Friday we went out to a bar with out friends and their friends. There was a live band, I'm not quite sure what type of music it was. It consisted of a guitar, a bass, and an upright bass and no singing was involved. It was fun to hear but didn't seem to be much appreciated by the younger generations, including my age group. This lead to copious amounts of drinking among our group, which meant I got to practice my French a lot that night. Typically people just speak English with us even though we ask them to help us practice our French because we're such beginners that after some time they just switch back to English. Luckily for us, they got too drunk to comprehend English well and we stayed sober enough to still be able to speak French. So we would speak French and they would answer in English.
I did, however, get my first taste of something I was told would happen but hadn't seen yet. I was told that the French will flat out tell one another if there is something they don't like about the other person, like their hairstyle or choice of dress. Well apparently, according to an acquaintance, my shoes are just sub-par. I was wearing what I thought were nice casual boots.
They were grey micro-suede mid-calf boots with a couple of decorative buckles around the ankle area. He went on a good 5 minute rant about how maybe they were considered nice in America but they were just no good here. The material was all wrong, the zipper shouldn't be so visible, and the decoration was far too simple and plain. I need to find myself French shoes and look presentable because as of right now, I look "not horrible, but less than average".
This really hurt my feelings more than it probably should have. In America, I owned my one pair of sneakers and if I wasn't in scrubs, I was typically in a t-shirt and jeans. The only dresses and dress shoes I owned were bought because of weddings, and the only skirt I owned had Marvel comic book characters all over it. I knew coming here that the French dress much better than Americans, so I made sure to buy what I thought were nice clothes and shoes before coming here. The change of fashion had me feeling really good about myself, like maybe for once when I walked down a street or into a room I could turn some heads. So I sat there and nodded my head and smiled, because this is normal in France and I shouldn't take offense, but inside I was crushed.
The next day we went to the e-bar because they had a band playing that night. It was old 50's rock-and-roll. Most of the songs were in English but I still couldn't tell what the singer was saying! Regardless, it was a good band and it was really fun. Afterwards, the singer had me stand next to him because he was so short and I'm so tall. It was also nice because it was just our friends there; JN, Benjamin and Amandine. I enjoy when they have some of their other friends come along like the night before, but it's more laid-back when it's just the 4 or 5 of us.
It is supposed to rain all week long, so I'm not sure if I will post much since I won't be getting out much. JN said I won't find pinwheels in France (to scare the birds) but what a lot of people from his home-town would do is hang CD's by string since they're so shiny. Only time will tell who will win this war! But I believe they may have won a battle, as my coriander is on the verge of death.