So I decided about a month before my
departure that I wanted to organize a final soirée
to ensure that I could hang out with the whole team together one more time
before I left. And at the time there were lots of Ultimate tournaments being
planned and I was worried all of the weekends would be filled up if I waited
too long to suggest something. But I had a minor logistics problem: the
apartment I share with Stéph and Charly is plenty big for the three of us, but
even the eight of us when I hosted the raclette
was just at the limit of too many. I figured we would be between 12-20 if most
of the people from the team showed up, and that would definitely be too many. Gaëtan
helped me look into a couple of options (like the place where they held the
annual team meeting/welcome party), but it didn’t look very promising. Then
Marion offered to let us have the party at her apartment. Marion doesn’t play
on the team, but she hangs out with us regularly (she’s come to the Brass’ with
us often and I went ice-skating with her and Gaëtch once). Her apartment was
perfect! It’s on the Citadelle-side of the city center, and a spacious
apartment for one person. We had just enough room without having too much
extra.
For the theme, I wanted to do the
foods and beverages I anticipate missing the most at home: cheese (eaten with
baguette, of course), wine and beer.
That’s not a very original theme though, so I figured I’d make it a
little harder and I told everyone they could only bring items whose name
started with the same letter as his or her first name. For cheese it was the
type (comté or mozzarella, for example), for wine it was the cépage (like Cabernet Sauvignon or
Chardonnay) and for beer it was the brand (such as Leffe or Guinness). It
worked really well! Some people got creative too – Tété brought a tête de moine cheese (they didn’t put
the accent on the label, so it looked like he had found a cheese with his exact
first name), Joseph brought a fancy cut of ham as well (jambon in French), Jérémy and Florine brought me flowers in addition to their cheese
and wine (jolies fleurs
in French). I guess I should have thought more about the overlap in letters
(John, Joseph, Jean-Guillaume and Jérémy made for four Js, Lucie, Lucas and I
made 3 Ls, Franzi and Florian were stuck with very few F options for cheese and
both brought Fourme d’Ambert). I couldn’t find a French L wine at all, but
brought both Leffe and a German beer called LaTrappe to make up for it.
Overall, people seemed to be really pleased with how the theme worked out
though, and we had a great time! 
The team surprised me with a few
gifts: a beautiful silver watch with a black leather band, a funny “25” t-shirt
(25 is the regional zip code, sort of like how people under 25 occasionally
jokingly refer to Cincinnati as “the 5-1-3”), and a photobook with pictures of
each of them with a note next to it. That last one was TéTé's idea (he's the guy next to me in the picture on the right), and then each team member wrote me a little note next to the pictures he printed out of each of them. I was really touched!
I wouldn't say was too rowdy, but some of us certainly didn't get home until the wee hours of the morning. And at one point Alex (the coach/captain) started trying on other people's clothing, which resulted in some pretty hilarious combinations. The party was a wonderful way to top off the 8 months I have spent with this very special group of people. I will miss them very very much!
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