St Patty's Weekend

This has definitly been a fun weekend after the series of monotunous days that we've had during the strike. On thursday we went to O'Carleans pub to play quiz night. Its a series of questions on music they play (this night it was name the orginal writer of the cover song they played), pics, and general trivia. A lot of the general questions were about irish things, considering the upcoming holiday. I knew 2 of them thanks to the history chanel, and im not even irish! St Patrick came from England and he drove out the snakes...that's all I contributed. We lost by 1 point, which was so sad cause none of us have won before. It helps to have french ppl on the team because some questions only a native would know. But the game is played in both english and french because the majority of the people that go are anglophones. Our table was mad because that means we didn't get our 5th (?) of beer or whisky or something. I didn't care though. The announcer knew we were rowdy and would yell at each other for who got what wrong, so thats why he egg'd the ppl on and told them we only lost by one. That was mean (but funny) of him.

Friday all my roomies went to Dublin for the weekend, so I thought I'd have a crumy time alone. As it turns out, I had a blast. On friday Molly and I met up with some people at Charlie's and we got to meet this cool girl from Austria. I wasn't up for the pub crawl though so I cut out early. On Saturday we went to the "island" of Sete, which is a really quaint little fishing village. Unfortuntatly it was cold and windy, but I know it'll be really cool when it's nice out! They have festivals where two boats row towards each other in the canals and two people joust and try to knock the other person into the water. I want to go back in late spring and see that. Afterwards I braved a french haircut (scary!) and the dude did a good job...surprisingly enough. He didn't have much to work with cause I couldnt explain what i wanted in french so it was kind of up to him. I brought Molly though to make sure I didn't come out with the french verision of the mullet, which is really popular right now.

That night we met up with Elodie and her friends at McD's and then the cinema. We watched "failure to launch" and it was dubbed in french...interesting, but not hard to follow. Then they drove us to a "boite de nuit" (litterally box of night), or a discotheque if you will, where we had to learn to dance to techno music! That's the french fav, esp in this area. Its so hard to dance to. Luckily, with the crazy strobe lights/lazers each you only see still frames of people. So no one can really see you dance. Another good thing, techno is not condusive for "grinding" so boys don't bother you so much (well there was one but he was easily gotten rid of, its nice to have boys there you know, or aleast elodie knows...). They played one Beyounce song and I flipped out when they did. I'm not the most confident dancer but when you spend all night trying to dance to techno and you finally hear beyounce, well you go nuts! It was a blast. I taught elodie how to dance more american style. More upper body and arms, not just hips/feet like french do. They also played cotten eyed joe (circa high school dances!) and I taught her how to do a cowboy lasso (hey its the closet thing to country ive heard since ive been here). It was a blast and I didn't get home till like 4amish. Its nice to have a driver because the buses stop at 12 and you can't go anywhere. And no worries, even in france they make sure to have a DD (which for us was elodie b/c she can dance to that stuff, unlike her friends, without a drop of alchol bc she loves it so much!)

Sunday...I slept late and then spring cleaned! The place needed it, and I was bored. Its a good excuse to listen to music. I just put on some worship music, sang (another advantage of being home alone!), and well..cleaned. I think the roomies where happy because it sucks to come back to a messy apart after traveling. So all around a good day/weekend.

Now I get to plan spring break! The first week will be with the coolest girl ever, miss dana in spain! (hopefully!!). Looks like the secound week will be in Tunisia (north africa). I'm pumped cause we get to take 4X4 into the sand dunes and see oasis' and mosques and ancient ruines, and the beach! So fun stuff is coming up!

The strike is still truckin. Read the new york times if you're interested. France made the news!
Don't worry, down here we're not all crazy like Sorbone in Paris. Our grevers prefer to party with their bongo drums, not shower, smoke pot, let their dogs run free, and juggle. It's pretty much just an excuse to fete (party). We're like the 60's but in France. So...still no class (with the french students). Which sucks because I can't practice my french (I dont see elodie half as much!). It either needs to end now or just go till the end of the semester. The govn't is thinking about postpoing the decision so kids will go back to school, but idk. Apparently france is on the brink of a socio economic revolution and I'm in the middle of it...yay! At least MN promised I'd still get credits if I write a research paper...but a research paper in french is no easy task! I'm really getting frustrated with the strike because in France they don't talk and discuss issues. If someone is afraid of change, they block everything! So nothing ever changes....when will they learn....