So on the Wednesday night, whilst my mother was sleeping in my room I went around the corner to collect some kebabs for her and I, since it was the first time that she would have them. As I was coming inside from the rain in the dark foyer of the Gallia, I was unlocking the door to go up the stairs when I caught in my eye someone that looked familiar. I thought, wow that girl looks famliar, but it’s impossible that I know her since it’s France. So I decided to do a double take and look again, and it turned out to be Susan Ferrel, my music teaching assistant in first year. I screamed out her name and ran to give her a hug in such a confused moment; what’s up with that? She and I caught up really quickly and it turned out that she had been in France for awhile and was just making a stop-over in Strasbourg for the night.

All of a sudden from the corner I heard someone on the phone, and to my utter surprise it wasn’t some dirty form of French that I’d never heard before, but English coming from a male voice. And before my eyes laid someone who I hadn’t seen in a long time, but was somehow made aquaintence with, Markus! We both sort of stood there looking at each other and smiling and then he said my name, and I said his and I asked what the heck he was doing. I had totally forgotten that he mentioned to me, that he had done a study in Frankfurt the summer before, and since he graduated this year he was going on a huge three month European adventure and decided to come to Strasbourg and be with Susan. I was shocked and appuled, and I begged them to come out to where we were going that night, so I gave them directions on how to get to The Living Room, our local classy establishment. It was perfect because Wednesday is Erasmus night and they’d forsure get in!

So I ran upstairs after catching up and whipped my stuff together to go out, and then headed over with the girls later in the evening to Mosquito. Guess who was at Mosquito, but Markus, Susan and their American friend Brian who dated a girl from Mt.A last year. What funny coincidences, so I finally met Brian and then we chatted for awhile. I was on my third or forth Sangria, post a bottle of wine, so things became a bit tipsy, but they agreeded to come to Living Room with us and we set off for there. The music at The Living Room that night added to the amazingness of the evening; it was a mix beteween popular non-jungle music, with classics like Its Raining Men and Copa Cabana! so we all had an amazing time.

I had a special bonding experience with Vanessa as well, the lovely Columbian girl who along with her friends had been teaching me some Spanish phrases. The most important of all was “¡ Vamanos Perras !” and for all those of whom don’t speak Spanish it means “Lets go Bitches” because apparently all of them were my bitches, go team! I speak with a perfect accent after their help, but anyways we had a special moment this night while at Living Room. We were discussing the goodlookingness of all the people around us, when we developed the word seasoned, I shit you not people; we were calling people seasoned. We are awesome, so from this point forward our connecting phrase was “seasoned,” we are the most amazing people ever.

The music got really amazing and the British people mixed with Columbians was getting tired and I had a ton of energy and lot of drunkness so I found Brian, Susan and Markus right next to the bar dancing and I joined in on them. Now if there is one thing that I can say about each person at this moment…
Susan: Was extrordinarily drunk
Brian: Is a boy from Arkansas, and it’s very obvious by the way he is
Markus: Can dance amazingly, nearly as good as I

So joining them was the most amazing idea ever, and the music just kept getting better and better. It got to a point where Markus and I were actually screaming out, and singing with the lyrics whilst dancing. Music became very intimate in a rap sense, and with that came very, very, very dirty dancing. That went on for a good hour, with a lot of pent up energy released but wow was I happy that they were there. For the record, I regret nothing. I went to the bathroom and came back to them dissapeared, so I was sad but it was okay since it was past four in the morning anyways. Susan, Markus, Charlotte and I had made plans to meet early the next morning for breakfast and coffee, so I went home, took mom to the train station in a drunken rage, and went back to meet the girls, plus Markus.

We walked around, and I was still drunk holding it together pretty darned well, and we discussed all of the things that they had done and what they had seen and what their plans would be. Markus had a train in the late morning, and Susan was leaving the following morning for Paris to go home. We helped Markus get his train ticket to Nice via Lyon and then we saw him off in a teary goodbye thanks to his Eurorail pass that he would be using for the next few months. We accompanied Susan back to the Maison de l’Étudiante and wished her well.

I talked with Charlotte for awhile about Markus’ awesome hiking adventures, and how much I had fun with him and she kept mentioning how much I should go with him. Obviously it was too late and there was no way for me to contact him, so I gave up on the idea and got sad really quickly. I was moping around for the day when I decided that I was going to do something crazy. I went out that next night again and we stayed out late, making it day 5 in a row of being piss drunk with little sleep. The next day I was still moping so in the afternoon I did something really irrational. I got out the phone book and I called every hostel in Nice to try to find Markus, after the 5th one I found where he was, and the lady even went to go get him. I was so afraid that he was going to freak out at me, but he seemed happy to hear from me. I told him that I wanted to meet him there and we agreeded on when; and my mind was put at ease. I was so excited about going to the south, something I didn’t think I’d have a chance to do.

That night I went out and everyone wanted to hear all my exciting plans, and I went home to book the really cheap airfare to Nice from Strasbourg but it was too late. My options were limited because I wanted to go to Nice before he left and I’d have no way to find where he was. So I booked a train ticket to leave in the morning to Marseille, and then to Nice from there. The train ride was going to be about 9 hours total, really long and boring and slightly stressful. Luckily I got on a TGV train for a good price and I was off to find Markus, my hiking adventure. I won’t be able to update until next Friday when I’m in Prague, so I’ll tell you how my irrational romantic hiking adventure goes when I get back!

• brian markus marseilles nice strasbourg susan tgv the living room