True story(s)

Once, I had a really horrible teacher. Of all subjects, he taught Indian philosophy and because of that I thought he was going to be this cool, levitating guru who wore a loincloth sitting on a spike chair and would show me the path to Nirvana. Oh, how disappointed I was. He was (and still is) this snob of an academic with a bent down nose and crooked, tight lips that gave the inward effect of a black hole suction in the middle of his face. What I first thought to be a smile was a lift of the cheeks that turned the eyes into two slits and a slight nodding of the head, which was obviously not the regular nod of compassion that you get from people, as it reeked of disdain and superiority.

He would hold us captive for 3 hours in a small, airless classroom where no one dared to open the windows. During the supposed break in the middle I would run downstairs to have the quickest pees in my lifetime, get two machine coffees and run back up again, only to be the last (as I was the only one who dared to venture this far) that walked into the wall of non-oxygen space we had created during the firs 90 minutes.

He would talk non-stop for the whole time and after my inbuilt 45 minutes of concentration was up I would go on my regular out of body journeys until he'd stop jabbering. No one dared to ask any questions as he would take that student and thoroughly belittle her/him in the ultimate condescending tone with accompanying body movements: he would pull maniacally at his ears to indicate that we should listen better as he had already said it before, so the student's question was made instant-redundant, or he would fiercely point between the blackboard and the questioning student as the answer was of course already written up there, you imbecile! He was (and still is) the most disagreeable person I have met.

I hadn't been this sad with a teacher since my maths teacher 14 years ago. I left both those classes unfinished, with no regrets.

Once, I lived in Toulon for a semester. As a francophile, I was excited to try the Mediterranean side of France. Although the school was not promising, I did not care so much about that since it was my Erasmus semester and all I wanted was to live by the Mediterranean sea for a few months. Toulon is a nationalist city located between Marseille and Nice, between the mountain and the sea - it is neither like Marseille nor Nice, it is not a bird nor a fish. It is nothing.

It has a navy school and a library, a zoo on top of a mountain and a few cinemas. And a ton of hairdressers. The school was in the middle of an industrial zone far outside of the city centre and there was one bus that went there, once an hour. Getting there was an extreme nuisance, but finally when you got there, things would be worse as their Erasmus program was fucked, mildly put. Needless to say, I spent all my time elsewhere, except for my weekly walk across town to the library where I would pick up cartoons and French films. I would hang out with Buddhists in Fuveau, a tiny village inland, or with sober addicts in Aubagne. We would drive down to Cassis with their famous calanques cliffs, some 5 meters high and we'd jump in half naked/naked.

I left that city gladly and with no regrets.

Last week, I though destiny had called me on a mission to Nice. So I went. Had a lovely time with an open heart, mind and eyes – on the lookout for what was supposed to cross my path and change my life forever. After a whole week of 'same shit, different day' I realized that me being in Nice was not supposed to be life changing for me particularly (maybe I should have given that weirdo a time of day when he approached me walking the Promenades des Anglais one night?), but I still held on to that thought as I boarded the train coming back to Paris. Maybe someone smart, cool and funny would sit next to me? Well spoken, well dressed with BO's under control? Maybe even a boy! (with that, I mean a man).

As the train choo-choo'ed along the coast I silently watched people getting on, families from vacation, teenagers on their fist solo-trip, wondering who would finally occupy the seat next to me. The train stopped at Antibes, Cannes and St. Raphaël, but no one claimed the seat and I was starting to think that I would have all this space to myself the whole train ride. Then the train stopped at Toulon and I felt a twitch of nostalgia as I hadn't laid my eyes upon that city since I left it three years ago. I looked out on the platform and to my horror I saw a very familiar black hole suction face. Isn't that my old Indian philosophy teacher? 

Oh. My. Ganesh.

“Please don't sit next to me, please don't sit next to me, please don't sit next to me” went my silent mantra and I thought my prayers had been answered when he walked straight past me. I was breathing out in tremendous relief when I found him standing over me nodding disdainfully at my handbag in what seemed to be his seat, lifting up his cheeks so his eyes turned into slits of superiority when I apologetically moved my handbag for his royal academic ass.

"God, you're such a joker", I thought, as I left my body, with no regrets.  

Pétanque (French pronunciation: [petɑ̃k]; Occitan: Petanca [peˈtaŋkɔ])

From Wikipedia:

The current form of the game originated in 1907 in La Ciotat, in Provence, in southern France. The English and French name pétanque comes from petanca in the Provençal dialect of the Occitan language, deriving from the expression pès tancats [ˈpɛs taŋˈkats], meaning "feet together"[1] or more exactly "feet anchored".

Pétanque in its present form was invented in 1907 in the town of La Ciotat near Marseilles by a French boule lyonnaise player named Jules Lenoir, whom rheumatism prevented from running before he threw the ball.[4] The length of the pitch or field was reduced by roughly half, and the moving delivery was replaced with a stationary one.

Observation of the above mentined game in front of the Matisse museum today

Tools

Metal balls

Piece of cloth to rub the balls

Small wooden ball

Red circle (not imperative)

String with a magnet on the end (if you're sick of bending down and picking up your balls) – can also be used to measure the length between two balls in case there is disagreement of which ball is closest

Three legged camping chair

Great swear word vocabulary

Gauloise cigarettes

Game

Each contester has 2 metal balls and the object of the game is to get their ball as close to the tiny wooden ball that is thrown first out into the field, of approximate 4x4 meters, that seems to be mobile depending on the sun, shade, slopes and the general mood of the contestants. A red circle is laid down to mark the point of throw of every contestant. Contestants either throw to get close to the wooden ball or they throw to push other balls out of the way much to the opposing contestant displeasure manifested with theatrical and sarcastic remarks. Teams or individual play is optional. All good throws in the first round procures banging of balls together. For obvious reasons this does not happen in the second round. Contestants can either observe, standing or sitting on their camping stool while others are throwing, or practice throwing on the side if they feel the game is moving to slow. At regular intervals there is an assemble hoovering over after the final layout of the balls to discuss and decide who's the real winner.

Tactics

No subject seems to have the same tactic of throwing. Here are a few methods observed:

• bending of knees all the way and swing arm high with a hand-twist on the metal ball so it spins
• stand straight, lean forward, arm swings half way up, great force in the hand-throw (followed by some body movements in hope that the metal ball is telepathically connected to the body and will copy the movements)
• position straight up and then a slight lean to the right with the weight on the right foot, arm swung three quarters up and left foot leaves ground slightly when the ball leaves hand.

It's remarkable how every individual is clearly marked with their own trait and character and the only thing they have in common is the love of the game, buoyancy in the knees and the fact that they all push out their chest when a girl in an orange skirt walks by.

Nice is nice

Going to Nice this time, which is not as exotic as where I left off last time I recounted my travelling on this site (last blog was more of a spiritual voyage). Ok, it is by the Mediterranean sea like Israel, but that's about where the resemblance ends.

This is what I know about Nice:

• three hundred and some thousand inhabitants (not counting the urban) which is also the population of Iceland
• was not a part of France until sometime in the 18^th century
• became (and is) a popular destination for rich and frigid English folk (and other weirdos)
• is the capital of the French Riviera and has a lot of wealthy, and no longer wealthy, yacht owners
• is close to Monaco, where Grace lived (and sadly died)
• Cannes film festival is held yearly in the nearby city Cannes (hence the name)
• is named after Nike, the goddess of victory (something about the Romans founding and naming the city after a victory of some kind nearby)
• has its own salad that contains tuna and olives, amongst other yummy things.

During my horrible semester in Toulon in the beginning of 2009, I found myself going everywhere but to Nice. I realized that I am much more of a Marseilles-girl if anything. But I think I have passed through there once or twice on my travels to/from Corsica, but in my pre-judgemental state I floored it as soon as we drove off the boat and couldn't drive fast enough the little distance between the port where the Corsican ferry docked and through to the city limits.

Don't ask me why I did that. I judge things. It its my first reaction. I've learned to treat it like an appendix: totally useless, but when active it is extremely painful.

So now I've left my judgement in Paris (where it will be well nurtured until I pick it up again). I dropped it the minute I got on the train. God really wants me to go to Nice, in spite of my reluctant attitude and total confusion of what I'm supposed to be doing there. In spite of me oversleeping and unnecessary lingering in my kitchen, I still made the train (although not one more minute to spare).

The only thing is to surrender to the fact that this mission will make sense a posteriori rather than a priori.

Kind of like life itself, n'est-café!