Don't hate on Spotify.

This is just a quick little blurb on how I made a few new friends!

When you move to a foreign country, expats tend to clump together in awkward ways. For example, there are 3-4 bars in Paris that play American football games. So on a Sunday, you go to them, see who is watching the same game as you, eventually realize that you are cheering for the same team or against each other, and proceed to start discussing your whereabouts. I have not met a single person from Indiana this way. I have, however, met lots of people from Wisconsin and New York. Katherine seems to constantly find Saints fans and even found a kid who went to her same high school and was a year below her.

The other thing about being abroad is that either you find out that someone you know is traveling through your city so you try to set up coffee/dinner/drinks or someone knows you live in a place so they put it on their itinerary and shoot you an email. Both of these things are fine by me and I welcome them; however, as the last two people to meander through the city to try to meet up with me have determined, I have the worlds most awkward schedule, so it's easier said than done.

All that said, Katherine found out that a guy she knew in high school is studying French here at the Sorbonne so we decided to meet up with him to watch football one Sunday. He says he is bringing along friends from his class. I assume other Americans. Incorrect.

He brings Swedish people! Now I'm not going to give you all the impression that I have made best friends with a bajillion Swedes because that is just simply not the case. Plus as anyone can tell you, you're not really friends with someone until you're friends on Facebook, and I'm only Facebook friends with one of them so far.

But, I have played kings with them,
I've been to their apartment and learned that you do not wear shoes in someone else's house, not even if you're a stranger,
you don't discuss Madonna because of the extremely heated debate that ensues about her merits as a singer vs. her terrifying personality,
Swedish girls like big necklaces,
and you don't hate on Spotify, no matter how badly it confuses or frustrates you, because it was invented in Sweden and they are extremely proud of that fact.

I've also been taught several Swedish words that I promptly forgot. C'est la vie.