Monday. Paris.
It's been a busy weekend here in Paris.
I arrived late Thursday just in time to dine with my Parisian hosts Christine Menegaux and her son Etienne (18). Friday, I took a walk around my neighborhood to get my bearings: just North of Parc-des-Princes (home of FC Paris St. Germain), just East of the Bois-de-Boulogne, and two minutes south of Roland Garros. Friday night, I went to see the Pope.
After evening ceremonies inside Notre Dame, Benedict XVI came out and spoke to the youth. His message: N'ayez pas peur! Ayez le courage de vivre l'évangile et l'audace de le proclamer. L'Eglise vous fait confiance, je tiens à vous le dire! - in other words, "Never fear, the Church is here! Give it up for Christ!" To which he received chants of "Be-ne-dic-to! Be-ne-dic-to!" amid much general applause.
A few minutes before midnight, candles were then distributed to the crowd (some 200,000 people) and everyone processed from Notre Dame through Paris to Les Invalides. (See pics below) Once there, most bedded down for the night in order to have a good spot for mass the next morning. I walked home.
Also, as mentioned above, I live quite close to Parc-des-Princes and Sundays are match days for French Ligue 1. Results for week 5 of league competition:
Paris St. Germain 1 / FC Nantes 0
Girondins de Bordeaux 1 / Olympique Marseille 1
In Paris, everyone hates Marseille but me. PSG is third in the league right now, Marseille is second. (Lyon is first, but nobody cares.) Marseille and PSG play each other October 25. It's the French equivalent of Trojans v. Bruins. Allez l'OM!
P.S. 'SC, that was nice work against Ohio State. Fight on!
(and for those of you still wondering about the state of the châteaux, see Abhinay's post below)
4 comments:
i actually found a canadian bar that was playing the 'SC game at 2am. i would have told you about it if only you had a portable!
Yeah, dude. Get a portable. Which I hope means cell phone, otherwise I'm just a jackass.
Marseille? Go to England. See how football is really played. By Arsenal.
Yeah. Sweet blog. But you need to up the Team Shallow. Your Host Mom's a total MILF, right? Right?
That's a really great opportunity to see the pope.
"Give it up for Christ!" is hardly a direct translation haha.
Your set up sounds awesome. I'm unbearably jealous, and will keep reading out of masochism.
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