Days of my life: Residence Du Bois, Mont Saint Aignan

Right around this time last year, I had found a new place to waste myself at the end of every long, cold day....a place where I began each day of those six unforgettable months in Rouen......it was a student accomodation, actually a hostel, to put it in more Indian sounding terms.....whatever u do, wherever u go, at the end of the day, all u wld want, is to go crash on ur own sweet bed......and wake up at a place most familiar to you....to me, room B02 at Pavillon Poussin, Residence Du Bois was that place.....

My experiences at Du Bois are countless....some of them make me smile, some that make me angry and some which I can't, in my right mind, share in this blog :)......one of the most awesome things about the place was that it was co-ed...there isnt any boys hostel, girls hostel kind of fundas there...u got common showers, common kitchen, common recreational areas n everything.....n thats something I really admire about people in the west....they dont feel the need to keep guys n gals isolated from each other, the way we do here in India, for god knows what reason......anyway......

One of the most awesome things to happen was my room to be just next to the kitchen....that gave me an oppurtunity to befriend a lot of ppl there....I remember this girl...Justine....who I talked to a couple of times while we were cooking....u know I had this standard line made up whenever I wanted to strike up a conversation with anybody new who I met in the kitchen.....que'ce tu cuisine?...not sure i spelled it right, though it means what are u cooking......it was like really difficult to talk to her....when i asked her 'parler vous anglais' (do u speak english), she smiled and said NO...and then added, 'un peu' (a little).....she was nice and tried all the english she knew to strike up a decent conversation....I guess she was the only french who spoke less english than the amount of French I spoke :).....so it was me taking the initiative, and I tried to strike up a conversation in French!!!!....i sucked at french, but she sucked more at English.....damnnn it was so much fun having no choice but to speak in French......actually thats the best way to learn any foreign language, you must have no choice but to speak it...unfortunately we never had such good luck, as most people knew pretty good english....but then I soon exhausted all my french vocab and sentences with Justine...the next time onwards, all we did was smile and nod at each other, quitely cook our dinner, say bon appetite and go back to our rooms...it sucked, for I really wanted to talk to her, she was cute :)...but it wasnt possible, unless I had a pocket translator or somethin :)......if I had enough money to spare, I surely would have bought one.....

I also remember playing a game with some of the guys.....two ppl sit opposite to each other with an empty and open beer bottle in between with an upturned cap placed on top of it....and each of the two ppl had a full beer bottle with them and a lot of caps....so one had to take alternate chances to hit the cap placed on the bottle with another cap, and a miss meant a sip from ur beer.....a hit meant no sip...so the one who finished his/her bottle first was the loser :)....it was an awesome game, the only glitch being I almost vomitted the beer out on my very first sip.....it tasted horrible....alcohol always tasted eeeeewwwwww to me...I wonder why in the name of crap do people drink such an aweful tasting thing....watever....i moved out of the game and somebody else took my place....and it was no less fun just standing by and watching those guys gulping down beer after beer, getting wasted....ya it was fun.....at that time I remember seeing one girl coming out of the common showers and walking towards her room...she had a towel on her which covered most of her, thigh up....there was this guy who whistled at her and said she looked sexy....she smiled, gently slapped him on the cheek and went inside her room....in India, it wld pretty much amount to eve teasing I guess :)....but it was all cool there.....it wasnt big deal at all....and I realized that actually it wasnt a big deal......i think one of the most positive things in the western world is that their society isnt so desperate about categorizing everything as right or wrong...they give everybody their freedom....there is this 'what the hell, whats the big deal' kinda of attitude....and I realize its very important for any society.....

And then there were those awesome friday night parties that they used to have....around 10-20 ppl used to cramp themselves up in one of the 22 sqfeet rooms and drink and sing all night long....I remember the songs they used to sing, or rather shout....pi-pi-pi-pi-pi po-po-po-po-po....I cld hear their voices even with my door shut and my room being 2 floors below theirs :)......damn it was all such an awesome experience..... I also remember this girl, eloise, who used to live next door but never talked to us....while in the kitchen, her face had that 'I dont want to talk to u, so dont even try' kind of an expression....I dont know whether it was becoz she was shy and didnt like talking to foreigners....but she was one of the coldest ppl I knew in the hostel....once, almost at the end of my intern there, I did try to talk to her.....I was suprised that she actually smiled and said 'bon appetite'....I then realized that her problem was that her english was very poor, and she was a little shy.....and that was the reason why she never talked to us....there was also this guy, Paul...when he first told us his name, he pronounced it as Pearl...I was like, what the hell kinda of girly name is that......later I realized thats how u pronounce Paul in French :)......Last but not the least, I can never forget Nizar.....I need a whole new blog to write about him :)......which I ll surely do some other day.....

So until then... a bientôt.....