Pardon? Comment? Quoi?

Yesterday I went to the Cité Universitaire, a college town of sorts for many exchange students and some French students as well, where there was a little fête in the basement of one of the dormitories. I'll put it out there right now: Hey French people? You dance like caffeinated toddlers. The Chicken Dance is not all-purpose. "Rock Your Body" was intended to be much raunchier. Oh, and listen to better music.

I spent the first part of the night in a dorm kitchen trying to listen to a French conversation to my right while people were yelling in Norwegian to my left. Every time someone tried to speak to me I answered with "What?" four or five times before understanding some elementary question like, "WHAT-DO-YOU-DO-HERE." Lots of uncomfortable language barriers that day. Like earlier that evening my host mom decided to invite her American niece who is visiting Europe for the first time and speaks about a word of French, and her old crony Maude, a severe French dame, for dinner. I felt obliged to juggle the conversation between French and English, while Maude mostly sat silent and unsmiling. Luckily I'll be spending another lovely night with Maude later this week at a 3-hour opera.

...Ok, I guess I'm not really allowed to complain about going to an opera. But I do wish Maude were a little more like the funny lady in Harold & Maude.