The fun night, the hard test, and the day of introduction

For all of you who are on facebook, on Thursday I put as my "update" that I was going to have a fun night. I will now explain what that was.
Thursday in France is not only Thirsty Thursday, but also THE night to go out if you are a student. Don't ask me why, and maybe that is not too unusual to you, but to me it is weird. Anyway, Thursday night there was a huge party in the "Bordeaux Etudient Club", otherwise known as B.E.C. You have to pay a small fee to get in, but then it was just like a club setting, with a dance floor and a bar. Julie knew someone working at it, so we did have to pay the 5 euros to get in, but then after that we got all our drinks free. As with most clubs, the point seemed to be to get drunk, dance, and sometimes hook up. I quickly realized why I enjoy Bryn Athyn dances/boys at the dances. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the night, but I didn't stay long and I didn't leave Gooey's side. Now don't freak out Papa, I only had two very small drinks and the boys were very aware of staying with us girls, so it really was fine. The other nice thing is the difference of how a French boys approaches you to dance compared with how an American boy does. In my experience dancing in places like this in America, if a boy wanted to dance with you he came up and put is hand on your waist. Freaky right!? I hate it when they do that. Anyway, here, the boys just would come up within arms reach and slightly brush your arm with their hand. Still pretty annoying, but not quite as bad. So whenever a boy did that, I simply just pushed the hand away and shifted closer to either Jeremy, Dibb, or Gooey. So all in all, the night was fun.

On Friday we took our placement test for our French classes. It was at 9am, which, normally would not be that bad, but if you had been up until about 3am the morning before... it gets a little tough. It was fine though. We got there on time, had some coffee from a dispenser, and entered the classroom. Pretty quickly we realized how much we didn't know. The woman directed the whole thing in french (surprise surprise) and there were times when all three of us were confused. Thankfully, the lady really did make it clear what we really needed to know, so it was not too bad.
The test on the other hand.... crazy hard. There parts when I really thought that I would never impress them with any sort of experience in the language, but we will see. I find out on Monday how I did, what class I am in, and what my schedule is going to be.

One thing that happened because of the test was that we made a friend! Another tester was an American from Texas. When we came out and were trying to fill out the pages to hand into the administration, he came to see how we were doing it so that he could do it right as well. It turns out that he has more french than any of us, so he helped us. Anyway, as we weren't doing anything specific until the evening, he decided to hang with us. As it turned out, it was really nice to have him around, for after the test the boys went back to our dorm to go back to bed, and I was chosen to go meet with Antoine to get the appliances (that they are lending/giving us) and talk about class schedules. As he didn't need to go back to his dorm, nor did he need to go to our dorms, Dare went with me. Antoine wasn't there, but a guy how was supposed to meet with us to give us the stuff heard Dare and I talking in English and found us outside the building. The guy didn't want to make me lift the stuff (there is a small fridge, a microwave, a hot plate, and a box of dishes) so Dare volunteered to come along and help. It was then quite an adventure getting all that, Dare, the guy, and me into the very small French car and over to the new rooms. But we did it, and now we have all the stuff we could want! Happy day.
We ended up spending the rest of the day together. He came with us to Bordeaux to run some errands and then went to this crazy Jazz(ish) concert at the Bordeaux music school. It was an interesting concert, though I am glad that it was free. The first few groups weren't bad..... just not that great. And each was a little less jazz music.... but whatever. Then, the last group, did some pieces by Frank Zappa. They were SO good. I mean, I would have paid to see them, and the drummers..... all of us were astounded! There were three of them, and they were sooo perfectly on beat together! It was by far the coolest part of the whole concert.

As is usual while you are in town and after a concert.... we went out for a drink. A funny bar called "The Frog and Rosboif" (the spelling of Rosboif might be off.... but it sounds like roast beef). I still don't get the name, but somehow it is French and English.... yeah. It was a really nice bar that even brewed its own beer right there! It was very yummy. Anyway, we all had fun and provided some education for some Frenchmen! Jeremy and Johanna went outside to smoke, and there was a man who had never seen an American! We all thought it was funny that, of course, Jeremy was the first one for him to see.... for he is not exactly the most typical American in the group :)
We stayed until closing time (2am) and got a ride back to the campus with one of Julie's friends, arriving at the dorm at about 2:45ish.

I think I fell asleep faster than I ever had in my life! I was so tired, and had hardly eaten, so the drinks had gone right to my head. Thankfully I had nothing to get up for today... so we all slept in until we felt like getting up. For me that meant close to 10am, for Dibb and Jeremy.... closer to 2pm :) Once up (today, Saturday), all we did was get some food and then went shopping for all the stuff we still needed for life (laundry detergent, that sort of thing). It all was pretty cheep, so that was fine, but there was a demonstration in the middle of Bordeaux that shut down the Trams for a couple of hours! It was really cool, but also pretty annoying when you carrying multiple bags of stuff.

All in all, I am excited for school to start on Monday. I like going out, but I also really want to understand more of the French and get more of a schedule to my life here. Now that I have my room set up I am truly feeling ready for school to start. Tomorrow I shall be spending working out my schedule and figuring that all out. Wish me luck, yeah?

Well, I miss everyone very very much, and I already feel like I have been away for weeks and weeks, but I am very excited to have more time here.
Love to you all! Bon nuit!