Beaujolais night

So, last night was the third Thursday in November, which means beaujolais night in France! The new batch of beaujolais is released, and it is illegal to sell it before 12:01am. So, technically, the event started on what would seem like Wednesday night in the Beaujolais region (apparently, you can't even start transporting it until 12:01, so the only people who can dig in on the first night are those in the region where the wine is produced). We went to L'Hendrix and met up with some (and by some I mean about 15) engineering students. The general feeling was that the wine was bad, but apparently that's always the case with the first batch (it's "vert" and "jeune"..."green" and "young"...so it hasn't really ripened yet). They said that the next batch, in a couple weeks, would be better. You could buy glasses for 1E50 or a bottle for 8E, and it came with a plate of munchy-type things: meat slices and cheese and pickles and bread.

Learned some fun French phrases and facts throughout the evening:

"marée basse"--literally "low tide," in this context used to describe a glass that is nearly empty. So you say, "Tu es à marée basse"--"You're at low tide" and then fill up their glass. You would then be at "marée haute"--"high tide."

If you are the person to finish the bottle in France, you are the one who buys the next one. (Or maybe that's some convenience that they just made up.)

Rose and I left before the rest of the group, and were followed up avenue de Châteaudun by two guys in a van. Ugh. The guy in the passenger seat actually got out and started to try and approach us, so we swore at him in a mixture of French and English, and he backed off. But they still followed in the van. And of course, I don't have a key for the door to our little neighborhood, I always have to use the key pad that opens up the big doors...and Rose hadn't brought hers. We had to get inside obviously, so we decided to open the doors and then run for it. Worked, they didn't follow us in, but it was terrifying nonetheless.