New Friends

Thibaut, Tim’s room mate, has the same Stargate taste as me. He only likes SG-1 and stopped watching it after Richard Dean Anderson left. He is also an excellent artist – pen, charcoal. De drew me an Angel and a clown that is actually attractive and not frightening.

Sylvain, I met at O’Sullivan’s Put on International Night. He is French and studying Computer Science. Erin and I hung out with him and his roommates Lala and Antoine Wednesday night. We played cards (a game that Zac taught me how to play!) and they made us crepes – even teaching us how to flip them in the air. I kept overflipping mine so that it landed on the same side it was on originally. Sylvain has been helpful by speaking to me in French on Facebook. I use Google Translate to have our conversations. He is looking for an internship in the U.S. for this spring/summer.

Lala, I also met at O’Sullivan’s along with Sylvain. He is studying management/project consulting and is from Toulouse. He wants to be a pilot, but the training is too expensive. He is also looking for an internship in the U.S.

Antoine is studying business intelligence and also from Toulouse. He once spent five months in Miami, so his English is very good and he knows a lot about the U.S. He has Sing Star (Karaoke) for the Wii and has challenged me to a competition. I will win ;)

Antoine, Lala, and Sylvain have a HUGE apartment. They have an entire house-sized living room, and a balcony. They have a nice TV too and invited our group over to watch the Olympics. Everyone is so nice and friendly and hospitable here! France is a very welcoming place.

Last night was an ENSEA student party. At a nightclub. They had a DJ and open bar. I liked the music a lot because it was mostly Techno, which American clubs don’t play. But there were also the usual American songs: Holiday Inn, Tic Tok, and even Heartbreaker by MSTRKRFT which I have never heard out anywhere before! I’m always so happy when I hear a more obscure song that I love. And it made me think of you Jackie!

It was a special party because it was when they announced which group of students would run the next year’s student government, basically like SA (Student Association) at UB, except SA doesn’t throw massive parties at night clubs. Even Sylvain, Lala, and Antoine were there, even though they don’t go to ENSEA. ENSEA is known for throwing some of the best parties in town. Go Electrical Engineers! Thibaut was in one of the two competing groups and they lost. He said it was okay though because he could drink more (the winning group serves the alcohol), and the other group doesn’t have enough people in it for all of the positions so he could still be chosen. Oh, and yeah, French students drink A LOT. It didn’t even phase them that the party was on a school night. I’m really surprised that alcoholism is more common in America than in Europe.

I’m heading out to Tour early tomorrow morning (the place) and will return Monday night (yay three day weekends!). For 40 Euros we get to tour a bunch of castles and have wine tastings from 9am-6pm on Sunday. I will have my camera fully charged this time!

I’m amused; I’m starting to think in a French accent and broken English -_- Sacre Bleu -_- And I’m still getting used to the French greeting customs. My French guy friends (basically all of my friends minus Erin - there aren’t any more female engineers in France than there are back home) lean in to my face and I’m thrown off before remembering: oh yeah, we’re supposed to do the air kiss on the side of the cheeks thing.