Discoveries.

Last night I met at a local café/bar with a group of geography and history majors from the university here. At dinner, a fellow exchange student in my house with more gall than I have said he was meeting them just after dinner. I was hesitant to accept because there are plenty of needless stereotypes that we have of French people: that they aren’t helpful, they don’t want to be friends with other people etc. But upon a monologue of insistence by my host mother, Isabelle, I showered and got ready to go out. So off we went into the night: me, my 33 year old Tawainese “brother” and the German student, who despite being a geography major had less than an exact memory of where we intended to go. And again, he had the courage to stop 3 different groups of people on the street to ask where the bar was. (Not something I’ve made a habit of.) Well, luckily the third group of people knew the place we were looking for and allowed us to follow them there. The three of us found a table of about 8 students outside of the Vert Anglais, just talking and enjoying the weather before it officially becomes fall here. I was introduced and began conversing. I talked quite a bit with my “brothers” of course but I spent the whole night only speaking French. As other students came and went according to their plans, I slowly was less shocked every time the southern three kisses of greeting or parting was so readily offered and expected of me. I talked about what I’d like to do. I got the chance to listen to French conversation between friends and I spent the whole night being the only American. For my first time hanging out with French students, I’m still reeling by how much fun it was to spend a night doing what would be considered usual.
I went to a three hour theatre class this morning, which managed to instill the same giddiness for reading I had in a freshman theatre class at Carolina. It’s refreshing to know I still want to learn.
And now. Now I’m sitting at a salon de thé two blocks from my house. Despite having had 4 and half hours of class today I still want to do work. This is odd. Maybe it started with the run I went on yesterday just before dinner and the sunset. I’ve been here a time or two already, only with friends. But today, I came alone. To sit, to type, to write, to watch. And to drink a pot of fantastic chai tea. I’m nearly done with my third cup of tea, which seems to be the universe’s way of creating a natural ending to this fun.
But just a little happiness of today. When I was brought the pot of chai, a woman that works here asked me in French if this was my second time here and if I’d ordered the chai previously too. Now that things are settling, I’m finding routine. I’m finding simplicity. I’m finding cups of tea and discovering that it’s possible to become a “regular”. I’m finding that I could be home.