I was in the army...

For a day...
The school I work has a military school status since Napoleon decided so. The French students are officers...
When  a new class starts, the students have a mandatory 3 weeks introduction to the military training. As a new manager I was invited, with 2 new colleagues, to visit the camp to experience (a little) what the students are living.


The camp is located in a beautiful site 4 hours south of Paris : le plateau de Millevache.  We arrived the day before and stayed a small hotel... I was disappointed, I was ready for the barracks ! but the amazing meal, from local products made up for that. We were greeted by a Major  who would be taking care of us. No one would tell us what they had planned for us, except that the meeting time was 7:35 AM. Gasp !

So...here we go : wake up early, the air was cool and the sky clear blue, it felt like a beautiful fall morning. We got into the  military camp grounds just in time for the morning flag ceremony (I am sorry, i am not up to date on my English military vocabulary, in French it's Levée des Couleurs). The students started singing the Marseillaise and it was beautiful.

After a presentation about the military training, we went around the camp to try out some of the activities.
We learned to pass some obstacles on a course. Landing is key, and being flexible helps quite a lot.
As you can see, we were dressed up in military gear... It came handy since we were quite dirty by the end of the day.
We visited an other obstacle course site, involving a mud river... we didn't try this one !
There was also a quick lesson about shooting with a FA-MAS assault rifle. We were expecting to do use one... and I had some internal debate about doing it or not... and I did it. I had shot guns twice before but never something military. I wanted to know what it was like. I was tense. I didn't well with the combo goggles/glasses...
It was noisy, no surprise there...and we had earplugs. I didn't expect the smell and the vibrations...
In the afternoon, we drove to Bort-les-Orgues, an amazing site in Correze, to do some climbing...

By that time the fall weather had turn into full summer...
We arrived at a place with THAT view, whaoo ! Nice ! But..., wait ! I thought we would climb, and we were already on top... I have a bad feeling about this...
Indeed, we would not climb but rappel down a 50 meter cliff ! First instinct : no freaking way ! but, eventually it turned into: "yeah, we are not so high, if are securely tied, they won't risk our lives...". i learned to do tie my own knots and to read the "soul of a rope"
and tadaaa:

5 hours later we were back in Paris...