3:30 am ramble...
Just came on the tram to the internet place... in passing, saw a Free Tibet demonstration or something going on with prayer flags and all. The world is really everyone... The following entry is from last night
____________
It’s funny how so much can change, can fluctuate, within a day, 24 hours, or two days, or a week... it’s been weird to re-adjust to being back in Strasbourg, back in the school-mode, back to the land of french and a daily routine. I wasn’t all that stoked about being here after returning... the routine, the language (classes), the daily grind. My mind was instead set on the summer, making plans, sitting in the internet cafe and pouring over internet sites about europe travel, staying up late nights tossing and turning with nervous anticipation for a trip, a life, still months away. And each day I would pull myself out of bed, drag myself to class, and barely wake up before it was time for bed again... seriously, I’ve been nothing but tired since being back (Mme. blames it on the weather, which was continuing to bring snow flurries on a daily basis up until yesterday).
Now, though, I think I’m finally back into some semblance of a Strasbourg groove. Between yesterday and today, I’ve had so many ups and downs, so many positives and blah-moments... but I think I’ve just been getting the blah out of my system so I can start enjoying and living life day-to-day again, rather than dwelling in the future or the back-home (after checking and reading my email today – and seeing snow pics of Lewis and Clark!! – I felt more homesick/schoolsick than I’ve felt all trip! I missed everyone, I wanted a hug, an LC campus snowball fight, a community...). Walking home today from classes – on a very empty stomach – I was completely discombobulated, down, exhausted for no good reason, and wanting the stability (relative) of home. However, after forcing myself into a Turkish “Doner Snack” place to get a meat-heavy Turkish pizza to tide over the disorienting empty stomach, things began to get better.
I returned home and cozied up in bed with my computer and my headphones, intent to go through all of the 600+ new songs I’ve accumulated from Martina (such good taste! Supposedly, I have to thank her boyfriend for most of the musical genius I’m now enjoying) and put them into various playlists (the only way to assure I’ll ever really listen to any of the gazillion songs I have). I think I finally realized that, while I felt a bit downer-ish to be in bed with my computer on a Friday early evening, really, downtime chez moi is just as merited as anything else.
Dinner with Mme. was good, as it always seems to be nowadays. Now that I’m used to the meat factor, I’ve really started to enjoy her cooking, and things at the apartment have been very comfortable and easy-going since my return. Especially after hearing some horror stories from a few of the other students, I’m feeling really lucky for the situation I’m in. Mme and I laughed over dinner about some of the other-family stories (including some very uptight bourgeoisie dramatists), and, seeing as how she’s met many of the other host families over the years, she was trying to guess which families I was referring to in my story telling.
After dinner (and seeing as there was nothing good on TV), Mme offered to cut my hair, something I’d proposed a week or so ago but which we hadn’t yet found a time to do. She used to be a haircutter for a good 12 years before occupying herself with children, so this wasn’t a random request. She, however, was initially opposed to the idea of cutting my already not-so-long hair even shorter. But she gave in, and, after my assuring her I wouldn’t cry if I didn’t like it, like her daughters used to do (and after giving her essentially no instructions beyond “Something shorter, something different... I don’t really care), once she got started, there was no stopping her! There were at least three points when I was sure she was finished (two points at which I would have been completely content had she stopped there), but, as it turns out, she is a self-proclaimed Virgo-perfectionist, so I ended up with an hour and a half of attention given to my “incredibly thick” hair, which progressively got shorter and shorter as her scissors trudged onward (it also got thinner and thinner, as she was determined to fight against the somewhat unruly thickness of it all). By the end of it all, my hair was shorter than I’d even imagined it would be (so much for my fleeting desire to grow it out... I just don’t have the patience). It’s a good cut though, similar to one I’ve had before, and I think it’ll serve me well for the (soon-to-be...???) coming of spring. We’ve already agreed to do another cut before I leave for vacation, which will probably be even shorter still, to accommodate for easy travel care.
Post-haircut, I saw a text message had come in on my cell phone from one of the Canadian girls in my language class, inviting me out for drinks and dancing if I was so inclined. My bed looked ever so inviting, though... and all that music to go through... and it was already just about midnight... But after having Mme give me this look and saying “Go, get out! You have all weekend to sleep!”, I figured I had no good excuse to stay in... I really needed to start fighting the desire to be antisocial and instead make a bit of an effort, especially when it meant “sortir”ing (going out) with new and interesting folks. So, after popping in my contacts, changing my hair-speckled shirt, and grabbing just enough money for a drink or perhaps two, I managed to catch the last shuttle into the strasbourg center, and made it to The Mosquito, a bar with walls covered in everything to do with anything Spanish-related. Susan and another of her friends (also Canadian) were easily found, and we caught up (in English, but hey, at least we had a Nova Scotian dialect going... I learned a couple more interesting facts about the ever-cool Canada and its assortment of friendly people). Also had an interesting conversation with a Hollander living in Strasbourg for a trimester as part of the three european cities he will have lived in to fulfill his European studies program. He’s also lived in Florida for a time, so I had fun giving him my impressions of Amsterdam, while he gave me his idea of America as seen from the midst of the bible belt (as he described it).
Martina and her friend visiting from home (Germany) showed up a bit later and the three of us headed to an awesome late-night bar with good music and quite the crowd. Finally, a place to dance!! And not the dirty, sketchy, grinding that I’m becoming more and more disillusioned with (even though I enjoy the actually dancing aspect of it). Try instead oldies, a track of the Grease soundtrack, some funk, some french upbeat something or other... in other words, happy music. Not music to a) grind to in a nothing-but-sexual way or b) pretend to be all hard-core and sketchy to (terrible sentence construction, but hopefully you get the point). We were smiling, dancing, singing along, sipping beers (okay, only I was... they’d already had their fill before coming) and having a fun time of it all. I was offered a free drink (which I declined), a chance to meet “a really cute celibate guy in back” according to his friend (which I also declined), and then danced one lindy-hop-esk song with a very upbeat and enthusiastic french guy (who then let me be afterwards with an “enjoy!” smile... very unlike the sketch frenchmen everyone always seems to be talking about). All in all, one of the most fun “bar” experiences I’ve had thus far in the Strasbourg region.
Walking home had another brief conversation with some guys in town to perform a play who were looking to find a certain party and invited us along (third decline of the night). Talked a bit more with Martina’s friend (in french), who I’ll hopefully see more of tomorrow. When I finally split off in the direction of home, I realized how mild and beautiful it was, how much I really enjoy walking home in the wee hours of the morning, when the streets are glowing but relatively silent, when all you can hear is distant laughter, occasional footsteps, and maybe the sing-song call of some sort of bird who never seems to keep track of the time of day or night in the least.
All in all, a relatively shitty day to start turned into a successful and fun evening filled with new people, laughter, smiles, and some energy to boot, as well as a refueling of my Strasbourg-love. While I’m sure I’ll continue to excite in plans for this summer (Norway, Germany, Italy, Spain, Southern France, Prague, Budapest, and the music and dance of Ireland are all tentatively sketched into the nine or so weeks I’ll have to travel), I think I’m getting re-grounded in more of the NOW, finding new ways to enjoy my time here, making new connections and solidifying old ones (and not really being phased that I’ve been phased out of the LC crowd, practically speaking. It’s one of those “I don’t go with them b/c they don’t invite me, but then again, they don’t invite me b/c I don’t go with them” sort of things. Really, it’s a non-issue, as I’m making more solid connections elsewhere that are more suited to my interests, etc.).
In other news...
- I’m going to get a bike tomorrow! Hurrah! I’m first going to check out a local used bike shop to see if I can’t buy myself a cheap, cruddy-looking (i.e. less-likely-to-be-stolen) but functional mode of transportation. If that doesn’t work I’ll just rent one (45 euro for the semester for a student is cheap as anything, but the bikes look newer and there’s a 100 euro deposit that you loose along with 45 if the bike gets snatched).
- Had the best hot chocolate in Strasbourg the other day at a little cafe near the Cathedral. Damn good stuff. It’s an add-your-own-sugar type of deal, with so much cacao in it I had to drink it in small doses
- May have one of the best tarte-flambées come tomorrow, if plans go as hoped (fyi: Tarte flambée is an Alsacian specialty and is like an extremely thin-crust pizza with a whole variety of exciting toppings... among with is fresh goat cheese... mmmm....)
- Speaking of goat cheese, may have found a goat farm to do one aspect of my “Project Village” on... soon shall see if it’s visitable...
- Had dinner with Nicole, the sister of Jean-Noel (an ancient boyfriend of dearest Maman). Nicole happens to live in Strasbourg, so mom via Jean-Noel helped me make the connection. Two exciting things happened at this dinner, besides the meeting of her and her husband:
1. Met a french girl in her first year of university (a neighbor of theirs) who would love to get together for lunch occasionally, go out, etc. and do a language exchange... she’s specializing in english but has no one to practice with, and seeing as how I’d love to get in on the french peer circuit... voila! She’s incredibly nice and has the more sing-songy accent that gets stronger the more south you get (she’s originally from Dijon).
2. Found out the most coincidental of serendipitous of small-world occurrences... Nicole and her husband often also host foreign students for a semester or so... and guess who they often get students from?? BETH!!! They’re part of the same program that I’m here with! (Called “Lewis & Clark College in France” even though it really deals with LC students plus Bryn Mawr and Kalamazoo). Strangest of strange coincidences... would have been over-the-top had I been randomly placed with them as my family. But alas. For a second I wished that had happened, as they live literally a block from Martina’s, have a large apartment sans five children running around daily, and they’re quite nice. Also, within the couple hours I was there, I realized how much my french (and my comprehension) improves when I’m put in a situation where I’m having to deal with fluent speakers speaking to each other and not just to me. That’s the one issue with it being just me and Mme most of the time... she can easily adjust her french to whatever speed I’m speaking, etc. and won’t use all the idioms that one would use with other fluent speakers. It’s not really a conscious decision on her part; it’s just what happens. Alas. But as it is I’m quite happy where I am, I’ll have other chances to go to dinner at Nicole’s (according to her), and at least now I have a french contact around my age interesting in getting together (even if it means speaking english some of the time. But hey, give and take, each of us can benefit).
In final news... I’ll get Ireland pics up soon enough. I’d love to get some updates up as well from the trip, but it’s already so far away... I did start carrying a wonderful little moleskin around with me on the trip, however, so I have a lot already written that would just involve typing up and formulating into some logical semblance of something. We shall see. As it is, it’s verging on 5 am and, while for once in a long while, I’m not feeling immediately drawn to my pillow, it would probably be the wisest decision at this point.
Bonne nuit!
____________
It’s funny how so much can change, can fluctuate, within a day, 24 hours, or two days, or a week... it’s been weird to re-adjust to being back in Strasbourg, back in the school-mode, back to the land of french and a daily routine. I wasn’t all that stoked about being here after returning... the routine, the language (classes), the daily grind. My mind was instead set on the summer, making plans, sitting in the internet cafe and pouring over internet sites about europe travel, staying up late nights tossing and turning with nervous anticipation for a trip, a life, still months away. And each day I would pull myself out of bed, drag myself to class, and barely wake up before it was time for bed again... seriously, I’ve been nothing but tired since being back (Mme. blames it on the weather, which was continuing to bring snow flurries on a daily basis up until yesterday).
Now, though, I think I’m finally back into some semblance of a Strasbourg groove. Between yesterday and today, I’ve had so many ups and downs, so many positives and blah-moments... but I think I’ve just been getting the blah out of my system so I can start enjoying and living life day-to-day again, rather than dwelling in the future or the back-home (after checking and reading my email today – and seeing snow pics of Lewis and Clark!! – I felt more homesick/schoolsick than I’ve felt all trip! I missed everyone, I wanted a hug, an LC campus snowball fight, a community...). Walking home today from classes – on a very empty stomach – I was completely discombobulated, down, exhausted for no good reason, and wanting the stability (relative) of home. However, after forcing myself into a Turkish “Doner Snack” place to get a meat-heavy Turkish pizza to tide over the disorienting empty stomach, things began to get better.
I returned home and cozied up in bed with my computer and my headphones, intent to go through all of the 600+ new songs I’ve accumulated from Martina (such good taste! Supposedly, I have to thank her boyfriend for most of the musical genius I’m now enjoying) and put them into various playlists (the only way to assure I’ll ever really listen to any of the gazillion songs I have). I think I finally realized that, while I felt a bit downer-ish to be in bed with my computer on a Friday early evening, really, downtime chez moi is just as merited as anything else.
Dinner with Mme. was good, as it always seems to be nowadays. Now that I’m used to the meat factor, I’ve really started to enjoy her cooking, and things at the apartment have been very comfortable and easy-going since my return. Especially after hearing some horror stories from a few of the other students, I’m feeling really lucky for the situation I’m in. Mme and I laughed over dinner about some of the other-family stories (including some very uptight bourgeoisie dramatists), and, seeing as how she’s met many of the other host families over the years, she was trying to guess which families I was referring to in my story telling.
After dinner (and seeing as there was nothing good on TV), Mme offered to cut my hair, something I’d proposed a week or so ago but which we hadn’t yet found a time to do. She used to be a haircutter for a good 12 years before occupying herself with children, so this wasn’t a random request. She, however, was initially opposed to the idea of cutting my already not-so-long hair even shorter. But she gave in, and, after my assuring her I wouldn’t cry if I didn’t like it, like her daughters used to do (and after giving her essentially no instructions beyond “Something shorter, something different... I don’t really care), once she got started, there was no stopping her! There were at least three points when I was sure she was finished (two points at which I would have been completely content had she stopped there), but, as it turns out, she is a self-proclaimed Virgo-perfectionist, so I ended up with an hour and a half of attention given to my “incredibly thick” hair, which progressively got shorter and shorter as her scissors trudged onward (it also got thinner and thinner, as she was determined to fight against the somewhat unruly thickness of it all). By the end of it all, my hair was shorter than I’d even imagined it would be (so much for my fleeting desire to grow it out... I just don’t have the patience). It’s a good cut though, similar to one I’ve had before, and I think it’ll serve me well for the (soon-to-be...???) coming of spring. We’ve already agreed to do another cut before I leave for vacation, which will probably be even shorter still, to accommodate for easy travel care.
Post-haircut, I saw a text message had come in on my cell phone from one of the Canadian girls in my language class, inviting me out for drinks and dancing if I was so inclined. My bed looked ever so inviting, though... and all that music to go through... and it was already just about midnight... But after having Mme give me this look and saying “Go, get out! You have all weekend to sleep!”, I figured I had no good excuse to stay in... I really needed to start fighting the desire to be antisocial and instead make a bit of an effort, especially when it meant “sortir”ing (going out) with new and interesting folks. So, after popping in my contacts, changing my hair-speckled shirt, and grabbing just enough money for a drink or perhaps two, I managed to catch the last shuttle into the strasbourg center, and made it to The Mosquito, a bar with walls covered in everything to do with anything Spanish-related. Susan and another of her friends (also Canadian) were easily found, and we caught up (in English, but hey, at least we had a Nova Scotian dialect going... I learned a couple more interesting facts about the ever-cool Canada and its assortment of friendly people). Also had an interesting conversation with a Hollander living in Strasbourg for a trimester as part of the three european cities he will have lived in to fulfill his European studies program. He’s also lived in Florida for a time, so I had fun giving him my impressions of Amsterdam, while he gave me his idea of America as seen from the midst of the bible belt (as he described it).
Martina and her friend visiting from home (Germany) showed up a bit later and the three of us headed to an awesome late-night bar with good music and quite the crowd. Finally, a place to dance!! And not the dirty, sketchy, grinding that I’m becoming more and more disillusioned with (even though I enjoy the actually dancing aspect of it). Try instead oldies, a track of the Grease soundtrack, some funk, some french upbeat something or other... in other words, happy music. Not music to a) grind to in a nothing-but-sexual way or b) pretend to be all hard-core and sketchy to (terrible sentence construction, but hopefully you get the point). We were smiling, dancing, singing along, sipping beers (okay, only I was... they’d already had their fill before coming) and having a fun time of it all. I was offered a free drink (which I declined), a chance to meet “a really cute celibate guy in back” according to his friend (which I also declined), and then danced one lindy-hop-esk song with a very upbeat and enthusiastic french guy (who then let me be afterwards with an “enjoy!” smile... very unlike the sketch frenchmen everyone always seems to be talking about). All in all, one of the most fun “bar” experiences I’ve had thus far in the Strasbourg region.
Walking home had another brief conversation with some guys in town to perform a play who were looking to find a certain party and invited us along (third decline of the night). Talked a bit more with Martina’s friend (in french), who I’ll hopefully see more of tomorrow. When I finally split off in the direction of home, I realized how mild and beautiful it was, how much I really enjoy walking home in the wee hours of the morning, when the streets are glowing but relatively silent, when all you can hear is distant laughter, occasional footsteps, and maybe the sing-song call of some sort of bird who never seems to keep track of the time of day or night in the least.
All in all, a relatively shitty day to start turned into a successful and fun evening filled with new people, laughter, smiles, and some energy to boot, as well as a refueling of my Strasbourg-love. While I’m sure I’ll continue to excite in plans for this summer (Norway, Germany, Italy, Spain, Southern France, Prague, Budapest, and the music and dance of Ireland are all tentatively sketched into the nine or so weeks I’ll have to travel), I think I’m getting re-grounded in more of the NOW, finding new ways to enjoy my time here, making new connections and solidifying old ones (and not really being phased that I’ve been phased out of the LC crowd, practically speaking. It’s one of those “I don’t go with them b/c they don’t invite me, but then again, they don’t invite me b/c I don’t go with them” sort of things. Really, it’s a non-issue, as I’m making more solid connections elsewhere that are more suited to my interests, etc.).
In other news...
- I’m going to get a bike tomorrow! Hurrah! I’m first going to check out a local used bike shop to see if I can’t buy myself a cheap, cruddy-looking (i.e. less-likely-to-be-stolen) but functional mode of transportation. If that doesn’t work I’ll just rent one (45 euro for the semester for a student is cheap as anything, but the bikes look newer and there’s a 100 euro deposit that you loose along with 45 if the bike gets snatched).
- Had the best hot chocolate in Strasbourg the other day at a little cafe near the Cathedral. Damn good stuff. It’s an add-your-own-sugar type of deal, with so much cacao in it I had to drink it in small doses
- May have one of the best tarte-flambées come tomorrow, if plans go as hoped (fyi: Tarte flambée is an Alsacian specialty and is like an extremely thin-crust pizza with a whole variety of exciting toppings... among with is fresh goat cheese... mmmm....)
- Speaking of goat cheese, may have found a goat farm to do one aspect of my “Project Village” on... soon shall see if it’s visitable...
- Had dinner with Nicole, the sister of Jean-Noel (an ancient boyfriend of dearest Maman). Nicole happens to live in Strasbourg, so mom via Jean-Noel helped me make the connection. Two exciting things happened at this dinner, besides the meeting of her and her husband:
1. Met a french girl in her first year of university (a neighbor of theirs) who would love to get together for lunch occasionally, go out, etc. and do a language exchange... she’s specializing in english but has no one to practice with, and seeing as how I’d love to get in on the french peer circuit... voila! She’s incredibly nice and has the more sing-songy accent that gets stronger the more south you get (she’s originally from Dijon).
2. Found out the most coincidental of serendipitous of small-world occurrences... Nicole and her husband often also host foreign students for a semester or so... and guess who they often get students from?? BETH!!! They’re part of the same program that I’m here with! (Called “Lewis & Clark College in France” even though it really deals with LC students plus Bryn Mawr and Kalamazoo). Strangest of strange coincidences... would have been over-the-top had I been randomly placed with them as my family. But alas. For a second I wished that had happened, as they live literally a block from Martina’s, have a large apartment sans five children running around daily, and they’re quite nice. Also, within the couple hours I was there, I realized how much my french (and my comprehension) improves when I’m put in a situation where I’m having to deal with fluent speakers speaking to each other and not just to me. That’s the one issue with it being just me and Mme most of the time... she can easily adjust her french to whatever speed I’m speaking, etc. and won’t use all the idioms that one would use with other fluent speakers. It’s not really a conscious decision on her part; it’s just what happens. Alas. But as it is I’m quite happy where I am, I’ll have other chances to go to dinner at Nicole’s (according to her), and at least now I have a french contact around my age interesting in getting together (even if it means speaking english some of the time. But hey, give and take, each of us can benefit).
In final news... I’ll get Ireland pics up soon enough. I’d love to get some updates up as well from the trip, but it’s already so far away... I did start carrying a wonderful little moleskin around with me on the trip, however, so I have a lot already written that would just involve typing up and formulating into some logical semblance of something. We shall see. As it is, it’s verging on 5 am and, while for once in a long while, I’m not feeling immediately drawn to my pillow, it would probably be the wisest decision at this point.
Bonne nuit!
posted by Melia at 5:48 AM
1 Comments:
Wow... every time I read one of your posts it makes me want to go to Europe for the summer! I hope you're having a great time over there :) I'll elaborate a bit more in an upcoming email...
Daniel Llavaneras
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