Paintball and Driving

I went paintballing for the first time a couple of weeks ago. We went into the hills near Autun (a town in the middle of Burgundy). I was hit only 4 times as I hung back, snipered off the opposition and then ran for the flags. I got my team the flag twice. Also got 3 bruises (one of which is still there). I can see why this sort of game appeals to guys so much. They all went crazy, wriggling through the undergrowth, firing randomly, throwing themselves into trenches. A couple did kamikaze runs because they couldn't be bothered waiting around.
A comment about mealtimes. For a person who loves to eat, mealtimes have been a time that I both look forward to and dread. Look forward to because the food is fantastic with all manner of beef, lamb, chicken, duck and fish dishes, cheese platters and yummy desserts (I even enjoy the salads!). I dread them because people tend to lapse into French for the majority of the time and I don't know what anyone is saying. They tell me I should say 'speak in English' but this is difficult to do when people are in a full blown, heated conversation. Plus their English is not that good so it is a struggle for most of them to participate.
I have become a translator of Arabic to French, neither of which I understand much at all. One of the guys paid huge amounts of money to an official translator to translate his birth certificate etc from Arabic to French and got such a crappy file in return that he had to check the whole thing over and do it again himself. As I was watching him, I noticed an inconsistency in the information (a whole line missing), hence my new job as a translator from Arabic to French!
After numerous promises to teach me to drive a manual car (yes, I mean you Jean, Kuhn, Shannon, Rosey etc.!), I had to go all the way to the other side of the world (and the other side of the road) for someone to make good on his promise. I had 2 lessons last week in the car park of a sports stadium and on the country roads of Burgundy. I was pooh-poohed for the speed I was driving at (60-80km/hr as opposed to 100-130km/hr as the boys usually do) and not knowing where the high beam was (get confused because the indicators and wipers are on the opposite side in European cars). After a couple of hair-raising instances, we finally got back to the hotel only to have one of the other guys catch up to us. Knowing it was me driving, he zoomed past us as I was going into park, almost sideswiping us, causing me to slam on the brakes and stall the car. Stupid idiot.