Thursday, September 29, 2011

Going Out, Staying Out

Tonight I'm going out for really the first time since I've been in France with a bunch of USAC kids. It was initially just a small group that ended up snowballing into many many people meeting up. The good (and bad?) part about knowing the other people in my program so well is that pretty much wherever you go, you're bound to run into other Americans. 

Why did we decide to go out on a Thursday? In America, Thursdays are for those hardcore party-ers, right? WRONG. Well, maybe in the good old USA but in France, Thursday is student night. Student night is THE French Friday night, which doesn't really make sense for those of us with early classes on Friday morning, but hey, what's life if you don't sacrifice sleep for friends? The bars are always really packed until 2 AM when they close and all of the clubs open. 

I'm a big believer in the concept that you have to experience pain in order to feel joy and when applied to this situation, you know you enjoyed yourself if you were willing to pay for the consequences during classes the next day. Thus, student night is actually a philosophical creation of the culture here, to emphasize the good times you have at university by your level of exhaustion on Friday mornings. Or something. 

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