Hochicbachoc

There are so many things I don't like about the French (and, since I am one myself, I am fully entitled to b*** about them), I won't even try to start a list. However, you have to handle it to them, they know how to do things in style. Food, fashion, they are hard to bit. But what I myself did not know, which I discovered earlier this weekend, is that their fashion sense extends to running, too. Now, you tell men how stylish is that:

Now, I thought the guy was so classy that I had to overcome my shyness and walk accross the street to ask if I could take a photo. So here was I, standing on the pavement next to him, wearing only my swimsuit given we were about to go for our swimming session in the lake, standing next to Mr Top Class. And wondering whether, given that the classiest top I wear to go running may indeed be black but is nothing else than a technical t-shirt, I was at risk of losing my citizenship.  Or maybe, I went on thinking,  Ishould I try to emulate him, and give my banker's suits a new life, maybe adding a Hermès scarf as headband for an added French touch... 

Now, I know I will shatter all your illusions (as I sadly did mine, that day), but it actually turned out that Mr Top Class was going to a party. A hochicbachoc party. Although I have regained most of my French over the past two years, this did not mean anything to me until several hours later (must have been the cold water freezing my already not so numerous brain cells), when I woke Martin up: "hey, I got it now, he meant: "haut chic, bas choc", which would roughly translate into "chic top, in-your-face/unexpected bottom",. Athough clearly, with such a not-punchy translation, one may not want to have and organise the same party accross the pond. Which will I guess confirm my point: stylish running... you can only get it in France...