Tuesday, July 12, 2005

What the Heck??

Going along with the "what I saw on French TV lately" post theme, here's a picture for you:

french fish

That's what I saw last night. Prime Time. Can you guess what they're doing?

Well, since you couldn't guess, I'll tell you. Those are French men and women (the blue ones from Pont-Saint-Esprit, the red ones from Chateauneuf du Pape) competing for the glory of their village. They were dressed up in fish costumes, and then ran an obstacle course. Pictured here is the first stop. The floor is rotating. They had to jump and grab a foam fly, then run through a bull ring, then go backwards in an innertube across a swimming pool, then run up a huge flight of stairs, and then slide down a big long slide, all the while keeping ahold of their fly. After each run, one was eliminated. So it was like musical chairs, but with a long obstacle course and with everyone dressed like fish and holding flies, sometimes in their mouths (mouche en bouche). I didn't get a picture of it, but when one finally won, he stood at the top of the slide, jumping up and down, while the crowd cheered. It's the only time I've ever seen anyone so joyful and happy to be forced to perform strenuous physical activity while dressed in a fish costume.

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