Crazy day!!!

Yesterday was full and fantastic, tiring and trying, and full of unexpected excitements.

After the placement test in the morning, a group of us (of the LC and Bryn Mawr posse) went to lunch at a nearby café to pass the time before our scheduled bank appointments to open an account here. We sat around talking and as at least two people in our group lit up cigarettes, I silently cursed the beauty of smoke in french cafés.

While my throat and eyes are still having some difficulty adjusting to the smokiness of things in cafés, bars, etc., my mind takes a photographic journey through the famous works of Robert Doisneau and others, who expertly captured french smokers at work. In the café, sunlight from a newly cleared sky streamed in through the windows and caught the smokers at the window in silhouette, downplaying their features against the whirl and twirl of the smoke, dancing up from burning tips of ash. Oh how I wished I’d brought my good SLR camera and had the guts and ability to capture such images! As it was, I sat and stared, trying not to mind the smell and sting of something so goddamn beautiful (luckily, the only way to really appreciate the beauty is to sit back a ways, so no worries... I won’t be picking up the habit myself).

After a successful bank appointment, Kate and I were in some need of la toilette, and thus we decided to trek down along the riverside to a public bathroom she’s remembered seeing somewhere along the quay. As we began our walk, an entourage of racing police cars and motorcycles speed past us, and looking up, we saw in the distance a massive surge of people in bright yellow reflective vests, crossing the next bridge down and heading in our direction. We’d seen a few of them earlier, holding signs that looked ripe for protest. Now was our chance to see what everything was all about.

We hurried down the riverside, only to see the police entourage emerging from their vehicles in full riot-police regalia. Huge shields, crazy looking weaponry, and the crab-like walk of each set of policemen (one in front with the shield, one behind, with a hand on the first’s shoulder) set up a human barricade to make sure the protestors stayed on track and didn’t fan out into the intersection. As we got closer, so did the pack of brightly vested and (as we soon learned) incredibly inebriated protesters, all men with various forms of “Dockers” written on their clothing. Yelling, singing, chanting, drinking, they moved past us, over the river and across the tram tracks that presumably weren’t in use during this planned-out demonstration.

As Kate and I looked on in amazement, fumbling for our cameras, one of the guys, with alcohol on his breath, came up and started clapping his hands at us, telling us in very rapid and somewhat slurred french to support his cause. We smiled and nodded, barely understanding a word, and clapped some, to appease his adamant requests. Alas, this just fueled him on more, and the next two minutes of french that poured from his lips was not understood in the least, though I certainly did register the sensation of airborne spittle landing on my face. When his friends finally motioned him to keep with the pack, he turned back for one last “Ooo, alors, vous êtes filles, eh?” (“Ooo, so, you’re girls, eh?”) followed by a suggestive wink. We quickly turned our backs, laughing from embarrassment and the fact that, of everything he said to us about the protest, the only we’d understood was that last suggestive and terribly obvious remark.

After managing a couple skilled “Excusez-moi de vous déranger monsieur, mais est-ce que vous savez ce qui ce passe?” (“Excuse me for bother you, sir – [the quintessential french addition to every question] – but do you know what’s going on?”), we were told by some of the other on-lookers that it was the dock workers from all over Europe who were there to protest the European Parliament’s pending decision to pass a law that would allow only those who worked on the boats to handle their contents, hence invalidating the position of dock worker all together. No wonder they were protesting.

Despite the excitement, our bladders got the better of us, and we decided to walk against the crowd and try to go the extra block to the public toilets. Unfortunately, upon surpassing the last of the Dockers crowd, we reaching the bathrooms only to find them locked and shuttered. “Perhaps it’s because of the protest?” Kate offered, and we soon realized that this probably held some truth. As we returned, along the same path we’d come, we saw a phone booth whose door had been (very recently) completely shattered. As we walked farther, back to the place we had just been, we saw smoke. “Holy....” I muttered, as we neared the black plumes and saw the ever-so-familiar image of an over-turned and burning car, right across the tracks of the tram, about 20 meters from where we’d just been. As we neared the scene, we heard a firetruck approaching.

My first thought, as I neared the scene, was that there better not be anyone in that car. We soon realized there wasn’t, as no moving car could have gotten anywhere near the crowd in the past ten minutes, and it indeed looked as if it had been overturned from a parking spot right on the protestor’s route. The car was right over the tram tracks, and, as we learned later, right across from the house of one of the Bryn Mawr girls, who’s host mom’s car was parked right next to the one they’d over-turned. Luckily, her car was spared the blowing up (all morning, we’d heard what sounded like huge explosions, and she confirmed that they were using smelly gas compressed something-or-others to do damage and intimidate). Unluckily, the car was essentially beaten to death by crowbars, as she (the host mom) looked on from her balcony, right across the street, completely helpless to do anything but scream at them to stop.



Good god. We were in the thick of it. We were there. And these weren’t even the riots.

So that was our morning/afternoon.

Post car-burning, Kate and I headed back to meet up with Anisa, the Bryn Mawr student who lives in the same house as Kate. We were going to do some grocery shopping (they only get three dinners a week and then are responsible for the rest... and I needed snacks for my room) and then hit up the sales to look for some shoes. After picking up some necessities (toothpaste, body wash, q-tips, and oranges on my part), we walked back to Kate and Anisa’s, which is actually quite near my apartment, just across the river and smack dab in the heart of Petite France. They’ve got the cute Germanic architecture, and through the entire neighborhood. It’s simply charming, as is their host mom. A widow in her late sixties, this woman has got to be one of the coolest french women on the face of this planet. She knows everything about art history and takes her students with her to museums every Sunday for some show and tell... she’s got the most gorgeous long silver-white hair and the best smile and smile-wrinkles you could imagine! She owns a three story “house” (i.e. looks like an apartment with three floors, stuck fast with the other buildings on either side, but it’s all one house), and she rents out the bottom floor, lives on the second, and lets the two girls have the third, equipped with two large and attic-like bedrooms, a toilette, and a minifridge and hotplates for their dinners independent of her.

I was totally jealous. While I love my host mom and she and I have a great time talking each night, the smallness of her apartment, the fact that you can hear *everything* anyone says or does, no matter where they are, the fact that there will be small children running around from 8am-6pm five days a week, and thus no place to come back to for a midday rest... well, let’s just say I can really appreciate, from afar, the situation Kate and Anisa have, although I know they probably don’t get as much intensive french as I do, living more independently and with one another (though they say that they’ve been trying to speak french in the mornings together).

I guess another reason I’m jealous is that both of them (Kate and Anisa) are two very cool people. And I think I’ve caught a case of the “I-want-to-be-your-friend” syndrome, which can be hard to manage if you feel like the odd one out (living situation-wise). While I’m really enjoying the larger group, for the most part, I’ve definitely had personal difficulty with the negative outlook a few members seem to bring to the table (and it just seems like a personality thing, not really that they’re having a bad/hard time). I’m in France, I’m totally stoked to be here, I’m looking forward to a fun and overflowing semester, and the last thing I want is to participate in a long conversation about the negative aspects of everything, from the weather, to Lewis and Clark, to colleges in general, to student populations, to lack of things to do... I mean, come on! Live a little and make an effort! As it is, I feel most drawn to Kate and Anisa, and am ever so glad they are fairly near to me, location-wise.

The whole getting-to-know people thing can be so exciting but also a tad daunting, and part of me always feels a bit insecure about potential inequalities (the last thing I want to do is be the tag-along that is ever-so-excited to be hanging out with the group when she’s actually the last person everyone wants to see). Ariana’s here, but she hasn’t really been going through the whole orientation process, since she was here last semester, along with Margeaux, who’s now a really good friend of hers. It’s a tad strange coming to France and already knowing someone who you haven’t really interacted with for a semester. I’m excited, though, because we’re definitely planning on hitting up the International Theater together, as well as some other play houses around the town. There are innumerable plays I want to go see, and we get in for 5 euros a show with our student cards! Oh que c’est fantastique, Strasbourg!

To continue with yesterday’s (night’s) events, Kate, Anisa, and I went back out after dropping off groceries and finally hit up some of the sales that are happening all over the city (all over France, really). Kate was looking for some boots and I was hoping for a pair of comfortable and oh-so-european varicolored tennis shoes, but as soon as we entered Galleries Lafayette, some thing else filled our field of attention: SCARVES!

Tables and tables of discount scarves, soft and warm and oh-so-french! We went a little crazy, trying on style after style, with Anisa offering expert advice as to whether a given color actually went with our coloring or not. Heck, I’d never really considered my coloring before, but with her help, I picked out a very nice, very soft, very warm, and decently long light purple scarf that looked quite good, along with a multicolored velour shorty that I found on the 70% off rack. They each bought a scarf as well, and Kate threw in a red beret, rounding out our attempt to get frenchified. In a smaller boutique Kate found her chique black boots, but I’m going to have to keep shopping around for my desired shoes (though I found a pair of fuzzy burgundy boots, sans heel and 50%-off, and I briefly courted the notion of buying my second pair of boots in a week until it became evident that they didn’t have them in my size).

After returning home for dinner (heaping pile of steak on my plate... oy), I changed clothes and got a bit spiffed up for my first night out. It was Ariana’s 21st birthday, and I was to meet her at Margeaux’s (where she’s staying temporarily), from where we would leave for late-night happy hour at one of the local student bars. A tram ride and a walk later, covered with a light speckling of snow, I arrived at Margeaux’s and entered to the site of an already tipsy Ariana. I guess rum was her birthday drink of choice, and they’d chosen the cheaper route of drinking first so they wouldn’t be tempted to get much and spend lots of money in the bars. We sat around talking and sipping wine for about an hour at Margeaux’s digs, home of her host “dad,” a 30-something cool and laid back guy, with a girlfriend with whom he was away for the time being. Then we headed for the bar.

I can say one thing for sure... beer here definitely has merits higher than any I’d tasted back in the states. Then again, the cheap beer of choice at LC is PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) which tastes, in my opinion, like expired cleaning solution. Let’s face it... I’ve never liked beer, and while I can definitely taste that the stuff they have here is of much better quality and is definitely a decent drink, I’m hard-pressed to give up my preference of wine, which, thank god, is still available here in large quantities, despite the German influence.

After a good while and some 50-for-the-price of-25 cl. mugs of beer, we headed to the Irish Times, a local bar that serves the English-speaking population where a friend of Ariana and Margeaux’s was supposed to get Ariana a free drink. Alas, we’d arrived too late, but the waiter begrudgingly forked over a shot of tequila on the house. I passed up the opportunity for a delicious-sounding mixed shot of Bailey’s, Amaretto and whipped cream, interestingly called “The Blowjob” which perhaps partially refers to the cream-part, and partially to the fact that you’re supposed to drink it “No Hands!”, calling for some pretty advanced lip suction if you don’t want 5 euros worth of alcohol drizzling down your neck. Margeaux treated Ariana to the concoction, which she nearly succeeded at drinking by the book (pictures to come, once I get them from Ariana), but at the last minute she had to raise a hand to steady the rather unwieldy glass).

And thus was my day... after getting a tad lost (*ahem* I swear I didn’t decide to “take a shortcut” through Petit France at one in the morning, walking by myself... I swear I didn’t... and even if I had – which I didn’t of course – it’s my dad’s blood that made me... not my fault...*), I finally made it back to the apartment, tired enough to finally sleep through the night... which lasted until 1 this afternoon.

I’ll stop with the updates now, as it’s nearly 9 pm and I haven’t had dinner yet – I told Mme. I’d take care of it on my own tonight, since I new I had copious internet-business to take care of, and I didn’t think I’d be back in time for the usual 7:30-8:00 dinner hour.

À bientôt!



* p.s. for any worried souls out there, Strasbourg is a relatively safe city, and while it is recommended that one take a taxi after about 3 am, students of the past have felt fairly safe walking around fairly late in the night. What’s more, I didn’t bring a purse with me, on recommendation, so that were I to be spotted by an unsavory soul, I’d be less appealing. Not to mention the whole “it’s all in how you hold yourself” and I’ve really been practicing the french stature, holding yourself tall and confident, with obvious business to be taken care of and no time for pish posh.