Frisbee and the Tour de France! (both ultimate)

Yesterday, the high school kids had to meet with Mike and Janine, the two Tufts grads who are working on a documentary about cultural exchange and community service. They wanted to go into Annecy and tape the kids on the big public green (the Paquier). Two other interns and I got to go "chaperone" aka ride the bus into town, eat bread, cheese and chocolate with them as they talked in a circle, and PLAY ULTIMATE!

Almost all the kids stayed after Mike and Janine's little session and played, after we changed behind some trees (the public bathrooms are so nasty), kicked the French peeps off our turf and set up a field using random backpacks and shoes. They were soooo into it! What started as a friendly game of frisbee turned into an epic battle of white shirts vs. darks (darks definitely came out victorious) complete with substitutions, team cheers, and trash talk. It was a beautiful sunny day, we were about 50 yards from the greatest lake in the world, set against a background of pristine alps rising off into the distance. And we were playing Ultimate. What a great day.

Today, we took a pretty long, hot bus ride to a cute little town in the South of France to see stage 18 of the Tour de France! We staked out a good spot, and explored the village. About 2 hours before the bikers came through, there was a caravan of crazy vehicles giving out free stuff and getting the crowd pumped up. They were a cross between huge busses and parade floats, going about 40 mph down the road! There were gigantic lions, huge cycling statue things, an enormous six pack of beer, entire dance parties, and all sorts of crazy large things on wheels going fast. They threw stuff out their windows and we viciously fought eachother to get as much free stuff as possible (especially the coveted polka-dot biker caps). Shwag ranged from coffee beans to coca cola flavored candies to playing cards to keychains to pretzels to samples of laundry detergent. I was hoping the Chipotle vehicle would give out burritos (god I miss those) but we weren't that lucky.

Oh yea, there were a few bikers, too. Very few actually - probably only about 30 - especially when compared to the about 200 various vehicles (support cars, parade floats, and policemen) that surrounded them. But it was still a great day. Then we came home and, as the days here almost always end, jumped in the lake.