Past Work-awayers

American Bitches

THIS is St Michel?!

Of course there were the girls from America that make us all look bad. These girls showed up in tall boots and made up like they were going to LA, not the country. This would have been the first sign for Brigitte to send them on a train to Paris and not kept them around in the first place. She let them stay and obviously they were not prepared for what they had gotten themselves into. Now, Brigitte loves to ask questions about religion and politics, just out of curiosity and to hear other people's opinions. Brigitte asked these girls why we have the president swear on a bible when church and state are supposed to be separate. Now, Andrew and I both thought this was an interesting question to ask. Andrew and I explained that he isn't praying, but still that the two should be separate but we do an absolute terrible job of keeping it that way. (I am doing my best to keep my religious views to myself right now, I don't need to go and piss off my mom after being sent to Catholic schools my whole life. That sure turned out as planned, haha.) Anyway, these girls got all weird on Brigitte and the English guys that were sitting there too thought that she wasn't offensive at all. When Brigitte took them to the train station to leave, they said nothing the whole way and Brigitte told them if they wanted to arrive at the train, that they had better make conversation (I love Brigitte). After these girls got out of the car, they looked at Brigitte and told her that she "hates America." I wish I could have seen her face because even now when she tells that story, she looks shocked. I have heard this story MANY times over wine and the story always ends with, "Oh Putain."

Cheese Machine

Urkel says it all

I just heard this one today and could totally picture this guy! So Brigitte doesn't sleep much and usually ends up waking up at weird hours during the night. She said that one night, she got up around 2am and noticed lights on, so she headed towards the kitchen. With all the lights on, in the corner near the cheese cabinet was a workawayer destroying the cheese. Apparently, this was like a nightly thing too. Brigitte said that everyone else could always wake up on time, but this guy was NEVER on time. I guess if you are up eating cheese all night, it's hard to wake up on that full stomach. I asked her if he was one of those sleep eaters, but nope, he just loved his cheese. My next questions was, "Was he fat? Brigitte said, "OH YES." And so then, I needed to know, "Was he American?" I know our reputation and it's that we are fat, lazy, and love things way too big. This guy sounded like he fit the description, even though I was hoping that he was from another country. Luckily, he was from Canada! We got lucky on that one.

Chinese, Australian, German Exchange Student

Not the actual girl, but looks like she's being weird enough to be her

As you know, this girl just left. We still have a good laugh about her though. She had her quirks. Most of the time she spent alone, with her computer, watching Chinese soap operas or something and laughing terribly loud at them. She also liked to sing to Chinese music with her I-Pod in. Andrew and I had to shush her a few times, she really was not good. She also had weird eating habits. She LOVED the rind on the cheese, which I don't think you are supposed to eat. We usually gave that stuff to Owen the dog. I told her to grab one end with her teeth and have Owen get the other and they could fight it out. Then she liked the bread to sit out and get hard also. She mainly liked to eat the stuff that gets thrown out and desserts. While I had gone to Bordeaux the second time, she baked a cake, took it upstairs and ate it all on her own, no sharing. I am sure Brigitte will love to share stories about this girl with other people that come threw.

Me

Je ne sais pas

I am finally allowed to drive Brigitte places since I haven't killed myself or someone else...yet. She now considers me able to drive the car. I figured this situation must have happened before since America is full of people that can't drive a manual car. Nope, Brigitte assured me that I am the ONLY person that has arrived in St Michel and had to learn to drive. I'm sure there are more weird things that I have done that have given her stories, but I will for sure be remembered as the American girl that couldn't drive the car. When Brigitte tried to teach me to reverse, I nearly killed her. She wanted to hold onto the open car door (bad idea). I slammed on the gas and shot back, hitting her with the door, which pushed her back against the flower bed and bounced her back against a stone wall. UGH. I would nearly kill the poor woman. And I am a total asshole and used every ounce of strength to not laugh, since it was a little funny. It was terrible and funny at the same time. Now we can laugh about it, but I know Philippe wasn't too happy with me for almost putting his wife in a wheelchair. All in the name of learning though right?