L'auberge Twilight Zone

I think I have mentioned "L'auberge Espagne" in many of my posts since arriving in France. In case you are not familiar with this film, I will explain briefly what it is, and then insist that you go see it. It is one of my favorite films of all time, and up until I moved to France, every time I watched it, it made me want to run away to Europe. Now that I live in France, it makes me want to run away to Barcelona, where apparently, life is much MUCH cooler than France.

The principle plot in the movie is that this French guy moves to Barcelona for a year as part of the Erasthmus program (the EU student exchange program). Basically, his entire perspective on life changes as a result of his amazing experience. He lives in a cool apartment (ie. the "auberge" which roughly translates to student apartment/hostel) with 4 other foreign students, and spends his days hanging out, "learning Spanish" (the same way I am "learning French"), having adventures with other foreigners, and basically just living the coolest life ever in Barcelona.

Anyway- whatever you do, see this movie. Just be aware that there is a high risk of wanting to pack your bags and run away to Barcelona right away.

Basically, this movie was the foundation on which I built my European Dream. I wanted to live la vie "l'auberge Espagne," eating dinners with my international friends and spending days in cafes and nights in the cool bars, having intelligent and amusing conversation.

Well, tonight, I had what could be described as more of a "L'auberge Twilight Zone" experience. Allow me to set the scene:

I am living with three girls in my apartment, one of whom is French, a second who is never there but is reportedly Senegalese or something, and a third who is Romanian but speaks only Spanish. Not bad, on paper it has the makings for an interesting place to live.

Caroline, the French girl, has the room next to mine and she is very cool. We "talk" often (or rather, she talks to me in rapid French and I nod along/laugh when it seems appropriate and act like I understand) and usually eat together if we are both in the house at night. The Romanian/Spanish girl, Carmen, is gone for days at a time for her work, but is around occasionally, definitely more than the Senegalese girl who I've only seen twice. However, given that I speak no Romanian or Spanish, and she speaks no English or French, our "conversation" involves speaking several languages until one of the words get recognized by the other. Slightly tragic.

Anyway, back to this evening. Somehow the three of us (Caroline, Carmen, and myself) all ended up talking in the kitchen (we have no living room in our apartment and the small kitchen table is the only communal area besides the bathroom). Firstly, I only speak English and French, Caroline speaks French and some Spanish, and Carmen speaks only Spanish with a smattering of random English. Thus, all conversations are held through Caroline, who speaks in Spanish with Carmen, then translates to me in French.

Somehow we get on the topic of John Kennedy. How, I don't really know, but Carmen (who, by the way has never been the US), goes on a rampage about how the US secretly gives tons of money to the Vatican, and that this is why JFK was assassinated. At which point we jump off into the fun world of discussing religion and politics.

The conversation got RIDICULOUS. For four hours, Carmen (who I take it is a VERY religious person) went on and on about religion in America and how great it is. Of course I couldn't resist the opportunity to steer the discussion toward prayer in schools, gay marriage, "intelligent design" and those weird (not that I'm judging) churches that use rattle snakes in their rituals when they're not writhing around on the floor speaking in tongues. I also enjoyed invoking scenes from the Jesus Camp documentary to illustrate my points, which thankfully Caroline had seen, and we had a good laugh in French about the fact that America will someday be taken over by fundamentalists.

My favorite part of the evening was that Carmen and I could not debate by ourselves, it was necessary to go through Caroline for the translation from Spanish to French and then back again. Caroline was thoroughly amused, and the two of us were rolling on the floor laughing when the conversation kept coming back to the US and our secret ties to the Vatican. Oh yeah, that and the fact that all of the most intelligent people in America are European. And if they don't come directly from Europe (she was saying that we import all of the smart people from Europe because we don't have any of our own), they are at least European descendants. I found myself in a place too ridiculous to even debate, and could only laugh.

So much for L'auberge Espagne. At least this UN-style multilingual debate was more exciting than watching downloaded American TV, but certainly not as stimulating I was hoping for.

I didn't even know what to say about JFK- come to think of it, I didn't really have a counterpoint to Carmen's idea because all that came to mind was conspiracy theory, which doesn't translate really well, or sound very intelligent. Random act of violence? Doesn't quite have the flair of a secret mission by the Vatican to blackmail the US into giving more money. One point for Carmen.

The evening finished off in Caroline's room where the two of us discussed Bush and Sarkozy, and the future of our countries, the war on terror, and the rising costs of food in the middle east. Not a bad way to end a VERY bizarre evening.

Any thoughts on the JFK assassination? I'm prepared to discuss Iraq, September 11th, foreign policy, and the current elections, but I was not on my game for JFK. Will take suggestions for any future debates, feel free to leave comments!