Maison de l'amerique latine and Les Miss

Friday night was wicked!!! Our Mexican friend H had a bunch of us over for some home cooked Mexican food, and it was DELICIOUS. Mexican rice and two tortillas, one with meat, cheese and some kind of gravy, the other was a little drier with peas and carrots and ground beef, washed down with some beer. It was really nice because H invited a bunch of his flat mates to the dinner, so there were twelve of us packed around the kitchen table, laughing, smoking and drinking beer (I wasn't smoking, don't worry) while H bustled about in his cute little apron getting everything ready.

Then a friend of mine had invited us to the Maison de l'amerique latine, so we headed out on the tram. The Maison turned out to be this lost little thing behind a grated door next to a gay bar. We walked in and it was this tiny room filled with people smoking and dancing the salsa to the music blaring from some unknown origin.

A few of my friends from Puerto Rico collectively taught me to dance the salsa, as we slugged back 2 euro beers. My favorite part of the night though, was when this guy busted out his flute when the music had turned off for a few moments, and everyone started stomping and clapping to the flute and dancing.

It was one of the most genuine and fun nights I've had so far in Strasbourg.


Then today we headed out at 8:15 to Champagnole, where the Miss vs. Censeau game was held. It took 4hrs to get there (not all that far from Dijon), so I spent most of my Sunday in the "mini-bus". We lost miserably 0-40, but I still had a good time regardless, as it was my first entire game playing prop, and I felt that I did pretty well considering the prop opposite of me weighed in easily at 200 lbs.
(I'm the one lifting Boubou from behind... Boubou is the jumper)

I loved the French tradition afterwards, because though we didn't have a chug off or buy each other beers, the hosting team had set up this huge spred of cake, dried sausage, cheese, baguette, quiche, pasta salad, yogurt, you name it. So we mowed down on that for a while and the feasting continued in the "mini-bus" as people pulled out bags of chips that I hadn't even seen on the way up, and home made madeleines and brioche. Needless to say I pigged out.

I've noticed that France (or maybe Europe) has this huge sharing culture that is pretty much absent in Canada. As if in North America we've become so individualized that everyone kind of looks out for themselves, whereas here people share everything, from buying you drinks at the bar to eating that last mouthful of food on your plate, or (this actually happened) bringing baguette and dried sausage and a few bottles of the Beaujolais Nouveau to share amongst your team mates after a practice. I like it, and I really hope that when I go back to Canada (for good) that that part doesn't go away - though it's a lot less give and take in Canada, the equilibrium would be off. We'll see, maybe I'll start a revolution.