“We’ll go once I’m finished with the trout. I’m just… ah, gotcha!”
The French and Moroccan anthems were sung, very professionally I’m sure, on TV, but belted out rather drunkenly in the street, as I plucked bones out of my damn trout with more or less patience.
“They come right into your arms to slaughter your sons, your wives…”
“I wish they had come for my trout,” I sighed, turning off the heat and patting the now-boneless fillet dry.
This is my dream French summer life. Spend the day at the beach, come back on the last train back, sandy and salt-streaked, and cook fish I don’t catch but buy at the supermarket like any normal person.
We’ve been to the beach three times in a row this week already to beat the “canicule”, aka 40°C weather. I’m not complaining about the heat or the beach trips. I love both.
Tonight, I barely had time to breathe or sit down. I walked home from the train station, gave Mark hair-styling tips as he took a shower, rushed to the gym for a quick workout while my mum was cooking the first part of the meal and doing laundry, stopped at the supermarket to grab a hopefully still-fresh-enough baguette, then took over with the fish, onion, and oh, why not some zucchini too?
And then I had to take Mark to one of the five million bars around showing the much-anticipated World Cup quarter-final—France vs. Morocco.
I don’t want him wandering around alone on game nights. Last week, I found him downstairs in a crowd of very nice Moroccan supporters, accidentally sporting his “Canada” T-shirt. The poor Chinese-Canadian kid has no clue that Europeans, Africans and Latinos take football very seriously.
The trout behaved itself in the frying pan.
A first goal was scored. We don’t need a TV to follow the game—just as well, we don’t have one. Leaving the windows open is enough.
A second goal was scored just as I was finishing frying the zucchini in the delicious trout fond.
“Okay, let’s go.”
And off we went around the block, home to… what, twenty bars? Hell, the entire country is a bar—alcohol isn’t taboo on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, it’s a way of life. Don’t ask me, I don’t drink, which may be the only Canadian thing about me.
The streets were so packed we could barely get through, with everyone’s eyes fixed on the big and small screens skillfully set up on sidewalks.
2-0. Well, you never know, I suppose, but “on est en semi” was on everyone’s lips.
We watched the end of the game with the rest of the city, including the police sent to police the whole post-game affair.
And suddenly, all arms were raised in victory.
Just like that, on a hot summer night, France was in the semi-finals.
I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep… eventually. Excitement isn’t the issue. They’re just still loud at 2 a.m.
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