Germans and Italians and Swedes and Quebecois

One of the first nights out, I went out with Mathis, Ana and Yannick to L'Art-Scene, a live music club near campus. We were pleasantly surprised to find a band still playing at midnight, and they kept going past 2am! Really, French bands are to be commended on their stamina; once they start, they just keep playing and playing!


We have an excellent party communication system on the floor. Whenever there's a party, little notes are posted to everyone's door a few days in advance - impossible to miss (and no reason to!). This one says "Floor Party Wednesday January 18 at 7pm - bring what you want."


Jenny and Johanna, two new Swedish girls on the rez-de-chausse (the ground floor where everyone spends most of their time). Swedish people are a little slow to warm up to non-Swedes, but they speak English like none othe, so we're confident they'll come around soon.


There is no one on the planet who parties like Moroccan Zach. He spent several years in Liverpool, England, and has an awesome English accent, especially forceful when he's listing the merits of his favorite football club... the Liverpool Reds.


The guy on the left is a random French fellow, but after him are: Maxim, Jean-Ives and Patrick, the Quebecois Three - absolutely inseparable and hilarious to hang out with. It's so difficult to understand them, though, Quebecois French is drastically different from regular French. Sometimes it almost sounds Germanic, so we often have to ask them to repeat things.


I was invited to a German-Italian celebration with Silvia, Beatrice, Matthias, Karin and Ana-Lina. I wasn't sure how I qualified for the invitation, but I accepted and we had a fantastic time eating German cookies and sweets that Matthias' grandmother had made, and a deliciously soft Italian Christmas cake the girls had found in a shop here. Matthias is explaining to Bea the culinary intricacies of the fantastic Elisen-Lebkuchen cookies.


Ana-Lina and Karin, the two nice and funny German girls. We went on the Font d'Urle excursion together last November and didn't talk much but now Karin and I have a class together and we've all gone to the same parties recently.


I had to fake Silvia out to take this picture. The only word I understood out of the stream afterwards was 'paparazzi.'


The aftermath!


Some spicy French mustard found its way to the table... and Matthias boldly consumed spoonful after spoonful until we begged him to stop, fearing that we'd be charged for negligence if he died from overheating.


The Italian and German girls eventually left, but more friends soon rolled around.