Virtually Home

"Erasmus" is the magic word that makes professors give you alternate assignments or cut you slack when you had NO IDEA what was going on in class. It also, I have come to realize, is a much larger community of displaced students I ever imagined. When we met that group of Erasmus kids on Halloween by coincidence, it seems we wandered into a new group of people. Some of them are hosting a party just down the street from us tonight, for just a bunch of foreign kids. I'm excited, but I'm not sure how many of them we'll know from other places. It's kind of interesting how, if the only thing you have in common is that you don't belong someplace, that becomes a way to belong in itself. It makes me want to get involved with the exchange programs at OU when I get back to Norman.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a guy at the pub downstairs about the (non-)tradition of Halloween in France, and he told me basically it was an excuse for young people to throw parties. He told me there was a band called Water's Edge who would be playing at a bar by the river. I told him I'd consider it. Fast forward to last night. Alex and I went out for some late-ish Thai food at a nice restaurant and, afterward, found ourselves at 11 p.m. on Halloween and still no plans. We headed over to the show and saw most of Water's Edge's set. The music was really enjoyable. I saw a girl from my Italian class there, and the original guy who'd told me about the show. We were on the point of leaving when we saw a sign posted outside advertising a midnight showing of Rocky Horror. We were a little confused, since it was 12:15, but the bartender told us it was just because the band had played late. Elated, we stayed to watch. The movie was barely loud enough to hear, an...