Getting Yelled at By Old Men at a Rugby Game-Day 17-January 25th, 2018

This morning was a typical one. I woke up, got dressed and ready, ate breakfast, and headed off to school. There was one nice surprise though, since the corn flakes had run out, there was now Frosted Flakes at the table.

Frosties, the French version of Frosted Flakes.

My first class of the day was differential equations. We learned how to divide polynomials and do partial fractions today. This was pretty easy as I’ve already learned how to do this in high school calculus and in freshman year of college.

After circuits I had French class. We practiced using our new verbs to describe a man’s actions. We also listened to a dialogue where different phone numbers were recited and we had to write them down. This would be a useful exercise for talking to girls at bars. I often have difficulty understanding number when spoken fast, especially when people tell me the prices of things. In the past I have dealt with this issue by giving the cashier wad of cash and hoping it’s enough. We also asked our Professor to teach us swear words in French and she luckily complied with this request. I felt more integrated with the local youth after this lesson.

We had a brief break after French before our circuits lab, and I went to eat. To save money for my Paris trip, I had brought some lunch from home to eat with a muffin I bought at a cafe. When ordering the muffin, I pronounced the name terribly and the employees wouldn’t let me leave until I said it correctly. This was as embarrassing and annoying as you could imagine.

Before I ate, I had to purchase a binder full of readings for my culture class. Another ten euros gone that could have bought me two sandwiches. I guess education is truly an investment.

It was now time for my three and a half hour circuits lab. Safe to say I was not looking forward to this. Considering most of the classrooms are somewhat dirty and a bit rundown in the science building, I was surprised to see how nice the labs were here. The lab room was much cleaner and nicer than the ones at BU.

The goal of the lab today was to calculate the resistance of two different resisters using a diverse set of equipment of methods. This was to help us see differences in precision in between newer and older devices and various methods. We had to tediously measure the current and voltage of various circuit setups for two resistors. We also would have to look at the reference manuals for the ammeters and voltmeters to find their accuracy and precision values. These manuals were all in French, so this seemed nearly impossible at first. Fortunately, “resistance” is the same in both languages.

All our testing, write ups, and calculations took about three hours. My lab partner Jonathon and I were super exhausted and brain dead by the end.

I think this picture of Jonathon accurately displays our emotions by the end of the lab.

We finally finished the lab an were more than ready to go home, trying not to think about our 8 AM and four classes tomorrow.

I took the tram home and got ready to go to the gym. I had dinner with Anne-Marie and the Funky Bunch relatively soon, so I planned to make my gym session brief today. Today was chest day, and to my luck, the bench press was open when I got there. I had a really nice workout and finished with an ab workout. I walked home starving and ready for dinner.

I took a quick shower and soon heard the dinner bell ring. For dinner today, we had something that was like a French grilled cheese as an appetizer. Then as the main course, we had chicken nuggets with couscous. This may have been an odd combination, but honestly was really good. I also partook in more conversations this evening because I planned a couple phrases in advance. I had a brief conversation about how I was going to the Grenoble rugby game that evening with Anne-Marie. I also talked to Andre about the flooding in Paris. This conversation involved a lot of hand motions and less words.

After dinner, I grabbed my stuff to head to the Grenoble rugby stadium called Stade De Alpes. Sebastian, Harry and a bunch of other Americans I knew were going to be there. Everyone except Harry and I were in a different French program, but at the same university. I’ve been hanging with some of these people pretty frequently as of recently.

I found my friends and we all headed inside. My friends Julien and Mats play rugby for BU, so I’ve been to a good amount of rugby games before. This was something else completely though, and the stadium was packed and full of energy. I get rusty with some of the rules in rugby, but soon we were all yelling in French at the Grenoble team. The main chant was “Allez!” which meant “Let’s go!”.  I also got to practice some of my new French curse words that I learned in class earlier.

I also quickly learned not to block people’s view when you stand up, even it is only for a second. Old men will quickly yell at you in French.

The Rugby Stadium. Grenoble is in blue.

It was a very close game full of big hits, but unfortunately Grenoble lost at the last second. For 12 euros, it was definitely worth coming to the game and I will most likely go to another.

The whole American crew and I decided to meet some of my BU friends at this bar called Le Couche Tard. Since I had class early the next day, I was planning to only have a drink or two and stay for an hour.

Someone had a bike in our American group and they let me take it for a joyride on the way there.

Here’s a stereotypical picture of me riding a bike in Europe.

We soon got to the bar and bar immediately became 95% American. I don’t think the bartenders minded because everyone was buying drinks. It was still happy hour and a got a full pint of Stella for only 3.5 euros.

If you didn’t take a selfie with your drink, did you really have it?

After an hour, we decided to all head to another bar nearby called Cafe 13. This was the bar where the bartenders loved Sebastian and I. Last time they let us go behind the bar to DJ and gave me free drinks. I had hyped this up to my classmates and was crossing my fingers the bartenders would be there again tonight. I didn’t want to disappoint my friends.

I walked in the bar and the bartenders immediately recognized me and came over to shake hands. I pointed to the DJ area and they nodded, so I went to put some songs on. My friends were very shocked to see me already behind the bar when they came in 30 seconds after me. After a few jams, I let Sebastian take full control and decided to head home for the night.

I got home a little after 12, and immediately went to bed, dreading my 8 am.