January 15-22
Strasbourg & Colmar, France
Each day I succumb more and more to the French, although I am a very willing participant. I’ve never been out of the country for more than two weeks. I was a little worried that I would start to miss America but so far I haven't paid her any attention- France is too appealing.
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| The Business School Bar |
My first class was Wednesday. I attended Intro to Finance and French Culture. The finance class at A&M is super hard so I was waiting to take it here. The professor explained the concepts using demonstrations so I understood them really well. I left the lecture understanding everything, which usually doesn’t happen in classes involving math. I am in a group project with a Brazilian, two Spaniards, and another A&M girl. We have to do financial reporting on French publicly traded companies and it's worth 30% of our grade. The other 70% of our grade comes from our final exam. I’m trying not to think about that too much. I love my French culture class. It is very discussion-based, so I got to hear about how other culture’s mindsets and practices differ. I sat next to two Hungarians and it was interesting to hear their perspectives. They said there’s a Hungarian saying that they are 30 years behind everyone else. We talked about the French government and politics. In the French constitution, the government should provide them with happiness rather than the ‘pursuit of happiness’ in America. My professor says this is why the French protest and demand a lot from their government. Interesting what a word can do. The only downside is lectures here are 3 hours. But don’t worry there’s a fully operating bar in the business school in case I ever want to pregame lecture.
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| On the Dancefloor |
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| Colmar |
On Friday we went to Colmar, the inspiration for Belle’s town in Beauty and the Beast. It was very picturesque. Saturday we were planning on going on a hike in another neighboring town but rocks fell on the train line so the train was shut down. RIP. We decided to do a pastry crawl instead. I had my hopes on 10 pastries but a cream puff did me in. My crawl came out to be a tiramisu eclair, an almond croissant, and a cream puff. Saturday night we went to a party hosted by the international exchange group called Erasmus. They host about 4-6 events each week and I’ve gone to some. We got there 40 minutes late but forgot that some cultures arrive 2 hours late so the party was slow at the start. Eventually, it got good and I made friends with a group of Columbias. I then experienced my first European club! We were shazaming all the French songs so we know them for next time. There were some bangers! The DJ rotated between French and American songs, occasionally playing a Spanish song. Every time he played an American song half the club went crazy and then he'd play a French song and the other half went crazy. We tapped out at 4am and as we were leaving people were still coming in. Closing is 7am, a little different than America’s 2am. I wonder if we’ll analyze why in my French culture class.
I rotate between exploring and eating and exploring while eating. If I was a peasant and Marie Antoinette told me to eat cake, I wouldn’t have had to be told twice. Give me a few more weeks here and the French flair for protesting might rub off on me though.
I booked my flight to Rome for this weekend so I'll update on my sit down with the Pope.
Au revoir!
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