Blogging on McDonald's Wireless, woohoo!

Yessss ... I caved and agreed to get some food at the McDonald's drive-through last night (last time I was in France, I waited at least a month before going to a McDonalds), but as luck would have it, I noticed that they have free wifi internet access. This McDonald's is only a 15 minute walk from my place, so it might just become a regular hangout for me and the other assistants, as we are still all craving more regular internet access with our computers. It's not bad ... clean, bright Halloween decorations everywhere, and they play the latest music. So I'll take it!

The Coupe du Monde de Rugby has been going on in France for the past few weeks, and the French team made it to the semi-finals and played England last night. As is common with any country/sport in the finals of a tournament, new rugby fans (including myself!) have definitely started popping out of the woodwork. I went with a group of French fans downtown to watch the game last night, and even though we got there 2 hours in advance, we couldn't find a seat in a bar. But tons of bars had outdoor seating, and we watched the game on a big-screen outside a bar in a plaza; there were hundreds of people watching at each bar, and most had beer tents outside since getting inside was near impossible. The atmosphere was really fun, and it was a pretty close game until the last 10 minutes or so ... when it became pretty clear that England was going to win. We were supposed to go to a party afterwards, but everyone was so disappointed that the Saturday night atmopshere pretty much died out; guess that's how I ended up at McDonald's! I don't understand all of the rules to rugby, but I must agree somewhat with the French who say that it is more interesting to watch than American football; the action doesn't stop as frequently, and the brute strength of the players (and lack of equipment/padding!) does make American football look a little less hardcore in comparison. (Sorry, Alec, if you are reading this post!) So England will play the winner of South Africa-Argentina next weekend in the championship, if you're interested.