becoming-carmen-travel-france-rugby-world-cup-2023-lille-goddess-column-ball — **Who’s ready for the Rugby World Cup finals?**

Twenty teams in forty-eight matches, battling for the coveted Webb Ellis Cup. The dilemma was real: who should we root for?
Defending champions, the South Africa Springboks or the New Zealand All Blacks, both gunning for a record fourth title win? Or France’s Les Bleus with home-soil advantage as they aim to lift the trophy for the first time?

It’s been almost two months since we crashed headlong into the festivities in France for a wild egg chase that was completely unplanned. Lille, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Paris – every city we visited was either a host venue or a passionate rugby hotbed with a highly-strung local crowd. By Thursday night, every city was ready to party. The old town fountain would likely have been drained, with overly eager fans scouting for the best pubs under a glimmer of red and blue.

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We arrived in Lille days before the first game, but the city was already flooded with the French. As we rolled our heavy suitcases in a massive heatwave, the Goddess on the column greeted us proudly, propping up an inflated Gilbert egg with pennants and flags flying over the shops on the perimeter. When the opening ceremony came around, our French friends had already whisked us away from the increasingly delirious crowds to safety. We settled for a quiet night at a French house party instead, where we tossed rugby balls around as the guys set up the projector on a white sheet and a sausage grill to go with it. I didn’t understand a lick of French, but we laughed at the cliche costumes and cheered the home team on to a resounding win. By the end of the evening, I had learned my first French chant. Allez les Bleus!

You would have thought that the quaint seaside town of La Rochelle would be less rowdy. Well, momentarily, when a sudden downpour drenched the al fresco tables lining the cobbled streets of the old town. Rugby fans scattered like marbles, then magically regrouped once it slowed down to a drizzle, and the get-togethers lasted even further into the night as if to make up for the wet but brief interruption. Add that to a weekend of European Heritage Days and Festival de la Fiction buzzing with paparazzi; I’m surprised the town could even accommodate the crowds. The Rochelais rugby store was one of the most popular on its street, perhaps partly due to the intricate Rochelais design with its yellow and black flagship. I may not have been keen to fork out 30 Euros for a pair of sweat shorts, but the design was decidedly my favourite.

As the weeks passed, national trains became increasingly packed with weekend travellers, and we struggled for luggage storage at every stop. The Bordeaux station was a hot mess, with South African and Ireland fans decked in green jerseys streaming out from every possible crevice of the complex. One night, as we walked home, we caught the Fiji team celebrating their historic win against Australia at the hotel next door. It truly felt like it was impossible to dampen anyone’s spirits; even the rugby fans who had hopped on the wrong tram to the Stade de Bordeaux were in high spirits.

Toulouse felt a little more liberating because the rugby village was located on the other bank of the river. For once, we narrowly avoided the home game that weekend and found a resemblance to what we thought France would be like in September. Instead, we leafed through retro rugby posters by the resident artist behind Marcel Travel Posters. We even found time to deliberate over more football and rugby kits, ultimately deciding that the Japanese merch was a close contender alongside the violet TéFéCé. Monday morning started to feel like a routine – drunken fans would sit on the curb with duffel bags in hand, not quite ready yet to trundle home to a reality shock.

Strangely, Paris felt more like its normal self than the other cities, perhaps because the fervour was diluted by the rest of the cultural scene and, of course, the Paris Fashion Week. The Saint-Denis crowds were lit, but we were beyond caring and resorted to scrolling through the hotel television channels. Watching TF1 with bacon-flavoured TUC crackers in hand was our definition of fun.

Do we regret visiting France amid the Rugby World Cup, given that we’re not massive rugby fans? To be honest, we booked our flights without realising that we would be tackling the Rugby World Cup all the way through our itinerary. But I don’t think I could have waited for another year (European autumns are my favourite). I know many of my rugby friends would have died to go to the World Cup games, and while we may not have attended a live game, the atmosphere more than made up for the pricey hotels and tickets.

There’s an air of patriotism and camaraderie that felt understandably foreign to me. Mind you, there was lots of booing when Macron took the stage in the opening ceremony, but there is an undeniably magnetic quality to World Cup games that brings together select nations and mixes that with the finesse and artfulness of the French. Unlike the Olympic Games, where everything turns into complete mayhem, it was civilised enough to retain an intoxicating quality that puts you at ease to rally and convene with streetgoers in the same jersey. Hell, even we chatted with the hardcore fans.

But the burning question that lingered in my mind was: exactly how many rugby jerseys do these fans own? They had to have a seemingly bottomless supply of jerseys (and money), or they would have to stink over the weekend. Unfortunately, I have not solved this puzzle to date, though it is possible that everything red, blue and white in the country of love and romance was too good to be true.