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Published: June 30th 2009
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This morning we were going to head to the train station to buy the tickets to go North to Evy's friend Sandy tomorrow. When we checked our email though, there was a message from Steve, the father of Joshua's friend Zack, inviting us to come and stay a few days with them in Zürich, Switzerland. It wasn't something that we had considered, but upon looking up the train schedules and costs, we determined that it would be possible. We have met Zack's parent's, Steve and Stephanie, but really don't know them that well so it was quite kind of them to invite us. We wrote back to say that we would be coming and went to the train office to buy the tickets.
The train office was immensely helpful and patient and priced tickets for us for all of our upcoming travels in France, as well as pointing out that we could get better fares by buying a discount card for Joshua which we did.
Back at the apartment, Xavier picked us up at 11:30 (weekly laundry and all) and drove us to their house in Crolles. Most of their family had been out at a badminton party last
night, so I think they were all a bit tired but they were great hosts nonetheless. The kids all played some pickup basketball before lunch.
After another great meal at the Boissier household, we piled in the car and drove part way up the mountain close to the spot Benjamin and I had climbed to last week. The road was steep with many switchbacks, reminiscent of New Zealand. On the way, we could see para gliders riding the thermals alongside the mountain and landing on the landing target below.
At the top, the air was exceptionally clear and the mountains in the distance seemed very close. We stopped at at sort of plateau level where there is a small town as well as one of the launching spots for the para gliders. As we approached, one of the para gliders took off in front of us and effortlessly caught the thermals, drifting out from the mountain. Xavier, who has done an introductory para gliding course (which he said was enough for him) explained the details of what we were seeing as we watched them patiently line up their chutes and cords before launching when the right wind came
along.
We spent a good hour at the top of them mountain, sitting in the meadow at where the glider launched from and enjoying the sunny heather after a week of rain. It was a great relaxing final day together.
Back at the house, we picked up the last of our laundry which had been drying all afternoon. After Joshua had a final swim (along with Benjamin and Sebastian) he and I said our goodbyes, as we were heading off to the 7 pm soccer game. Evy and Benjamin stayed on to join us later at the apartment.
Sebastian, who has his probationary driver's license, drove us to the stadium with his dad in the passenger seat. At the stadium Xavier pointed out where we needed to go to pick up our internet tickets.
The stadium is very new and futuristic looking. One of the first things to catch our eyes was the line of police in black riot gear with plexiglass shields and batons, forming solid lines in various location. Their battle gear looked like something out of Star wars. This was not going to be anything like a Sunday baseball game.
Despite my
poor French, we manage to find our section and our seats and watched the players warm up. Looking around the stadium, you could see that the hard core fans, dressed in their team colours, were in the goal areas of the stadium, though separated by a chain link fence that all the way up to the roof.
Our seats turned out to be close to field level, but facing into the sun, something I had not even considered when I booked them on line. The game was good, though no one ever scored (even ending at Zero-Zero after an overtime), but equally interesting was watching the hardcore fans with their chants and antics under the watchful eye of the ever present riot police. Towards the end of the game, the riot police lined up on the field, facing the opposing team fans, as a sort of preemptive measure should anyone even think of trying to get onto the field.
We ended up getting home just before Tsetse dropped Benjamin and Evy off. Tsetse has kindly offered to drive us to the train station tomorrow morning, which will be great. After a few calls, we managed to get our
landlord over to give us final instruction for leaving the place tomorrow morning.
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