Rennes: closing down session

First I thought, make new friends but keep the old. One's silver other's gold. But now you too are old friends, now you too are gold. 

- that's the quote I would use to describe all the friends and connections I've made these past four months in Rennes. Argentineans, Canadians, Americans, French, Germans, Belgians, Irish, Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Egyptian, Brittish, Welsh, and all the other countries I've forgotten, thanks people.

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I know, I know, it's been too long. But here you go: the closing down session of Erasmus Rennes Fall 2011.

Fuck, I just realized I haven't written anything at all since I got back from my Ireland trip: The fabulous adventures of chris, maxibaby, mi'hael, t-bone and two random Irish bitches . So prepare for a long post! What did I do since then?

After coming back we had to prepare a paper and presentation for the next day, which ended pretty good actually, thank you very much.

On Friday we went to the Transmusicales de Rennes, an anual festival in the city with bands from literally all over the world. It was sort of Gentse Feesten-ish, with bands performing on different places in the city. Some could be seen for free, others were not. As we were supposed to be studying we, Anja, Esther, Chris and me only went to see two bands: Isbells, a belgian band and Moss, a dutch band. They were performing for free and they were really good I think.

The next day, Max, Pedro (Brasil), Laura and me were invited to Arsène's house. Arsène was our French Culture teacher and he had, appareantly, really liked us as he invited us over for coffee and cake. We spent about 3hours with him and his wife, they live in the absolute city centre of Rennes, discussing exchanges, school differences in our home countries and other intercultural experiences, knowledges and interests. Fascinating how a bond with a teacher can be so loose, and that you feel like you could basically talk about anything with that person. But then again a teacher stays a teacher and you won't talk to him about what happened 20 years ago. Wrong. He showed us his pictures of when he was 'famous' in and around Rennes, the books he wrote etc. To conclude a fine afternoon with whom would probably be our favourite teacher, he gave me a book about French people making fun of Belgians and dedicated it!

Hey! What the Hell?! 6th of December: Saint Nicolas day in Belgium. And we have a government?? No way josé! Re you freakin' kidding me?! Meet our, named by the Independant (UK): "Gay-socialist-and-born-in-a-squatters-camp" new Prime Minister: Elio Di Rupo! Good luck man, you'll need it!

The week of the 5th of December my exams started. I had six exams on following dates 7-8(2exams)-9 and  13 (two again). I'm going to keep this short. The exams weren't as hard as at KHLeuven. For some exams we even already had the questions! Whatthehell,areFrenchESCStudentsstupid? For others we got 5 questions and only had to answer 3 out of 5.. I'm not saying it was easy, not at all, but to be honest: it was. We had no clue of what to study exactly and after every exam I had the feeling I had written even more bullshit than on the previous one, but I'm pretty sure I passed them all. I'll let you know in February, when I get my results. Exactly February. What the f*ck, ESCRennes. How slow can you correct exams? I mean seriously, two months to give us all A's?

Vive la France!

On the Saterday of the exam week, we all got together with the whole group to celebrate our own little Christmas party. We did something called Secret Santa. Everyone got to pick a name and during one week you need to be extra nice to the person whose name you picked. I picked Anja, the german girl, and I think I did pretty good, haha. I was the best Secret Santa.  My Secret Santa was Justyna, from Poland, who was the girl who put all the balloons in my room when I came back from Ireland. As it was also the last night we were all together, it was kind of awkward because none of us was able to fully get that it was the last night. Pawel, Polish, had brought his Brettoon flag and we all got to sign it. Chris' parents where there as well, telling us that they were happy for Chris to have met such amazing people and that now they understood why Chris was having such a good time. Well, they only said that after 8-ish beers, so not too sure if trollin' or not. Nice people those parents, I now know where Chris got his amazing hair!

After my last two exams, and having a huge fallback when hearing of the suicidal attack in Liège (Belgium), we prepared for the last days in Rennes. The last days of all of us together, the last days of Erasmus. We started Tuesday night of with a picture night. All of us had to choose their favourite pictures and then I showed them on a big screen with a projector. Of course this went together with the casuals glasses that were raised during our game. Check the next tune! After our picture game we left for the Rue de la Soif and ended the whole night in style taking pictures with containers, statues and cars. Driving home in a cab with a Canadian and an English lad, waking up without a girl in bed, unfortunately! Haha!

The next day Chris came by to say goodbye, he was leaving on a Eurotrip with his parents. Sad but true, he left and left all of us with more than a memory, he left us with a Canadian friend for life. Thanks for that Chrisso. Your smile, your hair, your laugh, your acting, your soccerskills, your going out nights when you go home early to watch hockey, our casual spaghetti dinners with beer and our going out evenings starting with some beers in the living room of Avenue Winston Churchill 23, etc. Yes, I am in love with you and yes if I were a girl I would want to make love to you!

After that me and Laura, not my roommate, the other one, had a crazy brunch with eggs, tomatoes, onions, cheese, toast and juice! Nextly we hit the city for a last afternoon of wandering around in Rennes. We tried to find some touristic shops, to buy gifts for family back home. Well we nicely failed in that. There are excatly two (of the same owner) souvernir shops which both sell rather stupid stuff.

In the evening I had dinner with Pablo, argentinean gigolo, when the spanish people and our holland friend-from Holland or Poland, or Poland and Holland, I would like to write your name but no freaking idea on how to spell it- and we started of for another night out with more strange happenings!

On Thursday I had to go to school to close my school account, as well as to fetch my paper that I was actually attending classes there. I finished doing all that around 4.30 and with Pablo we decided to stay at school until seven, which meant we played pool for about two and a half hours. At seven the Well'come Team had invited all the exchange students for a last dinner all together. As we are used to it it was: too little, too small, to little alcohol and to much bullshit. But then they started giving out gifts. Some people got an i-pod, a camera or a headphone! 'Yo, that's sick yo!' was Tam's first reaction when he heard he had won a headphone. After that we went to Appart'city, where a lot of Erasmus people lived and where the Belgian girls had organized a Predrink. Around ten thirty we went to the city to get the bus to the last Open Bar. And what an OB it was! People litterally suffocating while trying to get in the bus, French people singing songs in that same bus, electricity and music falling out due to a huge storm, crazy people jumping around in their underwear on the beats of LMFAO, walking home in the pooring rain and waking up after noon.. Johnny la gente esta muy loca. whatthefuck! One for sports:

On Friday it was, let's state it, an epic night which was 50% on my account. Thank you and no, I'm not going to be modest over this. It was an incredible night and I had the best time. I had the idea of organizing a dinner with all the Erasmusfriends, all together. On Facebook, the event I had created had about 50 people attending. But that's not all, another student from Erasmus had had the same idea and had also put a Facebookevent online. So we dediced to team up and expected about 65 people, which would've been crazy and fantastic. But what happened was beyond our expectations. Not less than 82 students showed up at the El Negocian restaurant! It was the perfect opportunity for me to stress completely as we had to make sure everybody would pay his all you can eat 20euros. A total of not less thant 1 640 euros was collected in cash and cheques. But after paying it all to the restaurant keepers and making their day for paying so much, I finally had the time to enjoy it. Being together with all these people with whom we had founded a strong friendship in not less than three months was a great experience. I got to talk to most of the people with whom I wanted to share one last dialogue, got to take pictures with some people I hadn't taken pictures with yet and got to see all those hot bitches who dressed up nicely for one last time all together. Because yes, I hadn't told you yet but we were dressed up. Like a Boss.

Avenue Winston Churchill 23 For the win

Jose, el mexicano, como dicen todos

After this amazing dinner we hit Rue de la Soif again before heading for Pyms, where we weren't allowed in because there was more than five, fifteen to be exact, of us and groups aren't allowed in. Say what? We tried, but they just didn't want our money that we were going to spend there. And we were all suited up, so it couldn't have been of us not being nicely dressed! All of that b*llshit taken care of, we ended up at our place, good old Winston Churchill with a McDonald's midnight snack and a good wine, discussing our past experiences in Rennes and planning future trips to visit each other soon again! As it was already ridiculously late we invited the whole lot to stay over and everybody slept on couches, extra matrasses etc. The next day we all woke up and made a big, I'm talking gigantic, amount of spaghetti and we mixed up all the vegetables that we had left to make a really good and pretty spicy sauce. By five, I realized that my dad was going to arrive in little more than two hours and I hadn't even started packing yet. So I opened my cupboard, got out the cardboard crates and started throwing all my stuff in it. When everyone who was still at our appartment, about 15 people, saw me doing this, the emotional moment came.

We put on what I like to call: 'makesyoucry'music like Coldplay, Adele, Jeff Buckley etc. and people started hugging, saying goodbye very emotionally and promising each other that they'd meet again. The beautiful part of this was that, as we all are close, it's very probably that we will meet again in the future. In one's homecountry or in a completely new environment. One thing's for sure. I want to meet you guys again, better sooner than later!

After the packing and my dad arriving, we had some last shots of Jose's Jose Tequilla and me and my dad went for dinner in the city after which I left him at the appartment and went out, one last time, with my Erasmusfriends, one last time all together, to the Rue de la Soif, for the last time. Amazing how many people you get to know in such a short time, amazing the bond you create with them because you are living the same experience and seeing each other six days ouf ot seven. And yet again we came home too late to be healty.

The next day me and my dad got up, way to early to be healty, and hit the road back to Belgium. With a small stop in Paris, to pick up a carriage, we got home at around eight pm in the storm. I came home with a luggage boot full of stuff, a symbolic backpack full of knowledge and experiences, a head full of great memories, a photoalbum full of pictures of Erasmus Rennes Fall 2011 and a address book (=directory) full of phone numbers and addresses of new made friends and connections to visit in the future.

A perfect end to a perfect experience. Thank you so much people. Thank you so much to all of you.

Vive la France!

PS:

- What did Rennes' bars offer me? 2Amstel beer glasses (no Stella Artois glasses where available), 1guinness glass (well that one's from Dublin), 3shotglasses (one from San Sebastian, thanks girls) and 1 Malibu glass (I don't even drink Malibu..). How and two crazy flags, unwillingly donated to Pablo and Cintia, gimme my flags back!

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