening. Anyhoo, my plan for tomorrow involves getting up early for a run, so I better get to bed.

Goodnight

Je suis arrivé...

First of all, thanks to everyone who came out for my going-away thing on Saturday, it was great to see you all before I left and to those who couldn't make it I'm sure I'll see you soon enough anyway.

I've just arrived in Paris, two hours late after fog delayed the plane. I'm just settling in to my lodgings in the Centre Culturel Irlandais (or Irish College as most of you would probably know it). I'll be staying here for the first couple of weeks while I arrange more permanent accomodation (I'll keep you posted on how that works out).

Anyhoo, got things to do, people to not talk to because I'm afraid they'll laugh at me etc.

A+