It's DONE! I ran my little legs off, crossed the finish line with a crowd of people to meet me, recieved my boquet of flowers and went straight to my TV interview.
Ok, so maybe not. All of the opposite in fact!! The whole event was just a whirlwind. As I was in the last category of runners to leave ( the slowest category) I was hanging about in my 'pen' for about 45 minutes after everyone else had began ready and raring to go, getting very cold and more and more anxious- and hungry! I was expecting to get more energy and motivation along the route though, because there would be hunderds of spectators there to cheer us on, with banners and chanting etc... But no. Apparently Paris doesn't do support! I was so grateful to have my Dad, family friends, boyfriend, Godparents and friends from here come to cheer me on, I saw them just a couple of times but it definitely helped! Seriously, the streets were pretty bare and I was relying on people to be encouraging me to go on! But anyway, I had a nice run through the park at Chateau de Vincennes, and saw Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame, Bastille... and a lot of people peeing haha.
BUT, I crossed the finish line. Eventually. 21km is quite a long way; after each km I kept thinking ' what, that was ONLY a km??!' . It was a great experience, I don't know how much of it I actually enojyed (probably the Snicker bar at the end was the best bit!) but I can say I have done the Paris Half Marathon as my first. And mayybbeee it will be the first of many, but I want to go back to running for pleasure now as opposed to it being a chore! I had the most wonderful reception at the finish line though I must say, my mum had waited for me, and my family, friends and boyfriend were there which really brought tears to my eyes! (But I cry at everything). So thanks to everyone for their support, even if you weren't there on the day you helped by asking how my trianing was going and I know a lot of you listened to me moaning about hurting and being tired and whiney.. It's over now! What AM I going to do with my free time?!
Well, part of this eventful weekend included a day in Disney Land!! I had booked Monday off work thinking that I would be pretty dead. (I wasn't , thankfully, clearly didn't run hard enough! ) and my parents, godparents and their children and I had a wonderful trip to see Micky and the gang :) It's about 15 years since I last went, and despite the cold it was a fun filled day enjoyed by all! I don't really remember much from when I first went, lots of colours and happy songs and charatcters everywhere. Was slightly different this time though! Cold, not as colourful, the haunted house definitely wasn't as scary as I remembered! And I was disappointed with the lack of costumed characters around! The parade didn't seem as spectacular, no fireworks or lights or anything. But I enjoyed the day quand même. I even went on rides! For me, the girl who won't even go on fair ground rides, this was quite an achievement! Ok, so I didn't conquer Space Mountain, but I did Le train de mine and Indiana Jones, twice! Nothing beats the teacups though, and obviously It's A Small World, just classic :)
So it was un week-end très chargé, as my parents arrived on Friday, I organised dinner for 14 on Saturday night, did the run on Sunday, watched the rugby, Disney Land.. Well, I say I organised dinner for 14, there is actually a story behind that. I used a French website called La Forchette to help me find an Italian restuarant which I could book for us all. So I went ahead and booked and they rang me several times to confirm. Found the map on google, printed it off and got directions etc. Managed to get everyone to meet at the nearest métro point and take them to the resaurant. Only to arrive and be told that this wasn't the right Pane et Vino I had booked.... that one was in Clichy and we were in Paris. Woops. But thankfully they had space for us at this restuarant and we suceeded in having a very pleasant dinner, although I did notice the waitress kept coming in and out with supermarket shopping bags... It's almost as though they were literally making everything to order!
Work has actually been fairly productive this week. We are organising a 'Library Day' soon which everyone is getting rather excited about, which means lots of translations for me to do. I can't complain, and I actually have enjoyed doing them as I get to see what we will have on offer and stuff. Plus it gives me something to do! I was also given the responsability of contatcing several database companies to ask them for samples of user guides, so that was quite good.
Have had the second vist from a Southampton professor as part of this language study so that has taken up some of my time this week. He shadowed me on wednesday morning- at least he tried, my colleague kept chatting to him about the elections!We did some language tests and he stayed to observe my evening activites too. I had some positive feedback from him which was nice. Like I have said before, it's hard to actually know how well my French has come on. My parents said they were very impressed too, so I think it takes being around those who don't speak French that well to realise that you are better than you think.Even if I do still continue to confuse 'pleurer' and 'pleuvoir' !!
A colleague has invited me to a comedy/theatre/improvisation thing tonight near her. I'm not quite sure what I have signed up for, but it looks fun and you get a bowl of soup included in the ticket price- winner! I am going to meet her in Versailles and her friend will give us a lift to the event, and depending on what time it ends she has kindly offered that I stay the night at hers if there are no trains. I don't have anything else planend tonight, and one thing I have learned from this year is to just take opportunites when you can, and it will be a good exercise for my French so I though, why not?! Other than that, nothing planned this weekend, but I should crack on with my project so you now... there is always that!
A trip to Le Havre and back home in the next couple of weeks to look forward to. Otherwise it's now back to putting magnetic strips into periodicals and then putting them on their respective shelves... yay.
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