Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia is much more fun to say compared to the Czech Republic. It came up in conversation today as we were sitting in a café talking about travel; some people would like to see Prague, which is the capital of the Czech Republic. Is Yugoslavia still a country? Wikipedia tells me no, but I guess I already knew that. Before my family moved to Lake Stevens we had Yugoslavian neighbors. Apparently they'd leave food out in their backyard which attracted rats. Gotta love 'em.

So anyway, not a whole lot has happened this week that's enormously exciting to write about. Well, Wednesday was fun but I'll get to that. Classes went alright. I'm in level B1.8 now, as I may or may not have mentioned (I'm too lazy to click a few buttons and read a few lines), which is the top of the intermediate level (but also considered advanced) and my teacher is crazy. Well, ok, she's not crazy. At first she gave me the impression that she doesn't like teaching French to foreigners, but by the end of the week I felt ok about her. It's just that she'll say a sentence and leave it hanging, fishing for a word from us, and the class (probably only 14 people total) just stares at her blankly. We can't read your mind lady! And sometimes she'll help us with a sentence when we speak, but she'll do it in a sing-song condescending voice as if to say "come on... you can do it!" It irks me. For some reason she's hard to understand too. I feel pretty good about my comprehension level but when this lady opens her mouth sometimes I just don't know what she's saying.

Courtesy of Barberousse

On Wednesday night, my 26 year-old host brother, Clément, took Shawn and Ashley and I out for drinks. First of all, I already know I like this guy because he's super nice, but I also learned that he's very generous. Why do I know this? Because he bought the drinks the entire night. First, we went to a bar called Barberousse where he, Shawn, and I shared a bottle of some fruit juice/rum drink while we waited for Ashley. While we were there, he also bought us flaming shots, and even after the bartender explicitly explained how to use the straw to drink it, I still didn't do it right (at this point, Ashley called and said she'd be able to meet us in 20 minutes). In any case, each time he'd buy something, Shawn and I would look at each other like "he better stop paying for everything." We left that bar and went to a café in Place Notre Dame where the three of us each had a little glass of Ricard, which is a leading brand of pastis (it was mixed with syrup and water) and I actually quite enjoyed it! Then Ashley called and said she was almost at Victor Hugo, and when we told her she was supposed to be going to Notre Dame, she sighed "Son of a bitch" in her Northern Cities accent, and she told us she'd meet us in five minutes. And she did! And then Clément bought us all another round.

Courtesy of API

So from there we went to a bar called Le Tord Boyaux. Getting to the bar was interesting... I had started to feel dizzy. Then I bumped into a wall, at which point Shawn started laughing, saying "easy there, fella." But honestly! I didn't bump into it because I was tipsy, it was just because I had turned around to look at them, and I know mothers do, but I don't have eyes in the back of my head thankyouverymuch! This bar was fun... small, but it had good music and it wasn't touristy in the least. My host brother bought a bottle of Piña Colada for the four of us, but before that we each had a shot of I don't know what - apparently it's a Grenoble specialty and it tasted like nutmeg, or cinnamon - but it wasn't too shabby! When he went to pay, for some reason his card wasn't working and he apologized profusely and bashfully asked if we could pay; Shawn and I plunged our hands into our pockets to dig out some money (much to our relief). After a bit we decided to leave. While waiting for the tram, Clément said goodbye to us and started to walk away, but came back. He said to me "One last thing - don't tell my mom I paid for everything."

The next morning I thought I had to wake up early because of the strikes (strikes over here seem to be often... and scheduled) delaying the tram. So I got out of bed, stood in the bathroom, had an internal battle whether or not to go to school (maybe I was still feeling dizzy, I don't know - you tell me). So naturally I went back to bed and woke up in time to take a shower, figure out the trams were still running, and make it to school with time to spare. Did I have a slight headache? Yes. Did it get worse throughout the day? Yes. Did I skip the late afternoon lecture, go home for some asprin, and take a nap? Yes. I woke up feeling fancy fresh, too, thankyouverymuch.

Today some friends and I went about town, eating things, and being loud Americans. Then we went to a museum called Musée de la Résistance which was quite the mood kill but informational all the same. From there we went to the café and discussed Czechoslovakia and a variety of topics. Also, it's been raining off and on today. On that note, the wall of mountain outside my window is sometimes just a wall of cloud. Like now.