Die Junggesellinnenabschied and a Franco-American Thanksgiving

Hallloooooo Freunden! It's been a fun few weeks for me, albiet very busy and totally devoid of any work.

As I mentioned, I attended a German bachelorette party last week, and though my expectations were high, it did not disappoint. My landlord, Maria, had no idea what was in store, but the ladies assured her that she was in for a good time. We drove to a nearby town, and went for a hike in a really beautiful forest. There were about seven girls as we started out, but right from the start we were joined by Sepe, a guy in a wig. Sepe is a dear friend of Maria’s, and is going to be her “maid of honor”. Because of this distinction, he was allowed to join us. As we hiked through the forest, she was given special tasks along the way. Sewing a button on a pair of pants, memorizing the names of trees, wedding charades, etc. And of course with every stop, we all downed a little bottle of Shnapps. This worked out well for me, because as I’ve said, my German gets better with every drink I have. We started off in daylight, but it got very dark very quickly. Thankfully we had flashlights, and the trek continued. It was important to end in the dark, because Sepe had hidden a treasure chest of sorts, and marked it with a glow stick. We traipsed through the brush when Maria spotted the treasure, or “schatz” among the trees, and she retrieved her prize. There was candy of course, a photo cube with pictures of her and Knauffi, money and other goodies.

After we emerged from the woods, we walked to the Königs Alm, a Bavarian-themed restaurant, and had dinner. It was a beautiful building, and the staff was dressed to impress in Dirndls and Lederhosen. Christine had arranged somehow for various men to come by ourtable throughout the evening to present a rose to Maria and congratulate her. By the end of the night, she had a dozen. We played games, decided on which strangers Maria should present one of her roses to, and ordered a ski full of shots. What’s a ski full of shots? Well, have a look:

There was also a guy playing the accordion and he had gotten wind of Maria's impending nuptuals, so he played a waltz and made her dance with a stranger from another table. As the music continued, I guess we had the right mix of people there, because everyone started dancing. The waiters and waitresses had their cameras out to capture the ridiculousness. There were conga lines, kicklines and dancing circles. The high point for me was when I had a line of 25 Germans doing a dance that my friend created in college. Ben Brisson wasn’t much of a dancer, so he came up with a simple dance that goes with any song. My friends and I have performed this dance at weddings, in bars, on the street… anywhere we can. I was incredibly proud to have brought it to Germany.

My German got quite a boost as well, because many of the others on our outing didn’t speak much English. It was difficult at times, but fortunately I spoke with enough different people that I could say the same sentences over and over. I had a really great time, and I'm glad they invited me to come along. It was nice that we didn't do anything obnoxious to Maria, we just had a lot of fun surprises for her. Oh, and we made her take most of the shots.

I only had a little bit of downtime after that, as last Wednesday I hopped a train towards France on my way to a unique kind of Thanksgiving. While I lived in Providence I worked for the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art, and I'm still working for them part time while I'm here. My boss, Gwen, invited me to come to the campus for Thanksgiving, since they have a big party every year. I took the train the whole way, which ended up taking 12 hours. It was not a fun experience, but I survived, and I was really hoping it would be worth it. Pont Aven is located in Brittany, in the far north-west corner of France. It's a tiny town, very beautiful and idyllic and French, but I can understand how students might go crazy after living there for 15 weeks. Still, it's an incredible place, and the students all seemed extremely happy. I had never met any Pont Aven students before, which was hard since I worked so closely with them as they prepared for their semester abroad, so being able to spend time with them was a treat. It was fun for me to see them interacting because I had known them all separately, some a bit timid and others a bit annoying. Now they are all (mostly) the best of friends, some are dating, and they are distraught to be leaving each other in just two weeks. Ah yes, this is what study abroad is all about.

The Thanksgiving party was a ton of fun. There was excellent food, an excellent band, and not-so-excellent dancing. (What do you expect from art students?) Gwen had made homemade cranberry sauce which was absolutely delicious, and she had also ordered two huge turkeys. I heard that the turkey was good, but I didn't have any. There was so much else to eat, cous cous, sausage, vegetables, salads, potatoes etc etc etc, that I didn't have space for turkey.

I stayed at the party until the very end, taking photos and talking with a few of the students and their host families. After the party was cleaned up we walked to the only pub in Pont Aven. We sat outside overlooking the river and had a lively discussion. I understand now what Gwen means when she says that each semester is a new set of characters. After we were kicked out of the pub at closing time our group dwindled in size, but we continued to wander the streets in search of adventure. I don't know if we found adventure, but there was an artists show at a small gallery in town, so we went inside. It was a motley crew of artists from all over the area, and I managed to find probably the only guy in Pont Aven who spoke German. This was actually a blessing, as I am completely incapable of forming a sentence in French. I studied French for almost 6 years, and I managed to understand a LOT of what my hosts were saying, but when I open my mouth to speak, there is only German. When I told the folks in Pont Aven this, they looked sympathetic and told me to keep at it and I would remember. I would smile and nod, but what I didn't tell them that I was glad that I am babbling in German and I couldn't care less if I ever speak French. My conversation with Mr. German Pont Aven was going great, since neither of us were native German speakers, and while I'm sure we both made plenty of mistakes, neither of us noticed. Actually, that's not true. I noticed mistakes that he made, and I was able to help when he was struggling for a word. My German was actually better than someone elses! I can't tell you how pleased with myself I felt.

We spent a good chunk of time at the artists party, but we left after Mr. German Pont Aven got upset that I wasn't staying in town longer. "But why are you leaving? You have such pretty eyes!" Right, it's time to go. I truly enjoyed my time in Pont Aven, but it didn't feel much like Thanksgiving. I'm not sad about missing it though, because I don't feel like I "missed" Thanksgiving, I just feel like it didn't happen this year.

I spent the weekend in Duarnanez, at Gwen's home. Her house is literally steps from the beach, and I could hear the ocean from my room. It was probably beautiful, but it rained almost the whole time. I didn't mind though, it's still a lovely place with a fascinating culture and very friendly people. We did have a few hours of sun on Sunday, so Gwen drove me to some of the interesting places in the area. One of the places we stopped was the village of Locronan, a renaissance village that looks completely unchaged over thousands of years. The main reason for this is that absolutely everything electrical is buried underground, with no trace of anything modern in sight. The movie "Tess" was filmed in Locronan, so the directors had everything buried. The result is incredibly cool.

On Saturday evening Gwen and her husband Herves (Her-vay) brought me along to a housewarming party at one of their friends new lofts. I enjoyed myself for the most part, but there weren't many English speakers and even fewer German speakers. I did learn a lot about Bretton culture though. The people of Brittany are extremely proud of their culture, and prefer to think of themselves as Bretton rather than French. The Bretton language is still spoken, and the music is everywhere. The language is more than a dialect of French, it is a legitimately separate language, with grammer and vocabulary. It is actually very close to Gaelic. This surprised me at first, but it turns out that the Celtic culture in Ireland comes from the same tribes of people who settled in Brittany. There is actually a stone sculpture in the town of Carnac that was erected by the same tribe of people who built Stonehenge. And the ones at Carnac came first.

I also got to witness, and participate in, Bretton dancing. As far as I can tell, it involves standing in a circle of people, linking your pinkies, and dancing around and bumping into each other. It wasn't quite the "Ben Brisson" dance, but it was still a ton of fun.

I took the train back from Brittany yesterday, it took 14 hours. It was long and tiring and annoying, but you know, it was totally worth it.