Day 2 begins...

My roommate Leslie and her boyfriend Guillaume went out around 6 p.m. so that Leslie could get her hair done. She said they'd be back in an hour. Knowing that "an hour" probably meant at least 2 or 3, I got myself unpacked and watched a bit of tv, in French. I picked up on some of the words, but my comprehension skills are really being put to the test, and I'm failing miserably most of the time.

Around 8:45, Leslie and Guy came back with their friend Cedric. Cedric est tres francais (he's very French). As I went to shake his hand, he did the whole bisou thing (kisses on the cheeks), which I had completely forgotten was part of French culture. Oops. Good thing to keep in mind though.

Cedric left shortly after meeting me, and after Leslie gave me a tour of the apartment outside of my room, she and Guy left for the weekend. She did mention that Cedric and his friends were going out later and wanted me to join them, so I told her that was fine and to have them buzz the apartment when they got here. Guy told me Cedric would be here in 20 minutes, so I was ready to go about an hour and 15 minutes later :) And Cedric showed up right on schedule (an hour and a half later).

I met his friend Nadja and her boyfriend (I think his name was Alex). Both from Germany and an absolutely adorable couple. I should probably note that it was an interesting bunch in terms of language barriers. Cedric speaks French and just a few words of English. Nadja speaks German (obviously) and French, and is working on her English, while Alex speaks German, French and English, all fluently. I'm very jealous of him. So as we walked around, Cedric talked a lot to Nadja in French, and I spoke to Alex a lot in English. Then Nadja and I decided that we should practice our other language skills with each other, so she spoke to me in English, and I spoke to her in French, and Alex translated just about every other sentence for us :) He was a good guy to have around.




We headed out to an area of Nantes called Hangar A Bananes. It's essentially a long line of bars with these huge colored rings next to them along the river (See picture below).

Cedric wanted to meet up with one of his friends at a particular bar, but the doorman said it was too crowded because of a concert taking place. Cedric managed to not only smooth-talk our way in, but also avoided the cover charge for us :) Once we got in though, it really was too crowded, so we said hi to his friends and walked down the way to another bar that had absolutely no one inside. We each had a beer, and his friends joined us shortly thereafter. I spoke to them in my broken French, and I have to say, I'm extremely impressed with how patient they are with me. Every person I've met so far just encourages me to speak to them as much as I can in French. If I screw something up, they correct me, and that seems to work really well.

We only stayed out until 1 a.m., which is pretty early from what I understand. But I was really happy to come home and get to sleep. Got a little confused as to where I actually lived (I'm on the third floor of an apartment building, but all of the doors look exactly the same, and it's a spiral staircase, so I forgot how many floors I'd come up. Finally found the right place though, and crashed until 11 a.m. I woke up to the sound of some really beautiful church bells and felt really happy.

Today I'm going to run a few errands, get a card for my cell phone so that I can actually use it, and then I'm going to explore the city with Ivan, a guy who was an exchange student at Ohio State last year. He's going to show me the places I need to know, as well as take me out to dinner with his classmates. I was afraid I'd be a little lonely until classes started, but so far, everyone has been great about making sure I get to meet people. So far, so good.