The Helpful French (Not an Oxymoron)

I've been hanging out a lot with my roommate, Tamara. She doesn't speak really any English, so this has been very interesting. We've been having a lot of fun. She's been joining Molly and me for dinner. There are student restaurants throughout Paris where you can get a large meal for only 2.85 euro. Nothing is that cheap in France, so this is lovely.

Tamara told us the other day (whilest we were yearning for pancakes) that the student restaurants have the best brunch. Apparently you can get pain au chocolat, a hot chocolate, bread, bacon, sausage, and potatoes altogether for 2.85 euro. Or maybe it's even more food than that. Point: there was a lot of food for cheap. I was especially excited when she said (in French), "And you'd expect the pain au chocolat to taste horrible, right? But it's actually really good!" Which is like the magical phrase that made me say, "WE'RE GOING. ALL OF US. SUNDAY. I'M NOT GIVING YOU OPTIONS!" Tamara and Molly were both unresistant. Though I suppose it would be strange for someone to say, "No! I don't want a lot of good-tasting food for cheap! You can't make me go!"

The language exchange went well. I had a test the next day, and I thought it might be a good idea to study there. It was mostly Frenchmen, so I made them all help me study for my test. In return, I taught them more dirty American expressions. I felt it was the least I could do for their efforts. They were helpful until someone said, "You know how drinking alcohol makes it easier to speak a language? You should just get drunk before your test. You'll do really well then." The rest really enjoyed this idea, and the studying deteriorated somewhat after that.

I did not get drunk for my test. I also think I kicked its butt.

I went with Ben and Arnaud to the club with the open bar again last night. Giovanni couldn't go yet again, so he had to miss out. I danced mostly with Ben's brother, Hugo. Hugo turned out to be a surprisingly good dancer for a Frenchman, so he gets an A+. He also helped me get home on the metro so that I wouldn't have to go home late by myself. Apparently, chivalry isn't dead in France. I know everyone always gives the French a bad rep, but I've met some very nice ones.

Tomorrow I head off to Versailles! I'm going with some of the people from Central College and I'm going to meet up with one of the guys from the language exchange in the gardens. (I think I just made it sound like I was going to have an affair in the gardens of Versailles... well, I wouldn't be the first.) I'm really excited and hope to fulfill my dream of biking through the gardens in Paris spring...

Paris Nightlife + Meghan = BFFs

I know it's so soon after my last post, but last night was so fun that I feel it must have its own entry.

One of my friends from the language exchange, Arnaud (my two main French friends are Arnaud and Ben. Both will be mentioned in this entry), asked me if I wanted to go to a party at a club. I hadn't been to an actual club yet while here (I know, I've been here for two months. It's a very sad state of affairs. I generally just go to bars and pubs), so I agreed.

I got off at the metro stop he gave me, and Ben (he's been mentioned before- he's the ridiculously tall one. 6'6" I found out last night) was there so we waited for Arnaud to come show us where this place was. Ben asked me, "Have you ever been to an afterwork party before?" And I admitted that I had not. And he said, "Well, there's an open bar from 7-9, so the point is to drink as much as possible during that time. So drink fast."

When we got there, the line was huge. This wasn't a problem as all the guys knew Arnaud. At one point, I lost him in line. About 5 seconds later, someone said, "Wait, are you with Arnaud's group?" and immdiately let me and my friend from Texas (Charisse) inside when I said yes even though there were people in front of me. Yay having connections! The inside of the club was awesome. Charisse and I went to get our champagne and found out there was a free buffet as well, so there was an endless supply of food AND champagne. Considering that it was 15 euro to get in and a glass of champagne would normally cost 4-7 euros, a meal would cost around 10, and getting into a club on the Champs Elysees (which is where we were) would cost anywhere between 15 to 40 euro and that's MAYBE including one drink, I feel like I saved a lot of money last night.

There were 7 guys in our group and 4 girls: me, Charisse and 2 Finnish girls. The Finnish girls left an hour in, I have no idea why. They probably weren't taking proper advantage of the open bar. But their leaving meant the Charisse and I had 7 Frenchmen all to ourselves. I haven't danced that much since the high school dances of my far-away youth.

Most of the guys weren't the best dancers because they're European and European males as a whole have no concept of rhythm. One of the French guys told Charisse and I that Americans didn't know how to dance (before he saw us dance) and we were like, "Yeah, you're flailing your arms about like a dying fish and WE'RE the ones who don't know how to dance."

Even though they don't really know how to dance, they try. They were all twirling us around and I got lifted into the air a few times. Arnaud and my other friend, MJ (he has a long, complicated French name so he has allowed us to just call him MJ), know how to do the pretzel so we did that as well. It was just a fabulous evening all around.

Well, I should go work on my Twilight speech. A few of Giovanni's friends are in town, so I'm going to meet them all at the Louvre tonight. Charisse is also presenting a few paintings there for a class, and I told her I'd go to her presentation. It's free for students on Fridays, so why not?!