San Valentin et Le Coup de Foudre

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays, for many reasons. I love pink things and hearts and roses and the things associated with Valentine's Day and then the stores are filled with them. I am a huge fan of chocolate, especially that which is shaped like a heart, and am especially a fan of the Great LAYT Chocolate Wars, a treasured tradition brought to us during As You Like It by the great Shannon Stowe. (What does that involve you might ask? Buy bags and bags of hard chocolates, stop rehearsal, flip over some tables and THROW THEM AT PEOPLE. No bruises no glory.) It is also my parents' anniversary, and thusly always a day of celebration in my household, and my brother's best friend growing up's birthday. RED SKINNY JEANS FOR VALENTINES DAY ALL DAY ERRY DAY.

This picture was taken of me trying to sit up on the ledge of our balcony. Yeah, you heard me. Our balcony. Jenn and I got a balcony as a compensation because we took the risk of getting a triple with a mystery third roommate and ended up getting Molly, who we love. Gambling works out sometimes. The picture is awkward but Molly pointed out that it looks like an ad for American Apparel--two things which are definitely not mutually exclusive, so I am embracing that in full force.

This morning was one of the sunniest and nicest days we've had so far in Cannes. Molly's alarm woke us up playing "Somebody to Love" and we got dressed and went to class. My French teacher Claude continued his Valentine's Week theme of asking us prodding questions about our love lives, but then got bored of our romances, which are apparently not passionate or interesting enough for his tastes. He split the class boys-girls and then made all the boys pretend to be one girl and all the girls pretend to be one boy, and then we asked each other questions in French. It was a group exercise both in language and getting the group to a shared consciousness. The boys' "girl's" boy was Ethiopian and they met in the gym taking a shower together. The boy we made up couldn't settle for one woman, but our favorite lover was Rosie, with rose (pink) hair and matching rose shoes, who we met a discotec during a Lady Gaga song. She dances like Lady Gaga (which is what got our attention), our favorite part about her is her body, she looks like Katy Perry and works at Leader Price.

Men and women have different fantasies of each other.

I finally got the Foyer (our little on-campus cafe) to make me a mocha--fuck. yes.--and we spent break making fun of each other for wearing black on Valentine's Day (I was half and half) and talking about our "plans" for Valentine's Day. We're all alone here, we're either single or our significant other lives halfway around the world, so basically it was like, what bar are you going to go to tonight? Are you going to torture yourself and watch sappy romantic movies? What kind of wine are you going to get drunk on? I had been spending class listening to our fake love story conversations drawing Valentine's Day doodles and lyrics from Moulin Rouge, so I was joking about spending tonight drinking wine and watching it. Guess what I'm doing right now? Minus the wine even, though I bought some (some kid brought a bottle of wine to dinner tonight at the caf and they just didn't even give a fuck.) They went ALL OUT for lunch today, with roses on the tables and heart confetti on the floor and DUCK and scalloped potatoes and tiramisu for dessert! We had to fight the Italian kids for dessert, like physically, and Maxzene stole one and we just ate it out of the pan....classy times at the College International. I may or may not have had to get some whip cream out of my hair.

In the afternoon, Jenn and Molly and did some Valentine's Day retail therapy (plus today is the last day of winter sales on La Croisette, so if you didn't take advantage of that, you're just stupid) and I bought no joke over 20 euros worth of postcards, so expect to receive one soon. ;)

Things are moving right along, as always, and tonight I'm listening to "Elephant Love Medley" on repeat and writing nice messages to my friends. Happy, happy Valentine's Day. I love you guys so much.