The Most Fabulous of Weekends: Weekend 3

Friday: I had breakfast with Lionel and Christine again and then Lionel took me to Roshanna's where I could drop off my back pack for the weekend. I made it to class just on time and then slowly moved my way through the school day until it was the evening and time to depart for Bordeaux! I had lunch with some other friends today (Erin, James, and Shay) and ate what I think is a very french dish: a pile of fries topped with two hotdogs. The French love this dish and it varies between a couple of hotdogs or a hamburger patty. I also treated myself to the vending machine today when I bought a pack of Madeleines- 4 chocolate chip cakes with a strip of chocolate bread in the middle. I bought those thinking they would help me get through my last class but it turns out I didn't need any distractions to get me through today: the topic of conversation in class was "what behaviors do you do when you want to seduce a member of the opposite sex." Have I mentioned that some topics of conversation we Americans find embarrassing are completely normal to the French? Needless to say it was a rather hilarious class; especially because the guys all wanted to show off their funny-sides by saying things like, "oh I give her lots of wine" or "I show her how much money I have" etc, etc, etc. One guy kept asking me to marry him and I told him I would consider it once he showed me the ring (which must come with a massive diamond surrounded by a wreath of smaller diamonds- then and only then would I think about it). After class I met up with Roshanna in her room and found out that 3 out of the 5 of us going to Bordeaux had cancelled. Roshanna and I were the only ones still in and I'm totally fine with that, but I had already booked our rooms. She got in touch with her friend Crystal who lives in Bordeaux and Crystal agreed that she had room for the two of us in her apartment. I ran over to the university to use the computers and sent a quick e-mail to the hostel to cancel our reservation and then crossed my fingers that they wouldn't charge us for the first night. Afterwards, Rosie and I made our way downtown with what seemed to be everyone else alive in Pau on the bus. Once off the bus we ran with our bags to the station, bought our tickets, and boarded the train as it was pulling up. Phew! Talk about good timing. We finally found two empty seats and then it was just a matter of enjoying the two and a half hour ride to Bordeaux.
We made it to Bordeaux at 8p and met right up with Crystal to get rid of our things at her place and then find food. I had another french classic that is not really french: Kabob. Basically- meat that has been roasting for God-knows-how-long gets shaved off into little chunks and stuffed into a tortilla with french fries, vegetables, spices, and other yummy-ness. It was an epic sandwich and I ate the whole thing, so I wasn't hungry again until 12p the next day. After dinner, some of Crystal's friends walked over to her place and all five of us girls headed out to an English bar called The Houses of Parliament. I CAN NOT TELL YOU HOW MUCH FUN I HAD THERE!
One of the girls who was with us (also named Rosie) works at The Houses during the week and lucky for us, the boss was in the house that night. Of course he recognized her right away so we got- you guessed it- free drinks of our choice. Being 20 years old, I don't have a lot of bar experience, so I asked Crystal to pick something for me. I'm glad I did because she got me a White Russian. Oh my goodness it was so super creamy and delicious! After that we grabbed a table and the owner's wife came over to chat. She brought us a bottle of red wine to share between the 5 of us. Good deal right? We spent the next three hours or so just having a great time talking, watching the people, and enjoying the scene. I bought myself a small glass of 1664 beer because I remember trying that when I was in Paris in 2007 and loving it. It was very good this time too. There was live music as well: one guy with his lone acoustic guitar. He's also British so you know he played a great line-up of music. He played everything from Lady GaGa to Journey to Katy Perry to Bon Jovi. It was one of the funnest nights of my life! It was hilarious watching the french people in the bar who thought they knew the words to the music; it was all in english so those french people who could sing along were like insanely cool or something. Well, our group blew them all out of the water because we actually speak english! haha
At one point, most of the bar was dancing to "Don't Stop Believing" and I had a little bit of a moment- It happened when Liam (our live music provider) stopped singing and everyone in the bar, french or otherwise, kept on going at the top of their lungs. Luckily I had my camera out to record the moment. I was just thinking, "how cool is this that I'm in an English bar, in Bordeaux, France, having the time of my life, singing at the top of my lungs to one of the greatest rock songs of all time, with dozens of french people I will probably never see again?" Very cool.

Roshanna, Me, Crystal

*I have tried to upload this video at least 10 times and it just isn't working. I do have it up in my photo gallery, though. Please feel free to go there to enjoy it. gallery.me.com/ranthy*

"Don't Stop Believing" at the Houses of Parliament in Bordeaux, France

(You'll have to excuse Liam; he starts cracking up a couple of times but I'm not sure at what exactly)

Again, I had a truly fantastic time at The Houses! We went back to Crystal's around 2a and then we crashed. Roshanna slept in Crystal's bed with her and I slept on some mats on the floor- something I would normally hate but was too tired to even notice....