Tournoi des 5 Ballons - Cergy, France

I joined 7 other girls I play soccer with at ASB for a tournament in Cergy, France at the school ESSEC. Cergy is about 30 minutes outside of Paris; unfortunately, there were only 4 teams signed up to play women's soccer, but it was still an experience!

We played France, Russia and Algeria - we lost to Algeria the first time, and lost to them in the finals 1-0, but it was a hard fought game. Considering we had no subs, and they were slapping our faces and scratching us, it was a great game. Definitely an experience I will never forget. And my team voted me player of the tournament, which was pretty cool too.

Anyway - I was close to one of these girls already (Line Madsen), but became much more close to them. I love soccer, and I love these girls. But since this trip, I have been so much more close with them. It is on a different level now, and we can joke around at practice and at games all the time too.

I arrived home from my study trip around 9pm on a Friday night. Saturday I had a soccer game and two birthday parties to go to, and left for France at 7am on Sunday. It was a 5 day trip, and well worth the exhaustion. I never played select soccer growing up, so to be able to experience a mini-tournament like this was a lot of fun.

Soccer girls are a different breed. For the most part, we are all laid-back and down to earth. We like to play hard and don't mind getting dirty. There is a level of respect amongst athletes that I don't think you can always find in your everyday life. It was fun to just chill out with these girls all day and all night, with no pretention. We were just in our soccer clothes, laying in the park after a game, having a good time.

I couldn't have asked for a better group of girls to go with - Line Madsen, Chanett, Britt, Maja, Mei Mei, Bettina, and Line Pedersen. So fun. This is a trip I will never forget!!!

We had one free day off, and a group of us headed to Paris. It was sort of funny, because myself and one other girl were the only ones who had been there - so I was basically the tour guide amongst all the European girls! Being in Paris again reminds me how cool of a city it is - I love it!

On the metro on the way to Paris, I was looking at the map and planning our trip. I was trying to remember how to get to Moulin Rouge, which is where we needed to end the day because we had tickets to see the show. There was a woman who had made a small comment to us earlier about a crazy man that got on the metro preaching in French. She spoke clear English, so I asked her if she could help me for a second. Turns out, she is from Australia, was married to a Frenchmen, was in town with her children to see their grandparents. She knew the city well and was very helpful. We got to talking more and more - I noticed she was carrying an Hermes handbag...she alluded to the fact that she travelled a lot for her job. I asked her what she did. It turned out she is the Editor-in-Chief for Vogue magazine in Australia!!! For those of you who don't know, she is the Anna Wintour (American Vogue) of Australia. She is the Meryl Streep in the Devil Wears Prada (that was based on Anna Wintour's former assistants account of what it was like working for her). A very prominent woman in the fashion industry. We talked about fashion a bit, about Neiman Marcus, about travelling - it was a nice conversation - she was so down to earth. Small world, and I would love to get in contact with her someday!

This is a picture of Kirstie Clements, the editor in chief of Australian Vogue that I met on the metro.

http://www.vogue.com.au/in_vogue/vogue_australia/editor_s_letter

There was a blue-collar workers demonstration in the streets by the Louvre, and the police were all ready to go in SWAT gear!

The demonstration

Bettina and I in front of the Arc de Triomphe

I am closest to these two girls: Chanett and Line Madsen

Madsen is a girl of few words, but is hilarious when she opens her mouth! She was rocking out on our boombox to Lionel Richie and doing a little dance with it!

That animal was the women's handball teams mascot

Britt Jensen

There is a student bar at ESSEC that we would go to after games; I looked around, and look what I found mounted on the wall?! The grill of a car with a Missouri license plate!

Madsen and I

Soccer girls are notorious for being proud of their bruises. These are Madsen's ball marks

Mei Mei, almost passed out before a game after a hard night out the night before!

The three Danish teams from ASB - and they all go crazy when the football National Team song is played.

Madsen is probably the best juggler on the team

Hanging out in the park after games

Before a game. And yes, that ground (dirt, or 'gravel' as they call it), is what we played on. Yikes! I had huge strawberries from it.