Cartel Prep

I've been practicing with the handball team in preparation for the Cartel, a tournament at the end of April between all of the Mines Ecoles in France (+ a few in Spain and Germany) where the schools compete in all of the sports for which they have common teams (read: not ultimate). You get points based on wins and losses and whether the event was a team or individual competition. This year it's in Ales, which is near the Med, and we have the two days after the competition off, so I hope to do a bit of travelling around afterwards.

I'm really enjoying handball, even though I'm pretty bad. Luckily (?), most of the team is new to the sport so we are all learning together. {All of the team sports compete at the same time, so most of the girls who were on the team for the regular season will play with other teams at the Cartel (soccer, rugby, volleyball)... there are only so many athletic girls at our small engineering school, they all play several sports -- when ME3 arrived on campus, we were all recruited heavily by the soccer and handball teams, even those of us who have never played sports before} You need the sort of body moves/fakes that are useful in basketball, which I don't currently possess. I finally felt like I was getting the hang of things the week before last and I sprained my left ankle taking a shot during a drill, but it's feeling much better now. At practice last night my shots went were I wanted them to about 60% of the time (I dropped 10% and the rest were off target), which is like a huge improvement... I've been trying to get my shots to go "bas" for so long. My ankle is kind of messing up my approach because it's in a brace and (like in ultimate) you push off with the foot opposite of the arm you are using, hopefully when i more to a smaller brace, it will be less of a hinderance. Here I am getting the handball equivalent of "skyed" during our first scrimmage:

More photos of the game can be found here.

The girls on the swim team for the Cartel are injured so I may be swimming in the 10x50m relay race with Emily (another ME3er who I convinced to play handball). We've been to the pool a few times and while I am slow, I'm not as slow as I expected after 6 years of not swimming competitively.  My cap and goggles are really pretty colors though, so it's all good.

So you can probably look forward to a post about the Cartel and our subsequent travels in the south of France.

Championnat de France universitaire d'Ultimate Recap

Champs!

Okay. I know it was like a month ago, but apparently I'm being held to my blog-promises. Disclaimer: I did not take any of the photos or videos. I don't know where most of them came from (a teammate got a bunch from friends on other teams and from fb).

It was unlike any other tournament I've ever been to. We got to skip school to play Ultimate! The tournament was on Thursday and Friday and was located at my school (and the one across the street - Polytech) with a field in each of our gyms and one outside. Initially it was designed to be two separate competitions: mixed and open, but several of the mixed teams were unable to meet the 3 girl requirement and had to switch to the open division last minute, leaving other mixed side with only three teams. In order for the mixed teams that traveled from afar to not feel like they came all that way to play just two other teams, the mixed competition was folded into the open tournament. I'm not entirely sure how the pools worked, but I think there were three pools of 4 (each with a mixed squad) and one of three (without a mixed team). On Thursday we played 3 open teams in pool play and a cross over game, finishing 2nd in our pool and 2-2 for the day. Games were 30 minutes long with up to an hour and a half between games... I may have spent more time & energy re-warming up than actually playing. A game by game recap can be found after these (hopefully) more interesting observations from the tourney:

• The open finals, between  Université  Lyon and Université Franche-Comté Besançon, was exciting to watch. It was outdoors and the outside field had disproportionately large endzones, which lead to some dramtic plays. I was cheering for  Comté, because really tasty cheese comes from there and because Lyon skunked us (more on that later) in pool play. Comté had a nice long game (it was sorta sneaky) and their team was predominantly made up of people who were studying Sport (like many of the other teams), but their athleticism wasn't enough to overcome. It was nice to see someone scoring on Lyon; I think they trounced everyone pretty well in pool play (that said our pool wasn't very strong: a mixed team, the last place team and a team that didn't finish the competition {they had exams on Friday})

• Each of the teams in the Open Final had a girl (even Lyon, who also had a mixed team). They were soooo good. I'm glad they didn't play mixed because they would have spent the whole game embarrassing me!  (the first row of photos is of the same play)

 

• After we won the mixed championship, I received a few marriage proposals from my teammates so that I could stay in France and play with them again next year. It's been awhile since I've been proposed to so that was nice, I guess. Although, getting French citizenship probably wouldn't keep me in Nantes.
• So much swag! I netted two t shirts (one for the tournament and one that says I'm a champion), a handy Nantes drawstring bag, a nice pink scarf (so French) with loire atlantique printed really small in one of the corners, some stickers and, of course, a medal! 

• Indoor Ultimate is so strange. I found out during the practice before the tourney that the stall count is only to 8. Thanks teammates for letting me count to ten while marking you for the past two months! There is also some rule about not throwing the disc short and having it bounce for the pull... I don't know what I did wrong, but it made the other team really angry (I didn't even do it on purpose, my shoulder was just tired).
• The Uni Nantes team is really good and fast and if they were taller, they might could've made it to the finals. My whole team (minus our 1-2 first years) is about to leave for their 3 month internships, so I may have to branch out to the wider Nantes Ultimate community.
• It's still really weird for me to be a handler, who isn't like the third handler on the field who doesn't get the disc much, but like the one who is expected to throw some of the scores. From watching clips of some of our games, I saw that I was actually breaking around my mark and not just relying on my IOs, which is neat to know.

Pool Play:

• University Lyon - the Pentagônes - They went on to win the Open Championship. On the way to that achievement, they beat us 13-0. They were great players and they knew it. I mean when you are 5 guys who score to go up 10-0 against a mixed squad playing 3/2, does that really call for a spike? They even looked like ultimate players (my team is strong, but deceptively scrawnier than average). Getting skunked always hurts, but for it to happen during the first game of a tourney that you have such high hopes for was rough. Really, I'm glad we played them first -  we were able to iron out some kinks (and by that I mean that I may have gotten a little angry at my teammates for setting the wrong force or not cutting until 5, I shouldn't have gotten upset, but got it out of my system and we were so much better about both of those things for the rest of the day).

(I'm not sure about the order of these next two games)

•  Ecole Centrale Nantes - our neighbors and arch rivals - We scrimmaged ECN twice to get ready for the tournament and it was usually very close (we'd be winning throughout the whole evening, but then when we'd play a game to 3 at the end, we'd loose!). We know their players' strengths and weaknesses and had practiced how to stop some of their set plays in training. I taught our team how to prevent the dump from making a strike cut. It was a tight, fun game. I don't remember exactly how the scoring flowed, but I think we were generally a little behind, but came back to win 9-8! It was also a bit of a confidence booster to beat an open team (we found out we could play them 4/1, but frequently had a 3/2 line out). 
• Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon - everyone on the team was from the physics department! - We played this game outside, which was nice since the whole weekend was beautiful. We  beat this team, I want to say like 9-4, but I'm not entirely sure.

The Crossover game was against our own school's Open team. The winner would make it into the top 8 and be contending for the open title, the loser would fight it out for 9th place. The teams were chosen primarily based on who had been on campus and who was away on internship (3rd years are required to do a 6 month internship), with some consideration for team chemistry. Basically the guys I'd been practicing with since February were on the mixed team along with two more girls and a guy with the nickname "D-machine", so our side had a bit more finesse. However, it was always known that the mixed side had a greater chance of winning a title (since we were guaranteed to podium), so the open team definitely had something to prove. We lost on a hammer that was thrown to the guy I was marking, but there was absolutely no way for me to defend that against a 6 footish guy. Losing this game put a  little ding in our pride, but allowed us to focus on our mixed performance.  

After the Mines vs Mines Battle... still friends (mostly)

All the teams ate together in the Polytech cafeteria, then our teams skipped the bar in lieu of hanging out in a common room for a bit. The bar, like everything in Nantes proper, was sooooo far away!

Friday we were supposed to have a round robin of the mixed teams scattered around our open tournament games, which sounds complicated, but since we had the "best" performance (I don't know how that was determined) of the bottom half of the bracket on day one, we got a first round bye. Then we lost to an Open team from Montpelier. Because the other mixed teams won their first few open games it came to a point the the open bracket where we were supposed to play each other, after having played our round robin, but before playing the final... Three games in a row against the same team is a bit excessive, so they just said that our mixed games could count for that part of the open rankings. So, we played that one open game, lost it, and came in 10th for the open tourney.

All of the mixed games were outside and the weather was so unbelievably perfect! The Games:

• University Lyon - I was a little intimidated going into this game considering how dominant their open side was. They were pretty good and would pull ahead by a few points and we'd catch back up. After the cap was on, the count was high and I threw a flick with to one of our guys in the endzone. His man was too close and I probably should't have done it, but he came down with it, then there was lots of cheering and someone was giving me a hug. We had won the match! I had no idea that it was tied and double game point. There's no way I would have thrown that, if I had known! After each game, we have a spirit circle, where we stand in a circle alternating teams with our arms around each other while each captain talks about how great the sportsmanship was during the game. This is very characteristic of European ultimate. After the circle in most of the games at this tourney, the other team votes on a player of the match and gives them a little gift (our team gave bottles of cidre, apple cider that is well known from our region). I'm unclear whether it is an MVP or a spirit decision, but whatever the case I won for this game. I got a picture that was basically a set of trading cards of each member of their team. It was a very clever gift. 
• University Poitiers - This team was almost entirely composed of non-french people. They were all really athletic and nice. They were communicating with each other in 3 different languages, wore jerseys borrowed from their basketball team and usually practice barefoot in a park. They were fast and taller than us, so it was a fun and exciting game. 

Mixed Finals (against U Lyon):  We started out down 0-2, so I was really paranoid that we were loosing the whole time, even when it was game point and we were up 6-4. My favorite part of the game was when I bid for a D, which I immediately threw for a score, then looked down and saw that I had an inch-long cut down the side of my thumb and then had to go deal with getting a bandage in French. Our boys played crazy defense the whole game -- anything in the air was theirs!!!  I had a few throws that were a little out of reach of my teammates, but we've since had a layout practice, so we're good to go for the future.

Mines de Nantes! Allez, allez, allez!

Well, I never thought the day would come that I was part of a national championship anything, but that day was yesterday and the nation was France! EMN went undefeated in the mixed division to win the Championnat de France universitaire d'Ultimate. Granted, there were only three mixed teams. I'll do a more in depth post once I get some photos from teammates and our open team players (I was to busy playing to document any of the games). For now, I'll leave you with this photo of a teammate holding our trophy (almost the whole team painted our nails the horrible shade of yellow that is our school's athletic color):

Nantes

I've been here for almost a month and, despite a bleak first impression, it seems like it's going to be pretty okay.

I've spruced up my studio.

Before:

 

After:

 

The school is far from the city and kinda reminds me of ncssm. It has about 800 students, many of which live in the dormitories that are 300 m from the classroom/lab building (okay technically there are two buildings, but they are connected). We eat lunch in the cafeteria and play sports in the afternoon.

My dormitory.

The Gym. (and snow)

The Academic Building - we live in an office park.

I've been playing ultimate with the ecole's team. It's a young (this is their second season), all male (except for Ezgi {a fellow ME3} and me), indoor ultimate team.  We have the national university championships in the middle of March so we've been practicing hard (for France... less than jäga's offseason practices). Here we are after a very productive scrimmage against the Ecole Centrale Nantes:

Not only did we work on zone and clam defenses, which are sort of new to me with only five people per side on the field, but I learned that my mid range throws are actually full field hucks. This is an exciting and dangerous revelation.

It is so nice to be back to engineering classes. I got to use some modeling software and make some graphs in excel! We even went to the laboratory and I got to play with a pressure gauge on a nanofiltration thingie. This is so much better than management classes. We may be in class from 8-16h30 everyday, but at least I buy into what we are learning.

My french is still pretty foux du fa fa,  but it is sort of progressing. Sometimes the grammar is like German's...okay, not really but it helps to pretend.

I probably overpaid for bought a bike. It's no townie or the touring bike that I thought I would purchase, but it's pretty nice and came with panniers, lights and lots of household goods that the owner was going to throw out (including 3 cacti and several glasses). I've taken some nice riverside rides and it cuts trips to the grocery store and city by more than half. Plus, it means that I'm independent of the city's ridiculous transportation system. Granted the school is in the boonies, but it can take two buses and a tram to reach centerville. Then there is this chunk of time in the evenings where the buses don't run because the day schedule has stopped, but the night buses haven't kicked in yet. And they change the routing when there is a soccer match, which is particularly inconvenient, if you are attending the match.

Like the school, the city was pretty bleh when I first arrived. You know, typical Europe: cold, castle, cathedral...

Slowly Nantes' charm is expressing itself: he old town is pretty, the elephant quirky, the isle modern and the crepes delicious. My classmates have found some cool cafes - there is even a local microbrewery that makes a dank (in a good way) ambre! So nice to have choices when it comes to beer. 

These guys are all over the city -- so urban!

Spain store - they don't have what I miss about Madrid.

   

Very leany building

Nantes is home to a cookie factory.

The shipbuilding industry is long gone, but still present.

Pirates and Neptune on a merchant's house.

France

I've been in Nantes for about a week and a half and I'm still settling in/figuring out what sort of life I will lead for the six months that I'll be living here. I'm about ten coat hanger (and the keys to my bike lock) short of transforming my studio from a white box to something not too depressing (post to come). I the meantime enjoy the following video, which I made after three days of French class.

FC Nantes match tomorrow evening! Go Les Canaris!

Morocco Trip

Aren't we an enthusiastic looking crew?

During the short break between my semesters in Madrid and Nantes, I went to Morocco with two classmates and a girl who is doing a different Erasmus Mundus master’s program. I didn’t really know what to expect and was pleasantly surprised.  I had heard about cool beach towns and the desert, but we drove a loop from Marrakesh to Merzouga and back and I was astounded by the geography – snowy mountains, vast plateaus, black canyons and plush oases. Yup that’s right, the first snow I experienced this winter was in Africa - not in Europe or when I was home for Christmas!

I wrote much more than I had planned (it was a weeklong trip {or perhaps to atone for not updating more regularly}), so before I recount the trip I’ll cover some general highlights:

I bought shoes! Aren’t they cute? I learned some valuable economics lessons while doing so. When I bargained for the first two pairs, I didn’t know the actual market value just the price the guy quoted me and how much a friend had paid for a pair on a previous trip. Well, I paid only 6 Euros more for the two pair than she paid for one, so I thought I had gotten a deal. Turns out they should have only been between 5 and 9 Euros each, so I totally got bamboozled, but overpaid by less than others and spent much less than how I actually valued the shoes. I haggled hard over all of my subsequent purchases – my Intercultural Negotiations professor would have been proud.

Nourishment-wise there sure were some tasty treats:

Lamb with cumin and salt.

We didn't eat here. I just thought you'd enjoy knowing how KFC is spelled in Arabic.

After spending two nights in Marrakesh, we rented a Dacia Logan for 4 days and set off to explore the countryside. The drive to the desert took much longer than expected, so we didn’t make it back east in time to check out Essaouira and the coast, so I guess I’ll just have to go back.

On the way to the desert, during a pit stop in Ouarzazate, the Hollywood of northern Africa, we checked out a Kasbah, which has been used in several films, and its adjacent mellah (the Jewish quarter):

We slept that night in a little town called Tinerher. The owner told us the 4 person room was 250 dirhams and we went to park the car and eat dinner. When we returned he told us he was mistaken about the room price, which irked us all, until he said that it was actually 200 dh a night. The next morning we breakfasted quickly and set off for the desert.

We arrived in Merzouga and were swarmed by guys trying to get us to go to their hotel for the trek. We told them that we had a reservation and turned down a dirt/sand road, but were followed by a guy on a moped. Andrea rolled down the window to tell him to leave us alone, but the man started speaking in Italian. If you ever need Andrea to do something for you, just ask him in Italian and he will comply. Since he drove 95% of the trip, he got to decide things like that, so we followed the motor bike to La Tradition, were the trips offered were nothing like what the moto-man proposed, but we settled on a two hour dromedary trek through the dunes of Erg Chebbi (part of the Sahara) to a campsite, where we would watch the sunset and dune ski/board.

Translating the deal.

Camels are not the most comfortable animals, so two hours plus an hour back in the morning was plenty. They are ornery, defecate constantly and sound like Chewbacca, but they do have nice eyelashes.

The sunset was amazing. The sky really Roy G. Biv-ed it up! The stars were also pretty cool, but I’ve seen better… it was hard to stay away from the fire long enough to get a great view, because it was so cold. In the morning, we trekked back to the hotel, showered and headed back west on the low road. We wanted to stay in Ouarzazate, because it was a nice, clean city (it has really expensive looking lamp posts lining the main road)

We got back to Ouarza early the evening, so the guys and I decided to go to a hammam, the public bathhouses, where you get scrubbed down and massaged by a total stranger in front of lots of other women. My French is nonexistent, but that didn’t really matter since they only spoke Arabic. I paid my entrance fee and went into the changing room, stripped down to my boyshorts, ordered a scrub and subsequently had to buy my own scrubbing cloth and argan oil goop, then I was handed off to my attendant, who led me into the steamy room, plopped me down on a plastic mat and doused me with hot water a few times and walked away. I just sat there until the woman next to me gestured that I should continue to fling water on myself my attendant came back after a bit and began spreading the goop all over my body. After I was covered, she grabbed an arm and started polishing me with the scrubbing cloth, which has the texture of medium grit sandpaper.  Most of you know that I’m squeamish about walking on a pool deck barefoot, so I was understandably proud that I survived laying face down on the ground of a public shower. It was a little painful, abrupt and out of my comfort zone, but I felt super shiny and smooth afterwards. As I was leaving the women’s changing room, the attendant chased after me and wrapped my scarf (which was around my neck) around my head. I walked back to the hotel and got more attention than usual, I think because I was alone.

TANGENT: In Marrakesh plenty of women don’t cover their heads, but as we moved eastward it became less and less common. I always wore a scarf around my neck in case I needed to cover myself quickly, but now that I think about it, I wonder if that was seen a sort of flaunting my nonconformance to the rules. Like I had a scarf, I just wasn’t using it “properly.” We did go into a market in a small town where there were few women and some of them were in black burqas with neon detailing, so I kept my jacket hood up and tight. I don’t think I was fooling anyone, but it made me feel a little less conspicuous.

After the hammam and a freezing night in Ouarza, we headed back to Marrakesh for some more exploring and shopping. The next day we had a final orange juice in Djemaa el Fna and negotiated a taxi to the airport to head back to Madrid.

Overall it was an excellent trip! I'm in France now -  getting settled in to the new school and dorm. There's snow on the ground and it was minus 3 C today!