The Socially Awkward Foreigner

I had been fearing the weekend because my family still isn't here and I don't technically have anything to do for the first time since I've been in France. Yesterday morning, I met with my group to see a bit of downtown; we walked around this big beautiful park and made our way through the Saturday morning market, which was HUGE and incredible. Apparently it is the second largest outdoor market in France, which is impressive since Rennes is not that huge of a city. Then, we ate lunch at a crêperie, and then attempted to buy cell phones. The cell phone buying adventure was a catastrophe; almost all of the sim cards they gave us were duds, so we all had to get back in line for them to give us new ones, and the poor girl at the desk was trying to talk to us in English, and I finally was like "Vous pouvez le dire en francais" (you can say it in French) so she did, which made things easier. It all worked out finally after several hours at the Virgin store.

Then I went home and chilled out for a bit while Jennifer and Max went shopping, then they came back and we just hung out until their friends got here. Jennifer was hosting a "petite soiree," so three of her friends came over. It was incredibly awkward at first; I felt totally out of place and couldn't always follow the conversation. At one point, Max was like "Are you following? We're being mean and speaking too fast, aren't we?" So every once in a while one of them would catch me up on the conversation, which was nice. Honestly, I speak better French after a glass of champagne, not going to lie. And the more they drank, the more they were comfortable talking to me. Sometimes they would comment on my language usage, but not in a mean way. For example, Max (there were two Max's there) was like "you keep saying "oui" and it's much too formal. It's really weird with people your own age. Say "ouai" instead." Which of course I knew, but I was just in the habit of being more polite than impolite. It's hard to kick habits in a language you're not that good at. We mostly just talked, and then we played a game that involved writing down a bunch of names of people that everyone would know and then having to guess them, in teams. Kind of like charades except more complicated. Max and I didn't even lose! We were in second place. They wanted me to go to the discotheque with them, but I declined. They normally don't actually go until about 1 or 2 in the morning.

So as much as I feared that party, it actually turned out to be really fun, and I learned a lot about life here. Heck, if I can survive that, I can do anything.

Today everyone here is going to come over and clean the house before the parents get home tomorrow. I offered to help, but Jennifer insisted that it is their mess, not mine. So I think I will meet up with friends downtown this afternoon so that I'm out of the way.