Beginning of September: I was at dinner one day and Etienne asked me if I wanted to go to a soirée with Arnaud. I agreed, not entirely sure what it was. In fact, I'm still not entirely sure. Regardless, as we got closer and closer to the date, I started freaking out more and more, comme d'habitude (as usual). One night Anne-Michèle and I chose one of Alix's dresses for me to wear (it's absolutely gorgeous, by the way. Navy blue halter with a flowy skirt. Gosh I love those flowy skirts.) and she found a shrug for me to wear with it to cover my tattoo. We went shopping the day of the Fête de Wallonie and bought shoes and a necklace to go with it. I was totally set for the big night.
A week or two before: Anne-Michèle told me after dinner that all we needed now was to go to the hairdresser. There may or may not have been a mild exclamation of disbelief/terror/panic when I heard this. Mais ça va.
3 days before: Minor flip outs during English class with Emma and Talia.
1 day before: Anne-Michèle told me that I needed to use some self-tanning lotion.
The day of: I went to Namur with Rotary. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Then I reapplied the tanning lotion, per Anne-Michèle's request. We found a small purse for me to take.
1 hour before: Anne-Michèle did my hair. She did a blow-out, then curled it. I love love loved my hair. She did an AMAZING job. Seriously, my hair looked great. After the hair came the dress. Then the makeup. Then the sweater. Then the merciless stuffing of my cell phone, gum, a pen, some bobby pins, and my little perfume thing into the clutch. After that, I toyed with the idea of putting on the heels, but decided that I'd rather make it down the stairs in one piece, so I just went barefoot. I got downstairs, and Anne-Michèle handed me a pair of pantyhose. Back up the stairs I went to add those to the ensemble. I came back downstairs after that, and I was all ready to go. Arnaud was doing something with the GPS, and then Anne-Michèle and Amaury wanted to take pictures. I basically just stood there while they snapped oodles of photos with various picture-taking devices. Arnaud was laughing. He, however, did not get his picture taken.
After the photos, we left. I had made it 20 minutes without a mishap, so one was bound to come soon. I was wearing the heels when we left the house. I forgot that there aren't any lights outside, and my brain, in its laziness, had decided to forget that there are steps coming down from the door. No, I didn't fall, I merely made a loud, stumbly, scraping noise as I descended. So... I pretty much fell, but landed on my feet.
We got in the car and headed on our merry way after that. It was a pleasant car ride until Arnaud told me that there was the possibility that we would be sitting at different tables. Cue panic. But since the people throwing the party knew that I'm American and don't speak French, they probably put us at the same table. End panic.
We arrived at the soirée at about 9pm and I immediately sunk into the grass when I stepped out of the car. Thank you, heels. There's a reason so many women hate you. I managed to get out of the grass just fine, and when we walked up to the house, the first person I saw was my third host sister, Camille. I talked with her for a second before Arnaud and I went inside to greet the parents of the party. When Arnaud introduced himself, they immediately looked at me and said, "The American!" (In all honesty, that's a fairly common reaction. It's as though I'm expected to look different or have a flag painted across my face. I really look just like all the other people out there in the world, promise). After greeting the parents, we found a board with little pieces of paper listing people's names on them. These tell you which table you're sitting at. We flipped them over, and what do you know, we're at different tables. I was totally ready to flip out, but then I decided it wasn't really a big deal. I mean, it's one night. I can manage to eat a meal with a bunch of people I've never met before and who speak a language I don't understand, right? No sweat.
I found Camille not long after that, and she introduced me to her friends, all of whom were very nice. They spoke French with me, which was a nice change from the English I usually get. During this time, Camille told me not to talk or dance with any guys who were wearing only pinky rings. The pinky ring is a tell-tale sign, apparently, that the guy is a money-obsessed, snotty jerk. Well, what the hell do I know, I'll believe it. Not long after that, it was time for dinner, so we all filed inside. Camille helped me find my table. We waited for a few people to sit down, and then she walked up to a guy and this conversation followed, in French, of course:
Camille: Hi, what's your name?
Random Guy at My Table: Olivier.
Camille: Hi Olivier. This is Mikayla, she's my host sister. She's American. She's going to sit by you at dinner, and you're going to talk to her, okay? Have fun.
And that was all. Olivier was actually very nice, and he and I talked quite a bit during the course of the meal, which was quite delicious (the meal, I mean, not Olivier...).
What did we eat?
Well, the first course/appetizer-y thing was raw salmon rolled around little shrimp. It was actually pretty good, despite my aversion to raw meat and seafood.
Second, we had a form of potato (I'm thinking it was potatoes au gratin, but I really have no idea), something involving ham and a sauce (really great sauce), something I'm hoping was chicken, and something else I can't remember. It was all super delicious though. I loved it.
Desert was an AMAZING raspberry/sugar creation. The raspberry was like a serbet kind of thing and was SO yummy. I wasn't a huge fan of the sugar part, but the raspberry. Yes. Incredible.
This whole meal was accompanied by a roll (one of the best parts of any meal, in my opinion) and two wines, one white, one red. Both were quite good.
After the meal, we all went outside as the waiters cleared out the tables so people could dance. Camille found me and we went outside with her friends for a while, then we went in to dance. Yes, I did dance. I actually had a lot of fun! There were little platform thingies for people to dance on, so I joined Camille and her friends on one of those. It was great fun. We would go outside for some fresh air for a while, then go back in and dance some more. During one of our trips outside, someone walked up behind me and said, "What is your name?" in ENGLISH. I told him, and he and I started chatting about English, me being in Belgium, and his time studying English in England. Camille came back over, and we went inside to dance some more. As we were walking, she told me to be careful; that guy had a pinky ring. I didn't really give the guy another thought, and just started dancing again. All of a sudden, the guy appeared right next to me, dancing. Camille and I moved across the dance floor, and he followed. No matter where we went, he was no more than a minute behind us. It was a little creepy after a while. At around 12:45 (yes, am) I went outside and the guy followed me. He commenced what I'm sure was a lovely soliloquy about how much he knows about America (he's been to Washington DC and Chicago, after all), every reason he could think of that demonstrates why Belgium is better than America, and the brewery his uncle is buying. What did I gain from listening to this? there are approximately 164.7 things I would have rather been doing than standing there, including, but not limited to:
watching grass grow
attending a Justin Bieber concert
learning Korean
singing karaoke in Polish
attempting a back flip, heels and all
Luckily, Arnaud came to my rescue. He came over and said, "Shall we go? I have to be up early tomorrow." I think he was my favorite human on the planet at that moment. I turned to Mr. Pinky Ring and said, "Bonne soirée!" and bolted. As Arnaud and I were walking to the car, I thanked him profusely for saving me from the pinky ring guy. He said, "Yes, I saw your face... and I heard him talking about Belgians not having to use ID cards..."
The drive back was passed discussing the fact that Arnaud has never seen the Wizard of Oz, the possibility of an afternoon of watching Disney movies (ahem... :P), and blasting Ke$ha songs. Then, we got back to the house, and I passed out in my room, exhausted.
That, my good people, is the story of an American girl, a pair of heels, and an evening in Europe.
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