exploration in Dijon: café, concert, and culture

disclaimer: due to my living life and frolicking around Europe for the past 2 weeks instead of sitting in my dorm connected to the ethernet to write everything down, I apologize for the delayed delivery on the recounting of these past few weeks. you can go ahead and add the phrase “after class,” to the beginning of each weekday post because that’s when everything happens. alright leggo:

Thursday, July 3rd, 2014

I made new international friends! Brigitte from Switzerland and Ashleigh and YeNa from Korea. besides speaking their native languages of Swiss German and Korean respectively, all of them can speak wonderful English with basically zero accent and are also in the 6th level of French…like, bye. The three of them along with Hazel, Evan, Kelli, and I had a proper french dinner at a café in centre ville near where the farmer’s market is when it’s open. Kelli  (she’s in my class and from the same school  as Evan in Alabama) and I shared a sort of  antipasti plate which was delish: marinated  artichokes (always the best), prosciutto,  mozzarella balls, olives, ya know- the works.  We also got a bottle of red for the table. it’s the simple things like eating together at a café learning  about each other while people-watching in the open air of the evening that the french just know  how to appreciate way more than most americans. there is no rush, there is no agenda. you’re  purely enjoying the company of others and your surroundings.
so after we had finished eating and chatting for a couple hours, we met up with Ryan in place de la  république to just hang out some more in the perfectly cool evening. Ashleigh and YeNa saw a  couple guys smoking sheesha, hookah, nearby and decided to go ask to try it. no one else in our  group wanted to go with them but, I was like ‘when in France?’ and figured it’s good practice to  speak to locals! so I joined them. the guys ended up being super nice teachers from the area and it  made me feel super cool to be able to hold a full conversation with real français!

Friday, July 4th, 2014
sorry to disappoint, but we really didn’t do anything very American on July 4th. we did, however, go to the same café where we had watched the USA-Belgium game to watch the long-awaited France-Germany game. people were HYPED about this game. wearing the french flag like a cape, painted faces, singing the Marseillaise (the national anthem). however, because the terrasse at the café was so packed, we were at a table outside the umbrellas. usually not a problem, except that a torrential downpour decided to come and ruin everything. well, okay, it didn’t ruin everything, we just had to go inside and watch people watching the game instead of watching the game. which, to be honest, was still quite entertaining. also, being inside meant we could order food and not be squished amongst the whole world outside. so Hazel and I split a tartine (like an open-faced panini) with basil pesto, tomato, and mozzarella and a salad that had mini shrimp, grapefruit, avocado, salmon, and a thousand island-like dressing so like…life was good.

Saturday, July 5th, 2014
Evan, Joanna, Nadya, Hazel, Kelli, Lily, and I (this is The Crew and when I say “we” it’s usually us) finally made a trip to the farmer’s market in the morning and I got some apricots, peaches, cherries, roasted ham, a soft cheese, baguette, and some cheap red  wine (only 1.13 euros!!) for under 10 euros! ~*CrAaAZzyYy*~ also a pain au  chocolat when I got the baguette and both were warm. you could say I was  loving life. I made a lovely lunch out of my new goodies when we  returned. since we didn’t get to do anything that bled red, white, and blue (at  least not the American kind) on the 4th, the Americans in the program planned  a get-together at the apartment of one of the girls in my class on the 5th to pay  tribute to the good ole U S of A. we split the cost of a tarte de pomme, apple  tarte to resemble the American tradition of apple pie. It was nice to meet some  of the other Americans I didn’t already know and some of them brought their  international friends as well. I talked to Hayley (who also goes to school with  Evan and Kelli) and her friend Elise from Norway for a long time about travel and learning languages and cultures. so it didn’t end up being a super ‘Merica party, but it was cool nonetheless. also Hayley showed us a pamphlet that contained all of the events happening in the city during the summer and one of them was an electronic/new wave music concert in the Palais des Ducs that evening at 9pm. we’d all been having such great conversation spending time together that we decided to meet up there!

partying in a palace courtyard wasn’t as cool as you’d think it would be, it was cooler. at first, while it was still light out, there weren’t many people there and the music was pretty mildly ambient. but as the sky grew darker, the bass got louder and by 10:30pm, the courtyard was filled with people swimming through colorful strobe lights to some crazy electro house music that could apparently be heard all throughout the surrounding blocks. as all of us kept dancing, Hazel accidentally bumped into a couple of french boys who we learned were named Mike and Stéphane. at first we thought they were being creepy talking to us, but realized soon enough that they were actually super nice and wanted to make friends with us so we could help each other with our French and English respectively. Later on, they said they could show us around Dijon sometime so we could hang out more. woohoo! we made French friends!