He mauls his way across the field throwing long hair and beard in the air. He’s known for breaking an All Blacks jaw with a gumby tackle, the neanderthal of modern rugby, straight out of the cave, ladies and gentlemen this is “Sebastien Chabal” from the French rugby team.

If you haven’t seen the latest video clip of him, watch it now. “We are in France, We speak French” well ‘here here’ but maaaaate, lighten up! Ah well, he’s certainly providing entertainment for our office…

Amsterdam:

I visited Amsterdam last week. Known for it’s drug use and sex trade… I found that if you choose not to get wasted and fall asleep for a few days in the red light district, there is a brilliant city with green green grass and much less pollution than Paris! The first thought that popped into my head while I was cycling through the Dutch country side was ‘Wind in the Willows’. No one wears helmets in Amsterdam (mind you, they don’t in Paris either) and there are certainly hundreds more bikes than cars in that city! Tout le monde (everyone) rides bikes everywhere, and chains them up will 2-3 locks in attempt to stop the full time thieves. Stealing bicycles is apparently a nationwide sport in Holland. The one thing still lingering in everyones mind after the war was the fact that the Germans took all of the Dutch bicycles as they needed a means of transport!

It’s brilliant when you go to a foreign city and you have a friend there who knows the place really well. My friend Andrew lived in Amsterdam for a year and is there at the moment on a conference so I was really lucky to have a personal tour guide! No worries about which tram or metro to catch, where to eat etc.

(A few snaps from Amsterdam, click my photos link on the right for more)

The Haka – Paris style:

The France New Zealand Association held a pub crawl in Paris, the first of two crawls for the kiwis visiting for the world cup. I dragged myself along with a cold but with high spirits and met the group at the second pub. The kiwis were in fine form and Sky Sport NZ were there with their reporter and camera crew. I had thought on the way there ‘I’m nooooot going in the haka competition’, but after a short bit of nagging by some of my fellow country men I gave in. I’d actually done a fair amount of haka practice in the past. At boarding school we had a school haka and we had to practice that after dinner on a regular basis.

With the cameras rolling and a couple of beers in me to try and squash the sick feeling out I got stuck in and ended up winning the competition ahaha! RELEASE THE FURY!!!

(The kiwi Haka in Paris)

et donc, c’était the Haka. One thing’s for sure…there certainly is one hell of a proud bunch of kiwis living in Paris at the moment.

French meals:

If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt about here in France, something that I really love – is meal time. The French really know how to eat well they do it together, with friends and family and they do it often. Be it in a restaurant or at someones house the evening if full of lots of yummy food, wine and a bunch of a lot of laughter. On Wednesday night Xavier, his brother, Christine and I went to an Indian restaurant. We ate from a huge selection of curries, had a few wines and laughed about cultural differences between the French culture and mine (and I did bring up the Rainbow Warrior bombing but in a light hearted sense…I must mention though that that has been referred to as “the dumbest thing the French Government has ever done”. It was brilliant! Last night was another good dinner at home with my flatmate and his girlfriend. The food in this city is outstanding, and I find it cheaper to eat out there than in Australia or New Zealand.

…and I’ll leave it that, I’m off to catch a plane – stay tuned to find out where I went! I’ll leave you with a couple more photos:

(Andrew and I in Amsterdam)

(The KIWI’S!!! on the France NZ Assn’s pub crawl)

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 10:50 pm While Dave was in Paris. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.