mixed confusion

I set off on my flatmate's bike early-ish yesterday morning and arrived at the embassy around 10. There was already a fairly long queue inside the lobby, and a lot of activity - people coming in and out and parking their bikes and taking their kids in. How strange to be surrounded by all these French people - a large number of them sending off the image of the typical Francais Moyen, grumpy and not particulary friendly nor bright. I was wearing my most colourful clothes for the clowing workshop and kids looked at me with obvious sympathy.

There were three queues for the embassy people to check our documents, sorted out according to family name. A to F here, F to M in the middle, the rest on the right. Surprise surprise, 80% of the French people there had names starting with anything between A and F. There was only one person ahead of me, and I went in to the voting room fairly quickly.

Here they were, the twelve piles of white papers, each with the name of the candidates. I picked three pieces up, just for the hell of it - besancenot, royal, bové - and as I did so, I managed to shuffle lots of the piles and make a mess of it. The woman at the end of the table checked my passport again and gave me a small blue envelope. I disappeared behind a booth, trying to make sure not to step right into the one occupied by the woman ahead of me. So, which paper should I use? No time to rethink my decision, I stuck Olivier in the envelope and made sure I was doing it all right. I came out and followed the woman who had arrived before me. As the embassy functionary shouted her name and then "A voté!", I realised she is a teacher at my uni - she does law and used to give French for political scientist classes. I didn't know her face though.

My name was joyfully mispronounced a couple of times in a loud fashion, and then I too was allowed to stick my envelope in the Urne and sign the register. I passed the long queues of French people with names starting with letters A-F and stepped back out. There's something slimy about being surrounded by expats.

I pedalled to the open university (the name of the autonomous, student managed university where the workshop was taking place), got a little lost, and eventually got on the lovely green campus. M and I had agreed to meet early to do some of the washing up. I was alone though, and started. The light and sound of birds coming from outside, the general chaos of the house, all made me feel like I was on holiday. It was a nice feeling.

Eventually the others arrived, all so slowly, with food, and we started brunching on the lawn in the sun. We spent the afternoon playing and training again, and put clown make up on.
At the end of the day, we were all absolutely exhausted. I took of bunch of people with still traces of make up on their faces to the bar where the results of the elections were to be shown live, and was glad not to be with a bunch of French people there - the bar was packed with all these french people, there were French people on the street, french people everywhere you looked. They boo-ed when Sarkozy or Le Pen came on TV, they clapped for Royal and Bayrou. They clapped when the participation rate came up and congratulated one another. I was trying to explain all I knew about the elections to my German audience, which included one half-French guy, J., who hadn't voted. My friend D also came up, which I was happy about. And I accidentally saw U, whom I'd met in the commune in southern France last summer and had been sort of expecting to meet by chance back in Berlin. The moment had come, we were both glad about it. She's gone back there often, it seems. Now that we have one another's contact details, we'll meet up soon.

Eventually the count-down came, and there was tension everywhere. What was it going to be? Sarkozy le pen? When Royal's face came up on the screen, there was intense rejoycing, clapping, screaming, woo-hooing. I shared in for a half minute until the bitterness of it all hit me. Not that I was surprised about her score - honorable, and better than a lot of previous socialist candidates in previous rounds. But Sarkozy was way head - and the Real Left hadn't gotten the votes it should have had. And 18% for Bayrou? Hello? The post-result gloominess hit, and my bunch, including U who had by then definitelly joined us, and I left the french people behind to find a place with cheaper beer. It was already fairly late, and I eventually pedalled to Kreuzberg with half-French (but very German) J. , who happened to be the maddest bike driver I'd ever seen. He did warn me: "I ride chaotically and fast". And then he zigzagged between cars before I finished uttering that I was concerned about my security. He later said he'd never had any accident and used all advantages of the bicycle. The irony of it all would hit me later.

Once home, a little light headed due to the sunshine, the exercise, the beers, I called M who was planning a night-action, and decided to go back up to the north of Berlin to be with them. We did a little bit of anti-G8 planning, and around half past 2 was back on my bike heading south with a much calmer bike driver than the previous one, T, who is a friend of M and whom I also know from my institute. Funnily enough, I missed one red light and a green van saw me, turned round, and stopped before us. I thought the policemen would be pissy with T, who didn't have any lights, but they were only interested in me having passed the red light. They checked my passport, said I could be given a heavy fine, and then let us go. I told T I'd been a good diversion from his lack of light. Why don't these things happen to chaotic-fast J. though? The irony of it all.

We reached Kreuzberg and talked for a while longer before I got home at around 3 and checked more results on-line. I had to go to bed to get up for work the next day though. Haha work, haha work!