22-02-2009 (Week 6) - Lyon

So this was my first French Ultimate tournament, let alone indoor tourament. If I must say, it couldn't have gone better. Everyone on the team was very nice and fun to be around. All were patient with me while I was learning the new offense and trying to pratice my French as well.

Although the tournament started Saturday (and we didn’t leave Toulouse until Saturday morning), we all met up Friday night for dinner. It was nice to meet all of my teammates there and get some good old homemade crepes compliments of J-P (at least that’s how I would define them). Some ham and cheese for dinner and then followed up by nutella for dessert. It doesn’t get much better than that…

It was on Friday night that I received my forged medical examination note. To fill you in: in order to play at official French tournaments governed by their frisbee governing body, you have to be cleared to play by a doctor. Somehow, someone on the team got a doctor to sign a blank note in which we could write whatever we wanted in it. So they wrote the appropriate words for the note and we were on our way to Lyon after meeting Saturday morning.

Knowing my memory skills, I’m sure it would surprise most of you to learn that I totally forgot to bring my forged medical note with me on to Lyon. Of course, I was freakin’ out the rest of the way there (about 4 hours) once I realized it. How distatrous it would’ve been to drive 6 hours to a tournament and not be able to play. Luckily, French frisbee players are as laid back as american frisbee players and no one cared.

This tournament was a French national tournament of the third tear of ultimate (there are only three). Our team name was BTRaves. Raves, in this case, is some type of legume, or vegetable. If you haven’t put it all together yet, the BT stands for Better Than. …Hmmmmmm

We played two games on Saturday. The first was relatively easy and the second was against the eventual champions. The game was competitive, but I wish we would’ve played them on Sunday, because we were firing on all cylinders then, and ended up winning all 4 of our games. So, we finished with a record of 5-1, good enough for 3rd in the tournament….

The reason it was third and not second was that these results were combined with another previous tournament results. For both weekends, we had a combined loss total of 3. Either way though, we had a great time and got to play some good ultimate.

The party on Saturday was nothing like parties in the States. Instead of going to a bar and getting plastered, everyone went to some private club and got served dinner. It wasn’t formal or anything, and there was a cash bar there, but it just didn’t have the feel that I was expecting. Still not use to eating long dinners…

During the tournament I would wear my KU tearaway warm-ups in between matches. Surely tearaways are not new to France but most of my teammates acted like they were, ripping them off at every opportunity. They would even have the audacity to plan attacks right in front of me (of course it was in another language so it would work most of the time, until I learned the work ‘decompression,’ which is like button or something).

After the tournament I received word that I’ve been asked to play in the outdoor series, which I’m really looking forward to. Outdoor suites my game better than indoor…

Pictures