Prasheel's going to France

Just a quick post as I've been keeping quite busy recently.

I guess for a bit of a back story, after Alex and I met Matthias Dandois in New Orleans for the 2008 Voodoo Jam, we invited him to come to the Toronto contest the following year. He accepted, and flew to Montreal (where we picked him up), stayed in Ottawa, and went to Toronto with us. The day he flew in, he told Alex and I that if we ever wanted to come out to Paris, we had a place to stay.

Since last winter, I had in the back of my mind, that I wanted to at least try to get out to Europe for my first international contest this year. After having a really good 2010 so far (riding and otherwise, see my recap past here), and knowing the contest season was winding down, when I noticed Vibration Urbaines #13 happening on October 30th, I realized this would probably be my last chance in 2010.

With about 5.5 vacation days still to use up at work before the end of 2010, I emailed Matthias for some information, and was pretty quick to make my decision. A week later, I booked my ticket, and in two days, I am flying out to Paris.

I don't really know, or am concerned with, what the plan is once I get out there, but I basically know I'll be arriving on Thursday morning, and spending a couple days in Paris, going to Pessac on the south-west coast for the contest on Saturday, then back to Paris for another couple of days before flying home on Wednesday.

Originally, we were supposed to road trip to Pessac with Alex Jumelin, but he is now going to be in New York while I'm over there haha. I'm sure we'll figure out a way to Pessac some how. I'm just excited to get out of the office for a week, go to France for the first time, and attend my first European contest. The level of riding out there, in my opinion, is considerably higher than over here in North America, so despite doing well in the NA Am circuit, I will definitely have my work cut out for me if I want to place well.

I'll try to update the blog a bit about my trip while I'm out there, and if not, when I get back home. Wish me luck!