Ici c'est le chaudron!

I finally had my first relaxing weekend since I've been here, spending two days barely leaving my place and getting things like reading, organizing, and rearranging my room done. On Sunday I went to my first soccer match, ASSE (Association Sportive de Saint-Etienne) against Monaco. We're ranked fourth and they 14th/15th so I thought it was "in the bag" but I dunno what happened but there were some disappointed supporteurs yesterday when les verts lost 1 nothing. This ginormously tall man headed in the one goal they recieved. But I still had a good time listening to the supporteurs' chants, many taking the tune from American songs. My favorite was "On chantera les stéphanois" and the one where each standing section of the stadium sang back and forth to each other. Its funny how much solidarity there can be amongst people over sports. I didn't get a picture of the enormous jersey that was held up in the stands at the beginning of the game but I did get everyone waving their scarves. I guess that's why we're the cauldron, the warmth (chaleur) of the fans, their jumping around all game, and their waving of scarves. I dunno my students never gave me an explanation, they just said "On est chaud là-bas" (One's warm there).
I was just happy to be there because it was pure luck; I was waiting for the tram to buy myself a ticket after my friend didn't buy me one thinking I wouldn't want to be in the seated section when I ran into Angus (my friend from Scotland) who was going to meet the others who would be in the standing section. He said that Alex cancelled and there was an extra ticket I could buy, so for 5euros I got in the standing section I wanted and got to be with Mike, Angela, Vicki, Jack, Phil, Angus, Heather, and Laura (see photos). I made a resolution that I would get better at making decisions this year, and I didn't really hold that up yesterday when I awoke Chris to help me decide if I should go to the game, in the end my choice worked out well due to luck/chance/serendipity who knows, but I now know how hard it is going to be for me to keep this resolution and am really going to work on making decisions independantly.