This weekend I took my first trip out of Strasbourg – the destination: Paris. The weekend started out with a bit of a rough start. Something was wrong with the lignes de grande vitesse (high speed lines), so we had to take the 4.5-hour, “picturesque” route. The train actually stopped for periods of time in the middle of nowhere, so it was definitely an “appreciate-the-convenience-of-the-TGV” trip. I still don’t know what caused the problem, but I am betting that it was some sort of rogue cow who wanted to faire un grève (protest) against something. They gave me an envelope to send in my ticket to receive a compensation for the trip, so it wasn’t all that bad.
Both ways on this trip I’ve taken first class. Now don’t think that I paid a whole lot more for plush seats; they actually were €1 more than second class. What an amazing deal, huh? One of the cool programs for youth they have here in France is the Carte Jeune 12-25. For €49, you get this card that allows you to purchase tickets at 25-60% off of the original value, depending on how early you buy it. With this trip, I bought the tickets two days before the trip at €90, a €70 reduction from the normal €160 price, so the card has already paid for itself.
I arrived in Paris at about 23h00 (11:00 PM) instead of the predicted 21h00 (9:00 PM). Bobbie had been waiting for me at the train station with her beau James for over an hour, and I was really grateful for that. We took the crowded metro to their Cité Universitaire (CTU), which, unlike mine, was actually very nice. In Paris, this CTU is actually a group of “international” buildings where each country has their own building, and normally the students are grouped by nationality, but there are buildings like the Cambodian house, and my friends said they never found a real Cambodian there. Their rooms are absolutely huge (about four of mine) with 15-foot ceilings. I was a little jealous. Their toilets had seats with state-subsidized toilet paper (again, I tried to keep my jealousy from boiling over). The building itself was gorgeous; it even had marble flooring in some places. To top it all off, there were tram and metro stops right by their building. Thanks, Strasbourg CROUS.
Because I arrived the first night, we decided to not do anything except basically catch up that evening. We cooked (as in Brennan, Bobbie, and James cooked as I watched) and joked around. The next morning, we got up and I felt like doing some exploring. We took the metro to the Jardin de Luxembourg (garden) after having a fast lunch at Quick, the French version of McDonald’s (which was actually decent tasting). There were large art installations, so like any self-respecting tourists, we took ridiculous pictures in front of them. As we walked around the beautiful garden, where the chateau now functions as the house for the Sénat (Senate), we found a crazy art exhibit in the Orangerie (this is a odd structure in which orange trees are grown during the winter). There was a hanging container that had mice and a snake in it, tied-up, naked Asian women floating over a Tel Aviv beach, and a 20-foot tall painting on Plexiglas of someone with a menacing sheep mask. The best part was how everyone had brought their children to see it. Thanks a lot, America.
After the Orangerie, we hopped back onto the metro (which still scares me) to go to the more “touristy” part of Paris. We got out right at the Arc de triomphe, which was all together pretty cool except for the fact that it celebrates one of the only victories France got as well as all the people who have died in the other, more-unfortunate-for-France wars. We walked down the Champs Elysées, looking at all of the cool concept car stores and really expensive designer stores (e.g. Chanel, Versace, D&G, Louis Vitton, etc.). It was interesting to note that each of these stores had a doorman – I suppose this is to keep out the fashionably untouchables. We ended up walking almost all the way to the Eiffel Tower, but we decided that we were getting ridiculously hungry. I knew that I was going to return to Paris multiple times, so the tour (tower) could wait.
We felt that it was getting rather chilly, and it was about to rain, so we ducked into an H&M. For those of you who don’t know what H&M is, it’s a clothing store that has an Express look but Old Navy prices. Being as clever and thrifty as I normally am, I decided to save time by just buying a cheap jacket and scarf there instead of going all the way back home. Smart, huh? After the rain stopped, we went to the traditionally Jewish part of the city where everyone (except me) had falafels. I guess I just wasn’t in a Jewish sort of mood.
That night was “La Nuit des Musées” (literally, the night of museums), a biannual (I think) government-funded evening where all the museums in France are free to the public. We decided to take advantage of this and risk throwing up by going to the Centre Pompidou, which is a museum that houses some of the craziest modern art that you’ve ever seen. For example, in one room, there’s this old wheel that continually turns moving chains that are attached to this hanging conglomeration of ugly masks and dirty clothes on the other side of the room, making it spin. In another room, there is a piano and the walls are covered with material that muffles the sound, so all you want to do is play a note. There are also your usual splattered-paint, I-could-have-done-that paintings as well as those without any paint at all.. Another cool room contains “inflatable art”, which is basically a ton of inflatable furniture with sketches of bigger pieces that were made in the past. One of the most sickening things I found was these preservations of birds the artist had killed in what seemed to be resin. There was also a video playing of the female artist doing it in the nude. I don’t understand how seriously you must take yourself to do that, but it’s more serious than I can. We spent about two hours in the museum, twenty of which watching a play of marionettes without words (one of which resembled a Darth Vader grasshopper).
After the museum, we felt that we ought to find a café and then a bar, because, after all, what is a night out on the Parisian town without going out? We stayed out until about 03h00 (3 AM) and took an extremely crowded night bus home.
The next day, Emily and Chelsea wanted to go to the flea market by their house, and having nothing better to do, Brennan and I decided to voyage there into a somewhat less pretty part of Paris. At the flea market, there was about three things for sale: Converse sneakers, sunglasses, and souvenirs – all of which were being sold by Middle Eastern men who tried to hit on the girls. We pretty much guessed that there was some sort of black market that struck it big on a shipment of Converse sneakers because every booth had them, and they were all at the same price. Some of the wonderful things we heard from the shop owners were “Ahr-ee-zo-na… Ahr-a-zo-na… isn’t that in Texas?” I can’t really blame the shopkeepers too much, though; Chelsea and Emily were wearing sweatshirts with “FLORIDA” and “ARIZONA” on them, and we were speaking English, which is a huge sign that we’re tourists.
I had some time to waste before my train back, so Brennan and I went to see Notre Dame de Paris. It’s a lot less ornamental than the Notre Dame in Strasbourg, clearly showing the difference between the more traditional and the flamboyant Gothic architecture. It was very pretty either way. There was a festival going on outside called “Fête des Pains” (party of bread, literally). We didn’t stay too long because there was a basketball game being played with a very annoying announcer speaking in English and French. We wanted to find a café to spend the rest of my time, but because they were all inordinately expensive, we settled on a Starbucks that was off the beaten trail. In it, I met a girl from Oregon State who was traveling throughout Europe and was going to Strasbourg. I gave her a few suggestions as to what to see, and she also talked about how she had gone on spring break to New Orleans to do some community work. Small world, I suppose.
Soon I’ll post some information on my work as well as something on my work as well as what I did on my short day-trip to Colmar. À bientôt!
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Flowery Retraction
So, after reviewing the facts (and looking on wikipedia), it turns out that the flowers really are for canola oil production as well as other oils and biofuels. It really takes away from the whole mystique of the country, but then again Americans tend to do that to most countries. Stay tuned for news on my Paris trip, an introduction to my scientific work, and my day trip to Colmar.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Observations Shaded with a Tinge of Americanism, or McDonald’s is a Lie
** RETRACTION: Apparently there are pennies in Europe; however, most stores that aren’t supermarchés (supermarkets) do not charge amounts that would require the use of change less than €0,10. (As I’ve quickly picked up, Europeans are never wrong; they are just misunderstood.)
For the past few days, Elaine and I have been aimlessly walking around the small, winding streets of Strasbourg, and it’s given me a lot of time to think about everything. For someone who has traveled more than me, these things may be second nature, but I being a novice am struck by the smallest things, I suppose. Here are just some of the interesting things that I’ve seen or have happened to me so far.
When I flew into Paris, I saw that many of the fields had a yellow color as opposed to the green of many of the surrounding pastures. Assuming this was the culmination of an obscene amount of flight time as well as the rising sun, I shrugged the idea off as a coup d’œil (optical illusion). After almost forgetting the yellow splotches from my misadventures (stress being placed on the prefix, mis-) in the Parisian metro, I boarded the TGV to Strasbourg. As we were approaching the 200 kilometre per hour mark, I started to notice the fields around me were colored yellow as well. It was rather difficult to make out what they were until it suddenly hit me: they were fields of flowers. Fields brimming over with gorgeous yellow flowers, which I assumed were daffodils, speckled the countryside. After counseling my counterparts here in Strasbourg, I found out that they are cultivated for use in the perfume industry. Call me crazy, but in an alternative world, I could see myself as a flower horticulturalist in the compagne française (French countryside).
Another thing I noticed while whizzing along the TGV tracks was the presence of many petites villes (small towns). Tucked between the rolling hills of northeastern France were many clusters of buildings that seemed to be forgotten by time. Each of them were centered around a small église (church) with groups of brick buildings radiating outward. Looking at them gave me mixed feelings – to live in a village like that would be a horrendous detachment from the vie moderne (modern life) that we’ve all grown so reliant upon but it would also be a simplicity of life we all seem to be searching for.
On a much more peculiar and less existential topic: the voitures (cars) of France. In France, and I expect this to hold true in all of Europe, you can classify a car in one of two broad topics: economic or showy. Most Americans' jaws would drop to see the tiny two-seaters here that are about as big as the plastic cars you buy for a toddler. Other than the expected Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, etc. brands, there are some different ones that most Americans aren’t familiar with. One of my favorites is the Peugeot. Its symbol is a Griffin, which tempts me to steal every one that I find. I’ve also run across a few Lamborghinis as well as other Italian expressions of pure chauvinism. While touring Petite France, we came across what I consider to be the most interesting car I’ve seen so far. It was yellow like a canary and looked to be a cross between a go-kart, Speed Racer (I expect my cut for this plug of your movie), and a muscle car. We took a few pictures around it, but none of us could make any sense of it. We thought it was a once in a lifetime experience, but about 100 metres away, we ran into a second one that was the same exact color (we checked to make sure it wasn’t just one that moved). European men, I know you guys tend to be short in stature, but I don’t see why this requires you to buy ridiculous cars. Please explain to me why you feel the need to drive around a go-kart at age 40.
This confusion of European intentions brings me to my title topic – the lie that is European McDonald’s. Now, before you go up in arms saying, “Matthew, HOW could you have gone into a McDonald’s in France? There must have been countless other restaurants that you could have gone into!”, I want you to know that a) this wasn’t my idea (point complaints at Elaine), and b) it was only for a drink. Before I get to my discussion of the tragedy that was my experience at McDonald’s, let me explain to you some fundamental differences between European and American McDonald’s. First of all, as an American would expect, the Europeans tend to enjoy sophistication. In response to this, the European McDonald’s has tried to up the ante. They feature about eight different baked douceurs (sweets), and they enjoy making a big deal how fancy they are although they are kept in a glass display where they could have been aging for God knows how long. Also, in response to this need for sophistication, they have sandwiches that tend to feature pastoral-inspired, local ingredients. The crowning achievement of their faux sophistication is their “le M”. Standing as a near slap in the American face, this sandwich uses the “finest breads” with “prime selected angus beef”, as if Americans could not even handle the haute couture (high culture) of this sandwich. Naturally, I was intimidated and cowered in fear. A second thing I noticed was the disproportional change in price and amount of food. Everything seemed to shrink (which is a quality of most European food) while the price increased (another quality of European food). What struck me most about this is that the symbol of American capitalism, the two arches that stand for democracy and the pursuit of happiness, fell prey to this European pitfall. Why have you forsaken me, McDonald’s?
Back to the crux of the matter, Elaine and I had been walking around all day, and we were looking for a quick soda. Instead of paying the outlandish prices charged by the few stores that were open (since it was Pentecost and the Holy Spirit closes stores), we thought that the old American standby would be there to welcome us with a bucket of cola without paying more than as smile. We were unfortunately mistaken. Elaine paid €1,90 ($3.00) for the moyen (medium) size. Picture you have a can of soda. Pour out that can of soda in a regular glass. You know how you have that small amount left over? Apparently it is shipped to France and labeled as “medium” – all the while losing its fizz and proper flavor. I bought the grand (large) size for €2,30 ($3.60), which amounted to probably the kids’ size in the United States. And the biggest injustice of them all: no ice. We stood outside of the establishment for about 10 minutes (2 of which drinking the soda and 8 of which wondering where it all went). Soon our confusion turned to anger. How could McDonald’s do this to us? Now we both are writing about this blatant mockery of our trust, and to make a long story short: McDonald’s is a lie.
For the past few days, Elaine and I have been aimlessly walking around the small, winding streets of Strasbourg, and it’s given me a lot of time to think about everything. For someone who has traveled more than me, these things may be second nature, but I being a novice am struck by the smallest things, I suppose. Here are just some of the interesting things that I’ve seen or have happened to me so far.
When I flew into Paris, I saw that many of the fields had a yellow color as opposed to the green of many of the surrounding pastures. Assuming this was the culmination of an obscene amount of flight time as well as the rising sun, I shrugged the idea off as a coup d’œil (optical illusion). After almost forgetting the yellow splotches from my misadventures (stress being placed on the prefix, mis-) in the Parisian metro, I boarded the TGV to Strasbourg. As we were approaching the 200 kilometre per hour mark, I started to notice the fields around me were colored yellow as well. It was rather difficult to make out what they were until it suddenly hit me: they were fields of flowers. Fields brimming over with gorgeous yellow flowers, which I assumed were daffodils, speckled the countryside. After counseling my counterparts here in Strasbourg, I found out that they are cultivated for use in the perfume industry. Call me crazy, but in an alternative world, I could see myself as a flower horticulturalist in the compagne française (French countryside).
Another thing I noticed while whizzing along the TGV tracks was the presence of many petites villes (small towns). Tucked between the rolling hills of northeastern France were many clusters of buildings that seemed to be forgotten by time. Each of them were centered around a small église (church) with groups of brick buildings radiating outward. Looking at them gave me mixed feelings – to live in a village like that would be a horrendous detachment from the vie moderne (modern life) that we’ve all grown so reliant upon but it would also be a simplicity of life we all seem to be searching for.
On a much more peculiar and less existential topic: the voitures (cars) of France. In France, and I expect this to hold true in all of Europe, you can classify a car in one of two broad topics: economic or showy. Most Americans' jaws would drop to see the tiny two-seaters here that are about as big as the plastic cars you buy for a toddler. Other than the expected Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, etc. brands, there are some different ones that most Americans aren’t familiar with. One of my favorites is the Peugeot. Its symbol is a Griffin, which tempts me to steal every one that I find. I’ve also run across a few Lamborghinis as well as other Italian expressions of pure chauvinism. While touring Petite France, we came across what I consider to be the most interesting car I’ve seen so far. It was yellow like a canary and looked to be a cross between a go-kart, Speed Racer (I expect my cut for this plug of your movie), and a muscle car. We took a few pictures around it, but none of us could make any sense of it. We thought it was a once in a lifetime experience, but about 100 metres away, we ran into a second one that was the same exact color (we checked to make sure it wasn’t just one that moved). European men, I know you guys tend to be short in stature, but I don’t see why this requires you to buy ridiculous cars. Please explain to me why you feel the need to drive around a go-kart at age 40.
This confusion of European intentions brings me to my title topic – the lie that is European McDonald’s. Now, before you go up in arms saying, “Matthew, HOW could you have gone into a McDonald’s in France? There must have been countless other restaurants that you could have gone into!”, I want you to know that a) this wasn’t my idea (point complaints at Elaine), and b) it was only for a drink. Before I get to my discussion of the tragedy that was my experience at McDonald’s, let me explain to you some fundamental differences between European and American McDonald’s. First of all, as an American would expect, the Europeans tend to enjoy sophistication. In response to this, the European McDonald’s has tried to up the ante. They feature about eight different baked douceurs (sweets), and they enjoy making a big deal how fancy they are although they are kept in a glass display where they could have been aging for God knows how long. Also, in response to this need for sophistication, they have sandwiches that tend to feature pastoral-inspired, local ingredients. The crowning achievement of their faux sophistication is their “le M”. Standing as a near slap in the American face, this sandwich uses the “finest breads” with “prime selected angus beef”, as if Americans could not even handle the haute couture (high culture) of this sandwich. Naturally, I was intimidated and cowered in fear. A second thing I noticed was the disproportional change in price and amount of food. Everything seemed to shrink (which is a quality of most European food) while the price increased (another quality of European food). What struck me most about this is that the symbol of American capitalism, the two arches that stand for democracy and the pursuit of happiness, fell prey to this European pitfall. Why have you forsaken me, McDonald’s?
Back to the crux of the matter, Elaine and I had been walking around all day, and we were looking for a quick soda. Instead of paying the outlandish prices charged by the few stores that were open (since it was Pentecost and the Holy Spirit closes stores), we thought that the old American standby would be there to welcome us with a bucket of cola without paying more than as smile. We were unfortunately mistaken. Elaine paid €1,90 ($3.00) for the moyen (medium) size. Picture you have a can of soda. Pour out that can of soda in a regular glass. You know how you have that small amount left over? Apparently it is shipped to France and labeled as “medium” – all the while losing its fizz and proper flavor. I bought the grand (large) size for €2,30 ($3.60), which amounted to probably the kids’ size in the United States. And the biggest injustice of them all: no ice. We stood outside of the establishment for about 10 minutes (2 of which drinking the soda and 8 of which wondering where it all went). Soon our confusion turned to anger. How could McDonald’s do this to us? Now we both are writing about this blatant mockery of our trust, and to make a long story short: McDonald’s is a lie.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Day 3: Omgz, I can has internetz?!
French Cat sezs, "No internetz 4 u." So we're stealing it from a lab. Big deal.
(For those of you who don't know, that is a dramatic interpretation of LOLcatz. www.icanhascheezburger.com)
le 10 mai 2008
Another interesting day in Strasbourg. Unfortunately, I still have not been able to find a camera store, so I may have to have my parents send my charger from home (which probably will be a pain and very expensive). I’ll see on Tuesday. Today we went to an open-air market. There were lots of loud Moroccans selling their wares along with other quieter Alsatians. I bought a nice blueberry muffin-cake-pastry for breakfast. We watched a guy filet a fish. It was pretty interesting. Tons of fresh bakery items, flowers, vegetables, clothing, 1990s videotapes, you name it. We had lunch at this nice, little sandwicherie (sandwich shop). I had a sandwich au jambon et au gruyère (ham and gruyere cheese sandwich). They spread butter on the bread for the sandwiches, and I must admit – it’s much better than mayo or mustard.
We went to the area of Strasbourg that’s known as “la Petite France” today. It was really neat looking – lots of small, old-world houses. The river Ill runs through this part of town and splits into about four parts, so it makes 3 small islands that are long and thin, along which there are small pedestrian malls and old houses and restaurants. We went into a Protestant church which was first built about 1000 years ago. Tons of old frescos and inscriptions in Latin that I tried to decipher. I actually could read a few of them (since French comes from Latin, after all). Everything here and all throughout Strasbourg is in bloom, so it’s really pretty.
It’s fun to hang around the city, but every time I get back to my room, I find myself missing everyone from home. I really hope I can get in contact with them soon. You don’t know how much importance people hold in your life until they’re not there. I don’t mean to end on a sad note; I’m just learning a lot more about myself on this trip than I bargained for. À bientôt!
(For those of you who don't know, that is a dramatic interpretation of LOLcatz. www.icanhascheezburger.com)
le 10 mai 2008
Another interesting day in Strasbourg. Unfortunately, I still have not been able to find a camera store, so I may have to have my parents send my charger from home (which probably will be a pain and very expensive). I’ll see on Tuesday. Today we went to an open-air market. There were lots of loud Moroccans selling their wares along with other quieter Alsatians. I bought a nice blueberry muffin-cake-pastry for breakfast. We watched a guy filet a fish. It was pretty interesting. Tons of fresh bakery items, flowers, vegetables, clothing, 1990s videotapes, you name it. We had lunch at this nice, little sandwicherie (sandwich shop). I had a sandwich au jambon et au gruyère (ham and gruyere cheese sandwich). They spread butter on the bread for the sandwiches, and I must admit – it’s much better than mayo or mustard.
We went to the area of Strasbourg that’s known as “la Petite France” today. It was really neat looking – lots of small, old-world houses. The river Ill runs through this part of town and splits into about four parts, so it makes 3 small islands that are long and thin, along which there are small pedestrian malls and old houses and restaurants. We went into a Protestant church which was first built about 1000 years ago. Tons of old frescos and inscriptions in Latin that I tried to decipher. I actually could read a few of them (since French comes from Latin, after all). Everything here and all throughout Strasbourg is in bloom, so it’s really pretty.
It’s fun to hang around the city, but every time I get back to my room, I find myself missing everyone from home. I really hope I can get in contact with them soon. You don’t know how much importance people hold in your life until they’re not there. I don’t mean to end on a sad note; I’m just learning a lot more about myself on this trip than I bargained for. À bientôt!
Day 2: I don't feel like being funny today.
le 9 mai 2008 (vendredi)
Today was a total blast (with only one set back). First the bad news: my camera apparently doesn’t charge through the USB cable, so I have to set about finding a battery recharger somewhere in the city. Hopefully I can find one. As for the good news, I found internet and was able to turn in my essay today as well as touch base with home. You don’t know how much you rely on the internet until you don’t have it, but it’s a crutch I’m definitely willing to have if I can talk to my family and friends through it.
We explored a lot of the old city today. It was absolutely beautiful. The old cathedral is amazing. I can’t describe how ridiculously intricate the façade is – there are at least 1000 figures portraying the stories of the saints. We paid €2,30 to climb up to the top of the cathedral and look out at the city. It was totally worth it. The city is amazingly beautiful. Anyone who visits France and wants to see a mixture of both cosmopolitan and old world HAS to come here. There was so much amazing stained glass in there that I didn’t know what to do except gawk. Some woman who was apparently mute came to get me to sign up and give money, but again the whole “Je suis un étudiant, et je n’ai pas d’argent.” (I’m a student, and I don’t have any money.) worked. The astronomical clock was so cool. Most people don’t know this about me, but I am a huge fan of Medieval and pre-Industrial Revolution technology. I really think the idea of a machine totally reliant on mechanical movements is amazing. They had a picture of N. Copernicus on the clock, which made me laugh a little. They also had the zodiac on it, which confused me a little. The clock itself pointed at the part of the world that the sun was rising and where it was setting as well as the name of the saint for the day.
After marveling at the cathedral for about an hour or two, we walked down a pedestrian mall that was very small and old-world feeling. We got gelato that was ridiculously good (I got “orange sanguine et cactus” – blood orange and cactus). When he said it was “deux euros soixante” to my friends, I said, “That’s two sixty,” and he said, “That’s right!” He seemed to be really impressed that I could have a conversation with him in French, and his English was not bad at all. Situations like that make me just stand more firmly on my soapbox that bilingualism is not stressed enough in the United States and that the usual American is way too lazy for his own good (after all, if a European can learn 3+ languages, why can’t we learn at least 2?). We took lots of silly pictures in Place Gutenberg (for those of you who don’t know, the first printing press, made by Gutenberg, was found here in Strasbourg).
We walked down a street full of expensive shops and took in the new European fashions. What seems to be very popular are two different styles: BoBo and Asiatic. BoBo (“Bohemian Bourgeois”) basically means that you’re rich, but you choose to dress like some sort of hippie – very cool style in my opinion, but sometimes a little too 70s. Asiatic is to the extreme. Picture the neon lights of Hong Kong, Tokyo, and any other modern Asian city put together, and then change that into clothing. It’s absolutely amazing. I think the only way you can pull it off though is if you wear the large pink geisha wig that comes with the outfit.
We also ate at this great Italian pizza place (like real Italian pizza). I had Reine Blanche (white queen), which had mushrooms, dried bacon, and some sort of mild cheese. It was really good like all the other food here. I can’t figure out if I’m going to lose weight or not while I’m here. I’m eating really good food but a whole lot less of it. It’s rather confusing to keep count of Calories when they have them posted in kilojoules.
Tomorrow, we’re heading off to the farmer’s market in the morning, and then we’re going to explore “Petite France” (small France), an area of town that most resembles “old-world” France. Also, we ran into Elaine yesterday, so we’re probably going to sample some wine at a local “winstub” (a small, Alsatian restaurant that serves local wines). À bientôt! (See you soon!)
Today was a total blast (with only one set back). First the bad news: my camera apparently doesn’t charge through the USB cable, so I have to set about finding a battery recharger somewhere in the city. Hopefully I can find one. As for the good news, I found internet and was able to turn in my essay today as well as touch base with home. You don’t know how much you rely on the internet until you don’t have it, but it’s a crutch I’m definitely willing to have if I can talk to my family and friends through it.
We explored a lot of the old city today. It was absolutely beautiful. The old cathedral is amazing. I can’t describe how ridiculously intricate the façade is – there are at least 1000 figures portraying the stories of the saints. We paid €2,30 to climb up to the top of the cathedral and look out at the city. It was totally worth it. The city is amazingly beautiful. Anyone who visits France and wants to see a mixture of both cosmopolitan and old world HAS to come here. There was so much amazing stained glass in there that I didn’t know what to do except gawk. Some woman who was apparently mute came to get me to sign up and give money, but again the whole “Je suis un étudiant, et je n’ai pas d’argent.” (I’m a student, and I don’t have any money.) worked. The astronomical clock was so cool. Most people don’t know this about me, but I am a huge fan of Medieval and pre-Industrial Revolution technology. I really think the idea of a machine totally reliant on mechanical movements is amazing. They had a picture of N. Copernicus on the clock, which made me laugh a little. They also had the zodiac on it, which confused me a little. The clock itself pointed at the part of the world that the sun was rising and where it was setting as well as the name of the saint for the day.
After marveling at the cathedral for about an hour or two, we walked down a pedestrian mall that was very small and old-world feeling. We got gelato that was ridiculously good (I got “orange sanguine et cactus” – blood orange and cactus). When he said it was “deux euros soixante” to my friends, I said, “That’s two sixty,” and he said, “That’s right!” He seemed to be really impressed that I could have a conversation with him in French, and his English was not bad at all. Situations like that make me just stand more firmly on my soapbox that bilingualism is not stressed enough in the United States and that the usual American is way too lazy for his own good (after all, if a European can learn 3+ languages, why can’t we learn at least 2?). We took lots of silly pictures in Place Gutenberg (for those of you who don’t know, the first printing press, made by Gutenberg, was found here in Strasbourg).
We walked down a street full of expensive shops and took in the new European fashions. What seems to be very popular are two different styles: BoBo and Asiatic. BoBo (“Bohemian Bourgeois”) basically means that you’re rich, but you choose to dress like some sort of hippie – very cool style in my opinion, but sometimes a little too 70s. Asiatic is to the extreme. Picture the neon lights of Hong Kong, Tokyo, and any other modern Asian city put together, and then change that into clothing. It’s absolutely amazing. I think the only way you can pull it off though is if you wear the large pink geisha wig that comes with the outfit.
We also ate at this great Italian pizza place (like real Italian pizza). I had Reine Blanche (white queen), which had mushrooms, dried bacon, and some sort of mild cheese. It was really good like all the other food here. I can’t figure out if I’m going to lose weight or not while I’m here. I’m eating really good food but a whole lot less of it. It’s rather confusing to keep count of Calories when they have them posted in kilojoules.
Tomorrow, we’re heading off to the farmer’s market in the morning, and then we’re going to explore “Petite France” (small France), an area of town that most resembles “old-world” France. Also, we ran into Elaine yesterday, so we’re probably going to sample some wine at a local “winstub” (a small, Alsatian restaurant that serves local wines). À bientôt! (See you soon!)
Day €1,56; or, I'm too tired to figure out the time exchange rate here.
8 (jeudi) mai 2008 – 11:00 AM (CEST)
—11 days until internet access—
Oh, man. That’s basically all I can say without using expletives (since my family is probably my primary readers) about this trip so far. I started this trip on Tuesday morning (CST time) with an almost decent flight to Philadelphia. I say almost decent because the landing felt like we were swirling down a drain. I had finished my final essay (which I think is a very insightful piece of work, if I do say so myself) for Prof. Bidima on the plane, but when I tried to turn it in at the Philedelphia airport, I could not find wireless for some reason, so I boarded the plane thinking I’d turn it in when I got here.
The plane trip was long (as expected), and it felt like my knees were giving out from being bent so long. They do take care of you on the flight as much as they can – they served us dinner and breakfast along with inordinate amounts of beverages. I had to pee a lot, which was fine because the girl sitting by me was a nice Asian chick who had just finished her MBA at Oregon State and was speaking Mandarin into a small looking mouthpiece on her headphones the whole trip. I watched Juno (which I enjoyed) and National Treasure Two. Nicholas Cage, just stop acting, okay? I think we’ve seen all one or two characters you can do. Also, if discoveries were really made that fast in the real world, I would already be a Nobel Prize winner. I tried to sleep a little, but it was very difficult because I, being my normal technologically inept self, could not figure out how to get the chair to lean back.
We landed (much better this time) at Charles de Gaulle on Wednesday at 7:55 AM (CEST). We exited and got in line for the police des frontières (border police) to present our passports and a yellow carte de débarquement (disembarkation card) given to us by the flight attendants. After waiting for about 20 minutes, I got up to the front of the line, told him good morning, and handed the officer my passport. He looked at the visa and stamped it (~15 seconds), and he didn’t look at the carte. I waited for my baggage for about 35 minutes since mine were basically the last to come out, and my duffle bag got somewhat caught in the luggage belt. This should have been a good foreshadowing point of how that duffle bag was bad news, but I was too busy thinking that being in France felt like one large comprehension test. I went through customs, which in France means walking through a hall where no one is and not having anyone look at your baggage.
I got to a pay phone and called my friend Micah who has been studying in Paris for the past semester at about 9:00 AM. I proceeded to the bureau des informations (information desk) where I asked where I could find the RER (the metro that goes between the outlying suburbs to the metro of Paris proper). I hopped on the metro that goes between terminals to get the RER station where I met up with a girl that had flown on the plane with me. She was going to Paris to be an au pair (a nanny who speaks a different language to the children) after she had quit all her classes for the semester. Being an au pair seemed to me to be a good idea if you want to just screw around Europe because the parents provide you with a place to live, food, sometimes a car, and an allowance on top of that. We figured out that we were going to nearly the same place, so we decided to travel together because France would be easier to deal with if the “stupids Américains” traveled in packs. We bought an outlandishly expensive ticket at 8,20€ ($128) after grappling with the machine for a while. I also bought a cell phone at this time for 49€ ($736), whose instructions are all in French (which isn’t too bad, but it’s not too easy). At this point, I learned two wonderful things about France. Apparently, tax is already added to the reported price, so if it says “49€”, it’s 49€. Also, the lowest amount something can be is 0,10€ ($2), so there’s no equivalent to the horrible penny of the US.
We get to the station, and we decided to take the express train – at least, that’s what we hoped. The train was postponed three times, so we decided to jump on the standard. Bad idea. We knew it was going to stop at every stop on the way into town, but at some of them, we were there for at least 5 or 10 minutes (38 minutes in US time). Right near the end of the ride, a woman claiming to be from Romania came up to me singing/begging for money. She said her child hadn’t eaten recently, but when I looked at her daughter, she was smiling and looked rather healthy. I called shenanigans on her, which promptly arrested her and took her away. I finally got to my stop (Châtelet) and got off. This is the point at which I realized that the Parisian metro system is one of the biggest jumbled messes I’ve ever seen. There were over 10 exits, so I didn’t know where to get out to meet Micah. I actually exited once, and went all the way to the surface, only to turn around again. I tried to get out again, and the machine said that my ticket was invalid, so I thought I was going to be stuck in the metro. After wandering around until about 11:00 AM, I finally ran into her and her snazzy boyish haircut. I didn’t have time to go back to her house, so we escaped through an elevator to the surface to find a coffee. If there’s anything you don’t want to be doing in Paris, it’s pulling around luggage after a transatlantic flight.
We sat for about an hour at this swanky coffee shop. I had an Orangina and she had a coffee, which was 7,50€ ($30). Sodas in France are a lot better than those in the US because they actually taste like the real food they are imitating instead of just high fructose corn syrup. People watching should be a job because Micah and I are pretty much experts. I met my second beggar there, who was rather easy to wave off. We got this old couple sitting by us to take our picture, and then we went back to the metro because she had class at 12:30 PM, and I had a train to catch. After we parted ways, I again got lost in the metro. It seems odd though, because all I had to do was take one train to Gare de l’Est, but when I got there, I could not find how to get to the train station. After asking about three people and going up and down endless staircases (for which I am now feeling the repercussions), I found the train station on the surface.
I was about an hour early, so I sat down and people watched some more and window-shopped (which reinforced my feelings on Europe being unnecessarily expensive). My train was delayed by 15 minutes, then 25 minutes, and finally 20 minutes. I got on the TGV (train de grande vitesse, or train of large fastness), which seemed like it was decorated by someone who was blind because everything was orange and purple. There were only six people in the cabin, including a very nice woman who helped me figure out where I was supposed to sit. Americans always seem to have the idea that French people hate us, but if you approach them and show an effort in speaking French, they’re more than willing to help. The ride was about two hours, and the French countryside is beautiful. There are fields and fields of pretty yellow flowers and lots of tiny French villages that look right out of the Middle Ages in architecture. I fell asleep for a while finally, and when I woke up, I had that whole “where am I?” feeling. I saw my first mountains, which made me feel really disoriented looking at the side of them.
I met up with Dr. Brenner at the train station. He’s really cool and speaks English well. Another observation of French: the second they figure out you’re American, they decide that they’ll speak only English to you. At any rate, we had a long conversation on the way to my residence hall about how he thought I was from Miami and my research interests in chemistry. He suggested that we rent a car for the weekend, but almost all cars in France are manual, and something tells me that just wouldn’t work out. We get to the residential hall, which was a little… overgrown. He checked me in, at which I found out that I wouldn’t get internet for 12 days. Ah, the wonders of bureaucratic France. I started worrying about my paper for Prof. Bidima at this point, but I decided that I shouldn’t worry and he’d understand. (The trick with deciding not to worry is to stop worrying. I apparently don’t have that part down yet.)
I entered my closet… err, room. It’s rather small, but has a huge desk and lots of shelves. The bathrooms are communal, and there is no toilet paper, so you either have to be prepared or resourceful. The showers have no heads, so it’s a very weird flow. I suppose this doesn’t bother French people, because for the two days I’ve been here, I’ve yet to see someone shower other than me. After finally dropping off all my stuff and getting over the shock of not having internet for about two weeks, we went to the lab. The dorm is a ~25 minute walk from my dorm, but they have a very nice tram and bus system. We passed by lots of European Council building like the Palais des Droits de l’Homme (Palace of the Rights of Man). There were many nice parks, too. French people driving is rather scary though, so I white-knuckled it for a while. Dr. Brenner decided to grab a drink before we went up to the lab, and I ran into Matt and Christy there, two other people who are doing this program. It was great to see them because I finally felt not alone there.
As we were going in the elevator that only goes to odd floors (as opposed to the elevator that goes to only even floors, obviously), Dr. Brenner apologized over and over about how old the building was. He obviously has not seen Stern back at Tulane. There, I met Dr. Matt as well as two other professors whose names I’ve conveniently forgotten. I also met a Ph.D. student who was from Iran, to which Dr. Matt quickly made references to us being great friends. Dr. Matt then told Dr. Brenner that we shouldn’t stay in the lab and that we should all go get a drink. We went to a small café where Dr. Matt proceeded to force me to have a beer (which tasted much better than American beers). He then showed me the wonderfully novel thing that they call “pretzels” in France, which is exactly the same as the larger soft ones you have in Auntie Anne’s at the mall. He told me that I should have this other drink that was half beer half lemonade. It was also really good. They told me that they have lunch at the “canteen” (which is the cafeteria) for 3,20€, which is a pretty good deal. They also MUST (and I mean MUST) have their coffee afterwards at the same café because it is a “French tradition” according to Dr. Brenner.
After beer time, Dr. Brenner took me to a nice Italianesque restaurant called “Villa Blanca”. It was actually rather expensive, with entrées 15€ to 25€ ($548 to a compact car). I had a faux-filet (literally, a fake filet), which was a rather large steak. I ordered the sauce champignons (mushroom sauce) and interestingly enough, spaghetti as the side. It was amazingly good. Dr. Brenner loves his frites (fries), and he mused about the fact that they’re really Belgian although Americans call them French. He paid (which was totally cool of him to do), and he drove me back to the dorm. I went to bed after an odd shower (since you have to keep pressing this button so the flow continues) with the window open. This was the earliest I’ve gone to bed in about 5-10 years (10:00 PM).
I woke up today, took a shower and decided to write this. We crossed the Seine today, but we didn’t make it to Germany because we decided that the island in the Seine that you have to cross over is really sketchy (and we were ridiculously hungry). We bought provisions at a gas station / mini grocery store. I make a turkey sandwich. It’s VE Day today (also known as Armistice Day – the day WWII was won), so most places are closed. I think I’m going to take a nap for a while since I don’t have anything else to do.
Some nap. I woke up at 11:00 PM. I had a biscuit (cookie) that I bought at the gas station. It is very sweet. There don’t seem to be any artificial ingredients in it, which is really cool. I really do think I like European food better than US food because it’s much more natural tasting. I’m going to try to fill out the internet forms and turn them in tomorrow so I don’t have to wait that long for the internet. I’m also going to go and try to find an internet café tomorrow and hopefully see the 800 year old cathedral. I’ve heard that inside it there is an astronomical clock (that is, something that shows the positions of celestial bodies) that’s really cool.
—11 days until internet access—
Oh, man. That’s basically all I can say without using expletives (since my family is probably my primary readers) about this trip so far. I started this trip on Tuesday morning (CST time) with an almost decent flight to Philadelphia. I say almost decent because the landing felt like we were swirling down a drain. I had finished my final essay (which I think is a very insightful piece of work, if I do say so myself) for Prof. Bidima on the plane, but when I tried to turn it in at the Philedelphia airport, I could not find wireless for some reason, so I boarded the plane thinking I’d turn it in when I got here.
The plane trip was long (as expected), and it felt like my knees were giving out from being bent so long. They do take care of you on the flight as much as they can – they served us dinner and breakfast along with inordinate amounts of beverages. I had to pee a lot, which was fine because the girl sitting by me was a nice Asian chick who had just finished her MBA at Oregon State and was speaking Mandarin into a small looking mouthpiece on her headphones the whole trip. I watched Juno (which I enjoyed) and National Treasure Two. Nicholas Cage, just stop acting, okay? I think we’ve seen all one or two characters you can do. Also, if discoveries were really made that fast in the real world, I would already be a Nobel Prize winner. I tried to sleep a little, but it was very difficult because I, being my normal technologically inept self, could not figure out how to get the chair to lean back.
We landed (much better this time) at Charles de Gaulle on Wednesday at 7:55 AM (CEST). We exited and got in line for the police des frontières (border police) to present our passports and a yellow carte de débarquement (disembarkation card) given to us by the flight attendants. After waiting for about 20 minutes, I got up to the front of the line, told him good morning, and handed the officer my passport. He looked at the visa and stamped it (~15 seconds), and he didn’t look at the carte. I waited for my baggage for about 35 minutes since mine were basically the last to come out, and my duffle bag got somewhat caught in the luggage belt. This should have been a good foreshadowing point of how that duffle bag was bad news, but I was too busy thinking that being in France felt like one large comprehension test. I went through customs, which in France means walking through a hall where no one is and not having anyone look at your baggage.
I got to a pay phone and called my friend Micah who has been studying in Paris for the past semester at about 9:00 AM. I proceeded to the bureau des informations (information desk) where I asked where I could find the RER (the metro that goes between the outlying suburbs to the metro of Paris proper). I hopped on the metro that goes between terminals to get the RER station where I met up with a girl that had flown on the plane with me. She was going to Paris to be an au pair (a nanny who speaks a different language to the children) after she had quit all her classes for the semester. Being an au pair seemed to me to be a good idea if you want to just screw around Europe because the parents provide you with a place to live, food, sometimes a car, and an allowance on top of that. We figured out that we were going to nearly the same place, so we decided to travel together because France would be easier to deal with if the “stupids Américains” traveled in packs. We bought an outlandishly expensive ticket at 8,20€ ($128) after grappling with the machine for a while. I also bought a cell phone at this time for 49€ ($736), whose instructions are all in French (which isn’t too bad, but it’s not too easy). At this point, I learned two wonderful things about France. Apparently, tax is already added to the reported price, so if it says “49€”, it’s 49€. Also, the lowest amount something can be is 0,10€ ($2), so there’s no equivalent to the horrible penny of the US.
We get to the station, and we decided to take the express train – at least, that’s what we hoped. The train was postponed three times, so we decided to jump on the standard. Bad idea. We knew it was going to stop at every stop on the way into town, but at some of them, we were there for at least 5 or 10 minutes (38 minutes in US time). Right near the end of the ride, a woman claiming to be from Romania came up to me singing/begging for money. She said her child hadn’t eaten recently, but when I looked at her daughter, she was smiling and looked rather healthy. I called shenanigans on her, which promptly arrested her and took her away. I finally got to my stop (Châtelet) and got off. This is the point at which I realized that the Parisian metro system is one of the biggest jumbled messes I’ve ever seen. There were over 10 exits, so I didn’t know where to get out to meet Micah. I actually exited once, and went all the way to the surface, only to turn around again. I tried to get out again, and the machine said that my ticket was invalid, so I thought I was going to be stuck in the metro. After wandering around until about 11:00 AM, I finally ran into her and her snazzy boyish haircut. I didn’t have time to go back to her house, so we escaped through an elevator to the surface to find a coffee. If there’s anything you don’t want to be doing in Paris, it’s pulling around luggage after a transatlantic flight.
We sat for about an hour at this swanky coffee shop. I had an Orangina and she had a coffee, which was 7,50€ ($30). Sodas in France are a lot better than those in the US because they actually taste like the real food they are imitating instead of just high fructose corn syrup. People watching should be a job because Micah and I are pretty much experts. I met my second beggar there, who was rather easy to wave off. We got this old couple sitting by us to take our picture, and then we went back to the metro because she had class at 12:30 PM, and I had a train to catch. After we parted ways, I again got lost in the metro. It seems odd though, because all I had to do was take one train to Gare de l’Est, but when I got there, I could not find how to get to the train station. After asking about three people and going up and down endless staircases (for which I am now feeling the repercussions), I found the train station on the surface.
I was about an hour early, so I sat down and people watched some more and window-shopped (which reinforced my feelings on Europe being unnecessarily expensive). My train was delayed by 15 minutes, then 25 minutes, and finally 20 minutes. I got on the TGV (train de grande vitesse, or train of large fastness), which seemed like it was decorated by someone who was blind because everything was orange and purple. There were only six people in the cabin, including a very nice woman who helped me figure out where I was supposed to sit. Americans always seem to have the idea that French people hate us, but if you approach them and show an effort in speaking French, they’re more than willing to help. The ride was about two hours, and the French countryside is beautiful. There are fields and fields of pretty yellow flowers and lots of tiny French villages that look right out of the Middle Ages in architecture. I fell asleep for a while finally, and when I woke up, I had that whole “where am I?” feeling. I saw my first mountains, which made me feel really disoriented looking at the side of them.
I met up with Dr. Brenner at the train station. He’s really cool and speaks English well. Another observation of French: the second they figure out you’re American, they decide that they’ll speak only English to you. At any rate, we had a long conversation on the way to my residence hall about how he thought I was from Miami and my research interests in chemistry. He suggested that we rent a car for the weekend, but almost all cars in France are manual, and something tells me that just wouldn’t work out. We get to the residential hall, which was a little… overgrown. He checked me in, at which I found out that I wouldn’t get internet for 12 days. Ah, the wonders of bureaucratic France. I started worrying about my paper for Prof. Bidima at this point, but I decided that I shouldn’t worry and he’d understand. (The trick with deciding not to worry is to stop worrying. I apparently don’t have that part down yet.)
I entered my closet… err, room. It’s rather small, but has a huge desk and lots of shelves. The bathrooms are communal, and there is no toilet paper, so you either have to be prepared or resourceful. The showers have no heads, so it’s a very weird flow. I suppose this doesn’t bother French people, because for the two days I’ve been here, I’ve yet to see someone shower other than me. After finally dropping off all my stuff and getting over the shock of not having internet for about two weeks, we went to the lab. The dorm is a ~25 minute walk from my dorm, but they have a very nice tram and bus system. We passed by lots of European Council building like the Palais des Droits de l’Homme (Palace of the Rights of Man). There were many nice parks, too. French people driving is rather scary though, so I white-knuckled it for a while. Dr. Brenner decided to grab a drink before we went up to the lab, and I ran into Matt and Christy there, two other people who are doing this program. It was great to see them because I finally felt not alone there.
As we were going in the elevator that only goes to odd floors (as opposed to the elevator that goes to only even floors, obviously), Dr. Brenner apologized over and over about how old the building was. He obviously has not seen Stern back at Tulane. There, I met Dr. Matt as well as two other professors whose names I’ve conveniently forgotten. I also met a Ph.D. student who was from Iran, to which Dr. Matt quickly made references to us being great friends. Dr. Matt then told Dr. Brenner that we shouldn’t stay in the lab and that we should all go get a drink. We went to a small café where Dr. Matt proceeded to force me to have a beer (which tasted much better than American beers). He then showed me the wonderfully novel thing that they call “pretzels” in France, which is exactly the same as the larger soft ones you have in Auntie Anne’s at the mall. He told me that I should have this other drink that was half beer half lemonade. It was also really good. They told me that they have lunch at the “canteen” (which is the cafeteria) for 3,20€, which is a pretty good deal. They also MUST (and I mean MUST) have their coffee afterwards at the same café because it is a “French tradition” according to Dr. Brenner.
After beer time, Dr. Brenner took me to a nice Italianesque restaurant called “Villa Blanca”. It was actually rather expensive, with entrées 15€ to 25€ ($548 to a compact car). I had a faux-filet (literally, a fake filet), which was a rather large steak. I ordered the sauce champignons (mushroom sauce) and interestingly enough, spaghetti as the side. It was amazingly good. Dr. Brenner loves his frites (fries), and he mused about the fact that they’re really Belgian although Americans call them French. He paid (which was totally cool of him to do), and he drove me back to the dorm. I went to bed after an odd shower (since you have to keep pressing this button so the flow continues) with the window open. This was the earliest I’ve gone to bed in about 5-10 years (10:00 PM).
I woke up today, took a shower and decided to write this. We crossed the Seine today, but we didn’t make it to Germany because we decided that the island in the Seine that you have to cross over is really sketchy (and we were ridiculously hungry). We bought provisions at a gas station / mini grocery store. I make a turkey sandwich. It’s VE Day today (also known as Armistice Day – the day WWII was won), so most places are closed. I think I’m going to take a nap for a while since I don’t have anything else to do.
Some nap. I woke up at 11:00 PM. I had a biscuit (cookie) that I bought at the gas station. It is very sweet. There don’t seem to be any artificial ingredients in it, which is really cool. I really do think I like European food better than US food because it’s much more natural tasting. I’m going to try to fill out the internet forms and turn them in tomorrow so I don’t have to wait that long for the internet. I’m also going to go and try to find an internet café tomorrow and hopefully see the 800 year old cathedral. I’ve heard that inside it there is an astronomical clock (that is, something that shows the positions of celestial bodies) that’s really cool.
The first stretch.
Note: The first few postings will be pre-dated because they were written before this blog was created. Thank you for your patience and enjoy your read.
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