Foncer sur

The first week I arrived in Paris, I was walking around with my roommate when we came across the strangest thing: we couldn't cross the street because of a huge crowd of rollerbladers skating down the street -- there must have been thousands of them! We waited a good ten minutes for all of them to pass, and even though it appeared that the whole street had been shut down to let them pass (no cars, nothing) we didn't dare to step out into the street because they were coming so quickly and there were so many of them that it was pretty much as if there were still cars driving by. Anyway, I managed to get a glimpse of a t-shirt that read "Rollers et Coquillages" Staff, and so immediately proceeded to go home and Google it. Rollers is the french term for rollerblading, so for example if you wanted to say you rollerskated you would say "J'ai fait du roller." And coquillages is the french word for seashell! I have no idea what that has to do with anything, but bear with me. Anyways, so I discovered that every Sunday, this group organizes a rollerskating outing in Paris! It's basically a three hour "hike" type thing, from one end of Paris to the other, on rollerskates. Now before I go any further, I must admit that I have this weird fantasy of myself being really good at rollerskating. Last year, I bought myself a pair online (white with pink wheels!) and proceeded to practice around Grinnell for about a month before moving on to something else, but I've never quite lost the dream of being in roller derby or something of the sort à la Ellen Page in Whip It or casually being able to rollerskate to class and walk in, skates slung over one shoulder. So basically, I thought I could take on this rollerblading thing no problemo, and even convinced my two good friends to join me.

The picture from the first time I saw Rollers et Coquillages!

So we showed up at the meeting place, conveniently located outside a skate shop where you can rent rollerblades for 9 euros. Excellent. We rented our blades and immediately upon putting them on I re-realized just how difficult it is to...you know...balance/stop/control oneself on rollerblades. One of my friends had apparently skated a lot as a kid and knew what she was doing, while the other one had literally never skated before. I'm somewhere in between, but with the added hurdle of a lot of pride/this fantasy of being rollerskating-girl-to-the-stars. We halfheartedly practiced our breaking skills for about five minutes before deciding that running into things was most definitely the best way to stop going forward. That will come into play later, I promise. As we were waiting around to get going we got handed free t-shirts from this group raising awareness about psoriasis -- my first t-shirt in French! So cool. We put them on and then...we began! Basically the group that organizes this leads a huge pack of rollerbladers (on the website it says that in the summer they can get around 20,000, but I'm guessing that on Sunday there were only a couple thousand) through Paris on a specified route. There are some policemen on rollerblades too who skate ahead and stop traffic/pedestrians so everyone can skate through without worrying about other hazards. So well organized!

About halfway through the journey

My friend and I rollerblading in front of the Eiffel Tower!

Anyways, so things started out great for my friends and I. Besides from the whole not-being able to stop thing (which had yet to be necessary), I was really getting the hang of it and feeling pretty well on my way to becoming a roller derby all-star. Except for the shin splints. And the sweating (who knew? It's exercise!). And the fear/embarrassment of falling at any moment. And then we hit the cobblestones. These would reappear a couple times throughout the journey in various roundabouts in Paris, and let me tell you -- there is nothing more difficult than rollerblading on cobblestones. And then we had to stop -- aka I had to run into curbs/cars/other people before finally figuring out how to sort-of break. And then we had to go down hills -- aka I had to hold onto staff members so I wouldn't get crazy out of control and die. And then up hills -- let me tell you how much my legs hurt today...SO MUCH. And then I was at the end of the group with staff people yelling "Go!" "Push!" "Roule!" (Roll!) at me so that I wouldn't hold back the entire group. And then there was that time where I was going a liittlleee too fast down the hill and grabbed onto a parked car to slow me down while my friend (in an attempt to also stop) literally flung herself onto a car and flopped around like a rag doll before getting up (to the many helpful arms of other, more competent rollerbladers) and yelling "I'm fine! I'm fine!" We laughed about it the rest of the whole three hours. 26 kilometers. From Bastille to Trocadero and back, for those of you who are familiar with Paris. And that is where today's vocab comes in -- foncer sur means pretty much "to crash into" or "to pounce on" in French, both of which I did a lot of during the whole rollerblading experience, much to my chagrin and all of Paris' amusement.
It was, in short, one of the most difficult sporting experiences I've ever had in my life, and I am proud to say that I finished dead last. Yep, last of probably 3000 people -- but the staff members at the back with me laughed about it, gave me a flyer for free lessons (maybe my dreams will come true after all!), and congratulated me on finishing. Then there was the nice man who helped me down the last hill, and the nice lady who showed me how to break. My friends were a little bit astounded that they went along with the whole thing, and so afterwards we treated ourselves to a delicious dinner on the Ile-Saint-Louis and some Bertillon ice cream. And after that, one friend and I went and saw a German film with French subtitles and relished just sitting down for two hours after an exhausting day. All in all, it was a tiring, difficult experience that was totally worth it -- from the time we rounded that corner and saw the Eiffel Tower to the time I made it down a hill myself to the time that I didn't fall on the cobblestones (that was actually two times!). Although my dreams of roller-derbying may have been forever extinguished, I'm really glad I can say that not only have I rollerbladed though Paris, but I rollerbladed for 26 kilometers and FINISHED.