Those Americans

One more Sunday. I have 2 more weeks left. How can you possibly sum up 6 months of life? How can you even begin? Like, when I get back to the States and someone asks, "How was France?" how am I going to even be able to begin to answer?

June began the month of the Americans. A horde of Americans have literally descended upon the Insitut. I was afraid of a bunch of them invading my class. After my buddy from Louisiana left, I was the only American in my class and I wanted it to stay that way. I wanted to be unique. Much to my chagrin, an American guy did join us, but I've since forgiven him because he's cool and speaks French like a pro.

I have 3 new American roommates. They're really sweet, and they make a really good effort to speak French. At first, I was kind of wary because I didn't want to be inundated with "Omigawd" and expectations of my translating everything Madame said because "I, like, totally don't understand." But it hasn't been that way at all.

Au contraire, a lot of the other American kids at the Insitut annoy the stew out of me. They stand around in little anglophone clusters talking about banal fratboy exploits the night before/complaining about their host families/saying "omigawd, like" and chugging down all the carbonated drinks in the vending machines. And when they do speak French, their accents suck. I hate hearing them speak French because I know that's what I sound like when I speak French, and it's depressing.

I guess I need to cut them some slack. About 8 years ago, that was me, with my little American summer program group in Spain. Back when all I cared about was a boy named Jorge. I guess I'm just older now and I've been in France too long and have appropriated some of the legendary French arrogance.

I've been into World Cup soccer. Soccer being one of those things that everyone else in the world except the United States is into. Like the metric system. I can tell you that Thierry Henry is the star of the French team. I know that Ronaldo is Portugal's star. I can tell you that Rooney is England's soccer hero. And that's just from watching a few matches and Nike commercials. But who's the hotshot on the American team? Bof! I have to admit it was awesome seeing the US score a goal on England the other night, though. It was more because of an English error than American prowess, but hey, that's the game. Take that, colonizers! We re-declared independence on you up in there!

Here a few links to photo albums to show you all the fun I've been having lately:

Concert and hanging with friends

Villandry

Enjoy!