PICTURES!!!

I posted a ton of new pictures on Facebook- So I am going to share the wealth with you!!

My France! album:


The Bois du Boulogne (right next to my apartment!)


Rome! in November:



Last Week in Paris:


The Eiffel Tower on a beautiful foggy night.

London! in December

I'm still alive!

I know this blog has been dead for the past month. I'm sorry! After I went to Rome, which was AWESOME- don't worry, I'll post an album- I got right into two long political science papers. The second was due last Thursday. During that time, I pulled through a 9-day metro strike (ended yesterday)- and THAT was fun! Fortunately, I live in the city, so after a couple of days it was possible for me to get around- albeit smushed up against everyone else in the car- the way Japan does it I hear! During metro strikes (I'm a veteran now), the first day is TERRIBLE, but the other days are a little better depending on the line. For example: line 1, the best, would have 1 in 2 trains come by. But the line from 1 to my apartment, line 9, would have 1 in 10. Bleh. But still- SO much better than being on a train during a metro strike in Rome. I should've slapped one old man in particular.

But now that the strike is over, life is great! Yesterday I finally went to Les Invalides and saw Napoleon's tomb which looks like it belongs to a god. The coffin is HUGE and has seven others inside of it. The dome church is gorgeous- definitely a Louis XIV project. I ran into Wes, Ashley, and Andie, and after touring the war museum (with swords, knight armor, etc. galore), we went to the Petit Palais. It has an interesting mix of modern art and art from all other time periods.

After eating at McDonald's (hey we were on the Champs-Elysees, everything else is expensive!), Ashley, Andie, and I went to the Galeries Lafayette. It's decorated for Christmas with lights covering the entire side of one exterior wall with the clock. It was amazing. We went inside and found the Christmas tree in the middle of the makeup on the first floor. The store has all the big designers like Armani, Prada, Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, etc. etc. etc. EVERYTHING is there. We wandered around a bit, imagining that we could actually drop 239 euros on a sweater. ha.

So that was yesterday! Today I'm studying for finals (fun)and then going to Hawaiian night! (A missionary couple, the Murrays, are from Hawaii.)

More to come when I'm not supposed to be rehashing my knowledge of the development of Protestantism!

The Front Fell Off- a bit of Australian humor

I've been busy with schoolwork, but I enjoyed this in my downtime. I love these guys!

Strike!

Oh goodness. So many things going on/gone, where to begin?
First off, I hope the fire situation turns around in California. We've had wildfires every year there, but nothing like this. I'm just glad that Schwarzenegger and Bush are trying to be proactive about the situation and hopefully the Santa Anas will die down so that the fires can be contained.

Back to Paris: Everything has gotten back to normal after the huge metro/train strike that started last Thursday. The workers are protesting pension changes that Sarkozy is trying to get passed. Pretty much everyone else supports it and the transportation workers just don't like it because they have a cushy setup with outdated retirement standards (from back when the work was still taxing and dangerous). Unfortunately, this is just a momentary time-out while the kids are out on school vacation. The workers might strike again in mid-November.

So...since class had been officially canceled on Thursday, I went jogging at the Bois du Boulogne instead. I live right by one of the lakes which is popular with the running crowd. It's very picturesque with beautiful greenery and a semi-mysterious island (it has a swanky restaurant), rowboats for the summertime, and at certain parts you might forget you're still in Paris. Yes, the edge of Paris in a nice neighborhood, but Paris nonetheless. I came right behind 15 elderly citizens and enjoyed the comical aspect of attempting to jog up a hill with a bunch of 85 year-olds strolling right in front of me. As usual, just when I was craving fresh air to fill my lungs, I got a whiff of cigar smoke. The same thing happens often when I ride the escalator up from my metro stop. There is no smoking allowed below, so the smokers often have a cigarette ready to light as soon as they hit the air. That just means the person behind him/her (me) also gets a nice dose of secondhand to complement the first breath of "fresh air." Oh well. I've learned by now to watch for it.

Anyway, back to Thursday, the first day of the strike. After jogging at the Bois, I decided to go by our metro stop to see what it would look like. Surprise, surprise. It was pretty much empty. The time clock was blinking yellow dots but there were still some people sitting around, as if maybe by some miracle a train would appear to whisk them away to their destination. I was able to help some confused American women and another French woman who was trying to explain that the trains weren't running. It felt really great to be the resident American in Paris who knew what was going on.

On Friday most trains still weren't running, and there were more on Saturday, but it wasn't back to usual with trains every couple of minutes until Sunday/Monday (thank goodness). So that was pretty much a boring weekend, except for the Paris ward Halloween party on Saturday!

I'll write about the Halloween party later... but for now I have to go.
Our group is going to Normandy for the weekend and I have to pack!

International Herald Tribune headline

Dutch government to outlaw attending terrorism training camps


hmm...I guess you can't always consider something to be a given.

Je parle un peu de francais!

Within the past week or so, I have had two prolonged conversations in Franglish (but mostly French!) with two gentlemen who were about 65-70 years old.

First gentleman I met was Maurice. I had just grabbed a salami sandwich by the Pompidou centre and was checking out the material at Mona Lisait (Mona read), a little outdoor bookstore. After I put down an English grammar book ("-Look Mum, it's raining! -Of course Tom, it always rains in this country."), he came up to me and said "Bon appetit!" I assumed he meant the way I was chomping away at the sandwich. The baguette sandwiches from street vendors tend to be a bit tough. Those sandwiches are not made for people with sensitive teeth. He figured I was American (I wonder why?) and asked me the usual: where are you from, where are you staying, you're a student? Of where? What are you studying?

I supplied answers: From Utah, 16th arrondisement, BYU, European Studies.

The fact that I'm a European Studies major from the U.S., I've noticed, is automatically a plus with whoever I speak to. And it was no exception with Maurice. He was pleased and started talking about how we should become citizens of the world, and how I was doing that (yes!). I agree with what he was saying. It's difficult to understand the motives of other countries if you know nothing about their culture, history, and politics. There are countless differences between French and American culture, but I wouldn't recommend relying simply on stereotypes to find out what those are.

So we were talking about that, and then Janna came over. He got excited and started speaking rapidly at which point I fell behind. Janna is really good at understanding, or at least pretending to understand, so she kept up the conversation while I listened for keywords. He mentioned philosophy cafes and told us we should go to one. Well first, we wouldn't understand what everyone was talking about (intelligent French? I think not), and second, we don't even drink coffee. So we thanked him anyway and parted ways. It was a good day to have that conversation because I had just been thinking that I needed a little French practice.

"Crazy old Maurice, eh? Crazy old Maurice."
Except not terribly crazy.

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The second gentleman I met was with his deaf dog in a park near my apartment. But before I met him, I was stumbling upon some of the 40 embassies in my neighborhood. In case anyone cares to know, the little Cambodian one is twenty steps from my door!

So I had just spent some time by myself at Rue de Passy getting an expensive lunch (why I don't usually eat out in the 16th arrondisement) and then looked around a bit. I found a few embassies nearby (Madagascar, Monaco, Ivory Coast) and remembered seeing the Sudanese & Indian ones a while ago. So I was on my way to revisit them when the gentleman just started talking to me.

It was very similar to my conversation with Maurice. Answers: I'm American, I'm studying here, a European Studies major, practicing my French. Parisians love to help foreigners with their French and I think that the gentleman was pleased to be able to help me with mine. I told him that I loved Paris and liked French people, and he asked what other Americans thought of France and the French.

"Tread carefullllly"- I was thinking.

He asked if they thought it was small. I said, well yes, it's a small area, but we realize that it's the 6th largest economy in the world. At least that's what I thought I said. The distinction between 6th & 16th (sixieme & seixieme) is slight, and I had accidentally said seixieme. So that's why he started quickly counting fingers, doing the French puffing thing, and had to support himself against the park bench. I figured out what had happened after a bit and corrected myself. Thank goodness for that.

The same thing happened a minute later when we were saying something about months. He attempted to say it in English, and it came out as "mouf". We laughed about mutual pronunciation troubles. I love having Franglish conversations!

Anyway, I walked a bit with him and his dog (don't worry, I definitely could've taken him if I had to) and talked about the plethora of dogs in the city. There is one cat/dog for every two people in France. Isn't that crazy? All in all, it was a pretty good conversation.

A little interesting tidbit about the dogs: there is no enforced law in Paris against not cleaning up after your dog. And since pretty much everyone has one, that means there are decades of poop built up on the sidewalks. (If you're thinking that's disgusting, don't worry. It is!)

Prof. Fry told us that it's because France doesn't trust Paris with its own police force. The city is regulated by national police, and they see it beneath themselves to give out tickets for dog doo. So it's a tradition that doesn't seem like it will change anytime soon. Oh goody. I would definitely NOT subscribe to the five-second rule here.

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise: Attempt #2

Sorry! I just found out that I had posted bad links for this entry. Try these- they work!

Versailles- we visited the inside on Thursday.

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise- the big and beautiful cemetery in Paris.


Yesterday (as in Saturday) Janna and I went back to visit the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, one of the most famous cemeteries in the world. We had already visited it with our entire group the first week, but it was just a quick walk-through. And we had people to see: I was particularly looking forward to seeing Chopin's burial site.

While we were trying to locate everyone, I saw a tomb labeled Durand. It triggered something in my memory and I was almost certain that the name was a composer's. I looked inside the little chapel room but only saw (what I thought was) a female name: "Marie-Auguste Durand." Disappointed that I didn't see anything else that I recognized, I moved on.

Today I just barely remembered seeing "Durand" and so I looked it up. HE is a composer from the romantic period who wrote Valse in E flat, the last piece I played at my last piano recital a few years ago. It made me so happy to figure that out! When I started taking French in high school, my piano teacher was thrilled and taught me some pieces from French composers of the romantic period. It's still my favorite period for the piano.

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As for Versailles, all I can say is Inside: frivolously gorgeous.

Outside: pretty good except for this little eyesore...

Only the Italians (or multilinguists) know why it's there. I think it was some sort of modernist exhibit.