Rugby World Cup

For the past couple of weeks I've been watching the Rugby World Cup on TV. The sport is very popular in France, so there is plenty of coverage. To be honest, before a couple of weeks ago I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a Rugby World Cup (it began in 1987 and is held every four years). But after watching a couple of matches I'm a bit hooked.

I find the rules (assuming they do, in fact, exist) to be absolutely inpenetrable. The players and fans seem to know what's going on, but I've yet to crack the code. It's kind of like attmpting the New York Times crossword puzzle on Friday or Saturday -- I can stare forever trying to make sense of what's in front of me, but I never seem to make the slightest bit of progress.

The lack of partity in the tournament borders on comical and there are effectively two groups:

1) Those who are competitive: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, France, Ireland, Wales (yes...Wales) and Scotland; and

2) Those, such as the U.S., who are likely to get absolutely destroyed if they play any of the above teams

As an example of the lack of partity, the U.S. team's score during its loss to Australia in the first round was 67 - 5. For reference, the scoring system is relatively simililar to (American) football.

This weekend was the semifinals, with both France and New Zealand knocking out Wales and Australia, respectively, to reach next weekend's final. As such, Emilie is brimming with national pride in support of Le XV de France.

New Zealand are known as the "All Blacks" due to their black uniforms and are perhaps best known by the broader public for their pre-game "haka" ritual.

I think that I would be pretty intimidated by that if I were on the other side.

We'll see how France does in the final. New Zealand is the top ranked team, is the host nation and thus playing on home turf, and beat France 37 - 17 in the pool play (opening) stage. But I guess anything could happen.

Euromillions

 

On Friday Emilie and I bought some tickets for Euromillions, the pan-European lottery that's more or less equivalent to Super Lotto in California or PowerBall on the East Coast. The value was up to over 147 million Euros (about $200 million), so we figured why not.

I've only played the lottery a couple of times in my life, with zero success obviously. I'm well aware of the odds, so its not something that captures my interest very often (perhaps once a decade or so). Nonetheless, I've noticed that when you do play it provides a nice, albeit temporary, distraction from reality.

I vividly recall one time when I was a kid and my parents took part in a Lotto pool with some coworkers or friends. Leading up to the drawing, I daydreamed about all the things that I planned to buy with "my" winnings. I don't know how much I thought that we really had a chance to win, but it was nonetheless fun thinking about it in "what if" terms.

This time was no different. And since Emilie was gone for the weekend, I decided not to check to see if we had the winning numbers until she returned on Sunday night. While I knew that we hadn't won even without checking (unless a miracle truly did happen), the fact that there was even the slimmest of possibilities of winning was a nice feeling to have.

And given that I was at work today, you have your answer for whether we won. I don't even think we got more than two numbers. But it was still worth it for sheer possibility if nothing else.

Sunset

The weather has taken a turn for the worse and it's supposed to continue raining all weekend. As such, I decided to take advantage of a brief clearing to take some pictures down by the lake at sunset.

While walking by the docked boats, I came across a duck that seemed to be honing his tightrope skills. His balance on the chain was pretty impressive.

 

 

Here's the view towards Geneva. There were a couple of sail boats out, but they all seemed to be heading in for the night as the storm approached.

This is the last photo that I took before heading back to the apartment. I like the reflection of the light on the water.

A New Month...a New Strategy

 

For as long as I can remember, I've been about three months behind with this "blog". As hard as I try to keep up, the combination of too little time and too much backlog proves to be my downfall.

The original goal of the blog was to keep family and friends "back home" up to speed on what is going on with me here in Switzerland. Unfortunately, due to the delay I've simply been keeping everyone up to speed on what was going on.

To address this, I'm going to try a Cliff Notes-esque strategy, in which I briefly hit the high points and, where relevant, include some of my favorite photos. Thus, the detailed posts (those that were travel-related, in particular) may be a thing of the past... unless I ever get all caught up.

In the meantime, I hope that the more timely posts make up for the lack of depth. And if all goes well, I'll hopefully get the mid-June through September period completely updated real soon.