The next installment in the FJ’s foreign French Adventures.
So about a week ago I was asked by my friend Yann to take a road trip but it would include cutting Friday’s class because we were to leave Thursday night. I thought about it for about half a second and said YES! College kid road trip adventure, this is why I’m in France. I’m here but for no other reason then to travel and explore the people, places and culture right? RIGHT! Ok then. So I packed my bag (singular) for my 4-day adventure. Yann arrives in his little piece of shit French economy car that’s about the size of a pack of cigarettes and his friend Boomie is in the front seat. Now Boomie is Algerian and about my size with about 50-80 more pounds. So there was unfortunately no discussion as to who was sitting in the front and who was FOLDING himself into the “Economy” back seat.
We leave Tours at around 7:30 pm and should arrive around midnight at Yann girlfriend’s house, Leila. What I can report is the French highways aren’t much different then the American Interstate-Highway system except their towns are closer together and there’s better coffee along the way. I got to see a nuclear power plant that reminded me of Three Mile Island in my home state of PA! As many of you who know me and have traveled with me anywhere in the world, put me in the back of a moving vehicle and 15 minutes later it’s beddy-bye time FJ. And even in my Hindu contortionist state I was able to fall asleep.
We got to Lille, our final destination, at about midnight, so things were working for us. It was decided during my “Oh, so restful sleep” that we were going out on the town. No problem. I’m a college kid. I can do this. So we connect with one of Yann’s friends Flourant who is a hoot and a half. Let’s just say for someone as small as him, he can sure put a lot of legal and illegal substances into his tiny little body and still remain standing. I was impressed. The first night club was a bust, so was the second, the third wouldn’t let us in and by the time someone suggested we go home because it was 3 am we found ourselves in a fourth club that showed promise. But again we didn’t stay long enough to “make friends” and finally went home.
There Boomie (the big Algerian) and I got to share a futon that converts into a coach during the day and our place of rest at night. There were several homophobic jokes bantered about from Yann and Boomie. And then, we went to bed. Boomie was a bit drunk let’s say. No we can say HE WAS DRUNK. And I found myself defending myself against him in the bed. It was so hilarious and he had no idea what was happening. When I woke him to prevent him from kissing me all he did was roll over and fall back to sleep. The next morning I got the front seat of the CAR! Tea totaling can have its advantages some nights!
The next night and I do mean night because the gang didn’t rise before about 5 pm and it was already getting dark. We decided to go to a club in Belgium because the Belgium boarder is very close to Lille. It was called H2O and it was RAD! We got there about 1 am and stayed till about 6 am and some in the group were angry that we left “early.”
The club was made up of 2 dance floors, one House and the other Industrial. We spent a lot of the time on the House side. I had a wonderful time up by the stage helping people up and down. I had a nice little spot where I could have enough space to have a good time but not upset anyone else. The thing I love about nightclubs in Europe is that gender and sexuality is so fluid. People just flow over each other (no I’m not going to interpret that for you, figure it out on your own). So having a good time, not bothering anyone. People dancing with me, me dancing with people, all is good. Then this Butt-head, I think I’m using the correct term here, Butt-head. Can someone correct me if I’m misusing that word? So this Butt-head aggresses me to get up on the stage and dance. I’m too tall for the stage. He insists. I refuse. His friend on stage starts to pull me up on to stage while he lifts me up on to the stage. I struggle and then realize all of us will get hurt and I get up on to the stage. I’m dancing. Calm (relatively speaking) has been regained and then…what I’m going to refer to as “the incident” happened. I have about 5 minutes of stage fun when another Butt-head (again Judges, term clarification please) with a little more of a bounce in his step (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) spills his full glass of beer down my back, and the glass breaks as it hits the floor throwing glass shards everywhere. I was not amused. But I’m in a nightclub, shit like this happens.
In order to relieve my newfound stress level, I visit the INDUSTRIAL ROOM. Excellent music for just such a mood. Here there isn’t a glass that isn’t broken on the floor somewhere. People have whistles and combat boots and I feel the teenage angst welling up inside of me. “Kurt Cobane LIVES,” I want to cry. But I restrained myself and I took my newfound anger and my brewery soaked jeans and started shadow box dancing. I loved it! It was really doing the trick. I wasn’t killing anyone and people were giving me space to “dance” my anger away. The best of both worlds. Then Yann and Boomie find me and Boomie starts fucking with me. He thinks he’s being cute but he’s screwing up my chi and I’m getting more pissed. Rather then choking the shit out of my new Algerian friend and causing further miscommunication between my country and the rest of the world I decided to absent myself from the night club for about an hour. This worked. The cold night air, the drunks pissing on the side of the building and the harsh parking lot lights made everything right with the universe again and I entered and completed my night of fun. And it was a BLAST. Don’t get me wrong. I loved it. It was definitely one of the best nightclubs I’ve ever been in.
So we dragged our sorry butts back to France and made it to bed at about the time rush hour traffic in Lille started. Lille is about the 4th largest city in France and it has that nice big city atmosphere without being to unmanageable like Paris. I like Lille and would most definitely go back.
So our final night there and our final night out. Finally, Leila joins us after much prodding from Yann and a group watching of Austin Powers, she agrees to go out. Oh and her friends were throwing the party. Leila is a model. She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen and I’m not just saying that. She could be a Cover Girl OK. This final nightclub was put on by her friends and they rented a warehouse and turned it into a nightclub for a night. It was very cool, both literally and figuratively. They had huge engines in the middle of the bar room to heat the place and they had two smaller side rooms for dancing. They cut up playing cards into little squares and that was what you had to pay your drinks with. Your choices were also limited, whisky, gin, scotch or rum with coke or OJ or apple juice or pineapple juice. Remember, I’m in Europe we get drunk but with vitamins! The decorations were hot as hell! Back lit B/W photographs transferred onto large pieces of Plexiglas. They were pictures of Nancy from Sid & Nancy, S&M women, sexual abstracts. They were hot to say the least. The place was also furnished with plastic furniture that rises to about half way up your calf. So to get in was easy but getting out when you were drunk proved to be more of a challenge for some, present company excluded. By this time I had had so much alcohol in my system and so little sleep that I think I looked like Nasforatu (original version). People were kind enough but I would have ran the other way personally. I couldn’t hang with the kids this night. I was asleep by 3 am on the steps leading up to somewhere else. But before that I did get to witness some people break the sink in the bathroom downstairs. That was interesting. The problem with this night was that it was so cold in the warehouse and we left our coats at home. Why I’m not sure. To add to the fun it started raining about midnight and we had to walk to the car which happened to be parked 100 m away. Because of course you don’t build parking for warehouses in France, go figure! So low and behold I caught a cold that knocked me out for about a week. We made it home ok and slowly worked our way back to Tours without incident.
But wait the alcoholic fun doesn’t stop there. This past Wednesday was what was called the Touraine Primeur. This is when they offer the public a taste of the new wine from 2004 season. It’s a wonderful party. They block off a section of the street in from of City Hall where they offer you free alcohol and food. Then you walk the booths trying hot wine and different versions of the current years vintage, along with local foods. It’s really nice. Everyone is very well behaved (except for the American in the crowd, bastards, he, he, insert evil grin). I however learned why they have you drink the current vintage before they “uncork” the next year’s vintage. We got pretty lit I must say, but even in my intoxicated state I could not finish the glass of white wine that was handed to me from the 2004 vintage. It would have been better served to clean my boots or strip pain off of a car. We have a word for it in English, VINIGAR, if I’m not mistaken. I couldn’t finish it. The following night was the Bouglé nouveau. This is the red wine. We missed it. Didn’t pace ourselves well enough the night before arrived after they had already closed. Sad. But if it was anything like the white they can keep it.
I’m feeling much better and I’m not sure if it was the alcohol content of my blood that killed the cold that I got in Lille or my rest. Either way I’m feeling much better and on the road to recovery.
My mommy is coming this Thursday and I’m very excited! Two weeks to share the French culture with her, but not at the same level. I think we’re going to visit tearooms and churches rather then opium dens and nightclubs. But hey you never know with my mom.
Write me back and let me know how things are going in your part of the planet. I would love to hear your “nouvelle.”
Warm regards from France
(cause it’s cold here)
We leave Tours at around 7:30 pm and should arrive around midnight at Yann girlfriend’s house, Leila. What I can report is the French highways aren’t much different then the American Interstate-Highway system except their towns are closer together and there’s better coffee along the way. I got to see a nuclear power plant that reminded me of Three Mile Island in my home state of PA! As many of you who know me and have traveled with me anywhere in the world, put me in the back of a moving vehicle and 15 minutes later it’s beddy-bye time FJ. And even in my Hindu contortionist state I was able to fall asleep.
We got to Lille, our final destination, at about midnight, so things were working for us. It was decided during my “Oh, so restful sleep” that we were going out on the town. No problem. I’m a college kid. I can do this. So we connect with one of Yann’s friends Flourant who is a hoot and a half. Let’s just say for someone as small as him, he can sure put a lot of legal and illegal substances into his tiny little body and still remain standing. I was impressed. The first night club was a bust, so was the second, the third wouldn’t let us in and by the time someone suggested we go home because it was 3 am we found ourselves in a fourth club that showed promise. But again we didn’t stay long enough to “make friends” and finally went home.
There Boomie (the big Algerian) and I got to share a futon that converts into a coach during the day and our place of rest at night. There were several homophobic jokes bantered about from Yann and Boomie. And then, we went to bed. Boomie was a bit drunk let’s say. No we can say HE WAS DRUNK. And I found myself defending myself against him in the bed. It was so hilarious and he had no idea what was happening. When I woke him to prevent him from kissing me all he did was roll over and fall back to sleep. The next morning I got the front seat of the CAR! Tea totaling can have its advantages some nights!
The next night and I do mean night because the gang didn’t rise before about 5 pm and it was already getting dark. We decided to go to a club in Belgium because the Belgium boarder is very close to Lille. It was called H2O and it was RAD! We got there about 1 am and stayed till about 6 am and some in the group were angry that we left “early.”
The club was made up of 2 dance floors, one House and the other Industrial. We spent a lot of the time on the House side. I had a wonderful time up by the stage helping people up and down. I had a nice little spot where I could have enough space to have a good time but not upset anyone else. The thing I love about nightclubs in Europe is that gender and sexuality is so fluid. People just flow over each other (no I’m not going to interpret that for you, figure it out on your own). So having a good time, not bothering anyone. People dancing with me, me dancing with people, all is good. Then this Butt-head, I think I’m using the correct term here, Butt-head. Can someone correct me if I’m misusing that word? So this Butt-head aggresses me to get up on the stage and dance. I’m too tall for the stage. He insists. I refuse. His friend on stage starts to pull me up on to stage while he lifts me up on to the stage. I struggle and then realize all of us will get hurt and I get up on to the stage. I’m dancing. Calm (relatively speaking) has been regained and then…what I’m going to refer to as “the incident” happened. I have about 5 minutes of stage fun when another Butt-head (again Judges, term clarification please) with a little more of a bounce in his step (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) spills his full glass of beer down my back, and the glass breaks as it hits the floor throwing glass shards everywhere. I was not amused. But I’m in a nightclub, shit like this happens.
In order to relieve my newfound stress level, I visit the INDUSTRIAL ROOM. Excellent music for just such a mood. Here there isn’t a glass that isn’t broken on the floor somewhere. People have whistles and combat boots and I feel the teenage angst welling up inside of me. “Kurt Cobane LIVES,” I want to cry. But I restrained myself and I took my newfound anger and my brewery soaked jeans and started shadow box dancing. I loved it! It was really doing the trick. I wasn’t killing anyone and people were giving me space to “dance” my anger away. The best of both worlds. Then Yann and Boomie find me and Boomie starts fucking with me. He thinks he’s being cute but he’s screwing up my chi and I’m getting more pissed. Rather then choking the shit out of my new Algerian friend and causing further miscommunication between my country and the rest of the world I decided to absent myself from the night club for about an hour. This worked. The cold night air, the drunks pissing on the side of the building and the harsh parking lot lights made everything right with the universe again and I entered and completed my night of fun. And it was a BLAST. Don’t get me wrong. I loved it. It was definitely one of the best nightclubs I’ve ever been in.
So we dragged our sorry butts back to France and made it to bed at about the time rush hour traffic in Lille started. Lille is about the 4th largest city in France and it has that nice big city atmosphere without being to unmanageable like Paris. I like Lille and would most definitely go back.
So our final night there and our final night out. Finally, Leila joins us after much prodding from Yann and a group watching of Austin Powers, she agrees to go out. Oh and her friends were throwing the party. Leila is a model. She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen and I’m not just saying that. She could be a Cover Girl OK. This final nightclub was put on by her friends and they rented a warehouse and turned it into a nightclub for a night. It was very cool, both literally and figuratively. They had huge engines in the middle of the bar room to heat the place and they had two smaller side rooms for dancing. They cut up playing cards into little squares and that was what you had to pay your drinks with. Your choices were also limited, whisky, gin, scotch or rum with coke or OJ or apple juice or pineapple juice. Remember, I’m in Europe we get drunk but with vitamins! The decorations were hot as hell! Back lit B/W photographs transferred onto large pieces of Plexiglas. They were pictures of Nancy from Sid & Nancy, S&M women, sexual abstracts. They were hot to say the least. The place was also furnished with plastic furniture that rises to about half way up your calf. So to get in was easy but getting out when you were drunk proved to be more of a challenge for some, present company excluded. By this time I had had so much alcohol in my system and so little sleep that I think I looked like Nasforatu (original version). People were kind enough but I would have ran the other way personally. I couldn’t hang with the kids this night. I was asleep by 3 am on the steps leading up to somewhere else. But before that I did get to witness some people break the sink in the bathroom downstairs. That was interesting. The problem with this night was that it was so cold in the warehouse and we left our coats at home. Why I’m not sure. To add to the fun it started raining about midnight and we had to walk to the car which happened to be parked 100 m away. Because of course you don’t build parking for warehouses in France, go figure! So low and behold I caught a cold that knocked me out for about a week. We made it home ok and slowly worked our way back to Tours without incident.
But wait the alcoholic fun doesn’t stop there. This past Wednesday was what was called the Touraine Primeur. This is when they offer the public a taste of the new wine from 2004 season. It’s a wonderful party. They block off a section of the street in from of City Hall where they offer you free alcohol and food. Then you walk the booths trying hot wine and different versions of the current years vintage, along with local foods. It’s really nice. Everyone is very well behaved (except for the American in the crowd, bastards, he, he, insert evil grin). I however learned why they have you drink the current vintage before they “uncork” the next year’s vintage. We got pretty lit I must say, but even in my intoxicated state I could not finish the glass of white wine that was handed to me from the 2004 vintage. It would have been better served to clean my boots or strip pain off of a car. We have a word for it in English, VINIGAR, if I’m not mistaken. I couldn’t finish it. The following night was the Bouglé nouveau. This is the red wine. We missed it. Didn’t pace ourselves well enough the night before arrived after they had already closed. Sad. But if it was anything like the white they can keep it.
I’m feeling much better and I’m not sure if it was the alcohol content of my blood that killed the cold that I got in Lille or my rest. Either way I’m feeling much better and on the road to recovery.
My mommy is coming this Thursday and I’m very excited! Two weeks to share the French culture with her, but not at the same level. I think we’re going to visit tearooms and churches rather then opium dens and nightclubs. But hey you never know with my mom.
Write me back and let me know how things are going in your part of the planet. I would love to hear your “nouvelle.”
Warm regards from France
(cause it’s cold here)