The Days Are Just Packed...

It’s about 1:30 a.m. and I’ve just returned from a smoky night out, courtesy of a second birthday in the group in need of celebrating (Erica had her 21st today).

Thinking back to daily life in Portland, Albany, or wherever, I can’t imagine a time when the days were more packed. At least in that having-a-blast, second-wind after second-wind (i.e. third wind, fourth wind, etc.) sort of way. Today Mme told me with a laugh “Nous n’allons pas te voir beaucoup ce semestre, eh?!” (“We’re not going to see you much this semester, eh?!”) as I announced I wouldn’t be coming home for dinner for a second time this week come tomorrow (it’s not like I’m trying to ditch out either, because Tuesday she was worried about getting home late from a doctor’s appointment, so I decided to make things easier by telling her I had other plans for dinner, and just getting some take out and sitting in an internet cafe... and tomorrow Ariana invited me over to her and Margeaux’s to cook... so my excuses are valid!).

In any case, today’s events started with a 9 am wake-up (I’m FINALLY sleeping through the night), a croissant and the usual cup of tea, a 15-minute tram ride and our first language class from 10:30-12:30. Our professor (one of two that our level will have) seems très chouette (very cool). She kind of reminds me a bit of Nicole, back at Lewis & Clark, though not quite as off-the-wall. We listened to a couple songs and received a couple poems to read for tomorrow... so familiar! I felt like I was back in a Mme. Selvin class, or at Lewis & Clark, listening to a song at the end of French.

The class has about 25 students in it, about six of whom are American. The other nationalities (as far as I remember) were Canadian, Russian, Italian, German, Croatian, Polish (?), Japanese, Korean, Chinese... and a few I simply didn’t recognize, though I thought one was an African nationality, by the sound of the guy’s name. Some of them were here last semester and knew the professor already, whom they talked to on a very familiar, joking basis... reassuring, considering what we’ve heard about the strict and distant lectures of the French system. Obviously, a small language class is going to prove different.

I arrived a bit early (Melia? Early?) and ended up sitting next to one of the Bryn Mawr girls, but, while I’m still trying to get to know them, I don’t want to get in an early habit of just sticking to the Americans. Luckily, at the end of class, the German girl sitting next to me happened to ask me if I knew where the copy room was, to buy our livrettes (work books). I said no, but that we could try to find it, and the Russian girl, with her entourage of we’ve-already-been-here-for-a-semester friends, offered to show us the way. Martina (the German girl), Alex (an LCer and the only male in our male, to his dismay), and I followed the Russian girl and picked up a couple other international students along the way, whom Martina had met the day before. Another American, from Michigan; a Chilean guy who was just passing through for a few days on his summer tromping-around-Europe break (yes, it’s summer break in Chile); and a girl from Taiwan, also named Alex. Unfortunately for our French-needs, the Chilean spoke no french but did speak English fairly well, as did both Martina and Alex (the Taiwanese girl). So... we spoke English all through lunch. But we did eat a very Alsatian meal of Tarte Flambée, which is essentially very thin-crust pizza with an amazing range of toppings (I had goat cheese, gruyère, tomatoes and herbs on mine... soooo good!).

TOP PHOTO: Martina, Alex (Taiwan), and Alex from LC
BOTTOM PHOTO: Grey (Michigan), myself, and the Chilean guy, who's name I can't remember


At some point, I – of all people – managed to bring up politics. On the subject of Bush, though it soon broadened to include discussion of voting in all the countries represented, as well as the status of the female presidents in both Germany and now Chile, which have been widely publicized here in the news. Both representing students said they didn’t think much of their presidents, not because of their being female, but simply because of the fact that they didn’t seem to have the right proficiency for the part. In any case, it was simply fascinating, having four different nationalities represented at the table, and even some diversity on the American side of things, as Grey, from Michigan, held that, though he doesn’t like Bush one bit, he’d have probably chosen him over Kerry, if he hadn’t cast his vote Libertarian. Oy. Certainly added some spice to the conversation.

Upon leaving, Alex and I invited the group to meet up later that night to celebrate a birthday, and we showed them on the map our rendezvous location. I then took a brief jaunt through the sales and managed to purchase a third scarf in two days (i know, i know, but it was supposedly 50% off 7 euros, and when it turned out it had been in the wrong box, I couldn’t justify having waited in line and not paying the extra E3.50) and made it back to the apartment around 5 pm. There were still children running about, yelling and laughing and crying about this and that, and Mme, who has caught the usual winter bug, was at the end of her patience. “Allez au coin!” (“Go stand in the corner!”) I overheard her yell at two of the children, one of which –Jules—is the cutest two-year-old ever, but a total mischief-maker. He has the habit of repeating “Meh-lya... Meh-lya... Où va Meh-lya??” when I leave the room (and really, it makes me want to go back and fawn him with attention, because small-child-speaking-french, especially when he’s calling my name with that ever-french accent, = too cute to handle).

As it was, I stayed in my room and made good use of my iPod to drown out some of the noise, choosing to rest up a bit to make sure I had ample energy for tonight. After a brief and delicious meal of potage aux legumes (a thick vegetable soup), with crêpes salé for dipping – no meat, for once!! – I transferred a bit of money, my tram-pass, and my cell phone into a pocket, stuffed my rather bulky digital camera in one of my jackets (I’m learning to do as the french do: dress in layers, known as “Faire l’onion” – Doing the Onion!) and I was off!

Most of the group showed up for the night out, along with Martina, the only one of the earlier lunch bunch who made it (besides Alex and I). Others were: Gilly, Ariana, Kate, Margeaux, and Erica (birthday girl) from LC, along with Anisa from Bryn Mawr (see picture).


FROM THE LEFT, AROUND THE TABLE CLOCKWISE: Martina (Germany), myself, Alex, Gilly, Margeaux, Erica, Ariana, Kate, Anisa (Bryn Mawr)

THE BIRTHDAY GIRLS:
We headed back to The Irish Times (English speaking bar from the time before that gives free birthday shots) and managed to run into Neil, the American student who studied here two years ago and is now back in Strasbourg, working part time at The Irish Times and part time with Beth, helping organize our trip. He’s totally working without the proper papers, but he decided to stay on in Strasbourg after a summer internship because it was better than his original plan of returning to New Orleans to find work (a plan devised pre-Katrina, which hit just before he was planning to go home).

We all got drinks to start of the night, and without even thinking, I ordered the first thing that I could remember from the menu... the Blowjob. Oy. My first shot in Strasbourg and I was going to have to do it sans mains (No Hands!). Awkwardly (or expertly, depending on how you look at the task), I managed to get all the liquid in my mouth before rescuing the empty glass from my lips and then gulping down the alcohol. Bailey’s, Amaretto, and whipped cream... damn good, I must say.

It being Europe, where things can happen that simply never would back in the states, Neil called over an English friend of his sitting at the bar, who just happened to have with him a recently purchased, uber-expensive 18th century Japanese sword, so sharp it can easily cut through metal. A bit wary to be around so much alcohol and such a sharp object, we hesitantly oooed and awed over the craftsmanship, very aware that the blade glinted quite menacingly and that we’d better stay on very good terms with this fine lad. I guess he’d actually brought the sword specifically to show Neil, who’d just gotten off his shift, but really... in how many bars do you randomly get to see a swordsman’s masterpiece, shining brilliantly amid empty mugs of Guinness?





After a good hour or more in the English atmosphere, we decided to head back to the well-known student bar we’d gone to for Ariana’s b-day to hit up their happy hour. Upon surveying the crowd when we entered, I suggested we try going down to “the cave,” beneath the main floor, which I’d remembered Neil explaining as a rowdy and carousing place, filled with long tables that got filled in the evenings. Little did we know how true this was...

We walked in and there were at least 100 people, all college-age, sitting along the benches with ample pitchers of beer covering the tables. They were clapping excitedly and singing rowdy drinking songs, whose lyrics were so out-of-tune and slurred we couldn’t understand more than a word or two. Upon our entrance, the entire room turned to look and everyone burst into cheers and began to clap and sing even louder. We laughed nervously, embarrassed, and made our way to the only empty table, near one wall. The next hour consisted of the loudest and rowdiest bar festivities I’ve seen yet, with one of the drinking songs mentioning something about “une fesse” (an ass) and before we knew it, one guy was on the table, pulling down his pants, to reveal a rather sun-deprived buttocks, in clear view. I think it was Kate who turned to the group of us, with an apt question: “Um, so WHO was it that told us that the French didn’t get drunk??” And it’s only Wednesday!

Ariana spent the night trying to convince me to get on the table and sing a rousing verse of “Twinkle Twinkle,” with everyone else backing her request but refusing their own company on the tabletop... a typical situation. Somehow they had (or rather, Ariana had) picked me as the person most likely to get up on a table and sing an English song as loud as I could for the benefit of over 100 drunken French students. Unfortunately, seeing as how I had drunk significantly less than anyone else in our group, I wasn’t quite to the point of sacrificing the last of my poise, though I did promise one table-top bar song by the end of our Strasbourg semester. So stay tuned...

Where else would they serve two sausages with an order of fries? Needless to say, no one was really in the mood.


As the bar was clearing out, and we were all preparing to go, two french guys came over to our table and asked us some question about if we were having a good time, or something. They soon realized we weren’t french and got very, very excited that we were from the States. While us females were originally wary to get into conversation with two obviously inebriated french guys (the exact profile we were warned about), the fact that they were talking to us in broken English about whether we knew “Sex een za citee? Za beastie boeez? Freendz?” and clapping every time we said we did, clapping every time we said where we were from (“Ah! New York! You er from New York! I like you!! Ah! Californie! San Francisco! *screeeeam!* They are from San Francisco! They speak English! Talk with us, please!”)... they were just too amusing to prove as sounding boards for our practiced french cold-shoulder. They tried, as always, to persuade us to go out with them later, but they were fairly nice – drunk nice – and didn’t follow us but said “Bye-bye!” when the time came.

And thus concludes my second night out in Strasbourg... many more to come, I’m sure. I’m very excited to get to some clubs, sketchy as they may be... Ariana and Kate said they were excited to go dancing, and Martina says she likes dancing to electronic music (ah, Germany!) so I’m hoping I’ll have someone to go to that genre of club with, even if isn’t the typical LC-er’s scene.

It’s so awesome to be meeting new people, getting to know the LC & Bryn Mawr crowd better, all that jazz. Martina seems awesome and I think she had ample conversations with others in the group throughout the night. She’s originally Romanian, raised in Germany, has taken English for 8 years (and her English is much better than my 8 years of French), French for 5 (and again, her French seems much better than mine), Latin for 5, a tad of Spanish, and she speaks a regional dialect at home with her parents. She may know another language as well, I can’t keep track. Europeans have the language thing down, that’s certainly something that’s becoming more and more evident.

Kate, in her drunkenness, called me fucking awesome tonight. So I think the whole bonding thing is coming along... The more we’re all together, the more little nuances emerge, and it’s definitely been interesting to feel where I click with each person, and what we do or do not have in common. I have a bad/good habit, depending on how you look at it, of mirroring, to some degree, whoever I’m with, so I think people end up thinking I have more in common with them than may actually be true. That certainly came up tonight. It’s no big deal, but I am aware that it’s easy for me to get sucked into the chameleon game, and I just want to make sure I stay true to me, to “Meh-lya,” who ever this strange, Strasbourg-loving, francophied girl may be.


The famous cathedrale, at 1 a.m... prettier than ever. And we're all excited to hear Mozart's Requiem there with all the amazing acoustics of an old cathedrale, come January 30.


And just because I love making to-do lists so much, as well as formulating goals that may or may not come to volition....

- On the subject of my name... make sure those in my group don’t try to Englishify “MEH-lya” and turn it into “MEEL-ya” which is simply an ugly name that needs to be stricken from anyone’s vocabulary. In French, “MEH-lya” is fine, endearing, even beautiful. In English, the only way to pass is with an accent on the second syllable and first syllable avoiding, at all costs, a pronunciation that reminds me of the second-grade class meel-worms we used to raise as pets. Oy.

- Obtain and read the fifth Harry Potter... in French. I haven’t read past book four, so why not do my catching up while practicing my chosen language?


- Learn some basic German while I’m here, before traveling across the border. My host mom speaks it fluently, and of course I now know Martina, so I think the only thing keeping me from a few simple phrases is a completely new accent to try and tackle.

- Shop for a cheap purse (we’re in the midst of “les Soldes” after all (the Sales)) that’s not as heavy and shoulder-breaking as the one I have. For Europe travel my current one is good and safe, but for a simple jaunt to town, I really need something smaller and lighter.


- Upon returning from bars, use Febreez on smoke-saturated clothing before dumping in hamper with potentially re-wearable clothing (that may have been the best purchase Gretchen and I made when doing our Walgreen’s run before leaving).

- Devise an alcohol budget. Even if I only have one drink every time we go out, the tab gets pretty steep after a month of going out three or more times a week.

- Find a Papetterie (like a stationary store, except better.

- Keep up the no-American-chains-allowed rule. I have so far not been tempted by a 1 euro sundae at MacDonald’s (the only thing I’d ever eat there anyway), and, though I do love Office Depot back home, I made a point to pass up its convenient location and vowed to take my business to one of the Papetteries. I mean, come on... it’s only in France that you have stores that devote themselves almost entirely to Claire Fontaine stationary and supplies, all with the awesome multi-colored lines.

- Find the cute shoes I’ve been shopping for (and make sure they’re comfortable! As comfy as my boots seem to be, I literally had shin-splints for 24 hours after the last time I wore them, for 20 walking-packed hours straight).

- Not spend too much money on the sales, even if it is true that any of the shopping I want to do, I should do now.

- Meet more international students... not just stick close to the Americans in our group. And maybe, just maybe, try and meet some French students... outside of the bars.

- Find ways to speak French outside the house and DO IT! So far, it’s all been in English with the group... and even the international students today, partly the Chilean didn’t speak French, but we all knew English.

- Sign up for one of the many dance classes offered here through the sports department. Potentially a way to meet some french students, non?

- Get to bed before 3 a.m. next time I come back from a late night... hence, save some of the writing for later!