... And all I can taste is this moment...

So in case you haven't noticed, I've taken to the habit of naming blog entries after whatever song lyric happens to be playing at the time in my Windows Media Player.

Thus, this blog, whose title is representative of the great times being had here in France, is brought to you by the number 3, the letter D, and the Goo Goo Dolls.

So if, in usual fashion, we pick back up where we left off, that would mean an uneventful Wednesday night of final preparations for my presentation Thursday morning. The presentation went well, despite a total lack of contribution from one of the group members. I think it went well anyway, the teacher seemed to like it. It better have went well, as it's the only thing aside from Participation and Attendance that counts for a grade in that class.

After class, I made a trip over to Carrefour to make a big grocery order to fill up my fridge and shelves. I no longer have to eat sandwhiches two times a day, and pasta every now and then, as I have a variety of veggies, fruits, chicken, beef, canned ravioli, stir fry ingredients, and the like. I also replenished my supply of vodka, which was pretty key. The rest of the afternoon was kinda boring, so Nick from Ontario and I decided we'd make it into a laundry party and attempted to wash our clothes, but as usual, the dryers didn't do their job all that effectively.

That night, there was a party-ish type soiree at a bar called Emporium Gallorium. The basement, as is typical Rouen style, is made to look and feel like a cave, and featured a DJ spinning his shit before a dance floor. It was a very fun evening, especially considering their drink prices of 2 euro beers and 3 euro mixed drinks. So the rather sizeable group of us who were there got pretty drunk and danced the night away, finally stumbling outside at about 2:30 AM and hailing a cab back to residence.

After sleeping in till about 12:30 or 1 PM Friday, I awoke and lazily chilled most of the afternoon. The chilling continued into the Cafet Ango hours (which again, is a small restaurant in the lobby of our residence building that only opens Tuesday and Friday nights, from 8 pm to midnight), but that night it seems some of the people from Senegal were having some kind of couples party evening, so we moved upstairs to other Nick's room in order to chill and watch Zoolander on DVD. Good movie. I returned down to my room at about 2:45 am, only to find the Senegal party still going on. My room is on the ground floor, so it was kinda loud and annoying, but I managed to fall asleep at about 4 am, despite the fact that there was still plenty of music, singing, and clapping going on down the hall.

Saturday we booked our trip for Easter, when 6 (or more) of us will go to Brussels (that's in Belgium for those not in the know) for 4 days. Should be good times. If you have suggestions for cool stuff to do in Brussels, please don't hesitate to pass them on. After making some delicious chicken with pasta for dinner, we were set on heading out, and decided to try a mini-pub crawl type evening, beginning at a pub called Highland's, which is basically right on the Seine, but that we had never been to before. It was pretty sympa, as the French might say, and we had some fun, downing a couple of shots and a couple of beer, before it was time to move on just after 1 AM, heading over to Murphy's where we had last been for Heather's birthday. It was 1:30 or so, and at first Murphy's wasn't going to serve us because they close at 2, but they eventually did, so we had one more round of drinks and then headed to one of the few bars we knew that would still be open, being Emporium. Emporium that night was much like it was on Thursday, but with a few fewer people. Again DJs led the party downstairs, and drinks were cheap, so we danced for their last hour of openness and headed out just before 3 to go to the night bus stop.

Now you may think this is where the evening ends, but oh no, it sure isn't. When we arrived at the bus stop, we saw a bunch of other exchange students waiting for the bus, and they were being pestered by two french-speaking drunks. So we inadvertently entered into their conversation, and it turns out it was one guy tripping really badly while the other guy (his friend) was trying to get him to go home. So myself and American Nick took on the role of getting between this guy and the other exchangees, and thus were engaged in conversation with him (in French, with the occasional couple of words in English, and the every-now-and-then exclamation in Dutch). His conversation kinda went in circles, with him telling us he was from the Netherlands, telling us he had family in France, then telling us he was originally from Paraguay, or somewhere else. He also said he was going to Equador in the Summer and that I should go with him (this will be important a little later, just wait for it). Furthermore, he enjoyed moving in to give traditional French bisous every now and then, which made me feel like washing my face with Purell when I got home. He would often ask if we knew Julien, or other random person identified only by their first name, and whether we said we did or did not, he would be excited by our answer. He also said that we were in his family, be it cousins or brothers at various points in time. Alright I think you get the picture by now, but we kept him to the outside of everyone else, and eventually got away from him when the bus comes. Now... on the bus, I was explaining to some others some of things he said, and at one point I mentioned that apparently I was going to Equador that summer, when out of nowhere, the guy on the seat across from me said "Are you from Equador??" I said, "ummm, no..." to which he replied "because I am!" How random is that? What are the odds, honestly... I'm pretty sure I pissed him off, but I didn't say anything to him after that and nor him to me, so whatever.

Right, well, despite only getting to bed at about 4:30 AM, Igor and I decided to get up nice and early today (Sunday) to go to the weekly market that is in town. I figure we've been here long enough and still haven't seen it, so now is as good a time as any. It was a bit disappointing, but I did pick up a couple of red peppers and some garlic, which complete my needed stir fry ingredients, so that is very likely supper tonight. And now it's 1:30 pm and I'm back in my room, while a storm brews outside with intense wind, rains, and very dark clouds on the horizon.

Tomorrow is Igor's birthday, though he is busy with school-related affairs, so we will be going out Tuesday instead. Tomorrow is also Marianna's birthday though, so I wouldn't rule out some kind of party altogether.

And before I go for now, one last quick note, which is that I've been at this school for well over a month now, and still haven't received my student ID card. Oh we took pictures the first week we were here expressly for that purpose, but apparently their machines to print cards are broken and well, in France, nothing gets done quickly. They should really look into those contraptions we have back home where you take a picture and your card is spat out in like maybe a minute at most. It would be handy.

Ok, so take care folks. Have a good Sunday, and in case I don't write again before Wednesday, Happy early Valentine's Day!

Dan