Manners and moustaches

I know that I haven’t written anything for a while, but it turns out that as an Erasmus student here you actually have to study. Who would have guessed?

The uni system here is quite different from Germany. It is an endless series of essays, presentations and midterm exams. Professors are keeping attendance records and they kick people out for misbehaviour (such as laughing in class. Actually saw the guy after class, smoking a joint in the yard and a lot of questions were answered right then.)

Just yesterday I handed in two essays. Brilliant topics like: “Evaluate Victor Hugo's manifesto on modern theatre” . Try writing five pages on that! I know loads about modern French theatre but I guess Hugo might just know a little better, so what am I supposed to say? After 5 hours of writing it took me another hour to go through dictionaries to find really long synonyms for short words. After which I had to adjust every setting from font size and line spacing to indention and font type (Turns out Arial is way bigger than Times New Roman), just to get to 5 pages.

So now I'm free for a week or two, which explains why I'm posting useless information on the internet. I have to say I prefer the German university system. University is supposed to be two months of hell every year studying for exams and the rest is just going to class whenever you actually make it out of bed.

As I am writing this I'm sitting in a laundromat counting down the minutes and hoping I choose the right program. The washing machines look really futuristic and I realized that my vocabulary when it comes cleaning related technical terminology is pretty much non existent. Still I’m hoping for the best...

I actually had my first experience of “L'arrogance parisienne” about 5 min ago in here. So far the Parisian have been surprisingly…… alright , but going back to the laundromat after enjoying some coffee in the sun (Yep, sun! First time in a week) an old lady asks me how to work the machine. As I explained earlier my vocabulary in this field is rather limited, and as such limits my ability to respond quite a lot. So she immediately starts to get annoyed. She turns to the machine whilst mumbling something about foreigners that I didn't really understand. Pretty sure it was not about the beauty of cultural diversity though. So now I'm just sitting here enjoying the scenery of her angrily staring and swearing at the washing machine, looking like she's about to beat it up just like a smelly illegal immigrant. She is actually watching me writing about her but given my terrible handwriting and her incapability to speak English I think I'm safe.

Apart from that, everything is going really well here. I’ve got to know my area a little. I know where to go and more importantly where not to go. Rocking an dazzling ⁱmoustache with funky sideburns has already got me big props from one the pimps running a brothel on my street, I might be imagining this but I think even the prostitutes are treating me with more respect. My goal is to greet them all by their (fake) first name by the end of this stay. So far they still call me “chéri” and I call them, well nothing since I don't know their names and “chéri” might send the wrong message.

Greetings from the soon to be pimp and his stack of freshly washed clothes

i