All Blacks vs France, Stade de France, Paris, France
After the demolition of England and France in previous weeks, it bode well for our trip to the Stade de France to see the second test. Our trip started late on Friday night with the Eurostar over to Paris. It was pretty funny hearing all the klwi accents on the train, but after some heavy drinking, some of the girls accents went from amusing to quite grating.
However, we entertained ourself with a bottle of Cava (Spanish Champagne). We got in late, meaning that we were not really in much of a state to get up to much. After some minor difficulties finding the hotel, we crashed for the night.
Saturday morning started with the tourist track - which we had already done - taking Dad and Richard to the Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumph.
We were pretty tired after this, so Richard and Dad disappeared for a while - I suspect for a nap! Korina and I adjourned to the pub, meeting up with Lydia and Sophie, and watching the English squeak past the Springboks.
We camped up in the Irish bar until near the start of the game - which, given that this was at 9pm, meant we had plenty of time to get some ales down in preparation!
As it happened, we went to the game a bit early, to soak in the atmosphere and perhaps engage in a bit of banter with the Frenchies...
We got off the train near the game and grabbed another beer or two before making our way up the street to the ground. Korina enjoyed the giant bagettes filled with sausages and chips!
We then got adopted by a group of french fellas, who had clearly been on the diesel for quite some time. We had a couple of drinks with them and gave them a bit of banter in broken French and received some in their equally broken English. But then it was time to head into the game. We struggled somewhat to find our seats - at one point ending up in the middle of a brass band - all of whom insisted on being in our photos.
Eventually we found our seats - the game was perhaps a bit of an anti climax - but the French never looked in the game, and certainly looked as if they were lacking in ideas, kicking continuously to the All Black back three.
It was a haul back from the game - with 100,000 people leaving the ground at the same time making getting on a train very difficult indeed. By the time we got home it was around 1am, so we had a night cap at headed off to bed.
Sunday we went back to the Arc de Triumph as it had been to crowded to go up the day before - I think Dad enjoyed the view and the craziness associated with this giant roundabout. We finished the day walking down to the Louvre before jumping back on the Eurostar back to London.
