I got the chance to engage in two experiences that put me face to face with French culture: watching the election results while being interviewed by journalism students and playing indoor Ultimate Frisbee with the Metz club team.

It was a blast. Enjoy

Election Results Party

Two days ago I started hearing whispers that a group of French students from the University of Metz were going to be stopping by to “discuss election results.” Another chance to stumble through some French and laugh at American stereotypes was my first impression. But apparently discussing election results wasn’t the only thing on the agenda. Kathy Pham (my Imagine Cup partner), who also happens to know just about everything that goes on behind the scenes at GTL, started venting about a PhD student involved in our student government (called BdE—I put together our website earlier this semester) that had both promised to let the students use our lounge in our academic building until 4am and to cancel early morning classes the next day for an election results party.

Then, over the course of the next few hours, other details started pouring in. Apparently, the students were doing a final project on the American election. A video documentary. There would be cake and drinks and Wii to get people to come watch the results. No complaints yet, I wanted to watch the results anyway. At 10pm that night, I would find out the most interesting details after a knock on my door. I opened it to find the hallway clogged with girls (and LaFayette residents awkwardly trying to figure out what to do with them). And so the last detail came to light: the four students were all girls. All about 20 years old. And all very excited to be talking to Americans.

I was a little apprehensive about how the party would turn out because I had heard plenty of talk about fearful administrators not at all happy with the idea of the party being held in the academic building so late. However, the girls turned out to be rather with it, and it never got particularly out of control. It was quite a lot of fun to watch our typically American attempts at flirting with them fall flat. French girls don’t really respond at all like American ones will (or even at all), even if they’re interested. It also probably doesn’t help that we’re a bunch of math/science/nerd types. I don’t think that any one of the undergraduates at LaFayette has quite managed to solve the puzzle of French girls, yet. All part of the cultural experience of living in a foreign country, I suppose.

I don’t think we happened to be the greatest representation of American culture for their documentary. The ten to fifteen people that spent time there were mostly American undergraduate engineers—a population particularly prone to sarcasm. Each of us did what we could to accurately portray the American worldview on political issues, but each of us also indulged in over-the-top “OBAMA!” chants and tongue-in-cheek discussion of the merits of the candidates. Some people tried to genuinely discuss issues; others tried to genuinely upset them while they were at it. I guess I’ll have to keep making it a point to tell people that I’m Canadian until “American” stops having insulting connotations across the rest of the world.

One thing did unite Americans and French students alike—excitement at the election of President Barack Obama. There was a lot of exciting rhetoric in this year’s campaign, and I’m very curious to see what he has to show for it in the next four years.

Metz Ultimate Frisbee

Early this week I found a flier for an Ultimate Frisbee game being held near campus. I’ve been playing Ultimate off and on since college started, and after some awesome games with the co-ops last summer, I was pretty excited about the chance to see the French interpretation of the game. I wasn’t disappointed.

I couldn’t find anyone to come with me on short notice. So, at 8pm last night, I jogged by myself the five minutes to an unfamiliar apartment complex looking for a gym. My French held up as I asked for directions from a guy standing nearby. Entering the gym, I found about 10 people standing around tossing discs around. I introduced myself (“Je m’appelle Marc-Antoine” French 1, yes!) and started warming up with one of the guys there.

So far so good. I would be surprised by what happened next, however. Instead of starting a game, everyone ran laps around the gym. A lot of laps. Then, for the next hour, we ran drills (which is a lot more complicated when they’re explained in a foreign language). It all made sense later when I found out later that the group organizing the game was the Metz club team.

Finally, we did get a game started. It was a little bit of an adjustment playing 5v5 indoor Ultimate. I overthrew a few hammers into the walls. I had also never played a serious game of Frisbee before—they had us calling which side the force was on and setting up a stack each time the handle touched the disk. Once again, having strategy explained to me in French made it a lot more fun (read: challenging) to try and follow.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. They seemed excited to have me back next week and were tickled that an American (“qui jeux bien”!) had stumbled upon their game. I’m still a little sore three days later, but I can’t wait!