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a beautiful study abroad cliche

so i last week i had probably the best easter in a while. and, of course, it had absolutely nothing to do with jesus or god or even a bunny rabbit. so i'll preface this by saying that one of my favorite things about paris is not spending time with americans. i love being in a group of people from all over the world. so last sunday, easter, i go over to my friend Neel's house. she lives in a dormitory type building that's full of internationals. the weather was kinda crappy, so the planned picnic was moved inside. the plan was that everyone would bring a dish from their different country. that's the part that's kind of cliche-ish. Because i only knew about this picnic the day of, and just because it's funny, the food i brought was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. so i got to Neel's house and then we go downstairs to Paulo's room. There were almost twenty people there (hard to do in a room that small, but it was cozy). the first course was this potato quiche thingymajigger from the spanish guys. very, very good. then the italians contributed pasta (of course) and lots of it (of course). after that the courses got kind of mixed up. i sent around the plate of sandwiches and they went over really well (the only person who didn't like them was Neel). then neel passed around her thing which was some Dutch peanut butter sauce with chicken thing. it was also really good. so anyway, the food was all delicious, but the really cool thing was just the mix of everyone there, together, sharing a meal. when paolo started off the meal he said the toast first in italian, then in english, then in french. everyone was joking and laughing and it was exactly why i came here.

the rest of the day was really good too. actually, except for one thing the day was perfect. neel and i left paulo's to go meet some americans who she was supposed to show around the city some (yes, confusing, but i don't feel like explaining). it was this group of six kids our age, all from a christian college in iowa. very sweet people. very boring. so neel and i left them after a coffee and went back to her building. it turned out that Manu and his friend (spanish), neels roommate alina (romanian), and paolo were going to this museum on its closing night. so neel and i join them. as it turned out the place was closed so we ended up going to a french bar i know. it was great. we sat outside talking and joking and taking lots of goofy pictures of each other. there were three languages being spoken at any given time. it was a good mix of people. we were harassing each other and in general just having a good time. at one point i was interrogating paolo about this girl he who had visited him who was his "ex" but who he still fooled around with. i asked him why and he literally said "we make-ah the good sex". i about died. exactly what every "foreigner" says on bad sitcoms. so as we left we were walking around, no one really wanting to go home. we're walking down a street and i look off to my right and see this boy my age, talking on a cell phone and i think "wow, he looks really worried" then i turned to my right and saw another boy about my age passed out on the sidewalk. as it happens, paolo is actually a doctor so he stopped to help. very quickly an ambulance came, so we kept walking. all of us kind of quiet, not sure what's going on. paolo got mad that the kids who were with the boy didn't know exactly what to do to help him. i asked him if the boy would be ok and he said that his pulse was erratic and he wasn't waking up, neither of which is a good sign. i wonder if the kid died. his friends had said that he took something, some drug i don't know which. and he'd probably been drinking too. why do we do this stupid shit to ourselves?

so anyway, besides that bit, it was a wonderful day. a day that if i were writing this trip instead of living i would have definitely made up and put in.

so after that, i got really sick and spent most of this past week in bed, skipping most of my classes again. oh darn. i'm still here for three months, but suddenly that doesn't sound like long enough. the people i'm meeting are so wonderful. the city is so beautiful. the weather is perfect. and i am so fucking relaxed, it's amazing.

posted by lindsey @ 6:25 PM 0 comments