Wednesday, December 6, 2017

The Parc des Princes (Day 7) (Sports)

After the eventful day at the aquarium, I slept like a rock. I could tell everyone else did too, because even Connor slept in later than he normally does. It wasn't late enough though, because I was jerked awake by his famous call. "RISE AND SHINE BOYS!" shouted Connor. "Connor, we've already gotten a noise complaint from yesterday, and if we get another one then we might get kicked out." Evan said, clearly annoyed. The look on Connor's face told everyone that he didn't care if we got kicked out or not. Everyone slowly began to get up and prepare for the day. "Where are we even going today?" asked Will. "The Parc des Princes, where the French National Soccer Team plays." Connor said matter-of-factly. Everyone eventually showered and got dressed, finally ready to go down to breakfast.
During breakfast, we called our usual Uber driver and finished our food. He arrived, and we were piled into the van. Next stop: The Parc des Princes. It was only about 5 miles from our hotel, so it wasn't a long drive. We took pictures of the scenery on the way there. In a couple minutes, we arrived at the magnificent stadium. Our Uber driver couldn't speak amazing english, but he could tell us all about the stadium and it's history. "Dis place was hunting lodge for rich family before it was big stadium. It only had room for three-thousand people! Now it can sit fifty-thousand! De first match played here was wit French and Switzerland. French win! Many years later and dis stadium hosts world cup in 1938!" He said. "Wow. How do you know so much about this place?" Evan asked. "I love football and de history of dis place, but sadly, I have never got to go inside." He said. We all looked at each other, thinking the same thing. "Come with us!" Evan exclaimed. Our driver's was elated. We stepped out of the van and walked to the front entrance.
We weren't exactly supposed to be in the stadium at this time, so we had to sneak in. The place was completely empty, so it wasn't hard to sneak around.  We found a gap in the gate where someone had definitely had the same idea as we did. All of us could fit through the gap pretty easily, except for our driver who had a hard time with his protruding belly. With our help, he eventually got inside. We had gotten through the main gate, but we still weren't inside the stadium. After a little bit of walking, we found the entrance to the stadium seating. Shortly, all of us were inside. "It is amazing! Thank you all very much!" our Uber driver explained. I turned to him, "You're welcome... uhh..." "Alain." He said. "Well, you're welcome Alain." I repeated.
We spent the rest of the day walking around the huge grassy field and around the enormous stadium. We sat down in the black seats and viewed the green and blue field, pretending to be spectators of a World Cup game. I could tell that Alain was having a great time. He pretended to dribble the ball up and down the field like a professional would. I wished we could have found some soccer balls to use, but sadly there were none in sight.
After a while, it was finally time to leave. We crept out of the stadium from the same way that we came in. When we reached the car, Alain proposed that we go out to get some lunch (or dinner, because it was pretty late already). He took us out to his favorite restaurant, which also happened to be owned by his mother. It was called the "Bateau le Calife". She gave all of us free meals for our troubles. She only spoke fluent french, so Alain had to translate a bit. "She say thank you for showing me de stadium. It was always a dream of mine to see dat place." "We were happy to take him along!" Evan exclaimed.
We ate for a while, finished our food (which was amazing) and packed into the van to go back to the hotel. Alan said goodbye and thanked us again for taking him to the stadium. He said he'll see us tomorrow for another daily Uber ride. Finally, we reached our room and within minutes, we were all out like a light.

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