An American in Provence

When I was going up to Strasbourg (2009-2010) on a regular basis, Alain bought a poker chip set and hosted several poker nights while I was away. Since then, the guys from his lab get together every few months or so. I have gone a few times, but it is usually on a work night, so we leave around 10:30 or so.

As it was our turn to host again, I suggested either Saturday night or Monday night, as today, May Day, is off. I wanted some time to straighten up the apartment, and not have work the next day, as I knew they wouldn't be leaving at 10:30.
(Let's go to bed so these nice people can go home)

We spent Saturday and Sunday straightening up, and bought chips, pretzels, sodas, beers, the works. About half of the guys who come are Muslim, so they don't drink beer.

Monday night I arrived home from work a bit before 7, so I prepared the tables, got out the extra chairs and cushions, and waited for their arrival.
Khalid, Alain's colleague, was the first to arrive. Alain's cousin Jérome then arrived and bought some PhD students from Alain's lab with him.
Khalid then realized he forgot to bring the poker chips and cards (last time, poker night was at his house). Whoops. Kinda hard to play without all that.
He didn't want to lose his parking spot, so he managed to convince Alain to go to his apartment on motorcycle, get the poker set, and bring it back.
So Alain took off, leaving me to entertain. We ordered pizzas, also not so easy in France in the company of Muslims, as they don't eat ham which includes about half of all pizza varieties. We finally settled on Norvegienne (salmon), Tartiflette (potatoes, onions, reblochon cheese, and normally ham but we asked that to be left off), provençale (mozzarella, tomatoes, Parmesan, garlic, and parsley), and Spécial Cissou (mushrooms, Roquefort, mozzarella, and egg).

Alain returned with the poker set, and we started to play. We don't play for money, just chips. The entire set of chips was divided out evenly amongst us. I won a few hands, which is rare for me.
About an hour later, everyone was wondering where the pizza was. I called, and they said they were running behind. Perfect. I've got 7 hungry guys playing poker in my apartment.

Another 30 minutes, and the pizzas arrived. Alain opened them up and starting cutting. When he got to the Spécial Cissou, he said "oh no! Look what they did to our pizza!" It was all crumpled up, like it got tipped over during the transport. In fact, it was a chausson (calçone). We started doling out the pizza slices, using the plastic plates left over from Alain's habilitation in March. This was actually an improvement over previous poker nights, when they just ripped up the covers of the pizza boxes to use as plates.

We kept playing and around 11:30 our buzzer rang. We looked in the hallway, but there was nobody. I guess it was someone down in the street. Either it was a passer bye who was just causing trouble ringing doorbells late at night, or more likely one of our neighbors complaining about the noise. Seriously?
Sure, the guys were talking loud, but
1) it isn't like we have people over every week
2) there was no music playing, and

most of all:
3) WE PUT UP WITH YOUR NOISE ALL YEAR ROUND!

Don't even have the courage to knock on our door and say "can you please keep it down"? Then screw you.

Anyway, we continued playing. Some people started getting large piles of chips, as others slowly dropped out. I was the fifth to drop out, followed by Alain. It was then between Khalid and Frédérico, with higher and higher stakes. Khalid finally won it all and everyone left, a bit before 1 a.m.

it was fun, but I was glad to not have to get up at 6 to go to work.

Happy May Day!