3 am post-st. pattie’s day
Yesterday at this time, I was blissfully asleep as part of the 16 hours I got thanks to a fever and the fear of having caught the same nasty stomach flu that it seems every this side of the city center has been afflicted with. And yet tonight (or this morning, rather), I’m just winding down and sobering up after a rowdy night out celebrating the saint’s day in the only traditionally irish way one can... by the rule of “drink and be merry.”
It seems after two nights of excessive sleep, I managed to pull myself out of my stupor and sickness (helped in part by this morning’s dance class, which, though leaving me somewhat bruised and sore in certain places, manages to rejeuvenate me better than even a good french espresso) to be ready to celebrate the day of green and irish... and everything I heard about the annual occasion was along the lines of “fou” (or “crazy” as us english folks insist on saying). So obviously I had to get better in order to witness this revelry for myself...
Spent the “pre-party” time with Martina and her friend from home (the half-german, half-american strikingly beautiful Leah) at a local residence of one of the canadien girls from our class, along with a lot of her friends (including a Swedish Eritrean, a Mexicana, two girls from perhaps the Netherlands or some other germanic-language location, and a handful of other canadiens). Everyone spoke english, perhaps because everyone knew it well (and/or better than french, in the case of Leah) and the canadiens (plus li’l ol me) held the highest number. Strange and abnormal to speak english with Martina who gave Leah and I a good laugh when she described how she hadn’t been swimming yet at the ‘Municipal Baths’ because she didn’t have the umph or desire to ‘peel’ her legs (i.e. shave, but man, the image that evoked!). In any case, the pre-soirée was enjoyable and rather liquor-filled, as all of us were quite jovial and well-oiled by the time we left to head to the local Irish hot-spot, the english-speaking Irish Times (essentially THE bar of the LC crowd).
Of course the bar was insane. Small, by most standards, it was overflowing at top-capacity with at least 100 idlers standing outside sipping beers, shouting various randomnities, or trying to shove their way past the two large bouncers to make their way into the bar. Out front we ran into some of the other LCers/Bryn Mawr girls also trying to find their way in... after about a half hour we’d all managed to get our way in. During the ensuing hours, the following took place:
- I ordered a Guinness. Which was a bad idea, as I was already quite tipsy. Hence began my drunkenness
- Learned some of the nuances and differences of the Newfoundland dialect... “Appy Heaster to all...” one might say come Jesus’s resurrection... and other such excentricities of speech
- Helped explain what the words “shi-shi” and “fru-fru” meant... they are now permentently incorporated into the Swedish-Eritrean’s english base (which sounds pretty fluent to me, complete with excessive “like”s and all)
- Gave a frenchman a kiss to the cheek for his 24th birthday while his friend insisted that birthdays merited lip-to-lip (i ignored his plea).
- Stood around helplessly while 5 people around me spoke in rapid German, proving even more my need/desire to learn a bit of the language (currently I can say “here is so-and-so, there is so-and-so, so-and-so is over there”... but that’s as far as I’ve gotten in my self-teaching french-to-german book)
- Exchanged drunken i-love-yous with ariana and promised her I’d go to Nancy with her next Friday to visit her old host city/family
- Learned about who’s “a bitch” and such gossip that really only comes out when one is drunk enough to forget his or her reserve in such matteers.
- Tried to dance to a bag-piped song that an old guy seemed to be playing in honor of us three (Martina, Leah, and I), as he stood right in front of us and seemed to egg on our attempted dancing.
- Was told that Martina and Alex and I were the “coolest” of the new bunch in our class by one of the Canadian girls who’s been there since fall (*awwww!* though you never know with drunken offerints like that... could just be the alcohol talking)
- Realized at some point that I really shouldn’t finish my guiness and thus gave it away.
- Decided, along with Martina and Leah to head out around 1:45 to a more “relaxing” atmosphere (which for me = sobering up) in a hookah bar near to my place. We forwent the hookah for the night but instead ordered expensive fancy teas (even a simple tisane in france often costs more than a beer or a cheap bottle of wine) and sat ourselves down upon various pillows at low-seated tables after putting our shoes in special shoe-bags.
- Talked with Leah in English (she’s totally fluent... mother’s american and she lived in the US for a year of high school) about a bunch of stuff and soon realized Martina wasn’t really following our conversation. Hence the strange triangle that became evident... leah and I talking in english, Martina and I in french, and her and leah in german... aie!
- Learned that Leah’s mom was the first “hippy” prom-queen at Macalaster... probably only a few short years after dad quit the very same campus for japan.
All and all, it turned out to be a fun and exciting night. And come Sunday? It’ll be carnival, one of Strasbourg’s biggest events of the year! (yes, yes, Carnival should be over in all practical senses of the term, but everything in Alsace works just a bit differently... hence Carnival the third weekend in march). More excitement to come, it seems...
IN other news:
- BIKE HEAVEN!! I finally rented a bike the other day, for the meager sum of 18 euros a month... provided it doesn’t get stolen, b/c I had to put down another 100 euros in cash as a precaution. The bike-life is treating me oh-so-well, as I delight in easily discovering new little streets as I make my way to school in the mornings in 15-20 minutes... about the same time it would take me by tram, if I didn’t miss it, and this way, I can do everything on my own watch, by my own route. Even discovered a Vegetarian restaurant in Petit france while riding through the other day, which I should try and find again... if its not too pricey, it’d be nice to be reminded what eating vegetarian is like... (even though I know have quite the meat-palette)
- MANIFESTATIONS, UNIVERSITY TAKE-OVERS, and STUDENT STRIKES, OH MY!... If you haven’t heard from across the globe, France is up in arms all over the country due to the passing (thanks to right-winger Villepin) of the CPE or “Contrat Première Embauche” which translates out to something along the lines of “First Job Contract.” Essentially, it extends the period during which employers can fire newly hired under-26 year-olds without reason (i.e. no job security) from the already established 6 month period to a full two-years. Yeah, kind of a big change. Villepin’s argument is that it’ll help businesses hire more new graduates, without worrying about being tied into keeping them, which is supposedly a big problem/concern here.
I guess Villepin realized he was riding on shaky ground here and essentially used his powers to push the thing through without taking the usual amount of time to deliberate. I think he thought that once it was finally through, perhaps the students would return to their classes and stop protesting and striking, because, as he says now, it’s through, and he’s not going back on it. Well, perhaps he forgot he was in the land of the Revolution. This is what the french are best at! Getting out in the streets and protesting! Not to mention covering their universities in graffiti totally millions in damages, taking over university buildings, constructing blockades out out of now broken tables and chairs... Essentially, it’s craziness... some universities have been occupied and/or locked up for over a month now. Some students are sick of it. Others are gung-ho to keep protesting and risk their final exams (which, for Marc Bloch, the occupied university of humanities and social sciences, are coming up in early April). The president of Marc Bloch agreed to suspend all midterms set for last week so as to not penalize the grêvistes (strikers). Alas, the international students have been kept rather segregated from the whole ordeal, as we have classes in a separate building and our midterms were not cancelled...
I could offer more on the ordeal, but frankly I don’t know all that many of the details. I will, however, be posting pics and such of both the destruction and occupation of the university and the protest I went to this weekend. Till then!
It seems after two nights of excessive sleep, I managed to pull myself out of my stupor and sickness (helped in part by this morning’s dance class, which, though leaving me somewhat bruised and sore in certain places, manages to rejeuvenate me better than even a good french espresso) to be ready to celebrate the day of green and irish... and everything I heard about the annual occasion was along the lines of “fou” (or “crazy” as us english folks insist on saying). So obviously I had to get better in order to witness this revelry for myself...
Spent the “pre-party” time with Martina and her friend from home (the half-german, half-american strikingly beautiful Leah) at a local residence of one of the canadien girls from our class, along with a lot of her friends (including a Swedish Eritrean, a Mexicana, two girls from perhaps the Netherlands or some other germanic-language location, and a handful of other canadiens). Everyone spoke english, perhaps because everyone knew it well (and/or better than french, in the case of Leah) and the canadiens (plus li’l ol me) held the highest number. Strange and abnormal to speak english with Martina who gave Leah and I a good laugh when she described how she hadn’t been swimming yet at the ‘Municipal Baths’ because she didn’t have the umph or desire to ‘peel’ her legs (i.e. shave, but man, the image that evoked!). In any case, the pre-soirée was enjoyable and rather liquor-filled, as all of us were quite jovial and well-oiled by the time we left to head to the local Irish hot-spot, the english-speaking Irish Times (essentially THE bar of the LC crowd).
Of course the bar was insane. Small, by most standards, it was overflowing at top-capacity with at least 100 idlers standing outside sipping beers, shouting various randomnities, or trying to shove their way past the two large bouncers to make their way into the bar. Out front we ran into some of the other LCers/Bryn Mawr girls also trying to find their way in... after about a half hour we’d all managed to get our way in. During the ensuing hours, the following took place:
- I ordered a Guinness. Which was a bad idea, as I was already quite tipsy. Hence began my drunkenness
- Learned some of the nuances and differences of the Newfoundland dialect... “Appy Heaster to all...” one might say come Jesus’s resurrection... and other such excentricities of speech
- Helped explain what the words “shi-shi” and “fru-fru” meant... they are now permentently incorporated into the Swedish-Eritrean’s english base (which sounds pretty fluent to me, complete with excessive “like”s and all)
- Gave a frenchman a kiss to the cheek for his 24th birthday while his friend insisted that birthdays merited lip-to-lip (i ignored his plea).
- Stood around helplessly while 5 people around me spoke in rapid German, proving even more my need/desire to learn a bit of the language (currently I can say “here is so-and-so, there is so-and-so, so-and-so is over there”... but that’s as far as I’ve gotten in my self-teaching french-to-german book)
- Exchanged drunken i-love-yous with ariana and promised her I’d go to Nancy with her next Friday to visit her old host city/family
- Learned about who’s “a bitch” and such gossip that really only comes out when one is drunk enough to forget his or her reserve in such matteers.
- Tried to dance to a bag-piped song that an old guy seemed to be playing in honor of us three (Martina, Leah, and I), as he stood right in front of us and seemed to egg on our attempted dancing.
- Was told that Martina and Alex and I were the “coolest” of the new bunch in our class by one of the Canadian girls who’s been there since fall (*awwww!* though you never know with drunken offerints like that... could just be the alcohol talking)
- Realized at some point that I really shouldn’t finish my guiness and thus gave it away.
- Decided, along with Martina and Leah to head out around 1:45 to a more “relaxing” atmosphere (which for me = sobering up) in a hookah bar near to my place. We forwent the hookah for the night but instead ordered expensive fancy teas (even a simple tisane in france often costs more than a beer or a cheap bottle of wine) and sat ourselves down upon various pillows at low-seated tables after putting our shoes in special shoe-bags.
- Talked with Leah in English (she’s totally fluent... mother’s american and she lived in the US for a year of high school) about a bunch of stuff and soon realized Martina wasn’t really following our conversation. Hence the strange triangle that became evident... leah and I talking in english, Martina and I in french, and her and leah in german... aie!
- Learned that Leah’s mom was the first “hippy” prom-queen at Macalaster... probably only a few short years after dad quit the very same campus for japan.
All and all, it turned out to be a fun and exciting night. And come Sunday? It’ll be carnival, one of Strasbourg’s biggest events of the year! (yes, yes, Carnival should be over in all practical senses of the term, but everything in Alsace works just a bit differently... hence Carnival the third weekend in march). More excitement to come, it seems...
IN other news:
- BIKE HEAVEN!! I finally rented a bike the other day, for the meager sum of 18 euros a month... provided it doesn’t get stolen, b/c I had to put down another 100 euros in cash as a precaution. The bike-life is treating me oh-so-well, as I delight in easily discovering new little streets as I make my way to school in the mornings in 15-20 minutes... about the same time it would take me by tram, if I didn’t miss it, and this way, I can do everything on my own watch, by my own route. Even discovered a Vegetarian restaurant in Petit france while riding through the other day, which I should try and find again... if its not too pricey, it’d be nice to be reminded what eating vegetarian is like... (even though I know have quite the meat-palette)
- MANIFESTATIONS, UNIVERSITY TAKE-OVERS, and STUDENT STRIKES, OH MY!... If you haven’t heard from across the globe, France is up in arms all over the country due to the passing (thanks to right-winger Villepin) of the CPE or “Contrat Première Embauche” which translates out to something along the lines of “First Job Contract.” Essentially, it extends the period during which employers can fire newly hired under-26 year-olds without reason (i.e. no job security) from the already established 6 month period to a full two-years. Yeah, kind of a big change. Villepin’s argument is that it’ll help businesses hire more new graduates, without worrying about being tied into keeping them, which is supposedly a big problem/concern here.
I guess Villepin realized he was riding on shaky ground here and essentially used his powers to push the thing through without taking the usual amount of time to deliberate. I think he thought that once it was finally through, perhaps the students would return to their classes and stop protesting and striking, because, as he says now, it’s through, and he’s not going back on it. Well, perhaps he forgot he was in the land of the Revolution. This is what the french are best at! Getting out in the streets and protesting! Not to mention covering their universities in graffiti totally millions in damages, taking over university buildings, constructing blockades out out of now broken tables and chairs... Essentially, it’s craziness... some universities have been occupied and/or locked up for over a month now. Some students are sick of it. Others are gung-ho to keep protesting and risk their final exams (which, for Marc Bloch, the occupied university of humanities and social sciences, are coming up in early April). The president of Marc Bloch agreed to suspend all midterms set for last week so as to not penalize the grêvistes (strikers). Alas, the international students have been kept rather segregated from the whole ordeal, as we have classes in a separate building and our midterms were not cancelled...
I could offer more on the ordeal, but frankly I don’t know all that many of the details. I will, however, be posting pics and such of both the destruction and occupation of the university and the protest I went to this weekend. Till then!
posted by Melia at 9:30 AM
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