Some sailing and a Tunisian birthday party

Me and my trusty co-worker, Hannu, have been talking about having a go at sailing for quite a while now. So a couple of weeks ago, we finally decided to act and signed up for a six-week catamaran sailing course. Today was the second session for me (I missed the last one due to our weekend in Provence).

After a short briefing by our strict instructor Marie, we prepared our Hobie Cat catamaran (raised the sails and all that...), and set out on the windy Med. The wind was pretty good in the beginning of the session, and we made good headway from the port (Cros de Cagnes) towards the aiport. It was all good fun, our u-turns and stopping manoeuvres were certainly more assured than last time. The wind slowed down towards lunch time, to the point where really we struggled to keep the boat moving, and were playing catch-up all day (Marie assured us our slowness was due to our body mass rather than lack of sailing skill – apparently our body mass should give us an advantage in heavy winds). Towards the end we even had to resort to paddling with our hands to get the bloody catamaran moving. All in all, we had great fun!

In the afternoon, we decided to take advantage of the great weather and go for a swim. On the way to the beach we ran into Stephane and Sandra (and little Clelia, of course), and decided to go for a coffee. Great to catch up with them again, I’d not seen them after our holidays. After our daily dose of caffeine, we carried on to the beach for the swim. Pretty fantastic, being able to have a swim in the sea in October. And the temperature is pretty much the same as it is in Finland at the height of summer ;-).

For the evening, we’d been invited to Hyam’s 30th birthday party at her sister’s flat in Antibes. Things kicked off with a traditional Tunisian dinner, cooked by Hyam’s mum (Hyam has Tunisian origins). And what a feast it was! After some delicious filled pastries called "bricks" for a starter, we were treated to a very tasty and filling couscous for a main course (I think I had three helpings...). And the desert was nothing to be ashamed of either, with a generous collection of oriental sweets, and two cakes if I can recall correctly(including of course the birthday cake). The generosity of our hosts reached a new level when Hyam actually handed out Tunisian souvenirs/presents to us, the guests!

The party was attended by a very nice group of people, including Hyam’s sisters, a couple of colleagues of hers and a Swedish couple (who work for Amadeus in Sophia-Antipolis, obviously!). There was an international flavour to the proceedings which was quite refreshing; Hyam is an English-teacher and her sisters also speak excellent English.

The highlight of the party came last, when Hyam’s treated us all to some oriental dancing. She takes courses in it, and definitely has the moves. What a great finish to a great party. Big thanks to Hyam and her family for organising such a great and unique celebration!