Greece

Hey everybody,

I guess it's been a little while since I last posted. Last week wasn't super-interesting, although I did finally start freaking out about my biology class. We're supposed to get French tutors for science courses, but I still don't have one. And the exam is in a little over two weeks. However, I'm a little more calm now that I bought the book. It was only $30! I'll probably try to read the whole thing before the exam if I can. Next week is vacation week for all my classes except that one, so I should have the time. I also really want to go to the Salon de l'Agriculture, which is a big exposition where agricultural workers from around the country come to Paris to show off and sell their products. I've heard there are free tastings, and that may be my lunch Friday. Speaking of food, I found boxes of Belgian chocolates for only two euros the other day! It averages out to only 10 centimes for a chocolate. I was proud of myself today, though, because I used my willpower, "volonté", to not buy more chocolate and be satisfied with two nutella sandwiches, two apples, two cookies and a bunch of chips for the day. By "day", I mean between breakfast and dinner. Oh, I also convinced the director of my program to let me stick with only four courses for the semester (I almost had to pick up a medieval philosophy course on Friday afternoons). I've completely given up on chronological order so, the weekend: Friday night I went to a French film called "Paris". It was pretty good, and there were a ton of shots of Paris, so we could all watch and say "I've been there!" every once in a while. The only bad thing was that there were some drunk Parisians in front of us who had a hard time being quiet. Oh well. Saturday I finally went to the Rodin museum, not just the gardens, and I think I was there for at least 3 hours. I also found out that I can get in there free with my student card. Photos from there are the only ones that I've got, but next week I might have some time to explore a little more. Here's a small sculpture that I liked a lot because it's so dynamic.

It reminded me of a really famous sculpture of Rodin's main mistress, Camille Claudel, called "The Waltz". Speaking of her, her work is in Spain right now, but it'll be back in Paris in April, so I'll be going back to the museum around then. Here's a pretty famous Rodin sculpture called "Les Bourgeois de Calais". I read the story about the event itself, so I'm going to share it briefly. The city of Calais was under siege for a year by the English during the Hundred Years War. Eventually Calais gave up and the king of England demanded that seven men be sacrificed so that the other inhabitants would be spared. The seven men wore some kind of death robes, with the ropes for hanging them on their shoulders, and one man carried the keys to the city (on the right in the photo). Supposedly the queen begged the king not to kill them, so he didn't. I'm not sure how much of that is actually true, nor am I sure that I didn't mess up some part of the story, but it is pretty cool. There was a fairly interesting story about the construction of the sculpture, but I decided not to read that part. Sorry.



And of course, there's the thinker, "Le Penseur".Sunday, Glennis and I spent way too much time studying for a really easy quiz in our medieval art class, and I went to a performance of Molière's "L'École des Femmes" (School of Women). It was pretty good, but some parts were a little hard to understand. Lastly, I decided to go to Greece with some other people in the program in April! I think that's all from this week. I'll try to post again in a week, if not before!

So while we were in Quercy, we also checked out some caves. The guide was an old woman who must have thought our French comprehension was terrible because she spoke painfully slowly. That was a little annoying, but the cave was pretty cool. We even saw some hibernating bats. The coolest thing is, they actually still move a little while they're hibernating. The French word for bat is "chauve-souris", literally "bald mouse", which I think is pretty funny. Here's a picture of myself with one. Of course, I'm not actually scared; that's just for the camera.

Quercy (mostly)

So this weekend I went to Quercy, in the south of France. It was really amazing to see a part of France other than Paris. The area we visited was full of tiny villages, some of them more than a thousand years old. I took 83 pictures, which is quite a few for me. Glennis took more than 300. For some reason I can't upload more pictures in this post but there's one more that I'll start another post for. First, we have a "château des anglais", literally "castle of the English". The title is misleading because it was actually a castle built by the French to defend against the English during the 100 Years War. It's built right into a cliff, making it a safe haven from everything except gravity. There wasn't much of it left, but this picture has the cliff, the remnants of the castle and a small village in the lower right-hand corner.




We also visited a goat farm. The goats are raised for their wool, which is really soft. Apart from their wool, the goats are also extremely cute, especially the babies.


Glennis and I got up wicked early (7:30 AM) on Sunday to get pictures of the sun rise from above Rocamadour. Rocamadour is a small village built into a cliff, and it's a big pilgrimmage site. Many pious individuals used to climb to the top of the cliff on their knees, and this is a cross that was erected in the 19th century and then reinforced in 2000, probably by such pious individuals.

There is also a palace of the bishop at the top of the cliff and I got a pretty good picture of it with the rising sun.


Maybe it's inappropriate to put this photo after photos of a cross and a palace of the bishop, but I'm trying to post semi-chronologically. We were in another small village, maybe Carennac, getting ready to leave, and Glennis and Alexa saw this little sculpture. I saw the front of it and thought it was pretty boring. I looked at Glennis like I look at Glennis the majority of the time we're together, with a look that says "are you seriously going to take a picture of that?" However, all of a sudden, she and Alexa started laughing hysterically, so I checked it out. It's a "cul" with a not-entirely-visible-in-this-picture-sheep on the top. Weird, but it made for a great photo.


Penultimately, here is a picture I like a lot that I took last weekend of Paris around sunset. You can see the Eiffel Tower, and I really should know what that other building is, but I don't.

In other news, classes are picking up and I think I'm finally getting into them. Last week I sort of slept through several classes, and a lot of the time I just wanted to be checking out Paris instead of sitting in a classroom. However, today's course on medieval art was great and I think now that I've had a month here, I might be ready to put in some effort. What else to say? Oh, I need to add a bit to what I said about chocolate. Chocolate is very dangerous here. It is so good that a bar weighing 100g is practically inseparable from your hand. Last Wednesday afternoon, I bought three cheap chocolate bars. I had finished every one by the next morning. It's a good thing I'm starting a French boxing class tomorrow. And now, the other post.

Chocolate

I meant to write about this two posts ago, but I forgot. Chocolate here is amazing. I was heading home feeling like crap because I was still sick the other day, and I thought to myself "chocolate will make me feel better". As everyone knows, chocolate does indeed make everyone feel better. I know there are people who don't eat chocolate, and words cannot express how sorry for them I am. But back to the story...I wanted a bar of chocolate, but I wanted the cheapest kind, so I found a bar which was maybe .70 euros. I ate a piece once I was on the street and it was like looking into the face of God, seeing him smiling back at me and saying "You are my most wondrous creation". I'm taking that from SNL because it's so fitting. Afterwards I thought about the taste of Hershey's chocolate, and in comparison, it's really a little bit gross. European chocolate is the best and I'll try to send some and/or bring some back.

Rodin Garden and other stuff

Yesterday was a lot of fun. I only had enough time to check out the garden at the Musée Rodin, but that happens to contain the Gates of Hell, of which I took 12 pictures. Here are two:


At a distance


Up-close


At the Musée d'Orsay, we watched an old French silent film, which was good, but over three hours long. Also, the temptress character was not at all attractive, which annoyed me. Walking around the Latin Quarter is always awesome because there's always a lot going on. Amy and I almost watched Cloverfield, but we didn't want to watch it in French.

Friday was also pretty good: I had a 3.5-hour course on embryonic development and stayed awake for all of it. Then I spent the afternoon on l'Île de la Cité, which is the tiny island on the Seine that was once all of Paris. I saw an interesting man there who I decided to call "le maître des pigeons". With this picture, you don't really need a translation. Ben H., I hope this stirs something in your memory.And lastly, here's a nice picture of the Panthéon with jet trails in the background. It seems symbolic, or spiritual, or something.

I hope everyone in the States is doing well.

Sick

Hey everybody!  Unfortunately I don’t have a ton of exciting news because I was pretty sick most of this week.  Last Thursday night I went to the Musée d’Orsay, but I completely forgot my camera.  I was also only there for about half-an-hour.  Later that night I went to a bar with some friends and had a little much.  The next day I didn’t feel too great, and I figured it was the obvious, but it turned out to be the beginning of a stomach flu.  So I didn’t even leave my floor of the apartment Saturday and I completely missed the free museums on Sunday.  Monday I started getting a little better, although I did skip my first course on physical chemistry-I might end up dropping it because I’m really not too into that one.  I managed to get to the rest of my classes, though.  Two classes at French universities started Wednesday and today: Arabic literature and embryonic development of the mouse.  They both look pretty cool, and like they won’t be too, too much work.  I had a bit of a hard time following the French in the Arabic literature class, but embryonic development was pretty easy.  The professor talked about in situs a lot, and I thought to myself “I’ve done a couple of those”.  I think that one will be a lot of fun, but it’s going to be very intense: Two 4-hour lectures and one 2-hour section every week for 6 weeks.  The first lecture is tomorrow morning and I don’t know how much of it I’m likely to sleep through.  Since I was sick and in bed a lot this week, I managed to finish reading a book I was working on called “Le Grand Cahier” or “The Big Notebook” by Agota Kristof.  It’s a nice, easy-to-read style, but extremely disturbing.  James, you should read it.  Oh, I also got tickets to the soccer match between France and England in March!  Well, I’m sorry I didn’t get pictures from either of the museums I promised, but here’s a picture of a painting of an elephant from Fontainebleau that I really liked.  Apparently the elephant represents the king, but I can’t really remember which one right now.

And here’s an idea I got while I was sick.  I don’t think it’s too inappropriate, but read at your own risk.

A Ridiculous Proposal

 

            The world faces an enormous, gigantic problem today: obesity.  Millions of parents around the world watch and do nothing as their children swell up like balloons, full of bad habits that will lead to lifelong medical problems.  The worst part of the situation is that there doesn’t seem to be any way to reverse this trend.  “Doctors” tell us to eat from the five food groups, not to snack, to exercise.  Unfortunately, some of the infamous five food groups are absolutely disgusting.  Like vegetables…who the hell enjoys eating vegetables?  As for snacking, our digestive system is constantly processing the food we consume, so it makes scientific sense to consume constantly.  Exercise can be extremely enjoyable, but who has time for that in today’s fast-paced world?  Of course there have been numerous diet pills and shakes, but the shakes taste like shit most of the time and pills are notorious for their side effects.  Luckily, I have come up with an irreprehensible solution: stomach viruses.

            Viruses of the stomach are one of the nastiest kinds, but they are also incredibly efficient for weight-loss.  These viruses can easily ruin one’s weekend by filling it with vomiting, diarrhea or both.  While they make you feel terrible, it is undeniable that virus-induced purging can shave pounds off in a matter of hours.  There is a downside to this method, and that is that the human body’s immune system is normally able to adapt and destroy the viral infection in a matter of days.  Not to worry, as viruses are constantly evolving and there are surely numerous strains of virus that have the desired effect.  With genetic engineering, making hundreds or thousands more of these viruses is very feasible.  My weight loss program begins with injection of a single stomach virus.  In the few days that it is likely to last, the virus should be able to reduce your weight significantly.  After recovering from the first stomach virus, you can either elect to have another injected immediately, or wait a few weeks since being sick with a stomach bug is a terrific bitch.  Some may object to this idea because it comes with a significant amount of discomfort, but there can be no doubt that it works.