The Bucket List: Corsica

Virgile doing his Chocola thing in Corsica

I know this guy very well who, when he was about 6 years old and his parents took him to the Atlantic for the very first time, he wouldn't touch the god damn water because all he could imagine was big bull shark lurking behind waiting to jump up and devour him alive. He was convinced that nature had conspired to kill him in the ocean at the hands of a predator monster and sharks were the perfect candidate.

Just how this thought came to a kid of his age is anyone's guess but what's sure is that prudent nature never, ever helped him to do anything.
Stupid kid.

Things changed slowly as he started growing manly balls and decided that heading towards the mountains with only a couple of t-shirts, no jacket and a beaten up converse was the way to prove to the world that his prudence was out of the window. His parents along with his friend's parents along his friend's friend's parents were all adamant that climbing up to 5500m unprepared was a very bad idea but being the kid that he was, decided to go do it anyways getting himself nearly killed multiple times.

In the process, he also happened to grow additional balls to go test the uncharted waters of the sea. For a person heading towards his mid twenties, you might feel that this is late. However, this can be understood by the fact that his country had no sea to begin with. How was he supposed to get over his fear of beach loving, man hunting sharks?

Finally after acclimatizing at the sea shores of South Korea was he ready to swim doggy style around the beach. Mind you he can swim, oh boy he can. I was there when he participated in the junior level national competition and saw him compete and come last in every other heat that he decided to take a part in. Yeah sure he didn't do as expected but he sure can swim.

So why this mention of beach and of swimming? You see, for the last three months, he has been in touch with a french bloke whose doing intern in his lab. He likes to call him by the name of "Chocola," the french pronunciation for "Chocolate" which, he later realized was very gay and racist to call a fellow heterosexual but still prefers to call him in the most non-gayest, non-racist way possible.

What Chocola managed to do, in the time period, was to implant this idea that Corsica was the most amazing place on earth and that he should go visit there before he goes to the mountain again on beaten up converse and get's lost for time eternity. Where the hell is Corsica? well good question. My good friend had no clue as well.

So he read about it in wikipedia and heard multiple stories of underwater diving, underwater dining, underwater spear hunting and underwater cramping. But before I mention underwater one more time and annoy you, you must first understand that Corsica is, in fact, an island that belongs to France. Much like how the whole world associates Sicily to Italy and the mafia (blame mario puzo), Corsica is the better version* Sicily of France.

What Chocola and [wikipedia] both state is that it's a mountainous island. He, being a Nepali, imagined like how mountains would look like back home but realized that those are small scaled versions of what he's accustomed too. What strikes him as interesting is the way these "mountains" or rather cliffs, are aligned neatly next to the sea so he can just hurl himself into the depths of the sea. He just has to make sure he doesn't land on his chest. That would just be the end of it, really.

You can accuse Chocola of brainwashing, constant bombarding of the same word several multiple times, and mentioning mouthwatering stories that all but relate to Corsica but you can never deny the power of persistence he has on a fellow human being.

As far as I know, he sure as hell is going to Corsica**!

*according to Chocola
**not applicable for at least a year