Jeff's parents, brother and future sister-in-law are currently visiting us, so we haven't had a lot of time to update the blog. We have been herding them to various monuments (the Tower, the Arc, Notre-Dame and Père Lachaise so far), Paris-walking them to the point of fatigue, and trying to make sure they eat themselves silly. These things take time. But I know (or would like to think) that there are a few people who want updates and aren't interested in our excuses. So here is a quick little post to satisfy the curious.
As most people know, "football" means something different to the rest of the world than it does to people in the United States. While in Paris, we decided we ought to check out this strange, foreign version of football, so the day after Jeff's birthday, we went to see the home team in action. Here we are at the Parc des Princes, home field of the Paris-Saint-Germain team.
It wasn't very crowded, in part (I think) because it was a bit cold. Maybe around freezing. Perhaps you've been wondering how an outdoor stadium would work in a Minnesota winter? Well, after the regular game time had ended, we were pretty cold. By the time the second overtime finished, we could not feel our toes. Our verdict: put a roof on that baby.
Here is star player "Nenê" (a.k.a. Anderson Luiz de Carvalho - yes, really, Anderson!) on a corner kick! He was our favorite. As Minnesotans, we wanted to yell "Anderson!" but restrained ourselves, mostly.
Kind of a blurry shot of some of the crazed fans in our section. They were very, very serious about the game. We were scared to be too obvious about taking pictures of them. Some of them, I swear, you could write a really gritty depressing novel.
Lucky for all of us, PSG won with two fabulous goals, on our end, during second overtime.
* "Here, this is Paris!" what you chant while the players are running out, or when they score a goal.
