Day 14

Day 14:

Friday, April 3, 2009: Today we had to get up early for history class. It was fine. We talked about the Hundred Years’ War again. We watched a movie about Joan d’Arc and the prof stopped it every 5 seconds! It was awful!

We had another literature class in which we talked about the founding of the city of Marseilles. The prof had Rachel explain what virginity was… in French! After class, we bought more wine in preparation for the night. There was a rendez-vous with everyone’s French correspondents at a bar at 8pm. A little early.

We had dinner and Shawna and I went to Lance’s for a drink. We got to the bar at about 9pm because none of us had correspondents to meet there. Mine is in Marseilles this semester for an internship.

Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this but the university is on strike. Everything is closed. All the doors are blocked with desks and chairs. Students loiter in protest to new rules about to be imposed by Nicolas Sarkozy increasing the cost of attending university. Currently, it is completely free for anyone to receive a university education all the way up to the doctoral level. Students don’t even have to buy books. But Sarkozy wants to make France more like America and require students to cover part of the cost of their education even though taxes cover everything.

And so we got to the bar and Lance, Shawna, and I sat inside; away from the American. We met a group of French soldiers. They were headed to Afghanistan. They were very diverse. One was from Russia; another from Brazil; another from Estonia; the rest French. They were all about our age too. They bought the three of us drinks and we talked (in French) about the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. They hated George W. Bush and loved Barack Obama – us too. The Russian told me that he loved America because we were rich and Russia was very poor.

As it got later, we were ready to move to another bar… consensus – the discotheque! We drank on the way there and five of us went in. It was cool and they played a lot of hip French techno music. Youtube: Day N Night, Ca m’enerve, One 2.3 Four. We danced all night and headed home around 3am. Good thing I have a door to my room on the outside and I was very quiet coming home. It was a really fun day!

Google; Youtube.