WE ARE THE PEOPLE!

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 was a very magical day:

Tara (Burrows, for those of you who know her) and I had our cognitive development class together from 2:00-4:00pm. As we were walking from the Fac. Catho (where that class is) to a pub to have a drink and do our homework for our Culture class (that we also have together), we walked past Place Bellecour (I may have already explained this, but Bellecour is the center of Lyon. I go there basically every day. All the buses and metros run to and from it, and both of the schools I'm taking classes at are right near it. Place (the equivalent to our word 'square' when referring to a place) Bellecour is the square right smack in the middle of Bellecour. There is a giant statue of Louis XIV on a horse. When meeting someone, we often say 'meet you at the horse's ass.' The point is, it's THE meeting place in Lyon and it's in the center of town). Surrounding the horse were numerous United Kingdom flags and men (some shirtless, others wearing blue shirts) drinking, chanting, singing, yelling, and did I mention drinking? loudly and belligerently. As crazy as Lyon is, this is not a normal occurrence.

Tara and I had both noticed this earlier in the day but at this point we decided to find out what was going on. We approached the men, with caution. I finally figured out (it wasn't easy) that they were speaking English. I asked one of them who they were and what was up.
"WHHR DAY GLOSGOFUHTBOL TIM!"
...

"What?"

After a couple more repeats it was discovered that they were all (seriously about 250 of them) supporters of the Glasgow Rangers football (soccer) team (they were to play Olympique Lyonnais-Lyon's soccer team-that night). First of all, Glasgow is the biggest city in Scotland, and I have been there, and I (completely honestly, swear to god) could not understand a single word the people from there said when they spoke. It is truly undecipherable. It's English... but it might as well be Swahili. I've got a friend here named Sarah, from Glasgow, and she says that she sometimes can't even understand her own father.

For some reason, though, I could make out most of what these guys were saying, after a few minutes. Maybe it's the fact that I'm surrounded by so many different languages and accents on a daily basis that my ears have been trained to hear different sounds. Anyway, about 10 different men immediately bombarded Tara and me with drinks.
"Com haf a beer!"
"Com haf a vudkuh!"
"Com haf suma this, I donnow wat it tis!"
Overwhelmed and bemused, we finally decided to side with the least crazy looking person we saw (these men were incredibly nice, but not in the least bit attractive. Most were fat and shirtless, some were puking, some had very little teeth... etc). This decent looking, clothed guy was named Thomas, and he turned out to be completely amazing.

A few vodka/orange juices later, we might as well have been Scottish, born and raised. We were singing, we were yelling, we were kicking around soccer balls. By this time, Molly, Ruby, Lydia and Libby had joined us. Everyone was telling us to come to the game with them.
"We don't have tickets!"
"I'm buying you tickets!" exclaimed Thomas.
After spending a couple hours with Thomas, here's what we found out:
He owns, OWNS, 4 clubs, 3 bars, and 3 tanning salons in Glasgow.
He is LOADED.
He is genuinely incredibly nice.


Here's me, Tara, and Thomas in a giant hug of love. It's too bad you can't see the rest of the crazy Scotsmen.

Long story short, he ended up buying me, Tara, Lydia and Molly tickets to this game. And we ended up going. And it was incredible. We were, of course, sitting on the Glasgow side, and I think we had the best time possible. Scottish football fans are crazy and hilarious. They kept singing all these Rangers cheer songs, and one of them went like this:
"WE ARE THE PEOPLE! clap clap clap clap clap!" repeated over and over again. They insisted on buying us as much beer as we wanted and they are more passionate about football than anyone else I've ever met.

The Rangers ended up BEATING Lyon 3-0, which, of course, was a huge deal. I ended up leaving the game with a Glasgow Rangers scarf (Thomas took it from one of his friends, gave it to me, and told me to keep it), and a newfound appreciation for European football and all things Scottish.

Molly took a lot of pictures that should be up on Facebook relatively soon, but here's one from the game that Tara took of Molly and me (looking shitfaced). Molly ended up getting to keep that flag. It's now hanging on the wall in her room.


GO RANGERS.


Love to you all!

Meg