Miscellany

I was taking a photo of the courts, as I like to do, and the guys standing in front of the building yelled out to me, and were really keen to pose for a photo. I was happy to oblige, and they look pretty stoked in the photo.

What do pipe bands talk about when they get together? One of the first conversations I heard was about the strategy for ordering beer. A scottish piper was complaining about the heat, and that a pint gets warm before you finish it, so you had to order half pints, but then you need to spend twice as much time at the bar fighting to get served. My solution: drink pints quicker - although still have to go to the bar to get another one.

French keyboards. They are subtly different... a q w z m are all different... the punctuation is all different, and it was a bit of a challenge, but I've almost mastered it now.

We had a surreal conversation with a Frenchman in the laundary on Monday. He spoke a little english [much, much more than we spoke French], but kept saying it was difficult for him in english. However, there some sign language that comes in handy. The word expensive and some gesticulation can turn into: It is so expensive here, I'm choking to death; or It is so expensive I want to shoot myself in the head. The French can be so dramatic!