Foreign Place, Foreign Face

Unfamiliar voices with familiar accents, a worthwhile combination I am presented on the sixth floor. Climbing up the stairwell, I dared eye the ground down there. Incognito faces walk towards points on an unseen horizon, a place where I could have been going. At the receptionist, the lady had a stern face, cold, almost as if she was forced to be welcoming, but calm, as if she was really nice just having difficulty speaking English. A foreign face in a foreign place, her and me, foreign to each other too.

Seriously, I felt like a child in a loose crowd of adults going their own way. It was a kind of out-of-place experience, a feeling that I think will dissipate as I actually join this world. Mental snapshot, with descriptions, in no particular order:

1) Girls behind a concrete column that probably held the building up so that it would not collapse and cause a scene. They are talking what sounds like politics, in common English, fluent. Something about Iraq? Having an opinion on what should happen with some people?
2) Sex. Joking. Bald man talks to a woman at a table in what I thought was French but turned out to be English in a French accent. Makes sense, since this is the French Languages office. I expected more French, the natal language the receptionist spoke but chose instead to adhere to the norm and speak English in her European accent. Cool with me :)
3) There, in the bookshelf by the bald man and the woman, a variety of thick Le Robert are aligned.

All the aforementioned made me feel like a child yet to attain the level of expertise and intellect that the university seemed to require. Did I feel inferior? No, just uncultured. This was a think tank with a reputation that had its own gravity and momentum.

Despite this sentiment, I did what I came here for - to enrol for French. And I did - after getting lost for a few minutes trying to find the Arts Office.