eurovision: what it’s like to be in europe

So…I haven’t written in a while. Hmm…what key events have passed since I last wrote?

1) My 21st birthday!

2) Holster and Crum’s arrival

3) Cinque Terre

I’ll write about those next. First I’ll write about the BBQ while it’s still fresh in my mind.

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Second Quasi Bi-weekly Annexe BBQ

Yesterday we held an Annexe-wide BBQ, American-style with an American football, a funky frisbee that Brandon NM and his brother found, a volleyball and tennis balls. Some of the guys, under Steve’s direction, brought out couches and set up the grills — two seemingly hand-made grills with only stones, coals and the grill thing itself as the materials. Very handy!

And it worked brilliantly!

We sat on the couches at first and munched on chips, then the girls played volleyball. Then all the balls came out and were being thrown everywhere with everyone pretty much just throwing what they got. It was fun :o) Then the day wore on and people started putting things on the two grills.

Elizabeth had gotten chicken for the both of us and marinated it in French dressing. It was pretty good! We ate it with BBQ sauce too. There was a lot of fruit and chips and things. We also smoked Hookah on the manor’s stoop and talked a lot.

One hilarious tidbit was that Stephan got help from someone and removed Aussie Tom’s door from its hinges, and they tossed it into the bushes on the other side of the yard. It was too funny watching them lug that bright turquoise door out of the Annexe and across the lawn!

This may sound like a harsh prank, but it isn’t considering the history behind it. The night before, Tom had a tire–don’t ask me where from because I’ve no idea–and was throwing it against Stephan’s door late, late one night after going out to a club, and if that weren’t enough, he was yelling out profanities against Germany! Haha–and on the third or fourth time, Stephan marched out of his room and apparently looked like he was going to crack skinny Tom in half. Garrett too apparently came out of HIS room and told Tom to keep it down and what in the hell did he think he was doing? But apparently another community assistant lives in the Annexe just down the hall from Stephan and came out and scolded Tom or something.

So that was a bit of a disturbance and an annoyance for Stephan, but not only that–his door frame was cracked and his door looked like it was going to cave into the room from the force of the tire against his door! So…that seemed to call for Tom’s door being throw into the bushes outside.

Quite hilarious.

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Eurovision, a seemingly first dive into the true European experience since I’ve been here

Later in the evening I went with Anders and his Swedish friend Mike to The Edge to watch Eurovision. It’s essentially a step further from American Idol, European style.

Apparently these 25 countries choose one artist/band to go to Eurovision, and some countries have extensive qualifying rounds to choose the lucky artist/band to represent the country. Some of the countries seemingly chose the most ridiculous performers. It was pretty hilarious and ridiculous most of the time. Russia ended up winning.

Anyway, it was interesting walking to The Edge with the two Swedes because they would talk in Swedish, and then they would switch back to English and talk to me. We were talking about Swedish gingerbread, which is apparently delicious, and whenever they conferred to clarify something about it, they’d revert back to their language once more. It was odd not understanding and being sort of an odd-man-out.

Sure, I’ve noticed before that the majority of the people in the Annexe are American, but I never really realized how it might feel to the other students from other countries. I thought everyone fit in quite well, we all seem to mesh together easily and I was just recently talking to Amy about how we sort of feel as if we’ve all reached a point of comfortability with each other–we can all hang out in different groups or all together and feel comfortable.

But walking with Anders and Mike, it was sort of fun and strange at the same time to feel as if I was disconnected. This, I supposed, was what it would feel like if I were to study in a non-English-speaking country. Rather cool!

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Being a minority, nationality-wise

THEN we got to The Edge and met up with Gazaleh, who is also from Sweden, Rosa and Marta, who are from Barcelona, and Flora, who is from France. It was truly an international table. For once, I was the only American present, and the only naturally-English-speaking person present! What an experience!

It took me a minute to realize it because I was talking to them all about how they were ranking all of the contestants on loose-leaf paper, and about how well each country that’s already performed did. But then everyone sort of mini-grouped up: Rosa and Marta, Gazaleh, Anders and Mike, and then Flora on her own. It was interesting to listen in on conversations and not understand a word! The Swedes would speak Swedish, which is a fantastic language to listen to, by the way, and Rosa and Marta would speak in Catalan–which I could understand only a tiny bit of, and Flora and her two French friends that showed up would speak in rapid French! It was also very odd because everyone else was speaking a different language and sadly enough, I was the only one there who could only speak one language.

As I looked around, I realized I had no one to comment with on being the only American at the table! There’s usually an excess of Americans everywhere because there are so many of us in the Annexe that we normally seem to be a majority in any group that goes out.

This time, however, there was only me, and it was strange! But very COOL! I was a bit excited, but I tried to contain that. I’ve realized that my excitement tends to bubble over too much and perhaps tends to scare some people.

Anyway, it was funny watching all the performers on the plasmas and the big screen at the bar, and it was hilarious when the Swedish woman (a cross between a serpent and a transvestite) performed. Everyone cheered for Sebastian Terrier, the French performer, as he was rather good and Flora was all for him, and we all commiserated for Spain when their performance was over-the-top ridiculous.

A wonderful time was had by all, I think :o) I did get a bit sleepy during it and my attention slid over to the other projection screen where there was some sort of motorcycle drift-racing going on–it was incredible. Absolutely amazing! Sweden did very well.

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Then we got back and Anders and I wanted to watch The Godfather! And then he said we should watch it outside on the couches! Which was an amazing idea I wish we’d followed through on, but then other people wanted to watch, but not outside, so we watched it in my room on Anders’ Swedish computer with his Swedish CD. We only watched part of it though because we all got tired. Teja watched some then headed to bed early as she’d been feeling under the weather all day, and Holly stayed only to chat a bit before the movie. That left Anders, Amy and I. We finished it this afternoon. Wondrous movie.

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Anyway, more on Steve and my birthday and Holster and Crum and Cinque Terre later. I don’t think those will be terribly long at all as I don’t think there’s that much to say about the birthday.

:o)