Jamie Rhodes - Professional Triathlete

Bourges Again

9:08 PM, 18/8/2008 .. 1 comments .. Link

I began writing this blog the other night after the Women's triathlon earlier that morning but wasn't really in the mood so i threw in the towel like Keaysy on a hot day..... or a cold day for that matter. Even a perfectly normal day.... B ut he is training partner to the stars so i'll let him off lightly this time. So keaysy, what is it like to swim in the same lane as Erin Densham??

Anyway, enough about the man who single handedly trained up Erin to race in Beijing, i must let you all know about where i am and what i've been up to. I think that eating too many creme brulee's clogged up up my thought processes so for the past week and a half all i've done is sit on the couch and stare at the TV in the hope that the babble that is the French language will somehow magically enter my head and allow my to speak fluent french.

I can tell you now after my experiment that this was not the case... Back to the books i guess..

Anyway, enough of my own babble.

I've been in Bourges now for just over a week and have settled back into my corner of the room. I am once again enjoying the luxury of a double bed although it seem that i have an allergy to French pillows as they do not allow my to sleep at night. Unhappy with my messy living quarters Jono and I made the trek down to the local supermarket/department store to purchase a few things. One of them being a new pillow, the other a clothes organiser. Unfortunately, the clothes organiser does not do the organising for you but it does hae three seperate compartments for all of my stylish apparel. As i look at it now i can see that the far left side is dedicated to running and racing gear (running specific socks included), the far right compartment is dedicated to cycling only gear (cycling specific socks included) and the middle compartment is for casual clothing (no socks included). In the rare case of requiring a pair of socks to wear with casual clothes then i am at liberty to choose a pair from either the cycling or running compartments.

Shoes must be aigned on the floor in pairs and any spare luggage or unwanted apparel such as cool weather gear must be stored under the bed.

Mum, before you become too excited i must warn you that this trend is not likely to continue for much longer and the chances of me bringing tis attitude home to Aus with me is remote to say the least. Nonetheless, you may find yourself lucky for a few days. Time will tell.

I am yet to get to the start of my blog from the other day, so i'll cut myself off here and begin fresh from a few days ago. Just pretend like its Monday afternoon and everything that you've just read is yet to happen..........

Jono, Nicko and myself made sure we were up in time this morning to watch the women's triathlon. It was at 4am our time which was a bit of a chore but as i had woken at the same hour to watch Grant Hackett in the 1500m it wasn't too bad. I received an email from Kepa today telling me that he was also up at 4am to watch the race. The remained of the afternoon was spent rolling around on the floor in laughter thinking of Kepa's state of being at 4am given that he thinks 9am is too early to get up to walk the 250m to work in the morning.

It was great to see the two aussie girls get onto the podium and also see Erin finish 22nd. It was definitely worth waking early for to see the two Emma's as they are now known race so well but after the finish it was quickly back to bed to make the most of the remaining hours of darkness. Surprisingly it remained dark until 10:30am.....

Since this time, not alot has been achieved, other than sitting on the bed with the latop in hand, writing emails and blogs. I'm obviously back in bourges with the boys and the weather is fine.

On Saturday we made the five minute journey down into the centre of town to have a looksee at the Cathedral for which Bourges is famous. It was a fantastic experience and i have some great photos from the visit. We went with Shazza's eldest daughter as she was once a tour guide for the Cathedral and she showed us around. We also went on a tour of the crypt belo the cathedral with a woman who was possibly the fastest talker i have ever heard. The fact that she was taking in French did not really matter as even if she were speaking slow i wouldn't have understood. It did not help that Jono could not understand her as he usually acts as our translator and was unable to do so on this occasion. We were given a little panflet in english which explained the parts of the crypt however, so we pretty much just walked around and had a look for ourselves while the woman spoketo the group.

It rained most of Sunday and an hour and a half of this was spent running at a forest that the boys had found nearby. It was nice to run in the rain and it wasn't too cold out. After this, there was not much else to accomplish for the remainder of the day other than wait for the rain to clear so that we could go for a pedal in the afternoon, so Jono and I ventured down to the local Supermarket/Department store to buy some much needed goodies as you have read above. A clothes organiser, a pillow, some drinking glasses and a few little goodies.

Most of the major French supermarket chains are great in that their stores cotain both a supermarket and also a department store. The are all aout the size of Jeff's shed however, so it is important to allocate sufficient time to make your way around the whole store as i is a good time waster. You mastbe careful however not to program too much training after such an outing as the legs can be left feeling a little weary. Not so for the store worker however who get around during their shift on rollerblades. deadly serious!!!

It was funny as were walking along one of the aisles whe Jono brought up the topic af how you could be dropped at the front door of this place with nothing more than a wad full of pineapples, and within an hour or two (dependent of your efficiency) you could be ready to move into your previously unfurnished apartment.

We came to the conclusion that you could buy everything that you would need to live comfortably under the roof of this one store. So we came up with a plan as to how if we were dropped at the front door in nothing more than our undies and a wad of cash we would be able to purchase ayting that we needed to set up in Bourges. We thought it appropriate to be at least wearing our underwear as withou them, one; we probably wouldn;t be allowed to enter the store and two; we wouldn't have anywhere to store our cash...

Obviously the most important thing to accomplish first is to purchase some clothes. Easy done, straight to menswear where you can find everything from the most fashionable attire to the most practical attire such as business shirts and slacks to start our new job. With shoes just next door we are fully covered and ready to continue shopping within a matter of minutes.

Next is the very important task of choosing the right sized television for our new apartment. Of course it needs to fit in with the decor and space available in our apartment..... but as we have never seen the apartment in the flesh the 238cm plasma just looks too good to refuse. It will be nicely complementd by some surround sound speakers, a new laptop, an ipod with dock, some trendy CD's and of course a Nintendo Wii.

Bedding is also important, as comfort will be essential in our new apartment and sleep will be at a premium given our hectic schedule. Sheets, Pillows, storage, shoe racks, cloths horse, tablecloths, placemats, all accomplished here.

Pots and pans can be found at the opposite end of the department section, as well as cutlery, crockery and glassware. This will all look really nice on our new dining suite purchased from area 4.

Directly across from area four, it was hard not to notice the sports section. Given that our apartment is positioned at the bottom of the complex and aparently contains a nice little courtyard, we thought it appropriate to grap a Huffy Basketball ring and also a totem tennis pole. This will surely keep us occupied during time from our busy schedule.

As we make our way down to the grocery section to complete our first big shop to fill the cupboards we come across the pet section. Not just your run of the mill Safeway/Woolies pet section either. Other than selling the animals themselves there is just about anything that a pet could ever want. We don't actually have a pet but hey, there's plently of strays walking around france, to be on the safe side we'll take some dog and cat food. And a big fluffy kennel, just incase we pick up a pony or something.

the easier but must time consuming part is of course grabbing the first lot of groceries. But when you've got an aisle dedicated to "products of the world", things are made so much easier. Especially as we hoe down on our third block of Cadbury dairly milk but the time we hit the frozen goods section. Once finished with the groceries it is importnat to get everything back to the aartment, but with Carrefour's fantastic home delivery service we will be living in luxury by this afternoon. And of course, no need to hitch a rde with the delivery truck once we purchase our brand new Petrol Powered Scooters for the unbelievablt price of just 999 euros.

No all we have to do is find where we live.

"Jono, do they have Melways in France?"