The interesting new post is right before this, but I just wanted to let those of you who are extremely tech-saavy that BlogSpot just came out with some cool new ways you can view the blog. Mom, that does not mean you.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Tech update - double blog!
Hi guys,
The interesting new post is right before this, but I just wanted to let those of you who are extremely tech-saavy that BlogSpot just came out with some cool new ways you can view the blog. Mom, that does not mean you.
Flipcard: available at [blogURL]/view/flipcard
Mosaic: available at [blogURL]/view/mosaic
Sidebar: available at [blogURL]/view/sidebar
Snapshot: available at [blogURL]/view/snapshot
Timeslide: available at [blogURL]/view/timeslide
The interesting new post is right before this, but I just wanted to let those of you who are extremely tech-saavy that BlogSpot just came out with some cool new ways you can view the blog. Mom, that does not mean you.
Normandie
Bonjour tout le monde,
Sorry it's been a little while. Spring Break starts Friday, so I've been scrambling to get everything together. Anyways.....
First I have some pictures that I meant to put up a little while ago. I finally got around to going to the Eiffel Tour (I try to avoid super touristy spots for the most part), so here's a little snapshot of that. I started taking a different train to one of my classes, and I actually now pass over the Seine right next to the Eiffel Tour every morning. Talk about a view. The other pictures are from a place called Parc Montsouris. It was developed to give university students a place to exercise away from the roads, and it was beautiful. Full of people on a lovely Paris day.
Sorry it's been a little while. Spring Break starts Friday, so I've been scrambling to get everything together. Anyways.....
First I have some pictures that I meant to put up a little while ago. I finally got around to going to the Eiffel Tour (I try to avoid super touristy spots for the most part), so here's a little snapshot of that. I started taking a different train to one of my classes, and I actually now pass over the Seine right next to the Eiffel Tour every morning. Talk about a view. The other pictures are from a place called Parc Montsouris. It was developed to give university students a place to exercise away from the roads, and it was beautiful. Full of people on a lovely Paris day.
This past weekend I was in Normandie, which (as some of you learned) is a region, not a specific city. Go ahead and GoogleMap Blonville-sur-mer. That is the actual city that I stayed in. Normandie is not the skinny peninsula of France that juts out into the Atlantic, but just to the east of that. Just look it up. My lovely host family took me along to their country house. Normandie is very much The Hamptons of Paris. Parisian license plates were everywhere. The family just finished building their country home a few years ago, and it is decked out, ready to hold as many family members as possible.
Saturday morning we went into house. The house is in Blonville-sur-mer, but the “big” local town is called Trouville or Deauville. This is where the upcoming G8 conference is being held. It’s a fairly ritzy town. They have several really nice hotels, and two big glitz casinos. We just went in town to buy grocery and to show me around, but we didn’t stay that long. We had a delicious lunch outside, and after lunch, the dad showed me all the local remnants of World War II. This town is not the famous beach where the Allies washed up to save the day, but there still is a lot of history. ALL over the place are these leftover bunkers, where the Vichy soldiers would do everything from eat and sleep to shooting cannons. They’re in remarkably good condition. You can also see their interconnected tunnels that criss cross the entire hill and all of the places where bombs made huge indentions in the ground. Very very interesting…
P.S. For those of you who are not history buffs, the Vichy government is the government in France that was dominated by Germans during the period of WWII. French people hated the Vichy government. It came between the Third and Fourth Republics. France has been in it's Fifth Republic since 1958 when General deGaulle founded it.
One of the old bombs that was placed high on the hill for visitors much later
View from inside one of the Vichy bunkers
Officer's club
During the war, there was a cannon mounted here. Men from right on the edge of the hill would radio the men working here to tell them which direction to shoot in.
Secret tunnels to avoid being spotted by planes
The valley by the ocean
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Updates
Hi guys,
Sorry it's been a little while. After I got back from London, things slowed down for a while. Spring Break is in a week and a half, so we've been having more grades than usual (midterms). I've mainly just been running around Paris, trying to see all the sites.
One cool thing I did see was the cantonal elections. France is divided into 100 (soon to be 101) departments. Each department is made up of smaller cantons, and cantons are used to elect members to departmental assemblies. Departments are somewhat like states, and cantons are somewhat like counties, but smaller. Like in so many other ways, the French are very old school when it comes to voting. When elections are coming up, you get mailed a packet with the names of all the candidates for the position written on individual pieces of paper. (The French never vote for more than one position at a time). When you arrive at the school (elections never take place at churches; they take separation of church and state very seriously), there are booths, just like in the states. You take one paper envelope and all of your paper slips into the booth, and put the paper of the candidate you want to vote for in the envelope. Then you leave the booth and put your sealed envelope in a huge, clear, glass box. At the end of the day, the two workers come together with their two separate keys to open the glass box. The envelopes are separated into groups of 100, and citizens sit down to count them. One set of people opens the envelopes, and another tallies the votes each candidate wins. It's actually very quick and very effective. I went to watch the counting process last week. They all knew that I was American, so they kept asking me why American elections are so complicated, why we keep using the machines when we have so many problems in Florida, in Chicago back in the day. It was mainly funny, and so interesting to watch this take place. Because I live right outside the business district (La Defense), this entire area votes right, but not so right that they vote for the Front National.
The Front National is like France's version of the Tea Party, but less legitimate and more racist. The party is run by a father-daughter duo, Jean and Marine Le Pen. Daddy Le Pen started the party about 25 years ago, and the daughter has taken over since he retired. They say delightful things like the Holocaust being just a detail in history (Daddy) and that Libyan refugees should be shoved into the ocean (daughter). They are still not popular, but they definitely do draw votes away from President Sarkozy's party, the UMP.
To clear up another misconception about French politics, the French left is not nearly as left as many of you guys might think. The Communist party is nearly non-existent. They do not have any representatives in the legislature. The Parti Socialist (one of the two big parties in France, the nemesis of Sarkozy's UMP party) is really not that leftist either. Big players in their party (included Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the possible 2012 presidential candidate) have/do head international monetary organization, like the IMF, the World Bank, and the European Central Bank. How anti-capitalist can someone like that be? France is more leftist than many people in the States, but the Trotskyists are long gone.
Sorry it's been a little while. After I got back from London, things slowed down for a while. Spring Break is in a week and a half, so we've been having more grades than usual (midterms). I've mainly just been running around Paris, trying to see all the sites.
One cool thing I did see was the cantonal elections. France is divided into 100 (soon to be 101) departments. Each department is made up of smaller cantons, and cantons are used to elect members to departmental assemblies. Departments are somewhat like states, and cantons are somewhat like counties, but smaller. Like in so many other ways, the French are very old school when it comes to voting. When elections are coming up, you get mailed a packet with the names of all the candidates for the position written on individual pieces of paper. (The French never vote for more than one position at a time). When you arrive at the school (elections never take place at churches; they take separation of church and state very seriously), there are booths, just like in the states. You take one paper envelope and all of your paper slips into the booth, and put the paper of the candidate you want to vote for in the envelope. Then you leave the booth and put your sealed envelope in a huge, clear, glass box. At the end of the day, the two workers come together with their two separate keys to open the glass box. The envelopes are separated into groups of 100, and citizens sit down to count them. One set of people opens the envelopes, and another tallies the votes each candidate wins. It's actually very quick and very effective. I went to watch the counting process last week. They all knew that I was American, so they kept asking me why American elections are so complicated, why we keep using the machines when we have so many problems in Florida, in Chicago back in the day. It was mainly funny, and so interesting to watch this take place. Because I live right outside the business district (La Defense), this entire area votes right, but not so right that they vote for the Front National.
The Front National is like France's version of the Tea Party, but less legitimate and more racist. The party is run by a father-daughter duo, Jean and Marine Le Pen. Daddy Le Pen started the party about 25 years ago, and the daughter has taken over since he retired. They say delightful things like the Holocaust being just a detail in history (Daddy) and that Libyan refugees should be shoved into the ocean (daughter). They are still not popular, but they definitely do draw votes away from President Sarkozy's party, the UMP.
To clear up another misconception about French politics, the French left is not nearly as left as many of you guys might think. The Communist party is nearly non-existent. They do not have any representatives in the legislature. The Parti Socialist (one of the two big parties in France, the nemesis of Sarkozy's UMP party) is really not that leftist either. Big players in their party (included Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the possible 2012 presidential candidate) have/do head international monetary organization, like the IMF, the World Bank, and the European Central Bank. How anti-capitalist can someone like that be? France is more leftist than many people in the States, but the Trotskyists are long gone.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Paris!
Salut tout le monde,
I know it's been a little while since I've updated this baby, but my life has calmed down a bit since I got back from London. We're smack in the middle of the semester (midterm time/just before spring break), so I've mainly just been in class. My French Politics class is going really well. It's so interesting, but it's weird to have a class that only meets once a week. I always avoided that kind of schedule at Elon, but it's really not that bad. We just had a midterm, and I think it went pretty well.
What is not going so well is my Phonetics class. The whole set up is quite strange because it's a hybrid grade with my grammar class, and as far as I can tell, the mixing of those two grades is pretty much arbitrary. I've never taken a Phonetics class before. It sounded pretty interesting and useful, but it's really more like an upper-level linguistics class. Every day, for one hour, we rush through a crazy discussion of differences in vowel sounds, different word combinations, etc. etc. One hour really isn't long enough to get anything done, but I still show up everyday, just in case I happen to learn something. Yuck...
In more exciting news, Paris is finally starting to get warm. It could definitely get cold again, but I'm hoping to be able to mail my winter clothes home soon. It will be so nice to revisit all the gardens around Paris, but spring and warm weather also brings more tourists. Yuck... France has a population of around 65 million, and they get about 80 million tourists each year. I have class by Notre Dame, and there are already so many EF Tour groups everywhere. Americans just don't realize how loud they are. Not fun at all. I get out of class at 4 today and I don't have anything else to do until 8 when I go to the Israeli Film Festival, so I think I'm going to go check out some more gardens. They are all over the place, and it's looking like a beautiful day already.
I know it's been a little while since I've updated this baby, but my life has calmed down a bit since I got back from London. We're smack in the middle of the semester (midterm time/just before spring break), so I've mainly just been in class. My French Politics class is going really well. It's so interesting, but it's weird to have a class that only meets once a week. I always avoided that kind of schedule at Elon, but it's really not that bad. We just had a midterm, and I think it went pretty well.
What is not going so well is my Phonetics class. The whole set up is quite strange because it's a hybrid grade with my grammar class, and as far as I can tell, the mixing of those two grades is pretty much arbitrary. I've never taken a Phonetics class before. It sounded pretty interesting and useful, but it's really more like an upper-level linguistics class. Every day, for one hour, we rush through a crazy discussion of differences in vowel sounds, different word combinations, etc. etc. One hour really isn't long enough to get anything done, but I still show up everyday, just in case I happen to learn something. Yuck...
In more exciting news, Paris is finally starting to get warm. It could definitely get cold again, but I'm hoping to be able to mail my winter clothes home soon. It will be so nice to revisit all the gardens around Paris, but spring and warm weather also brings more tourists. Yuck... France has a population of around 65 million, and they get about 80 million tourists each year. I have class by Notre Dame, and there are already so many EF Tour groups everywhere. Americans just don't realize how loud they are. Not fun at all. I get out of class at 4 today and I don't have anything else to do until 8 when I go to the Israeli Film Festival, so I think I'm going to go check out some more gardens. They are all over the place, and it's looking like a beautiful day already.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
London!
I left early Saturday morning for London and had a jam-packed weekend. We got into London around 10:30 AM. The train ride was nice. I actually got to see some of the French countryside for once, and of course, we went through the Chunnel. Very anti-climatic like several things in the UK. After getting some pounds and checking into the hostel, we set out. Saturday we walked along the Thames, seeing many sites along the way. We started at London bridge, and going west, we also got to see the Globe Theatre, London Eye (a huge ferris wheel that I wanted no part of), the Tate Modern Museum (some of the best modern art I've ever seen), the Tower of London, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey (from the outside, because it costs 16 pounds to go inside), the House of Parliament, and Trafalgar Square. The London metro has stops all over the place, but it's much more confusing than the Paris metro. We just tried to avoid using it too much. At least on Saturday, it wasn't raining. Cloudy and gray, but not raining. We got lunch at the cutest restaurant right next to London Bridge, right on the Thames. We all got fish and chips. It was delicious, but so heavy that I couldn't finish it.
Sunday, the plan was to see most of the parks and some of the more famous museums. We started the day off at Buckingham Palace, which was very very anti-climatic. Maybe it's very pretty on the inside, but the outside is rather standard (as far as a palace can be standard). Also, the famous guards were not even there! There were a couple of guards, but they were wearing gray, not red. We did get to see a little parade of some sort of officials on horseback though, so that was neat. Then we made our way through all of the parks right next to the palace. Green Park is, well, pretty much green grass everywhere, very pretty. Next comes Hyde Park, by far the coolest. There is a rose garden there (not quite fully in bloom yet) and lots of cool statues. Next is Kensington Gardens, which has a cool statue of Peter Pan and a memorial to Princess Diana, among other things. After the parks, we went to the British Museum. It's kind of like the Smithsonian with lots of artifacts from all over the world. What they discreetly fail to mention is that they stole many of the artifacts from places like Egypt and the Middle East (very common trend in the UK, to glance over nasty things they did in the past). The most famous thing in the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone. After the British Museum, we went to the National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures in there, but it's a small museum full of portraits of famous British people ranging from Henry VIII to Princess Diana. By this point, we were pooped, but on our way back to the hostel, we ran into a huge early St. Patrick's Day party going on in Trafalgar Square. It looked neat, but we were just too tired at that point. My train on Monday morning left at 5:30 AM, so I had to take a taxi. The taxi company that partners with the hostel was not very professional, but I made it to the station on time and got to experience driving on the opposite side of the road. All over London, they have sides on the road, reminding pedestrians which way to look before crossing the street.
Sunday, the plan was to see most of the parks and some of the more famous museums. We started the day off at Buckingham Palace, which was very very anti-climatic. Maybe it's very pretty on the inside, but the outside is rather standard (as far as a palace can be standard). Also, the famous guards were not even there! There were a couple of guards, but they were wearing gray, not red. We did get to see a little parade of some sort of officials on horseback though, so that was neat. Then we made our way through all of the parks right next to the palace. Green Park is, well, pretty much green grass everywhere, very pretty. Next comes Hyde Park, by far the coolest. There is a rose garden there (not quite fully in bloom yet) and lots of cool statues. Next is Kensington Gardens, which has a cool statue of Peter Pan and a memorial to Princess Diana, among other things. After the parks, we went to the British Museum. It's kind of like the Smithsonian with lots of artifacts from all over the world. What they discreetly fail to mention is that they stole many of the artifacts from places like Egypt and the Middle East (very common trend in the UK, to glance over nasty things they did in the past). The most famous thing in the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone. After the British Museum, we went to the National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures in there, but it's a small museum full of portraits of famous British people ranging from Henry VIII to Princess Diana. By this point, we were pooped, but on our way back to the hostel, we ran into a huge early St. Patrick's Day party going on in Trafalgar Square. It looked neat, but we were just too tired at that point. My train on Monday morning left at 5:30 AM, so I had to take a taxi. The taxi company that partners with the hostel was not very professional, but I made it to the station on time and got to experience driving on the opposite side of the road. All over London, they have sides on the road, reminding pedestrians which way to look before crossing the street.
Fish and chips for lunch
The Globe Theatre (Shakespeare)
The outside of the (free) Tate Modern
Just a little taste of what you find inside the Tate
Just some casual Egyptian art along the Thames
A gray picture of the London Eye
Big Ben!
The classic London phone booth
Super interesting memorial to the women of WWII
Buckingham Palace. No royals, no guards...
Horsey parade next to Buckingham Palace
Green Park (cleverly named)
entrance to Hyde Park
statue of Peter Pan
Abbey Road. Very anti-climatic and not that interesting!
Rosetta Stone in the British Museum
Just some stolen Egyptian artifacts in the British Museum
Pere Lachaise Cemetery
Hi guys,
A lot has gone on since the last time I blogged, so I'm gonna break it up into a few different postings. (Lucky you...)
Right before I left for London, I visited Pere Lachaise Cemetary. It's one of the most famous cemeteries in Paris and is the final resting ground of lots of famous people, including Jimmy Hendrix, Edith Piaf, and Oscar Wilde. It also has several very interesting Holocaust memorials. Unfortunately, it closes kind of early, so I didn't get to see even half of it, but it was still a nice visit.
A lot has gone on since the last time I blogged, so I'm gonna break it up into a few different postings. (Lucky you...)
Right before I left for London, I visited Pere Lachaise Cemetary. It's one of the most famous cemeteries in Paris and is the final resting ground of lots of famous people, including Jimmy Hendrix, Edith Piaf, and Oscar Wilde. It also has several very interesting Holocaust memorials. Unfortunately, it closes kind of early, so I didn't get to see even half of it, but it was still a nice visit.
I'm not sure why, but there were many Asian graves...
Oscar Wilde's grave covered with kisses
Castle?
Holocaust memorials. Very very cool
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Life in Paris
Salut,
This has been kind of a busy week with lots of classes, but I've been finding time to explore. Today, as part of my class, we went on a walking tour of the Latin Quarter. It's full of schools and universities and churches. There are some thermal baths leftover from the Roman era still there. I didn't bring my camera today because I had too many books, but I'm going to go back and take pictures.
We also went to the Pantheon. It's a huge building originally constructed as a kind of basicilia for St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris. Over the years, it went back and forth, back and forth between being a church and being a secular symbol of the state of France. Today it is a national landmark. It has a ton of religious paintings on the walls paired with secular monuments in front of the paintings (for the Unknown Soldier, etc.). The most interesting part is in the basement. There is a crypt underneath the Pantheon that is home to some of the most important influential French people and people with links to France. Just to name a few, Rosseau, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Marie and Pierre Curie, and Emile Zola are all buried in the Pantheon. Very cool. I didn't have enough time to figure out why, but in the crypt, there is also a monument to the "Righteous Gentiles", as we say in English. The "Righteous Gentiles", or in French "Justes de France" or "Justes parmi les nations", are people who were not Jewish but helped/tried to save Jews during World War II. Again, I've got to go back and take pictures.
After class, I visited la Memorial de la Deporation (same name in English). It's a very small little monument for the French Jews who were deported during the Holocaust. It was very cool because it's right next to the Seine, and it is essentially on the same level as the river. Through windows with bars, you look right out onto the Seine. It's very small and almost hidden behind Notre Dame, but nice nonetheless.
I finished out my little excursion today with a trip to the best ice cream shop in Paris, Berthillion. Everyone who spends any serious amount of time in Paris knows Berthillion. I went about 4:30 PM on a Wednesday afternoon, and there was a line. I'll just say it was delicious. I got chocolate and fig. It's very close to my classes, so unfortunately for my wallet, it just might become a regular hangout.
This has been kind of a busy week with lots of classes, but I've been finding time to explore. Today, as part of my class, we went on a walking tour of the Latin Quarter. It's full of schools and universities and churches. There are some thermal baths leftover from the Roman era still there. I didn't bring my camera today because I had too many books, but I'm going to go back and take pictures.
We also went to the Pantheon. It's a huge building originally constructed as a kind of basicilia for St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris. Over the years, it went back and forth, back and forth between being a church and being a secular symbol of the state of France. Today it is a national landmark. It has a ton of religious paintings on the walls paired with secular monuments in front of the paintings (for the Unknown Soldier, etc.). The most interesting part is in the basement. There is a crypt underneath the Pantheon that is home to some of the most important influential French people and people with links to France. Just to name a few, Rosseau, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Marie and Pierre Curie, and Emile Zola are all buried in the Pantheon. Very cool. I didn't have enough time to figure out why, but in the crypt, there is also a monument to the "Righteous Gentiles", as we say in English. The "Righteous Gentiles", or in French "Justes de France" or "Justes parmi les nations", are people who were not Jewish but helped/tried to save Jews during World War II. Again, I've got to go back and take pictures.
After class, I visited la Memorial de la Deporation (same name in English). It's a very small little monument for the French Jews who were deported during the Holocaust. It was very cool because it's right next to the Seine, and it is essentially on the same level as the river. Through windows with bars, you look right out onto the Seine. It's very small and almost hidden behind Notre Dame, but nice nonetheless.
I finished out my little excursion today with a trip to the best ice cream shop in Paris, Berthillion. Everyone who spends any serious amount of time in Paris knows Berthillion. I went about 4:30 PM on a Wednesday afternoon, and there was a line. I'll just say it was delicious. I got chocolate and fig. It's very close to my classes, so unfortunately for my wallet, it just might become a regular hangout.
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