: : I found a little bit of football fever.... : :
Friday, August 13, 2004
"Aussie, Aussie, Aussie,..No Oi's then?"
June 14 - Friday we caught a train to Bern after work. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but not only can you smoke on the trains, you can byo alcohol and they really don’t care if you smoke a spliff either. Well I didn’t do that, but I was half cut drunk by the time the train arrived. A long trip too, all of about 1 hour…I had a feeling it would be a messy evening…
A few weeks ago we met up with trainees from all over Switzerland and the same crew was in Bern too, so it was good to see friends again…We were all gathered for the MC takeover/reception weekend in Bern…
Ended up Friday late at a Latino bar with cheap beers and crap music – translation: the music doesn’t matter if the beer is cheap. So quite drunk I took to the dance floor – now you must realise that I don’t really dance all that well. In a Latino bar, I am infact the whitest guy in the room with the least moving hips – however, next to all of the other AIESECers I actually came off not looking too bad…
The evening played out with a mixture of dancing, holding back hair for those that didn’t make it to the end of the evening and finally walking quite a ways with Italian directions to get home (we are in Switz "smiley")….We found the MC office eventually and crashed out….
Breakfast with everyone started way to early around 11 am. The small group I slept with at the office were the last to arrive – not a good way to win friends, they were all starving…. So we woofed down breakfast, took a tour of the city and ended up having a few beers in front of the parliament…Now I have mentioned that they smoke a lot of weed here, but the biggest shock I have had so far was watching the 13-14 girls sitting on a bench in front of the parliament building skinning up. I could not believe it!
Saturday we went to a park called Gurten, which overlooks the city. A nice big park, reminded me a little of King’s Park. Had a barbeque dinner and tasted horse – well they told me it was horse – I don’t recommend it…. I felt a bit ill after that…. Killed the remaining daylight hours throwing a Frisbee, drinking beers and finally watching the outgoing MC team give speeches, presents and make their goodbyes…Most embarrassing time I have had since arriving - the AIESEC crew brought a laptop, projector and screen to the park (I don’t even want to talk about how long the extension leads were to reach the bbq). They were playing Video CDs of Karaoke. ALL but three of us were singing and stomping and dancing in the park. I just stood there saying over and over, “I am too cool for this.” No one seemed to believe me though….
Arriving back into town about 11 or 12 we made our way to a club. Music turned to 80’s cheese by the end of the night and I had lost my passion for dancing…Arrived home about 5am after another Italian directed walk to took us in the complete wrong direction (You think we would have learnt the night before)…He did feel guilty though and came back to collect us in his car.
When we were really far from home…
Highlight of this evening was definitely the smiles on the faces of the 2 Greek girls that were with us when Greece won the football match. The Portuguese girl was not too thrilled…
Next day a late breakkie, early lunch and then we went to another park for some unnecessary exercise in a game of soccer. Playing alongside the river at one point the ball was kicked in…Years of hapless television kicked in…I started to have Baywatch flashbacks and before I knew it, I was undressed down to my jockies and diving in after the ball!!!
Now, I cannot even begin to describe how cold the water was, but the current didn’t give you time to think as you were pulled along and down the river…. Some many metres down from where I had jumped in, I finally crawled out, found my clothes and returned to the park a short lived hero – in the time I was gone, people realised they were bored with the game and were not playing soccer anymore – I could have left the bloody thing to head downstream anyways!
Ah well, it was a little adventure for the day. We sat in the park for a while longer, finished the slab we bought with us, waited for my underpants to dry then made our slow way back home.
After living in France for a time, I do feel a connection with the place. And seeing as there is no Aussie team in Euro 2004 Football, my support must remain with the motherland that adopted me – France…Last night after getting back into town we watched the English/France football match…We were in the main street of town with other French supporters. The English pub was down the street and the English were screaming and chanting and making a general ruckus. I have to say, the last 3 minutes of the game we went wild, leaping out of our chairs, absolutely amazed and ecstatic to see such a turn around…Funnily enough, those same 3 minutes silenced the English bar – it was absolute bliss!
That’s it for now, say hi to your mum for me!
