Through the Fire and Flames-Day 66-March 16th, 2018

The lack of classes this week made it a pretty good one for sleeping in. Today was different as I got up around 6 AM. Since our physics exam was oral one, everyone had different time slots to take it throughout the first half of the day. I was “lucky” enough to have mine at 8 AM this morning, the first time slot.

On a related note, it feels weird to write AM and PM now that I go by 24hr time. 8:00 just means 8:00. I usually convert it for my blog though to help my readers.

After eating my breakfast, I headed off to school.

There is a part of my walk that has an annoyingly narrow sidewalk, here’s a picture

Each time slot had three people in it.  When I arrived we were spread across the classroom by the professor. I didn’t really know the other two French students, but we talked for a bit before hand about the exam.

The format of exam was two multi-part questions. We had to solve and answer them, then the professor would come over and ask us to explain our answers. This was nice because some of the concepts were much easier to explain verbally than in writing. It also didn’t hurt that this gave me some freedom to improvise with my answers.

Overall, I felt great about the exam and know that I got the majority of it right. There were only two small parts I was unsure of. It’s nice to not be screwed over by an exam for once this week.

After class, I had about forty minutes to kill before our three hours of French culture class. I spent the beginning part of this break discussing the exam with one of the French students who took it with me. We held similar feelings about the exam. I spent the rest of this free time just sitting on a bench near the classroom.

Today we had our third different culture professor for the first time. The class was taught by a rotation of the three professors. This one was American, which was very refreshing after half a semester of only French professors.

This professor was easily my favorite of the three as she really made an effort to explore our ideas about the topics, rather than simply discussing culture as something black and white. We were put into groups to do thought experiments where we were supposed to be very neutral and solve a situation. My group’s situation was that we needed to redistribute the economy’s resources without knowing if we were rich or poor. We essentially recreated the idea of capitalism with some welfare thrown in as our model. The three hours went by relatively quickly and I enjoyed the class today.

After class, Harry and I met up with our friend David and some other French girl from our physics class. David is the Irish guy who had the 21st birthday party we went to. The four of us sat outside a cafe on campus enjoying a beer. The fact that I could casually do this after class shows how different France is from the US. I couldn’t help but appreciate the moment as I was drinking a cold beer on an absolutely beautiful day in France, with a view of the alps in the distance.

The bathroom at the cafe was also covered in graffiti and looked really cool

Afterwards, Harry and I headed to David’s apartment to hang out. His parents still live in Ireland, so it is pretty much his own apartment. He wanted to get a college experience where you went away to a new place for your education. This is a common concept for Harry and I, but foreign to the French.  I also got a tacos from Batman Kebab on the way there. We hung out at David’s for about an hour and half and had a good time.

Here’s a picture from his balcony

I headed home afterward, immediately changed, then headed to the gym. Today I did shoulders and biceps, then the usual pushups and ab workout. When I got home, I showered and just lounged around for a while.

I ate my tacos only an hour and half earlier, so I was not super hungry and just ate a pastry and apple after the gym as a pseudo-dinner.

Later that night I had plans to go out with Harry and Jonathan. It was raining here, but it did not crush our plans. We decided to meet the Victor Hugo tram stop at 9:30, then head over to Cafe Jules Verne for predrinks. This bar is known for its really good cocktails.

The three of us executed the plan and were soon all at Cafe Jules Verne. I had a really good Moscow Mule, but it was not in a copper mug which was disappointing. After this bar, we made plans to go to Le Tord Boyaud which usually has good dancing and music. This place was also  known for its 10 euro bottles of its various shooters. The alcohol content in these were questionable, but they achieved their purpose.

There was a list of about thirty different flavors and we settled one that was called “Terrible Murder” in French. Safe to say we were very curious to see what this flavor tasted like. It was surprisingly good and tasted similar to passion fruit. Shortly after, our friend Sara met us at the bar. We danced for a bit then decided to bar hop.

We went in some random bar down the street, and were shocked to discover the entire floor was covered in sand.

I have never seen anything like this before.

We did not stay for long though because the bar was pretty dead. This sand must have been a saving effort to get more people to come their. The combination of the rain and sand on our shoes did not mix super well.

We headed to Barberousse afterwards, which is the pirate-themed bar known for their flaming shots. The dancing is always good there and it is usually packed with locals. Barberousse and Le Tord Boyaud are essentially the same bar, but with different decor. They similarly had an extensive menu of shooters. I made the mistake of getting a banana flavored one. It was pretty gross.

After a certain hour at Barberousse, they only play French music. This was still pretty fun because we had been here enough times to know some of the songs. On top of that, they would occasionally light the bar surface on fire with alcohol and sync it up with a an exciting part of the song. They were burning alcohol so it was burn bright for a few seconds and go out.

Here’s a picture from google of this phenomenon

We danced for a while, then all parted ways for the night.