Classes

I was in a dazed sort of panic last night when I realized that I have not signed up for courses yet and also do not know any times or names of any classes that I should be attending. With that weighing on my mind, I decided to just get to the university at the regular time (9:00) and hope that I saw other Americans wandering around in the same fashion. I didn't. So I went to the Foreign Student Building and told the Welcome Desk lady, "Hi. I am registered for classes here but haven't chosen any courses. What should I do?" Helpfully, she told me that there was nothing for me to do today except return at 5:00 (17:00 she added) to schedule everything for tomorrow. Oh, excellent. I then had eight hours to fiddle around and do nothing. I took the tram to Francoise's and asked a mundane question, then decided I had nothing else to do but to come back here to my homestay. But, yay, free internet. I may take a nap. I changed the controls on Nina's laptop to English so I'm typing like a cheetah.

Some more photo news:

It's the Festival of Patrimoine this weekend past in France, which means that everyone gets really riled up about their heritage and cultural ancestry. Here, that includes performance art and grown men wearing tree make-up. I don't know what creeped me out so much about this guy; it wasn't just the face and the dress, but more of his embracing himself. I wonder how long he was out there for.

At fast-food restaurants here, things seem to be acceptably French if you add a 'le' in front of it. Want to frenchify 'wings'? Make it Le Wings. Dips? No problem. In the TV Guide snippet about "Closer" they made mention of a "stripteaseuse".

Hee. The name 'Alaina' doesn't exist here, and consequently no one can pronounce it. Most people put the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable, like alayNAAAH. No matter how many times I try to correct them it still sounds exactly the same. On the flip side, 'Cauchie' has never been mispronouced once, which is a beautiful and wondrous occurance.

This was last weekend before they took us to the Irish pub. Notice how no one but the American students seem to care that there is a girl dancing with fire in the middle of downtown.