FRANCE: Go Big or Go Home

Wow this weekend just flew by. Soooo many updates. I guess I’ll start off by telling you how much the start to every weekend is going to suck because I have class from 8:30-12:30. I hate Friday classes. While everyone else is sleeping/ going on trips I sit in class. GT’s. It’s okay though because Bowdoin accepts all abroad credits as pass/fail. I am definitely going to skip a couple to do sweet things. I am in Europe after all.

After class, the group met up in Echirolles, aka my homeland (thanks for being patient guys)! We all got Subway sandwiches, which is in France is somehow waaaay classier than in America even though it has the exact same sandwiches. But get this, it only had one type of cheese. How ironic!

Then we all hung out at the park all afternoon. It was AMAZING. This is the park that is 1 minute away from my house so I got to walk home and change too. Score. On the way back to the group I met this old man playing bocci (which is HUGE here among the old peeps). It was the strangest conversation and I think it ended by him hitting on me? It started by him asking where I was from and what I was doing here –pretty normal right? No. Then he started saying how 9/11 is coming up and how that increased airplane security in France. Then he asked me if I was married and I said, “No way! Too young.” And he asked how old I was and I told him 20. He said no, definitely not to young. Then he asked what I liked to do and I said hiking and biking but unfortunately I don’t have a bike here. He said that he had two and asked what I was doing on Sunday. I said hiking and ran away. It was funny and super unexpected. He had a mullet style fro going on. Hot stuff. Maybe I should have taken him up on that offer…haha.

Keep in mind that entire conversation was in French. So cool.

After the park hanging out at the park all afternoon, Emma and I decided to girl it up – college style. We were chatting about how we missed getting dressed up, putting on make up, and jamming out to music before going out with our friends at college. So, we decided to do it. We picked out each others’ clothes, put on makeup, listened to the best old school music mix, chatted about life/ realized we have the strangest and most wonderful similarities, and decided to WEAR heels! Good decision at the beginning of the night because we felt hot as hell, bad decision at the end of the night when I had to take them off and stop dancing.

We ended up going to surprise, surprise the London Pub again. They love us there and give us free drinks. They also offered Alex a job as a bartender and gave us a random police hat in the middle of the night. It was wonderful. The American music there is so nice because we can actually sing along. Tonight, my favorite jam out song was Ignition by R. Kelly. Sooo good. Love going old school.

After the pub we went to “Au Vieux Manoir” where we got our first true experience of European night life. We got free passes to the pub since we stayed at London Pub until it closed at 1am. Yay for saving 10 euro! The club was absolutely empty. Only at 2am and later did the people start rolling in. The people here stay out SO late! It reminded me of Canada except with more variety in creepers. There was fog, a cage, and strobe lights everywhere. Unfortunately because of my heels and my exhausted lameness, a huge group of us left the club at like 3ish. But we had to wait outside for literally an hour outside for a cab. I still don’t understand why. Emma, Elita, and I were sitting on this curb and these two guys came up to us and just started saying oh hello three pretty ladies. It was funny. One ended up being German and thought it was the most amusing thing to be politically incorrect in English. I chatted with the other guy so I missed a lot of it (thank god) but I heard glimpses of the conversations which included the word fuck repeatedly as well as nigga and Jews. Everyone got pretty pissed and made him stop being so rude and disrespectful. At one point he started talking about how Jewish people had big noses, and Emma made him back off and told him, “Hey man, I’m Jewish. How’s my nose for you?” Backed him into a real corner with that one. The other guy was this sweet French guy. Somehow we ended up talking about Rock bands in Sweden and Norway. He got so excited about one band he demanded he write it down somewhere, which ended up being onmy arm. He kept saying, “You need to remember this in the morning!!!” It was adorable. They are called the Helicopters. Check them out, they’re pretty good.

After getting home at like 4 in the morning, I got up at 8:15 to meet up with Emma and then the group at the bus station. We decided instead of going to Chartreuse, we’d go to Lac Laffrey since the weather was beautiful. It was the most beautiful lake and a great afternoon. We just swam, lazed around, and ate pizza. Epic. So sunburned though.

Then a group of us met up at a Creperie at Victor Hugo. It was the best time. I was in my crazy mood and so was everyone else. Pure loveliness.

Highlights:

-Molly falling off a chair

-endless laughter

-me demanding for greg’s lemon to eat and then later declaring I hate all things lemon when Elita asked if I wanted some of her lemon crepe. Hehe whoops

-Girls Gone Wild?

-when pictures were taken, immediately get into rain drop catching position

-2 and half hours of pure happiness

-the game Waffles v. Pancakes (Death v. Sleeping/ Stars v. Food)