C'est mon anniversaire!

Birthday Drink: 7 Euros
Karaoke Liquid Courage: 7 Euros
Hand rolled Cigarette: One French Conversation
Spending my birthday with my new found friends: Priceless

These sentiments best summarize my first birthday spent away from home. Of course, nothing compares to the traditional way of spending another year of your life with family and then celebrating with close friends at an all to familiar location. Since that was not an option for me at this time, I had to modify my regular birthday celebration to the French way. As I have never celebrated my birthday in France, and I'm speaking for everyone when I assume that they have not helped others celebrate one in France, this was new territory.

Our group headed to the closest bus stop to head towards 'centre ville'. We promply realized that even on a Saturday night, a bus heading downtown only runs once an hour. We waited.
Once arriving downtown, we quickly entered a bar that looked lively and full of students. Not being able to properly order a cheap birthday shot in my broken French, the little English the bartender know, assisted me in ordering the most expensive and sugar filled mixed drink on the menu. Grabbing a table for the group was an obstacle, considering we would think a table was vacant when in reality the occupants were merely smoking outside and expected nobody to be at their table upon their return. Mid way through our mixed drinks, one person from the group, who shall remain nameless, told us that she had recently desecrated the bar floor with her regurgitation of previous drinks. At that news, we quickly expedited our departure.

We headed to our next location.

The karaoke bar we searched for appeared to be closed when we located it. We would not be deterred. I knocked on the door and explained to the doorman in my broken French, again, that we were simply a group of students celebrating a birthday and wanted to sing. Upon entering the karaoke bar, we soon realized that this was not simply a leisure activity done by other students but rather a serious endeavor where most of the participants sang in French. We quickly picked out a few English songs and made our way to the bar. Yelling the lyrics of Shakira at the top of our lungs in a group, raised eyebrows and concerns from the rest of the crowd. We clearly stood out like a sore thumb and even more so when one of the drinks i was holding was knocked out of my hand and on to the floor due to unrestricted dance moves. At that news, we quickly expedited our departure.

We headed to our next location.

We were able to locate the club, 'Underground' and decided to enter. We encountered a small, high energy dance club. We joined in on the fun. Dancing, laughing and drinking were all present in our circle of dance moves. In watching our group enjoy themselves so much, a promoter asked to take our picture. Normally, at this request I would not hesitate or give an uncomfortable look the my surrounding friends. This was not a normal situation. This promoter was a little person and had asked to take our picture by tapping the lower back of one of the students. We gathered together anyway for the group picture and were on the verge of bursting out in laughter of the vision of the promoter tilting his camera as high as possible in order to get the photo. At this news, we quickly expedited our departure.

We headed to our next location.

We decided to try and locate a bar we had already visited and was familiar to us since the night was not going as planned at all the new places. We entered the familiar bar, went down the familiar steps to the familiar dance floor to find an unfamiliar scene. We saw people jumping off a makeshift stage and others without articles of clothing. At this news, we quickly expedited our departure.

We headed to our next location.

We walked along the streets trying to find one more location to finish the night. We entered a small English pub where we saw people dressed as zombies from activities earlier that day in downtown Strasbourg. At this pub, I was able to have a very elementary French conversation with other students that attended the Ecole de Management with us. After discussing school, origin, night events and an inquiry at their hand rolled cigarettes, we finally made our way to the taxi stand.

While this experience may not be educational, in every sense of the word, it is still one I will remember fondly and often. My birthday spent in France...