A Little Eccentric

Long week, Long blog

Bonjour!
Hope everything is going well for all of you! Things have been more than a little rough for me lately with everything going on at home, but I try to focus on the good instead of the bad. I just kind of need a trans-Atlantic hug right now.
Friday night though, we went out to dinner and got a big, very French dinner. I had Soupe de Poisson (fish soup), Brochettes de Gigot d’Agneau (lamb kabobs), Tarte aux Pommes (Apple tart/pie thing) and a glass or Bordeaux (a dry red wine). It was delicious, and made me feel better about the world.


This next week, we have a weeklong “Winter break.” They don’t get a month long Christmas break like we do. They only get about a week off between semesters and then they get this Winter break and a 2-week long Spring Break. So, I guess it is just a bonus for us little Americans to get so much time off. Tchykita and I are going to Nice, in the South of France. They have a festival called “Carnivale” going on there right now. I think it’s kind of like Mardi Gras, but not so crazy. It has light parades and all kinds of good stuff. Not to mention Nice has beaches, art museums and all sorts of things to do. I booked the hostel myself and am in charge of all that. I am starting to get excited! Expect lots of sweet pictures from Nice next week!
There has been all kinds of crazy stuff going on here. French students love to protest and that has been very evident lately. Apparently, the government just passed some law that the French college students are against (it has to do with work laws, I think). They had a “manifestation dans la rue”(street protest) earlier this week and now they put angry posters EVERYWHERE, and for some reason barricaded most of the doors going in and out of the classroom buildings. This is very stupid in my opinion. How is making it hard for students to enter and leave the building (not to mention a wicked fire hazard) going to help their cause? The students here are very passionate about their causes, but mostly when it enables them to skip class.
I have foreign friends here who I have to do the French two kisses on the cheek thing with. It is really weird. I can’t say I like it. You say “Salut!” or some other greeting and kiss left to right. So far, I haven’t screwed up or anything, and there are a couple very attractive boys that I much enjoy getting the two-kiss thing from, but other than that it seems too intimate to me. I know that we hug in America, but that seems way less personal than sticking your face in someone else’s and kissing them. Plus I have no idea what to do with my hands. Some people just keep their hands in their pockets; others do kind of a half-hug, steady-yourself-on-their-arms thing. Maybe I’ll get more used to it as time goes on.
Also, I actually made a couple French friends. It was crazy; I was in my room being my usual anti-social self when this French guy, Bruno, came and knocked on door asked if I wanted to have lunch with him and some other Frenchies. I was really surprised, but I did. He and I got along and ended up hanging out all day today. He is a musician and I listened to him play his guitar and he was very interested in my drawings. He is very patient with my language skills and he knows a little English for when I get stuck. It was really funny, whenever weird people would try to talk to us around town, he would just yell at them in very heavily accented English “Sorry I do not speak French!” because it made me crack up. He walked me around town and told me where to go and where not to, and was just really awesome.
It was weird though because of cultural differences in how people act, we just kept confusing each other all day. Sometimes he would talk and act like he was purely being a good Samaritan in showing me around, other times like he wanted to be friends, and still others like he liked me more than that. Needless to say, I had a bit of a crush on him by then. However, he is a fire-breathing socialist and we were at odds several times. But it was so sweet because I spoke French all day and when I got home I was talking to some other French guy Bruno knows and I could hardly believe how cool I sounded. Yay for me!!! All in all, it was a very valuable experience and I made some really cool friends. But now I have more people I have to kiss when I see them, dammit.
Also, I saw my dad’s books in French in a bookstore off the main street yesterday. Pretty cool, huh?

posted by Molly Jo @ 2:52 AM