If I had to describe January, I think it’s the month where I finally found a group of regular friends I like and with whom we spend most of our time together - and even managed to start a few traditions. For example, every Tuesday we get together for various happy hours around town. We start at 6pm at Les Berthom for their €2.50 pints and then we pack up and head up to the Cosmopolitan at 8 for their €1 half-pints. Last happy hour call is at 10pm but by then we’re all pretty drunk and dancing and just going crazy. That is... until midnight when everyone scrambles to catch the last metro train. Another tradition we came up with is the Time Capsule. It started after a holiday party in December at Emily’s place when people who were too drunk stayed over and just holed themselves inside for Saturday AND Sunday watching movies and eating. I wasn’t there for the first one, but the second one they held the second weekend of January was really a memorable time. We closed the curtains and just veg’ed around for 3 days straight. Everyone took turns cooking and cleaning and everyone fought over what movies to watch. I would usually just quietly go up to the computer and start one without permission. By doing this I was able to introduce them to cinematic masterpieces like They Live and Roadhouse. Classics I tell you.
Apart from that, most of my free time has been spent knitting. Last year I asked a bunch of people on facebook if they’d like me to knit them a hat or scarf since I was needing to work on my knitting skills and didn’t have any projects at the time. It was a big success so I decided to make it into a yearly tradition, and a couple weeks ago I asked people on facebook again if they wanted me to knit them something. Since then I’ve just been pumping out the orders. So far I’ve made 3 hats and 2 scarves:
These two scarves are for my cousin's wife and their 3 year old son.
This hat's for Jenn Harvey. Old, old friend.
This is for my colleague Emily who has to get her gall bladder removed today.
This was for Javier who I met at Christmas.I still have one more scarf and one more hat to make before my initial orders are complete - but there are still some people who didn’t get an order in and are begging me to make them something. Sigh. Winter might be over by the time I finish!
Oh and yarn is ferkin’ expensive here. Never thought I’d live to see the day when I say I miss JoAnn Fabrics and/or Hobby Lobby.
I also threw a party last weekend which was kind of a bad idea.... The weekend started as a rather chill time. Loads of people were leaving town and I just thought I’d stay inside and finish my knitting. However, bad weather forced a group of friends headed to the Alps to turn around and come back to Lyon. My roommate had left to visit family in Auvergne so I was just like, “Hey! Come on over to my place!” What I was hoping would be a nice, chill relaxed evening turned into a monster with people bringing friends who in turn brought their friends, etc. Everything was alright until around 10:30pm when alcohol was running out. So Patrick and I took a collection and walked to an convenience store and managed to make it as they were closing and bought €50 worth of booze. That was a bad idea. Here’s what ended up happening:
- First my roommate’s desk was broken and the damage left two huge holes in the wall.
- Someone puked somewhere and used my bath-towel to clean it up.
- Red wine kept spilling everywhere. Some even on the white couch.
- People kept taking food without asking (some of it being my roommate’s)
- The neighbor knocked at 2 in the morning to complain about noise and even though I turned the music off people were still yelling and talking loud.
- One person was off his rocker and started pushing and punching people.
- Someone puked in my building’s lobby right in front of the elevator (I had to clean that one up...fun)
- No one left until 5am
Needless to say I hated people - nay, the world - the following Sunday. I’m just lucky I have a really chill and cool roommate who understood, but it doesn’t matter. No more parties at my place.
Now how do you say “spackle” in French?
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