Soccer on the Beach

One of the big downsides of this language program is that students are constantly coming and going--some stay for a year, some for just a few months, and many just for a few weeks. So you make friends with all these people, and every week one or two of them take off back to their home country. It's really sad to say goodbye because you may never see this person again, after having had such a good time with him/her for the past several weeks. Such was the case with Benno, the first student whom we met when we got here, who had to return to Germany on Saturday. His last full day was Friday, and we made sure that it was a fun one.

After classes, we all headed off to the beach, which is only a half hour trip by tram and then bus. The water is way too cold to swim in during this time of year, but unlike the bay area water it actually heats up to a pleasant degree later in the summer. We were just getting ready to play some 4 on 4 soccer, when these random french guys (in really, really, ridiculously tight shorts) showed up and wanted to play as well. It turned out to be a pretty good game aside from the death shells which were scattered around the beach and caused a few minor injuries here and there. All in all in was pretty good exercise, because aside from walking absolutely everywhere we haven't been doing any real exercising. After the game we all sat on the beach drinking a few beers.

That night we all had dinner at a french (of course) restaurant in town. I had my "maigret du canard" which I've been dying to eat since we got here. Although to my complete dismay, they didn't have any creme brulee, and neither has any other restaurant that we've been to in France. I wonder if it's actually more common in the US than in France--I really hope not! After several hours at various clubs, we finally said goodbye at 4am, and then proceeded to sleep our entire Saturday away. It was definitely very sad saying goodbye to Benno, and I really hope that at some point in the future we'll have an opportunity to see him again. I am really glad that John and I are staying here for two months, but it is going to be hard saying goodbye to people all the time. Anyway, so long Benno, you will definitely be missed around here.