A Year in Grenoble

The Moose is Loose

2006-06-16T11:49:00.000+02:00

The procrastination has been stopped! Or at least momentarily paused. Here come pictures from Sweden (April 26-May 1).

Advised that alcohol prices were exorbitantly high in Sweden, we made a few key purchases in Geneva, including a bottle of Ricard Pastis that included this complimentary blowup pillow... which Penelope promptly lost.

After transferring at Amsterdam, we arrived in Stockholm late Wednesday evening and after taking an airport bus into the city center, wandered around marveling at elegant streetlights while searching for our hostel.

Aha! There she lies! Yes, the most illuminated object in this picture was indeed our hostel... a floating hostel! We stayed at A. Chapman, a renovated English warship anchored in Stockholm Harbor. The boat was relatively roomy and even though most of the other guests were spoiled Stockholm schoolchildren, we had a great time. Breakfast the next day was an enormous feast: 90 minutes of delicious Swedish porridge, fresh fruit, cheese and meat, various cereals, hardboiled eggs, caviar and loads of other goodies.

We dropped of our bags and then received a tour of Stockholm from Sophie, a Swedish friend from Grenoble who we coincidentally happened to run into at the airport!

Sophie and Jenny in front of an anti-violence monument.

I was surprised to see this.

Rachel arrived later that evening. When we went to pick her up, we found scores of yellow plastic gnomes planted everywhere. It was part of some guerilla marketing campaign (but instead of checking out the website listed on the base of the gnome, the girls just played and posed with "TomTom" a la Amelie).

The view Thursday morning from our hostel.

Who's the king?

An apt quote I spotted while touring the contemporary art museum near our hostel.

Rachel enjoyed teasing the palace guardsmen -- we just cringed and hoped he wouldn't bayonet her.

If you look carefully, you might be able to spot the bear-on-a-leash.

In the center of a Stockholm square. We chatted with a nice elderly Australian street painter, until she abruptly switched the topic of the conversation to, "Buy my paintings." We politely declined and let her hawk her wares to other tourists.

Stockholm's spires.

At breakfast we smuggled out loads of sandwiches and later capitalized on our thievery by holding a delicious luncheon on the pier.

Daylight revealed more strange stores.

The rather dull-looking Stockholm Palace.

Sophie chiding the prime minister - in front of his own unguarded, ungated residence! - for alleged financial misdeeds.

Everybody knows that H&M is Swedish - thus, the largest H&M store must logically be in Stockholm. There were actually five different H&M stores within three blocks, all specializing in different fashions. I found the kids section curiously named.

Waiting for the bus to take us to Stockholm Central Station in order to catch a train to Uppsala. We're loaded down with a lot of things belonging to Isabelle, a Swedish friend with a compulsive shopping disorder and who was moving from Chamonix, France, back to Sweden.

Our first view of Uppsala after exiting the train station. Night arrived very late in Sweden, about two hours later than in France... around 10:30pm.

We had a happy reunion with Lina, and Jenny enjoyed speaking with someone who didn't have a Stockholm accent.

Our sleeping arrangements were, uh, interesting. We were given an empty classroom, but after acquiring two couches from the lobby and laying down mats and our sleeping bags, the concrete floor wasn't so bad.

We quickly transformed the living quarters into... a mess.

Tired from all the traveling, we took it easy Thursday night, and started out early Friday on a tour of the town, whose main highlight is the oldest church in Scandinavia.

It took us 10 minutes to realize that the woman next to Rachel, an artist's rendition of a Modern Mary, wasn't real. We outfitted her with sunglasses before noticing the "please do not touch" sign.

Isabelle and I posing in front of the Fyris River rapids where the rafting festival would take place on Sunday.

A look down the other end of the river. Yes, it was as cold as it looks. One night, it dropped down to 32 and a few snowflakes floated to the ground. Brr.

I wanted to sit and read while the girls shopped, but the cafe owner insisted that I buy something if I wished to remain there... so Penelope and Rachel bought me an orange. An orange.

The church spires stretching over the city.

The rallying cry for the week was, "The moose is loose!," a slogan we picked up off t-shirts purchased in a cheap Stockholm souvenir shop.

On Saturday we donned our Grenoble Universities t-shirts and decorated them before proceeding to the festival games. Most of the games veterans, like Lina, wore mechanic jumpsuits emblazoned with scores of patches.

One of the more difficult team exercises. We had to shove our feet under the hoops and race, with five people per set of skis, across the gravel pit. I was at the rear of my team and we lost, mostly because in my enthusiasm, I yanked out one of my foot straps.

At another station, we were duct-taped together as a moose and had to race around a treacherous obstacle course.

The traditional wheelbarrow race was livened up when we learned we had to transport a chocolate-icing filled diaper... with our teeth.

I can't say this is the most flattering picture of me ever taken.

We noticed early on in the day how remarkably similar our outfits were to those of Marxist revolutionaries (my beard, black boots and big sunglasses were key ingredients, too).

The final game was an egg toss. I was elected to participate by my team, mostly because I ran up to the egg distribution first.

My dazzling co-tosser, Jenny pretending to be Swiss.

Jenny tossed, while I caught. After each catch, I'd run the egg back to her. Somehow, I don't believe the distribution of risk was equal. We warmed up with close distances, but finally won after we completed a lengthy 30 yard toss no other team could match. We would've gone even further, but on the last toss, Jenny's aim was a bit off.

She inexplicably threw the egg at Isabelle who, too stunned to move, let it smack into her. Fortunately, we'd already set the distance record and still won.

Team Moose gathered at dinner Saturday night. As the games winners, we were obligated to give a presentation after dessert. We settled upon a rather bizarre skit about a German tourist named Gunther (guess who was cast to play him) who, while searching the Swedish countryside for moose droppings (really, that's what they're renowned for), triggers World War III after he's accidentally shot while trying to protect a moose from Swedish hunters. There's more, but you'll have to buy the screenplay. We concluded with a witty song set to the tune of Frere Jacques (we had to pay some homage to our French background).

The evening, of course, degenerated into a food fight.

This tasted much better than it looks.

On the winners platform, with our prize - 9.2 kilograms (20.2lbs) of preserved potatoes ("Kulpotatis" is literally "fun potatoes" in Swedish).

Early Sunday morning we trekked out to town and reserved choice spots for the raft race.

The Swedish Air Force made an unexpected appearance.

The river was jam-packed with spectators and we had to occasionally defend our territory with force.

Our friends' raft appeared to fare well over the waterfall...

...and then it crumbled. Safety was a high priority for the organizers and several wet-suit clad divers soon followed them into the water.

Penny tried to scare us. We tried to push her farther.

I was the chosen kulpotatis transporter. It was not fun. Note the uphill trajectory. I was quite tempted to let the kulpotatis drop and let it roll over the weak.

Our Sunday picnic lunch consisted of traditional Swedish "sill," various flavors of pickled fish. Yum. At least I can say I tried it!

We queued up for a club Sunday afternoon, intending to enter one with the rest of our friends, but we somehow gained entry to the club next door, for "Stockholm Nation," typically reserved for the richest, poshest kids from Stockholm. I have no idea how we were let in, but we certainly profited from the boisterous mood and champagne-soaked atmosphere.

We didn't have Yale sweatshirts slung around our shoulders like some of our fellow party-goers, but we still had a great time.

Dinner was held at a friend's fourth-story apartment where we had a great view of a sight that reminded us of la France - a burning car!

Our exhausted crew, about to part the last club, early Monday morning. We needed a vacation from our vacation afterwards.

The beautiful Swedish dawn Monday morning.

Viva Las Vegas

2006-06-11T14:45:00.000+02:00

After nine thrilling days in Grenoble (and random mountains outside the city, and Annecy), I returned home last night, unpacked, slept and packed again Saturday morning for some (more) R&R in Las Vegas with mon père. We've had a great time so far - Saturday evening's culinary highlight was the superb steakhouse at Red Rock. I gorged on rock shrimp tempura, a so-so Caesar salad and a divine jumbo yam showered in butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. The service was commendable, the presentation impressive and the quality impressive. A "709" (is that an area code?) cocktail fruitened things up: Belvedere Cytrus Vodka, pomengranate and mint leaves. I left with a bloated stomach and a "Absolut Vanilla, Starbucks coffee and espresso" frappucino in hand. Yum. We bounced around: after some time at the Palms, we tottered around Red Rock, then Hard Rock, followed by the Wynn and then a return to the Palms. Hard work.

The most memorable experience of the evening was meeting Al Unser Jr in the Hard Rock high limit area -- well, I didn't so much meet him as I dodged his drunken stagger. Apparently my evasive maneuver was accompanied by a facial gesture, because after passing my table, Al spurned a dealer's invitation to play, because "he [me!] gave me the evil eye." Yes, "the evil eye." However, once Al noticed my light pink polo (he happened to be wearing a similar one), all was forgiven and after complimenting me, plopped down with $600 and gestured in the general direction of the pit boss while uttering, in sounds tenuously similar to the words human beings generally make, a $5,000 marker request. I'm not sure how this man raced in the Indianapolis 500 two weeks ago... but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Tomorrow's itinerary includes watching various World Cup matches, soaking up the brutal Nevadan sun, a Swedish massage and other necessities. I took loads of pictures during my Grenoble sequel - around 300 - and will attempt to post them once a reliable Internet connection appears. Highlights include: camping, barbeques, my first snail!, exhausting hiking, Annecy and a near-fatal waterfall escapade.

Home again, home again

2006-05-29T22:06:00.000+02:00

I've been home since May 18 - and so busy I haven't had time to update the blog until now. I jumped right back into working with dad, 21st birthday celebrations with family and friends and a pleasant Memorial Day weekend with relatives. The story doesn't end with the beach barbecue: I still have - and will - post pictures from Sweden, Tord Boyaux, sushi night, rock climbing, a rainy barbecue and a momentous farewell party that I can never forget, mostly because it ended with swimming in the city fountain at 3am and dodging wine bottles hurled from apartment windows, an episode that's left me with a cold I'm still enjoying today.

In many ways, it's great to be home - I'm understood 100% of the time, I see my family on a daily basis and my friends frequently as well, Internet access is fast and reliable... and yet, life's just a little less exciting, a little less spontaneous and EVERYTHING IS HUGE. I had a sick stomach during the entire first week back because I followed my French habits and ate everything placed in front of me, foolishly failing to notice that the portion size had increased four-fold. Only now is my gastrointestinal tract recovering -- and I'm going to send it into shock by returning to France 36 hours from now. The opportunity to spend another week of adventures with some of the best friends I've ever has proved too irresistible. Though an obvious youthful folly, it's necessary to avoid a summer tinged with regret and What If's.

Beach Barbecues

2006-05-15T18:33:00.000+02:00

In between our visit to Avignon, Nimes and Montpellier and Sweden, we spent a few gorgeous days lounging on Cote d'Azur beaches, barbecuing from brunch to dinner. I sensibly applied liberal amounts of sunscreen and even took the previously unthinkable step of putting on a t-shirt after one particularly blistering afternoon. However, I couldn't prevent my fellow beach bums from parading through my pictures!

One evening we bought around $30 worth of "paella," a Spanish seafood+noodle specialty, but ended up with far more food than coals. Luckily it was already cooked and still tasted delicious cold. We also happened to run out of utensils and unanimously agreed that eating with our hands was our only option. Even covered in sand, charcoal and other assorted additives the paella was tasty! Rach is leading "the way forward" here.

Penelope's rural Australian upbringing permitted her to eat the things the rest of us declined.

After daylight was completely exhausted, we wandered around for a bit before jumping in the Twingo! and driving for hours before finding a Formula 1 motel, a discount chain that is, peculiarly, entirely self-service after 10pm.

The next morning was rinse and repeat, though the rinsing was purely theoretical. Nevertheless, the eggs and bacon were DELICIOUS.

A wave breaks on a rather rocky section of this shore near Marseilles.

Rach and Penelope threw four dead crabs at me but reconciled their treachery with pineapple, salt and vinegar chips and strawberry yogurt. All was quickly forgiven.

The Deep South

2006-05-12T18:51:00.000+02:00

We arrived in Avignon late Friday evening and after wandering through the Old Town commenced our search for a hostel outside the old city walls (some of the best preserved in Europe, after Northern Ireland's Derry which I've also visited!). Here's a glance at the city clocktower: 9:05pm.

After finally finding the hostel (my Rough Guide was uncharacteristically vague, giving precise directions of "take the bus over the bridge to the hostel") we made our way back into town and ate at the delicious, but linguistically confused Les Arts restaurant. Take a look at some of the English translations in blue text. The rallying cry for the rest of the weekend was, "Let's pepper!"

The following morning we visited the enormous Palais des Papes, a refuge of popes for 100 years when Avignon usurped Rome as the capital of Catholicism. We spent hours exploring the huge structure.

The palace was so big, I think this neat courtyard is actually on the third or fourth floor.

A moment of reflection.

A gleaming statue of Mary on the Notre Dame des Doms cathedral keeps an eye on the western walls.

A massive interior dining hall.

I believe this is the Grand Chapel, "where the Avignon popes worshipped." Pictures were forbidden, so I had to stealthily snap this one.

Eventually we made our way up to one of the high towers overlooking part of the old town.

This turned out rather well.

"Sur le pont d'Avignon" - On the Bridge of Avignon - is a famous children's song that popularized the city's incomplete bridge, abandoned after it became too difficult to continually repair after the incessant ravages of the Rhone River.

A romantic narrow street near the Palais.

On Saturday evening we had a picnic on the riverbank near our hostel. You can clearly see how much the Palais dominates the city landscape, dwarfing even the foreboding city fortifications.

After our picnic (and an encounter with a large but friendly stray dog who sniffed approval of our cheese and wine) we headed into town to check out Avignon's two Reds - the Red Lion and Red Zone - upon the recommendation of a friend. I preferred the former... since I fell asleep in the Red Zone. Oops. Here's Johanna and I, still awake!

We made our way further south Sunday, arriving a bit before noon in Nimes after a short train ride. The city's claim to fame is a remarkably well-preserved Roman arena, unfortunately under extensive renovation here. We were initially confused about where to find the arena, since we couldn't find any maps and the town was deserted in the early Sunday morning. However, there was a grand boulevard leading towards the towncenter from the train station and, inspired, we followed it until spotting the enormous arena.

Some of us played gladiator. I wanted to run into the ring but decided against it after realizing the walls out were at least three or four meters high -- I'm sorry, I've started to adapt to the metric system! -- or around ten to twelve feet.

In retrospect, I think I may be standing a bit too close to that edge. The thing drooping goofily from my neck is an audioguide, narrated by a soothingly animated Englishman.

Our second stop was the Maison Carree, another remarkable Roman building tucked away in the town. Unfortunately, there's nothing to see inside apart from a 22-minute 3-D movie about gladiators (weaklings who paled in comparison to my earlier ferocity).

Palm trees? Phoenix? Nope, just another pretty church in southern France.

Nimes seemed rather quiet after the bustling and student-dominated Avignon, but we enjoyed the calm tree-lined boulevards nevertheless.

The third and final Roman relic proved a little more elusive than the Arena and Maison Carree. We had to navigate our way through the gorgeous canal-spanning park (Jardins de la Fontaine) and weave our way through a kilometer of steep trails before finding it...

...the Tour Magne, or Great Tower, "the only surviving part of a line of 30 Roman towers that defended Nimes in the 1st century BC."

Once we'd scaled a couple hundred steps, we walked onto a narrow balcony and discovered just how useful for defenses the tower would've been.

Watching the aforementioned 3-D gladiator movie in the Maison Carree (blog connossieurs should compare this picture to a frighteningly similar one taken at the city castle in Ljubljana). Yes, I fell asleep.

The final stop on the sightseeing tour was Montpellier, another short train ride away, full of fountains, narrow alleys and a festive student atmosphere. Here's one of the central hangouts, the Place de la Comedie. It was a great city and we had a fun time strolling around, though there were a few too many American voices for my taste.

Dinner was delicious at La Terrasse, a small twenty-seat restaurant and service was exceptional. My two indispensable traveling companions are to my left: my camera and my Rough Guide. By the way, you can tell our numbers have increased: we met up with Rachel and Penelope earlier that evening.

Courtesy of Wikipedia: "Rue Foch, looking towards the Porte du Peyrou."

A crucifix framed against the background of, I believe, the steeple of Saint Anne church (now a contmporary art gallery).

The next plans called for several days of beach barbecues and we were driving further south to the Cote d'Azur to fulfill them (in an amazing Renault Twingo) when we saw the French had already started without us.

An eclectic mix

2006-05-05T17:37:00.000+02:00

I have a daunting number of pictures to post but mounting homework obligations (gasp) and increasingly lovely weather are going to force me to summarize the past several weeks with just a handful of photos. Without further ado, the first installment:

A couple weeks ago we had a Swedish-Australian-American crepe night and after hours of begging, the chefs consented to let me dabble in the kitchen. Penelope coached me in the creation of this monstrosity:

Jenny, the crepe-flipping master:

On the Monday following Easter, about 15 of us went to L'Ile d'Amour for an afternoon full of BBQs and games:

Another view of the beautiful 2 Alpes ski station that I frequented several times in March and April:

More pictures from Avignon, Nimes, Montpellier, Stockholm and Uppsala coming soon!

Another Jazz Festival!

2006-05-03T15:12:00.000+02:00

I'm really behind on pictures, so I'll try to catch up quick. Here are some photos from a jazz concert we went to at the top of the Bastille at the end of March on a rather seasonable day. Before the hour-long trek up, Ben, Rachel, Christine, Maria, Jenny and I are all in high spirits!

Even with the clouds, we had surprisingly high visibility (AKA none of the usual Grenoble smog!).

Our VIP seats.

There were a couple different bands who played but these cheery fellows at the end were our favorite.

I love the old Bastille fortifications!

No trams on May Day

2006-05-03T14:10:00.000+02:00

Wow, I can't believe two weeks have passed since my last update - the time has simply flown by! I'll try to briefly recap: the Monday following my return to Grenoble from Plan de la Tour, several friends and I held a fantastic BBQ in L'Ile d'Amour, a cool island in the middle of the nearby Isere river. Tuesday night, we kept up the year-long Tord Boyaux tradition. On Wednesday evening, we went to a modern interpretation of King Lear at the Maison de la Culture. At 2 hours and 40 minutes, sans intermission, it was an exercise in endurance as well as theatrical French comprehension!

I believe Thursday was a bit of a down day, in preparation for Friday's departure for the south of France. Johanna, Emilie, Ben and I went to Avignon and Nimes, two gorgeous historical cities. On Sunday evening, we hopped on another train and met Penelope, Rachel and Jenny in Montpellier - another vibrant, thriving city. We spent the next couple days on beaches, before racing back to Grenoble late Tuesday in order to pack our bags.

Last Wednesday Jenny, Penelope and I hopped on an early morning train to Geneva, stocked up on dozens of free energy drinks handed out as part of a new commercial promotion, took a shuttle train to the airport and then flew to Amsterdam, followed by... Stockholm! Sweden was amazing (and amazingly expensive; a fast-food "value meal" there hovers around $11 USD) and we met up with several other friends while we were there. Jenny, Penelope and I returned to Grenoble Monday evening, foolishly forgetting that no trams at all were circulating as a result of the May Day holiday. "Fete du travail" in French translates to "Celebration of work" -- or the absence thereof. Fortunately we were able to call Penelope's roommate to come pick us up and graciously transport us to campus. Last night was spent, after seeing V for Vendetta at the theater, at Tord Boyaux... of course.

I had one class yesterday and one today. I've finished my Theme and Version translation exams, as well as Grammar and Techniques of French Expression. Four remain: Professional French, Ireland: The Transformation of a Society, Mythology and Contemporary American History. The latter three are due to take place in two weeks, though I'm going to attempt to take them early.

My flight home is scheduled for May 18 and I remain torn about sticking to it, or extending my stay for a few more weeks in order to see Spain or Tunisia. It'd mean missing my 21st birthday at home and stretching ever-diminishing finances, but those seem like small sacrifices in exchange for further traveling and more time spent with the great friends I've made here.

Plan de la Retour

2006-04-18T18:48:00.000+02:00

Julien and his family invited me back to Plan de la Tour for Easter weekend, so I hopped on a train Friday afternoon, changed once at Valence, and then arrived at Les Arcs Draguignans, where his step-father Gilbert was waiting. We really hit it off last time, thanks to a mutual interest in petanque and pastis, and after exchanging greetings (I fortunately remembered at the last moment that in southern France everyone kisses each other's cheeks) we were chattering away about the events of the past eight months. I enthusiastically greeted the rest of the family and we soon ate. The first of many, many meals over a surprisingly short weekend. I ate well and I slept well - it was a tranquil weekend in the Cote d'Azur, even if the beach Saturday morning was FREEZING. Gilbert had anticipated nice, sunny weather (like every day before, and every day after), but Saturday showed up cold and cloudy, and stayed that way as I sat shivering on the blustery beach reading Wuthering Heights. Wuthering indeed. Easter Day was spent at grandmother's house, in her backyard, in the most picturesque Provencal hilly setting imaginable, with five other relatives. We ate hard-boiled eggs, then "gigots" - delicious lamb - and "haricots blancs" - whitish beans, followed by potatoes, cheese, salad and some amazing artisanal bread. (When you get to a small village, everything's authentically 'artisanal!') I had to depart tragically early for my train, but I ate an enormous amount of sweet strawberries and was given a hefty chunk of Easter chocolate cake decorated with fine chocolate shavings and miniature colored eggs as I left. (I'd earlier explained how I often exchanged sweets and candies with my Italian and Swedish friends for healthy pasta and fish dinners, so, concerned that I'd go into withdrawal after eating so well and in interest of my continued survival, they instructed me to partition it out. I ate it all myself. Just kidding. Slightly.)

The Sweden trip next week is definitely happening. I'm now plotting excursions into the heart of France, as well as the western coast since there's a host of cities in those areas I'd love to visit, like Poitiers, Nantes, Tours, Orleans, Bourges and Bordeaux. The snowboarding season is practically over but rumors of the possibility of fresh snowfall have prevented me from returning my board and boots.

I have a few exciting pictures to post... but they'll have to wait since the library's closing and I won't be returning to the park bench any time soon because the last time I attempted "Wifi Sauvage," my laptop was almost stolen. Fortunately my grip on 4,500 pictures and some of the happiest memories of my life proved to be stronger than two not-so determined scooter-riding thieves. Whew.

Times like these in Zurich

2006-04-12T14:31:00.000+02:00

During the weekly Tord Boyaux session, Stephanie, Rachel and I decided Tuesday night, March 21, to drive to Zurich the next day to see a Jack Johnson concert. We didn't have tickets and none of us had ever been to Zurich before, but those were minor barriers. Wednesday morning, we took a 9:30am train to Geneva to pick up Stephanie's car. We went to a ticket outlet and bought tickets for what we presumed was the concert, though most of the writing was in German (Zurich's located in the German-speaking region of Switzerland) so we weren't entirely sure about what we'd purchased. As we were walking away, Stephanie began deciphering it and discovered that we'd merely bought BUS tickets, for transportation from Lucerne to Zurich! We rushed back to the store and the sheepish clerk gave us back our money and, after making a call to the venue, revealed that the gig was sold-out. Undeterred, we agreed to head to Zurich anyway and try to scalp tickets. We stopped by Stephanie's grandmother's apartment to say hello, then headed to her chalet to pick up the car.

Rachel and I sat by quietly while Stephanie argued vociferously with her mother about the not-so apparent wisdom of our adventure. Asked our opinion on the matter, we both tried to gently nudge the excursion forward by diplomatically advocating a "let's just try it!" approach. We won out, but the matriarch wasn't happy. I was a little disconcerted when I saw the vehicle, an automobile whose age likely exceeds mine. I gritted my teeth and clutched the Oh-Sweet-Jesus-Handle when Stephanie revealed she'd only had limited highway driving experience. Nevertheless, we made it out of her driveway safely and I relaxed a little once we were cruising. Note the sad irony in this vehicle's name.

We had to hop off the highway for a bit and drove through some quaint Swiss towns, including this one where traffic lights haven't apparently yet arrived.

Because we drove at a leisurely pace (and because I had no desire to press Stephanie to drive faster), we got stuck in rush hour traffic outside Zurich and slowly inched into the city. Along the way, the girls gave a friendly wave to an amiable-looking semi-truck driver who then rolled down his window, handed us three pens emblazoned with his company's logo - HUMBAUR - and gave a cheerful toot on the horn. It was a nice welcome to Zurich and not the last act of friendliness we'd experience.

We had a 3"x3" map of Zurich but were able to discern half of the venue name - the "Hallen" portion of Hallenstadion - and guessed correctly that it was our destination. We arrived at 7pm (the concert was scheduled to start at 7:30), found a nearby parking lot (and decided to push our luck further by not paying) and then searched out scalpers. The situation was complicated because there were two types of tickets - seated and standing-only - and though we could find plenty of seated tickets, nobody had three consecutive seats and we couldn't find anyone selling standing tickets. We decided to pick up three separate tickets and just try to get into the standing area. We bounced from scalper to scalper trying to find a decent price and were becoming desperate as the clock neared 7:30. Finally, as we were nearing the entrance, two guys offered us three seated tickets for 150 Swiss francs, 45 francs less than face value! We jumped on the deal and rushed inside. Denied entrance to the standing area, we turned to Rachel and asked her to work her magic. Five minutes later, we were inside, making our way towards the stage. She had asked a random guy if he'd be willing to go inside and come back with three of his friends' tickets and give them to us so we could show them to the ticket checkers. He agreed and once inside, we thanked him and returned the tickets. Random kindness act #2.

Matt Costa opened for Jack - apparently ALO also toured with them, but they must've been taking the night off. Costa wasn't bad, but it was a little too countryish and the crowd definitely didn't fall in love with the music. I think the band sensed it because they only played a rather short set before bowing out.

Wild applause accompanied Jack's arrival onstage and I'm sure the very cool set contributed a bit to some of the excitement.

Near the height of my furriness.

Our spirits buoyed by the excellent concert, we exited Hallenstadion around 11pm only slightly concerned about our lack of sleeping arrangements. We'd decided earlier to sleep in the car if necessary and were steeling ourselves for that possibility when a girl in the parking lot walked over to us and jabbered something in German. We looked at her blankly and asked, "English?" She then explained that her car wouldn't start and asked if we had jumper cables. We checked the trunk and, of course, there weren't any, but I volunteered to walk with her to a nearby gas station to buy some. She bought them, I proceeded to gingerly hook them up (I swear, it's the most nerve-wracking experience ever) between our two cars and directed her to try to start the car - to no avail. As she packed up the cables, the girls offered her a ride to her house and she accepted. Along the way, Rachel tucked in a mention that we were looking for somewhere to sleep, and did she perhaps know of any hostels nearby? Anita, as we had by then exchanged names, asked if we'd like to sleep at her house and, exchanging eager glances and biting our tongues to avoid shouting YES too suddenly, we said that would be lovely, as long as it didn't inconvenience her. We arrived at a four-story building and she explained that her parents occupied two of the floors and her room was on the top floor, would that be OK? Anita discerned that we were hungry and led us to the kitchen. Her mom was awakened by our arrival and gave us all the ingredients for a pleasant midnight snack: bread and butter, ham, some amazing cheeses and iced tea.

Fully satisfied we made our upstairs but rather than make us sleep in our day-old clothes, Anita gave the girls some of her pajamas and found some of her dad's for me. They were an, uh, interesting design and I asked where they came from - Zimbabwe! Her father had been born and grew up there, but left after the government began nationalizing white farms. So that night I wore Zimbabwean pajamas while sleeping at a Swiss girl's house who we'd known for about an hour. Wow. We left around 10am after thanking her profusely and exchanging e-mails. We decided to explore the city for a few hours and began by playing with some of the very cool contemporary street art, absolutely rife in the city.

With me, of course, was my trusty Rough Guide and a brief consultation revealed that Zurich was home to Europe's largest clock face - it wasn't too difficult to find.

We continued to wander around; the girls wanted to shop but were shocked by the prices. A lunch-time plate of Chinese food from an average looking establishment was $15 USD; Stephanie said that most of the prices were double what they were in Geneva, but a search in a nearby Migros grocery store did turn up one discount discovery.

Back in Geneva, we dropped off the car at Stephanie's, then returned by train to Grenoble. We thought we were going to have a construction helmet to add to our collection of interesting artifacts, but the owner thwarted our plans just before boarding the train.

On the park bench

2006-04-08T21:25:00.000+02:00

The school library is closed and McDonald's free wifi doesn't work, so I've returned to the lonely park bench in the middle of campus. Luckily it's a little warmer out now than it was back in late November when I last hopped online in the middle of a deserted university.

There haven't been any major voyages since Ireland; a couple visits to the Bastille, weekly Tord Boyaux trips, a quick afternoon drive to Geneva, two crazy student parties, a few snowboarding sessions in the Alps and a nice weekend in Paris with Mom and Dan have occupied my time.

The class situation remains touch-and-go: I've been assured that I'll receive credit for all my classes in Stendhal (though nobody's worked out the details yet) without worrying about the semester extending into July or beyond, and I hope that my political science teacher will similarly accomodate exchange students. This coming week I should have all but one of my classes, the first time that'll have occurred since... mid-February.

I went snowboarding today at 2 Alpes - the university ski club, Ecole de Glisse, put on a fun scavenger hunt and barbeque and followed it up with a raffle drawing where all 50 of us won a prize. A little ways away, I was lounging blissfully with my eyes closed, enjoying the baking sun and Jack Johnson on my iPod, when I suddenly heard 50 people yelling my name (imagine the various Spanish, Swedish, French variations) - turns out I won arguably the best prize, a sleek new Olympus digital camera. Cool. I don't think I'll keep it, since it's not quite as good as my Sony beauty, but I'm going to try to take it back or return it in order to fund my likely next trip... Sverige! AKA Sweden. My friend Lina is involved with some big student festival in Uppsala and has nearly persuaded me to come; I'm looking into the logistics now. I'd like to perhaps voyage a bit more around Scandinavia, but I don't think we'll be quite done with classes by then... (though at least half of my finals will be finished within 10 days!)

A few photo highlights - more, as always, coming soon:

A 60% family reunion in Paris! The missing members sent Flat Stanley (the queer paper... thing... we're holding) in their stead. I was supposed to take Flat Stanley with me to Eastern Europe to help Sean with a class project about traveling, but I lost him somewhere along the way (like, back in my room).

A view from the 2 Alpes ski station that I've been frequenting the past few weeks.

Who said Europeans don't like Americans?

I obtained a much needed haircut and facial hair trim in Paris, along with several outfits of clothing - merci Mom!

This is the amphitheater on campus where the meeting is held each week to determine whether or not to continue the barricades. The votes have all been around 2/3 in favor of the blockage, 1/3 against.

London/derry rocked my world

2006-03-30T19:43:00.000+02:00

Derry, looking south from St. Eugene's Cathedral. Republicans call the city Derry, Unionists Londonderry, so outside the city you'll often see London/derry markers to appease everyone. I arrived Thursday afternoon and spent the rest of my time there, leaving Monday afternoon to head back to Belfast.

After finding a great B&B and dropping off my things, I started exploring the city, starting with the nearby Bogside, the famous Catholic neighborhood at the heart of the Troubles and the site of the Bloody sunday massacre in 1972. A couple of the famous murals commemorating the historic events. I think they're repainted each year.

The even-more famous "You are now entering Free Derry" concrete marker. Many of the IRA barricades were erected around this area.

A memorial celebrating the 1981 hunger strikers.

A Bloody Sunday memorial marker. I was rather surprised to discover that I shared the surname of two of the men killed.

Another mural.

I stepped inside the Free Derry Center and discovered these crosses carried every year in the annual Bloody Sunday march.

Graffiti!

An interesting placard on the side of a random building; I need to look up information on who Seamus Doherty is and what happened to him.

The Guildhall, the centerpiece of Guildhall Square and home to most of the St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

The city's cannons, pointing towards the River Foyle, on the best-preserved medieval fortifications in Europe.

Yes, I took this with the camera timer.

A glance from the walls west to the center of the fortifications, The Diamond. The street is much steeper than it appears and left me huffing after ever hike up... or that could have been thanks to the full English breakfast ("the full fry") that I had for five consecutive mornings. Mmm.

The Bogside: you can see Free Derry corner and a couple of the murals. This area is still heavily Catholic; my B&B was a little ways down from the church on the right side of the photo.

A view up the River Foyle.

I don't recall the name of this church (possibly St. Columb's Cathedral) but notice the yellow message board: "Only God can bring Peace."

The western section of the city walls, the Union Jack flies over the city courthouse, probably the only location (aside from The Fountain neighborhood) on the western side of the river where it can be displayed without being immediately attacked and burned.

A street running through The Fountain neighborhood, a tiny enclave home to perhaps 500 Protestants surrounded by tens of thousands of Catholics. There was palpable tension in the air...even before I walked through the area forgetting to take off my Celtic Football Club tri-color scarf (aka, essentially screaming "I am a Republican/Catholic"). I made it through without incident after explaining to the several youths who surrounded me that I was clearly a lost tourist, and an American one at that, and they kindly walked (or escorted?) me back inside the city walls. Note the red, white and blue street curbs - Union Jack colors (but also France and the Netherlands as my Catholic friends loved to joke).

Even the Unionists/Protestants don't like the police: "If pigs could fly, Strand Road police station would be an airport."

I didn't see many murals in The Fountain (probably because I was scared to death), but did notice this one, crowned with a "From pioneers to presidents" banner at the top.

The St. Patrick's Day Parade!

A view of the parade proceeding from the Diamond.

There was a concert going on at Guildhall Square, but I can't say that it was the best music I've ever heard... or even remotely close.

My friend Chris! We ended up talking in Peadar O'Donnell's bar Thursday night, commiserating over Guiness and salt and vinegar crisps about the packed conditions. Here we are on St. Patrick's Day, when he took me on a tour of a few of the better establishments in the city.

St. Patrick's Day was fun. Amazing fun. Here's the aftermath from one bar, The Gweedore, where we would watch the Celtic match on Sunday.

Peadar's! Usually stopped here once a day; a couple times they had great live music. I initially went to it because my oh-so trusty Rough Guide recommended it.

On Saturday, Chris and his wife asked if I wanted to drive with them up to the coast and to a remarkable area called the Bloody Foreland - I readily assented and hopped in their still-weird-and-having-a-hard-time-getting-used-to-right-hand-drive car and off we went. We stopped for a Kodak moment after about 40 minutes, but the sights only got better.

As we were walking around this bridge, two little girls came out and said hello to us. Because we were in the Gaeltacht (any area where Irish is spoken by more than 70 or 80% of the population), Chris spoke to them in Irish and was a bit disappointed when only one of them was able to respond, though I thought it was amazing.

Our first glimpse of the coast.

I can't explain how absolutely beautiful the blue water was... simply stunning.

We parked the car and headed down to one of the coolest beaches I've ever been on.

I was quite surprised at how big these mountains appeared, since I hadn't previously heard much about Irish mountains. We would later drive near one and it was a little more modest in person, but still remarkable.

The sand was like concrete; our shoes barely left footprints!

A charming self-portrait. I think I was going for the contemplative seaman look. Doubtless, I succeeded.

Ruth insisted I walk along the beach barefoot but after feeling the water temperature with my hand and threatening to push her in for the suggestion, she agreed to make reparations by taking my picture. (By now, all my friends in Grenoble and most of those I meet while traveling mock me incessantly with jeers of, "Dude, can you take my picture?" I don't know why they do it. I've only take 4,345 pictures since I arrived in Grenoble.)

A curious little hole. I'd really like to know what kind of creature could make a funny shape like this.

We played with this dog for a while. I think he had rabies, but we kept him at bay by playing catch with random sticks on the beach.

A spectacular naturally occurring phenomenon.

These boulders look small, but they were really enormous and you had to leap from one to another in order to enter or exit the beach.

More beautiful blue.

Can a picture be any more Irish?

Stone pastures.

The previous picture zoomed out a bit; the sunlight illuminating the houses but shading the pastures provides a neat effect.

I'm struggling to come up with synonyms for 'beautiful.'

Shooting road signs is apparently a hobby enjoyed in both rural Indiana and northern Ireland!

The tranquil countryside as we approach Mount Aragal.

Mom told me that pictures are nice, but they're much better if somebody's in them. Neither Ruth nor her friend Tracy liked being in pictures and Chris just laughed at me when I asked if he wanted to be in the pic, so I was the only available candidate.

I shot this from the moving car, but am starting to like it more and more.

An amazing glen.

I know these countryside pictures are a little dull, but I'm trying to illustrate the incredible diversity and profound beauty... in the land of my ancestors. (Actually, every Irishman seemed to be intimately acquainted with my family tree, easily able to describe the region of Scotland where we immigrated from, to the exact section of Ireland they arrived and the likely time they left for America.)

Chris held a dim view of people from Donnegal County, where we did much of our sight-seeing, and kept us laughing constantly with his stories and parodies of Donnegal residents. This, he explained, was a Donnegal limousine.

I don't recall the exact name of this area - salt land? - but it looks like something magical, out of Lord of the Rings.

For such a small country, the sights just stretch on and on.

I climbed up that rock out-crop, but found a better view just to the side.

Saturday night, I ran into a few Irish kids I'd befriended the night before (we all ended up sleeping at one of their estate homes Friday night and taking a taxi back to town) and we hung out again.

Strand Road police station looks like a fortress and is correspondingly guarded like one. I asked Chris why there were so few CCTV cameras in Derry compared to Belfast, where they seemed to proliferate on every street corner. "We just tear 'em down," he explained.

Chris and I in the Gweedore on Sunday, the day of the Celtic match. I don't recall their opponent, but most of their players were "stupid beasts" and "Quasimodos," so it was little surprise that the Celtics won 3-0.

Chris introduced me to several of his friends and fellow Celtic supporters - here's Donnal and "Coco," his son. Donnal and I talked politics for a while and he invited me to come back over the summer to spend a weekend camping and barbecuing with his family out in the countryside. He asked me my last name - and then asked, "Are you serious?" He called over his friends and family (his wife Margaret, older son and daughter were also all in the Gwee watching the game) and told me to repeat my last name. I did, and he was astounded, saying that was mother's maiden name. From then on he called me his cousin and insisted I come back to Ireland in August for an Irish wedding.

An IRA-loving band in an IRA-loving bar playing IRA-loving fight songs and other classics, like "We all live in a Catholic housing scheme" set to the tune of "Yellow Submarine." Whenever we discussed the IRA, Chris simply called it the "RA."

After the match, I went back to Peadar's since Chris had to go home to Ruth. After about four minutes of sitting at the bar, I got to talking to Danny, a 30-year-old taxi driver, and his two friends, Ralph and Sean. They all took a liking to me and we did a tour of their favorite bars and pubs, including the Castle Bar and The Rocking Chair, where I somehow ended up celebrating an Irish girl's 18th birthday party with her and her friends.

After they left, I stayed until 2am talking with a couple older Irish guys, including one who had worked in Brooklyn for twenty years. We drank Guinness and talked politics and they expressed the same views that I'd heard every other Catholic say over the course of my stay: they were so happy at the state of affairs and glad the peace process was still in effect, spat at the mention of Ian Paisley and expected to see a united Ireland in ten to fifteen years, "because too many good men have died for us not to have a country."

I was all out of pounds sterling at the end of the night and planned to walk home, but was admonished to take a taxi because the area was a bit dodgy. At first I refused to accept his money, but he threatened to kick my (you sit on it) if I didn't, so I smiled and thanked him, and he gave me his address and said if I ever wanted to come back to Derry and stay with him and his family, I was more than welcome.

Things I didn't take a picture of: the Hamas and Hezbollah headbands displayed behind the bar inside Peadar O'Donnell's, the Bush 9/11 Deception Dollar or the Boycott Israeli Goods sign. The Northern Irish feel an incredible kinship with any oppressed or occupied people, as well as charismatic revolutionaries like Che Guevara, and display their affection adamantly and openly.

This video quality is crap, but the sound should be OK - a view from inside the Gwee:

Dailymotion blogged video

Bienvenue a Belfast

2006-03-28T18:16:00.000+02:00

I have a TON of pictures from Ireland to post and have only begun whittling them down. Here's ten of the most interesting ones from Belfast, the Northern Ireland capital where I arrived Wednesday night... and then quickly left Thursday afternoon following several hours of traversing the rather industrial city in rapidly falling snow and sleet.

Queens University in Belfast - I left my hostel and walked to the Botanic Gardens (no pictures, although it was interesting nothing was in bloom) just as all the students were heading to class. Interesting revelation: they look... just like... us!

The "austere" Belfast City Hall (I liked it).

I really wanted to scale this clocktower, because apparently it gives a great view over the city and you can even see the two shipyard cranes (Samson and Goliath, 2nd and 3rd largest in the world) that built the Titanic - but strangely, it was closed.

I don't know what it was about the Emerald Isle, but I was quite often in an artistic mood, and both the city and countryside readily lent themselves to my demands.

The first - and definitely not the last - piece of graffiti I saw. I took many pictures in various neighborhoods, but there were a few in Belfast and one or two in Derry where I simply did not feel safe at all, so I stuffed my camera in my pocket and hurried on.

St. Anne's Cathedral.

Exterior shot of the church and some interesting public art; Belfast was quite an artsy city and I saw several more very interesting installations.

Bi-lingual signs! Gasp!

It's not part of the Peace Line, but this wall looks a little more aesthetic!

Another fascinating old building? Nope, look closer -- it's a shopping mall.

I'll post scores more from Derry and the Bloody Foreland as soon as I can!

CPE: Crazy Protest Environment

2006-03-28T17:15:00.000+02:00

Check this video out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6V5ESRxSWw - that's Place Verdun, downtown, last Thursday. I had to go there today to receive my titre de sejour, the residency permit that lets me legally stay in France (initial request made, oh, five months ago). There was a big police presence and the ones guarding the entrance were visibly jumpy so I walked slowly and held out my American passport as I approached. Waved through. Whew. After receiving it, I went to the CAF, the government entity that distributes housing assistance, but, of course, they were on strike today. I walked through the Grenoble demonstration this morning and took a few pictures and videos - it was quite an incredible, festive atmosphere. I'd estimate at least 6,000 people were out in the street.

I just got off the phone with a friend and she said there were more police-protestor battles downtown this afternoon at Place Victor Hugo, normally a tranquil square full of trees, park benches and a fountain. Apparently protestors attacked police vans and the police responded with heavy volleys of tear gas.

Foreign-student-only classes will resume tomorrow. I have two of those. My five other classes contain French students, so they're still suspended. Students vote again tomorrow morning about continuing the bloquage. The previous vote was last Friday; 2000 voted in favor of continuing the barricades, 1000 against. The government's not budging on the law and the unions and students just keep getting angrier and angrier, so there's no immediate resolution in sight.

The Fantastic Hautes-Alpes

2006-03-25T12:04:00.000+01:00

I really wish I knew exactly where we went on the snowshoe weekend, but it was a tiny refuge tucked away in the Hautes-Alpes département, about an hour and a half away from Grenoble. There was a fierce snowstorm when we arrived, so after descending from the bus we had to ready ourselves in a steady fall of snow and swirling wind. After putting on our snowshoes we began a two-hour hike to our refuge, several kilometers away. Along the way a friendly dog began to trail and play with us.

All bundled up!

A few mules congregating to brave the fierce conditions together.

Visibility is a bit restricted, but this should hopefully convey, just a little, how remarkable the scenery was.

After dropping off our sleeping bags and backpacks at the refuge, we began a four or five hour trek into the snowy wilderness, forging new trails and pretty much climbing up and down anything that had snow on it. The conditions were absolutely perfect because it wasn't too cold and the snow was so pleasantly packed, we had hours of snowball fights. There was at least six to eight feet of snow because we often spotted the tops of pine trees poking up by our feet.

More beautiful scenery.

The excursion was organized by an international student group called IntEGre (International Etudiants Grenoble) and the French guys in charge are a ton of fun.

From dust to dust, snow to snow.

The only way to reach the refuge was through a narrow valley opening.

A precarious descent; the slope is nearly vertical and some found it easier to simply leap off the edge and plop into the fluffy snow.

There are many ways to traverse a creek.

Saturday night, the IntEGre crew put on a skit demonstrating the preparation of gratin dauphinois, a delicious regional specialty involving sliced potatoes and melted cheese.

The sky on Sunday was absolutely gorgeous, but the temperature had dropped a little, resulting in fiercer wind and unfortunately harder snow.

Some of that fierce wind.

We discovered monumental natural works of art. That's supposed to be a Zach, but apparently those less schooled in high art study envision Rach, an interpretation clearly not intended by the gifted artist.

I LOVE MY CAMERA.

On Sunday afternoon we descended to our bus rendezvous and prepared ourselves to re-enter a world without snow, 5am parties, gluttonous meals and 24/7 fun. Actually, that seems to fairly accurately describe our destination, too.

Bloquage

2006-03-24T16:53:00.000+01:00

Here's a look at what the term "university blockades" actually means.

I'm not enrolled in any classes at this university, but it's on my walk to school and often has the most interesting barricades, along with interesting people standing outside, friendly and eager to discuss.

The political science building (Institut d'Etudes Politiques) is blockaded by, creatively, an uprooted tree, construction barriers and chain-link fences.

Here's Stendhal, the university where I take my French classes. Anyone need a shopping cart?

Vienna had such amazing sausages and apfelstrudel

2006-03-24T16:31:00.000+01:00

We took a brutal train from Ljubljana to Vienna. "Brutal," you ask? Brutal: it departed at 11:45pm, we were only in regular cars, not sleepers, it changed at 4:10am in Salzburg and finally arrived at 8:15am in Vienna. Ahh. We found a pleasant hostel a little outside of the city center and after dropping of our bags, went to explore! The first notable monument we crossed was the Soviet War Memorial. Unfortunately, nobody in the group could read Cyrillic, so we were out of luck for reading the inscription at the base of the statue.

This year celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the famous Austrian composer who spent many of his most productive years in Vienna and is consequently highly celebrated in the city!

The view in front of the memorial and the beginning of a trend: an enormous Viennese street with enormous buildings.

Some rich playboy posing in front of his Oberes Belvedere Palace.

The Belvedere actually contains two palaces: Oberes and Unteres; here you can see the gardens leading up to the latter, slightly less impressive palace.

In Karlsplatz, the Kalskirche Church, "one of the city's finest Baroque churches; a huge Italianate dome with a Neoclassical portico, flanked by two giant pillars."

My Rough Guide suggested trying to find a nearby "gilded cabbage" and I do believe we found it, atop the Secession building, formerly the home of Vienna's Art Nouveau movement.

An impressive building in the city center, preparing us for bigger and grander things to come...

...like the "hoary Gothic bulk" of Stephansdom, quite possibly the most commercialized church I've ever been in. Also, hmm, it looks like another church is undergoing renovation. Grr.

You could almost hear the jingling of coin and picturing money changers in the nave was easy, but we were still able to appreciate the impressive interior and its soaring ceilings.

Despite the exterior construction work and a caution that the tower offered only "50%" visibility due to the scaffolding, we scaled 334 steps to the top and peered out over Vienna.

Near Stephansplatz.

While touring the church, we met a nice Austrian girl and her Spanish consort and walked to the Hofburg - "Hofburg Imperial Palace is a palace in Vienna, Austria, which has housed some of the most powerful people in Austrian history, including the Habsburg dynasty, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and currently serves as the official residence of the President of Austria" - an absolutely monumental complex. Before we would arrive, though, we had to walk through some interesting side streets.

Unfortunately pictures can't quite convey the enormous scale of the dozens of enormous statues and squares scattered throughout Vienna, but believe me, they're HUGE.

A glimpse of Rathaus, the Vienna City Hall.

The front facade of the Hofburg.

Opposite the Hofburg is another massive statue and open plaza.

West of the Hofburg, in Maria-Theresien-Platz, are the Kunsthistorisches (Museum of Art History, pictured here) and Naturhistorisches (Natural History) museums - two identical palace-like buildings too big to fit in one photo. If you want to know what the whole square looked like, imagine the same building you same here with a twin 100 meters directly opposite, with a gigantic statue "depicting Empress Marie-Theresa of Austro-Hungaria, namesake of the square."

A glance back across the Ringstrasse (the large avenue that circumscribes Vienna's hyper-center).

Friday evening, we hopped on the easily navigable U-Bahn metro to Prater, east of the city, in hopes of riding the famous Riesenrad Ferris wheel but found it unpleasantly expensive so we decided to find more affordable amusement...

I don't know how you win at bumper cars, but I'm sure I did.

A better view of Rathaus, the city hall located in Rathausplatz, "the Ringstrasse's showpiece sqaure, framed by four monumental public buildings."

Here's monumental public building #2, the Burgtheater.

#3 is the University.

The fourth and final member of the Rathausplatz is my favorite, the Parliament building.

I wish I knew what this building was, but there were so many spectacular ones it became hard to distinguish them on my map!

We took advantage of free admission Saturday and all went to the MAK, Vienna's celebrated contemporary art museum. Some of us were sillier than others.

Later on Saturday, we wandered the city further but the continuing snow flurries forced us to take a few minutes of refuge inside the dark but interesting Jesuitenkirche. The snow didn't let up, so we went to see The New World at an English theater. It was a good movie, but the theater experience left a little to be desired. We had to buy specific seats, like at a sporting event, and the prices were tiered so that the ones farthest from the screen were the most expensive. We opted for the fifth row (still $9.84 with a student discount!) upon a recommendation from the box office, only to find out that there was a giant STEEL HANDRAIL obscuring part of the screen. Grr.

On Sunday morning we headed to the Museikverin for an 11am appointment with the Viennese Philharmonic Orchestra and special guest, famous Chinese pianist Lang Lang. Here was our view of one of the best concerts I've ever enjoyed. Absolutely fantastic.

The exterior of the Museikverein, "considered to be one of the three finest concert halls in the world, along with Boston's Symphony Hall and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw."

We spent a bit more time in Vienna before hopping another train back to Budapest, arriving late Sunday night. Ben and Stephanie were exhausted and headed back to the hostel after walking around the city for a bit, but after a bit of success at the casino (and four free espressos) Rachel and I continued to explore the Budapest streets, in search of allegedly the most amazing bar in Eastern Europe, according to a friend we'd made in Slovenia. Finding it was like a treasure hunt, since the only directions we were given was a circle on our torn, crinkled city map and advice to "look for the black door." After a weary 90 minute search, with brief rest-stops in other interesting cafes and nightspots, we found the black door. The closed black door.

We headed back to the hostel and stayed up talking for an hour before realizing it was 6am... and that we had to get up at 7am to get ready for our flight back to Geneva, so we stayed awake the whole time and whispered loudly while trying to stifle laughter and avoid waking up the 8 Spanish sharing our room. We were absolutely knackered and I fell asleep while standing up on the subway out to the airport, but the trip was deemed an enormous success.

Ireland, Jack Johnson and Blockades

2006-03-24T13:16:00.000+01:00

I ended up going to Ireland and having one of the best weeks of my life. Amazing how that works out. I was still undecided until the very last minute and remember secretly hoping that the demonstrators occupying the train station would storm the tracks and prevent my train to Geneva from leaving. Alas, they stopped short of the police and just yelled things, so I took the train and I took the flight and... it was awesome.

Tuesday night, Stephanie told Rachel and I that there would be a Jack Johnson concert in Zurich... Wednesday night. We decided to go, despite not having tickets or knowing anything about the city, including where we would sleep. Funnily, that ended up working, too.

The university blockades continue. There's a high-level government meeting this afternoon and much of what'll happen in the future weeks hinges upon its outcome. Nobody knows what will happen and nobody wants the semester to be extended into May or June, but that's apparently one of the options being considered.

I have pictures to post from all three of the above events, along with ones from the snowshoe weekend and Vienna, the last destination on our big tour a few weeks ago. I'll try to put them up as soon as I can!

This should be an Olympic sport

2006-03-15T14:15:00.000+01:00

I still need to post pictures from Vienna, but in the meantime, I'm going to test putting a video on here. Let me know if you can't see it. This is from the past weekend when we went on a snowshoe expedition in the Hautes-Alpes.

Dailymotion blogged video

Zagreb and Ljubljana (look them up on a map)

2006-03-15T13:08:00.000+01:00

We arrived in Zagreb at 11pm and managed to jump on the last tram of the night - fortunate, because our hostel was several kilometers away from the city and there's no way we would've possibly found it without the help of some friendly Croatians. We neglected to eat dinner before the 6 hour train ride from Budapest so our stomachs were growling by the time we arrived... to find that everything was completely closed. To make matters worse, our hostel was next door to a delicious-smelling Kras chocolate factory that tortured us with pleasant odors all night long.

The Tomislavov Square directly in front of the train station.

The Croatian National Bank.

Unfortunately, we traveled during the peak of many cities' reconstruction/renovation phase - Zagreb City Cathedral is enjoying a bit of a makeover here.

I really wanted to walk along the old city fortifications but we couldn't figure out how to get up on them.

The bustling city market. We accidentally bought 1.5 kilos of grapes and spent the rest of the day in vain trying to finish them.

The lovely Church of St. Mark had a bleak interior, but I liked the roof's mosaics. The Croatian crest is to the left; note the Islamic crescent and Star of David in the city crest to the right.

Zagreb!

Tuesday evening, we dined at a rather posh restaurant and feasted on huge plates of sausages... they made running to our train to Ljubljana rather difficult, but we made it with the usual 3 minutes to spare. The rush to the train station (and the frantic postcard writing along the way) made me forget the tragic lack of BUTTER in the restaurant. There was otherwise delicious bread, but despite three or four requests, the staff insisted that they had no butter available. Argh.

We arrived in Ljubljana on the last night of Carnaval and I'll only say that, wow, the Slovenians know how to celebrate. Our hostel was a former military prison, located in a former army barracks complex now transformed into a burgeoning alternative arts district. The Rough Guide description: "Ljubljana's alternative cultural Mecca, consisting of a cosmopolitan cluster of clubs and bars (collectively entitled Metelkova)." We toured a few different bars and settled on one that seemed to really attract the best in costume design...

...like Fridge Man! This guy was American and had been living (and loving, he said) Ljubljana for the past five years. He distributed various goodies from the fridge all night and they were remarkably cold; he said he'd put them in his freezer for a few hours before the party!

The third person from the left is a fun Australian we met in the hostel; the young guy next to me is French, I think. They were absolutely everywhere in Eastern Europe and we kept running into them! The older gentleman in the center is a good-humored German who was also apparently touring Eastern Europe. Stephanie speaks a little German and once he learned that, he wouldn't stop talking. In German. The only thing the rest of us understood was 'schissen.'

A glance across the canal-like River Ljubljana in the city center.

We were quite bemused by this interesting facade on the Parliament building. Let me know if you can find the NAKED MAN WIELDING A CHAINSAW. Those crazy Slovenians.

Somehow, I was convinced to try a horseburger. Yes. A horseburger. Yes, it contains what you think it contains. I was only able to choke down two bites before I had to stop because the rest of the group kept talking about eating horses and I couldn't shake the mental image of Mr. Ed asking, "Awww, Wilbur, why are you letting him eat me?"

We marched up a treacherously slippery and icy path to the city castle, "originally a twelfth-century construction but whose prsent appearance dates from the sixteenth-century following the earthquake of 1511."

Further climbing granted us this remarkable view over the castle courtyard, the city and a glimpse of the Austrian Alps to the north.

The winding staircase we took to the top of the tower!

We were granted a 3D presentation of the castle and city history with our admission tickets... and all of us fell asleep during the 20-minute show. I didn't know narcolepsy was contagious.

There's something growing on my face.

Back down in the city, we explored St Nicholas' Cathedral... the door handle has been so worn away, it gleams!

A glance down Mestni Street reveals some very nice boutiques and some even better cafes, including one with...

...one of the best muffin and cake combinations I've ever tasted. However, it paled in comparison to...

...the sizzling bowl of liquid chocolate Rachel ordered. After it arrived, we all stared enviously, refusing to wipe the drool from our faces until she generously offered us a few tastes. I had to physically restrain myself from plunging my face in the bowl.

The Dragon Bridge, guarded by... dragons.

A portion of the Metelkova Mesto (the former army barracks, now alternative cultural mecca, I mentioned).

There was some fairly impressive - if unconventional - art.

This was perhaps one of my favorite pieces in the complex.

Posing in front of the compound entrance. Note the snow. It followed us everywhere!

...even to Bled, a picturesque little town 50 kilometers north of Ljubljana. We took a bus there Thursday afternoon and walked around Lake Bled until we worked up the resolve required to mount the ascent to Bled Castle.

First, we constructed Fred, an anatomically correct snowman.

Then, we climbed. And climbed. And climbed. And stopped for pictures. And climbed.

At the top, we discovered a friendly monk - Rachel and I paid $6 each for an amazing press print of our names, the date and a superb illustration of the castle.

A last glance back at the island and its "Baroque-decorated Church of Sv Marika Bozja."

The Jewel of the Danube

2006-03-14T20:06:00.000+01:00

We successfully navigated the metro to the city center and spent some time trying to find hostels before giving up and heading to the tourist information office. We chose to stay at a quiet but centrally located hostel called the Red Bus. Our first stop after checking in and dropping our bags off was the monumental nearby St. Stephen's Basilica.

It had a fantastic interior and an even more interesting exhibit tucked away in a side chapel...

...the right hand of St. Stephen! Yes. The hand. It's inside the ornamental box, gnarled and shriveled like a shrunken monkey head.

Every street in Budapest screamed with contradiction. Looking west from one avenue, we have this modern building.

And looking east, something a bit more classic.

Fantastic statues decorated many of the arches along the epic Andrassy Utca boulevard, a 2.5 kilometer stretch of many of Budapest's finest buildings.

The Hungarian State Opera House. We explored the interior, hoping to buy tickets for an event Saturday night, but a massive white-tie ball was already scheduled and the $360 USD price tag was a bit too much for our budget.

Interesting street art near some other opera houses off Andrassy.

Crossing the Chain Bridge on our way to explore Buda. (Budapest is the unified entity of two cities, Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube River.) Behind us is the Buda Palace.

A particularly interesting looking tunnel.

A cloudy Budapest evening viewed from Castle Hill.

Look at all those spires. The large building near the middle of the picture is Parliament... we'd explore it a couple days later.

Night had set as we readied to return across the Chain Bridge.

A glance back revealed the illuminated Fisherman's Bastion, a fantastic "white rampart with cloisters and seven turrets" that we'd also later investigate further.

An interesting set of iron chimes in Deak Ter. We weren't sure if we should play with it at 11pm, so we did the safe thing and crashed them into each other as hard as we could.

Another Hungarian contradiction: a rubbish pile on Vaci Utca, a posh shopping street laden with Gucci and Louis Vitton stores. Note the red carpet. We continued to wander the city at night and were stunned to discover enormous piles of rubbish every 30 or 40 meters, just stacked on sidewalks and pedestrian streets. It was an utterly bizarre, incredible sight that kept us baffled the entire evening. Some piles were free-for-alls, others were overseen by large, burly fellows haggling prices with stooped, elderly ladies. More than once we saw 75-year-old women hobbling along the metro with antique chairs or tables on their backs. BIZARRE. Even weirder, though... the next morning, every single pile had vanished, without a trace. The Budapest Public Services Department really impressed us. There were four garbage trucks on our small hostel street alone. As soon as it began to snow, huge teams of city workers appeared instantly, shoveling and laying down salt.

We took some coffee and cake in the classic Central Coffee House, "restored to its former glory." The ceiling was REALLY high. Ben was pouting because he was jealous of the delicious spaghetti I ordered.

Our hostel courtyard at night...

...and in the snowy morning. (Every morning was snowy.)

The touristy, but still enjoyable Raday Utca street.

We weren't able to figure out what this sign meant.

Early Saturday we went to the market, a gigantic affair housed inside this deceptively large building.

Next door was the Economics University where our French friend Sam "studied" for six months.

Unfortunately, the market was fearfully touristic, though it was still fun to walk up and down the long aisles. Almost every other stand was a butcher shop.

The Hungarian National Museum.

The main Jewish Synagogue was just a block from our hostel; we toured it the next day, Sunday.

We took the metro up to the Szechenyi baths, "one of Europe's largest spa complexes." We spent four hours wallowing in the baths; our favorite time was spent in the outdoor bath, like a giant hot tub, as the snow fell and steam swirled all around. We'd often lose sight of each other and have to take care not to bump into the old, fat Hungarian men also lounging in the bath. Rachel and I each paid $11 for a massage; mine started out comfortably but I think the Hungarian masseuse tried a little too fervently to relieve some of the tension in my back - it was red and a bit tender for hours afterwards. After we left the baths, we wandered around Varosliget City Park and explored the Vajdahunyad Castle.

Perhaps my favorite statue in Budapest.

As we walked back to the city, we inspected the Millenium Monument, a spectacular feature dedicated to Hungary's finest heroes.

I neglected to mention earlier... while we were at the Hungarian State Opera House Friday, we learned of an opera Saturday night at the Erkel Theatre, the second house of the Hungarian state opera, and bought tickets for $10 each for "Il Trovatore" - The Troubadour. We went straight to the opera after splashing in the baths and thoroughly enjoyed the excellent 2h50 minute performance.

I only fell asleep for 6 minutes in the final act.

The next day we picked up Stephanie at Kobanya-Kispet and went to the Dohany Street synagogue after dropping her bags off at the hostel. It was ornamentally decorated and, we were told, the largest functioning synagogue in Europe.

The Jewish three-dimensional representation of God.

In the syangogue courtyard was a Holocaust memorial: an inverted menorah/weeping willow with thousands of metal tags inscribed with the names of Hungarian Jewish victims.

Nearby was another memorial, in stained glass: a coiled serpent rising out of flames. The empty panes around the glass represent the Jews who were cremated in the Holocaust, since Jewish law mandates the body be buried.

Another serene looking courtyard.

This is a bit out of order, but here's an exterior picture of Szechenyi baths complex.

Singing in the rain!

Perhaps the most interesting ice skating location I've seen.

Flickering candles line the wall of the House of Terror, the best museum I've ever been to. It studied the tragic fate of Hungary in the 20th century; first under fascism during World War II and then under 40 years of communism. Even the very structure of the building was part of the museum: it's the former headquarters of both the fascist regime as well as the secret police who terrorized the population for four decades. It was intense, modern and haunting. Most of the exhibits were in Hungarian, but written English translations were available and by the end of our 1h45 minute tour (rushed, actually, because it's normally supposed to take 2.5 hours) we'd collected a hefty 30 sheets of paper. Perhaps the most chilling part of the museum was the very last exhibit, entitled "Collaborators," a wall listing the Hungarians who aided the fascists or communists, along with their names and birth dates. Many of them are still alive.

St. Stephen's at night.

Comparing shoe sizes: Rachel's, mine, Stephanie's, Ben's. Yes, mine is the big foot. The Bigfoot.

An interesting warning inside our hostel.

We discovered this frightening War of the Worlds-like device lurking near our hostel. I advised calling in a military airstrike (until further inspection revealed a "Traffic Camera" label on the back).

Leading Hungary forward!

The back of Parliament.

The slightly more picturesque reverse side of Parliament, facing the Danube.

A glance across the river to the Fisherman's Bastion and Matthias Church.

Faithful public transportation.

The Fisherman's Bastion up close.

The nearby Matthias Church.

Inside the Bastion, St. Stephen's peeking through.

I think I lost that headband in Budapest.

King of the... Bastion.

I can't tell which one's scarier.

At 4:30pm Monday, we headed to Keleti train station, our departure point for... Zagreb, Croatia. An hour into the six-hour trip, we realized we'd purchased round-trip tickets, instead of one-way tickets, and were instantly upset at ourselves and the ticket counter woman for foisting higher expenses on us. Upon our return to Budapest a week later, though, we'd sheepishly discover that the round-trip tickets were, bizarrely, cheaper than one-way travel. Another Hungarian contradiction.

Fifty-five

2006-03-13T16:45:00.000+01:00

I'm trying to make a post with 55 pictures of Budapest, mummified hands, Turkish baths, Holocaust memorials and monuments to fishermen, but technical difficulties are crippling the process.

This past weekend Rachel, Jenny and I went on a snowshoe weekend with somewhere in the Hautes-Alpes with IntEGre, an international student group. It was a long bus ride away, and a long hike up a cold, windy path to our mountain refuge, but we had a great time and enjoyed some amazing scenery which I'll be sure to share as soon as my computer starts cooperating.

I fear I'm going to have to cancel my Ireland plans - it's turning out be a logistical nightmare and the dire lack of guaranteed lodging further compounds my doubt about making a relatively hassle-free trip. I'll just have to stay in Grenoble and console myself with the annual jazz festival and snowboarding. Sigh. Compromises.

Everything's better when she's around

2006-03-09T16:56:00.000+01:00

Rachel, Ben and I left Grenoble the afternoon of Thursday, February 23. We took a train to Geneva and met up with another friend, Stephanie, who would be joining us in Budapest a couple days later. We went to a hostel (the same I stayed at back in October, actually) and I went to sleep while they went out for Chinese food. I had woken up that morning not feeling well and my condition had gradually worsened throughout the day. By 10pm I had a horrible cough, general discomfort and a creeping headache. Sleep beckoned, especially since we had to wake up at 6:45am to take a train to Geneva airport in order to catch our 9am flight to Budapest. Things went flawlessly and I chuckled to myself as Rachel and Ben had to check their large bags, while I snuck mine past the check-in woman's watchful eye. Rachel and I brought massive backpacks, but this was Ben's maiden voyage so he was only equipped with a small rolling suitcase, a constant joke throughout the trip.

Still feeling poorly, I slept most of the flight and woke up just before landing in Budapest. We disembarked and walked across the runway (typical easyJet procedure; in order to cut costs and increase turn-around time, they rarely pull up to jetways) and it struck me - I WAS IN HUNGARY. The passport control line took ten minutes and followed the standard glance-flip-scan-stamp routine. We grabbed Rachel and Ben's bags from the luggage belt, walked past the shady taxi drivers, and searched out the airport transport bus (amusingly named the REPTERBUSZ; as soon as we saw it we laughed and started growling and acting like raptors) to the metro station. We each bought two transport tickets, anticipating needing to use one for the bus, but no one else was validating theirs so we just pocketed them and hopped aboard. Ferengy Airport is fairly modern, but the remnants of the past were instantly visible as soon as we boarded the Soviet-era bus and drove to the station. Narrow ramshackle houses slept in the shadow of Ford billboards as brand-new Audi A8L's aggressively overtook ancient Peugeots and random Hungarian brands. There were no street signs and no bus stop markings and the bus driver didn't speak English, so we sat on the bus until we arrived at our fairly obvious destination, Kobanya-Kispet metro station.

We walked off, the bus left and we stared at each other while old Hungarians milled around lottery outlets, pastry shops and more mobile phone accessory stores than we could count. What now? Earlier I had consulted my faithful Rough Guide to Europe and knew we wanted to take the metro to the city center, Deak Ter, so we walked into the bustling station and found a city map. Aha. The Deak Ter stop was along the blue line and since we were at the terminus, Kobanya-Kispet, it was obvious there was only one platform to choose from and we simply had to hop aboard. We validated our tickets, walked onto a tram with "CCCP Fabricated 1973" markings and rumbled into Budapest.

Little did we know that the snows would soon arrive...

I have to run back to the dorm to grab a snack before my 6pm basketball game, but hopefully I'll be able to update more tonight or tomorrow (after the obligatory Friday snowboarding session, of course).

The Torino Peregrination

2006-03-09T14:23:00.000+01:00

Torino is an excellent city. It was fun, delicious, vibrant and even without the Olympics would be an exciting place to visit. I went with three friends (Matthias, Jenny and Johanna) in Matthias' Opel station wagon. Oh yeah. We left Sunday morning and returned to Grenoble late Monday night. We ate like kings, slept little, toured the city on foot and by car, saw tons of sights, shuddered with cold in the constant snow and rain, went to two Olympic events and loved every moment of the entire trip. I wish I could share the entire experience, but the usual Japanese tourist artifacts will have to suffice:

We drove along some treacherous mountain roads on the way to Torino. This picture was actually taken at the height of visibility. Shortly after the road was closed and we sat for thirty minutes before the swirling winds had died down. Matthias had snow chains for his tires, but luckily we didn't have to use them.

The first Torino toilet I encountered was in the media relations complex and I remain perplexed as to why it was equipped with midget-size shower facilities.

Jenny, Matthias and I posing along a tourist boulevard shortly after arriving. We're still in high spirits, because the rain and snow haven't come, we haven't spent an ungodly amount on event tickets and we haven't had to spend the night in the back of Matthias' car. Fortunately, I'm kidding - the snow made the city even more attractive and the tickets weren't that pricey and were certainly worth the price. But four people in the back of a very European car... whew. It was cramped, to say the least.

The weather was quite nice... for a bit. Then the rain arrived. The snow would follow shortly.

The official Olympic mascots were Neve and Gliz, two Teletubby mutants created by a Portugese designer, expressing the Olympic values of "participation, loyalty, respect and brotherhood." I think he succeeded with three of the four; it was the 'respect' aspect that was a little difficult to imagine.

Speed skating was a ton of fun to watch and though the skaters were racing against the clock, not directly each other, there was always an exciting element of competition, especially since they were whipping around the track at shocking speeds.

We had great seats near the starting line, directly behind some very vocal Chinese (not sure if they were skate coaches or from another sport).

This fellow was an obnoxious Chinese diplomat or businessman. He acted like a madman but finally settled down after receiving several glares from his fellow spectators, including a particularly icy one from the Russian coach seated next to us (an actually friendly man who gave us a couple unopened fruit juice drinks before he left midway through the event to go talk to his team).

There was a huge Dutch contingent and they often broke out into the Dutch national anthem and various fight songs throughout the event.

...and they went berserk after the Dutch skater won gold. Flowers and scarves were thrown out onto the ice as they applauded. And applauded. And applauded.

The Olympic decorations really made Torino attractive at night; these glittering constellations highlighted one of the main city boulevards.

A typical Italian intersection, with three different cars going in three different directions at the same exact time. At high speeds. In snowy slush.

We were a little concerned about finding somewhere to eat late Sunday night, but fortunately discovered a delicious and affordable Chinese restaurant in the suburbs. We had two bottles of wine, four plates each and a great dessert for about $10 or $12.

The restaurant was nearly empty and I think the proprietor enjoyed our company, because after we'd paid the check he brought out four ceramic shot glasses and this bottle (in a much fuller state than pictured here). Without saying anything, he set it down, smiled, bowed and walked away. We were slightly confused, but after reading the label, resolved to try this "remarkable beverage with fragrant flavor helps digestion renders you happiness and refreshment." Yum. Without intending to, we finished the bottle -- and as walked out began to worry that perhaps we had been impolite for taking too much. The owner saw our concern and warmly beckoned us over to the bar where we politely declined his offers for further rounds. More proof of Torino's wonderful hospitality.

Another fusion of old and new.

Monday morning, we found a popular local cafe and discussed the day's plans over delicious espressos, cappucinos and sugary croissants (infinitely better than French croissants).

While eating, we found a menu offering some exotic chocolate concoctions. I can't remember what I ordered, but it was like fantastic hot chocolate pudding.

Some interesting street art near the university.

I found it interesting but the Swedish girls really disliked the Mole Antonelliana, home to Italy's National Cinema Museum. We wanted to visit the Museuo Egizio, the best Egyptian museum in the world after Cairo, but all of the city museums were closed on Monday.

Castello Ducale Di Aglie in Piazza Castello, site of the Olympics Medals Plaza.

We visited the Duomo and saw a replication of the (in)famous Shroud of Turin, a piece of cloth supposedly bearing the image of Christ. It's rarely displayed in public, but we were able to see the container housing it. Ooh.

Piazza San Carlo; the NBC Morning Show stage is setup to the left. Matt and Katie were working on a show and surrounded by quite a few strangely devoted fans.

A picturesque peek into a random Torino courtyard.

The most delicious pizza I've ever had in my life, bar none. I was initially skeptical of the establishment, since they specialized in kebabs, but I was so pleasantly surprised by my pizza... my mouth is still watering now, remembering its rich flavor, potent pepperoni and crunchy crust. Mmm.

A better picture of Neve/Gliz. Maybe it's Gliz/Neve. I'm fairly certain they're interchangeable.

Watching men's freestyle aerial qualifications in Oulx with Johanna, Jenny, Matthias and I, and our collective friend, the ugly, obtrusive and always cold metal railing.

Clyde Getty (American, but representing Argentina) totally blew his jump and landing. He flopped into the snow and lost both his skis, but still ran down the slope and saluted the wildly cheering crowd.

I should be in class right now

2006-03-08T12:05:00.000+01:00

I returned to Grenoble from Eastern Europe Monday night. Pictures and details forthcoming, but suffice to say it was an awesome whirlwind tour: Geneva->Budapest->Zagreb->Ljubljana->Bled->Vienna->Budapest in about 10 days. I received no fewer than 7 stamps in my passport. Meanwhile, in Grenoble...

There was another large strike yesterday (information here:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/07/news/france.php), with large demonstrations and protests across France as students and unions protested a new government temporary employment plan called the CPE. I went to the university for my usual 8:30am class and... it was blockaded. There were construction barriers placed across every entrance, some secured to the doors with padlocks, others fastened to chain-link fences. It felt like I was in a zombie movie, wandering around a barricaded complex (but unlike the movies, it was safer to be on the outside than inside). A couple hundred students milled around and occasionally glanced at the student union leader as he ranted through a megaphone urging people to head downtown for a late-morning march. Determined to be a diligent student, I circled the building in search of an entrance, but every single one was securely closed. Darn.

The university was blockaded again this morning, but I found an open door and went to my French grammar class. (I debated not going, but decided to tough it out... a wise decision, since we ended up having our midterm exam as scheduled.) Halfway through my second class, five female students opened the door and loudly announced that a decision had been made to prolong the strike, the university would be blockaded shortly and if we could all kindly leave, it would be for the best. The professor loved every moment of it and told us that in light of the new events and out of concern for our safety, he would cancel the rest of the class and postpone the midterm until next week. Darn.

Allez St. Eynard

2006-02-23T15:24:00.000+01:00

I think this might be part of the village of St. Eynard, tucked away in the mountains (but it's only about 30 minutes from Grenoble). We began our hour-long trek here.

Well, we would begin it soon.

As soon as I pushed Tarek into the snow (honestly, he pushed me first).

We climbed and hiked and climbed and then suddenly over the crest of a slope, we saw... this. Breathtaking.

The city of Grenoble (and a few others, like Meylan, St Martin d'Heres, Gieres, Echirolles, Coroc). This is where I live!

And this is me, sporting an oh-so sexy headband and weeks of unshaven scruff.

A mysterious cave we investigated. Inside, we found loads of icicles and thus had to...

Play pirates!

I played a very wild-eyed pirate.

The crew, L-R: Matthias, Ben, Tarek, moi, Rachel, Antonio and Francesco. Yes, everyone is pretty much from the country that their name sounds like.

Happy Birthday Jin

2006-02-22T13:56:00.000+01:00

My friend Jin, playing it cool after certain people who will remain nameless conspired to throw his birthday cake in his face as soon as he finished blowing out the candles.

All was well, though, especially after he started opening his presents - the best one was definitely the Allen Iverson jersey.

One of the people in this picture is different from all the others. Can you spot which one?

After Jin's party, we headed to another dorm for, yes, another party. A shopping cart (they're everywhere, honestly, it's so bizarre; they're like portable urban ornaments) was enlisted to transport the extra supplies, but Rachel slowed down the progress by leaping aboard. Her hijack attempt was foiled, though, and we soon proceeded.

Along the way we came across this amazing sight. If you've ever wondered how many Spaniards can fit in one car, count the number of figures in this picture...

...and this one.

Rachel, Tarek and I went back to my room around 3:30am to relax and chat. We were going to eat chocolate and watch a movie, but something happened.

Yes, I fell asleep. The next morning they told me that I simply nodded off in the middle of talking and showing pictures. I have no idea how I could have possibly comfortably slept like this. I moved to my bed sometime in the night, but my left leg was sore for a few hours after I woke up.

Le temps passe trop vite

2006-02-21T18:54:00.000+01:00

I'm living in an alternate universe where I'm guaranteed to have the most fun of my life, but the catch is that time passes ten times as fast as normal. Last Friday evening was a fantastic birthday party for my Korean friend Jin. On Saturday afternoon I went hiking with several people from my dorm. Early Sunday morning, Matthias, Jenny, Johanna and I went to Torino and loved every moment. Yes, we saw not one, but two Olympic events. Yes, it was incredible. We got back to Grenoble a little after midnight Tuesday morning. I made it through my classes and am now getting ready for the weekly trip to Le Tord Boyaux. Tomorrow is the last full day in Grenoble for a while since we leave Thursday evening for Geneva, and then Friday morning for Budapest. The itinerary still hasn't been nailed down... and we prefer it that way. Here are a few pics of the aforementioned events; I'll add the full series tomorrow!

This is the inside of the Oval Lingotto where we watched speed skating.

There was a strong snowstorm when we exited, but this pic barely does it justice! I foolishly only had sneakers on, and cheap thin ones at that, so it was a painful few kilometers back to Matthias' faithful Opel.

Pleasant combination of old and new.

One of the main Torino parks.

Johanna and I in Oulx where we watched the freestyle aerials competition before heading back to Grenoble.

An amazing view from Saturday's hike in Fort du St Eynard.

Yannick, Rachel and I on top of the world.

The amazing Korean meal... my first time with Korean food, but definitely not the last.

Those crazy Koreans.

Something hot was happening here.

Eastern Europe, Part II

2006-02-17T15:38:00.000+01:00

Everyone I've talked to who's ever visited it has raved incessantly about the city... and so I finally succumbed to the temptation. Next week's destination? Budapest. The university break is pleasantly long, so excursions to Vienna, Austria, and Ljubljana, Slovenia, are also being considered. Next time I'll try to hit Belgrade, Bratislava, Bucharest and Zagreb. So many choices, so little time!

Glaciers, caves and Swedes

2006-02-17T14:47:00.000+01:00

We took a 40 minute ride on an old train car up to the top of a mountain on the north end of Chamonix, just barely making it on board before it started to chug uphill.

At the top, we were greeted with some marvelous sights!

I'm not sure how large the glacier is, but you can see it begin in the valley basin here. It's much, much larger than it appears and if you look hard, you might see tiny black specks - skiers! We considered trying to ski it, but decided not to after learning that it was highly recommended to have an experienced guide, in order to avoid the deep crevasses... the 120-feet deep crevasses.

Don't go chasing frozen waterfalls.

The whole crew!

From the top, we took a cable car down to a man-made ice cave. It's actually re-constructed annually since each year the glacier's center moves 90 meters and its' sides 45 meters. The current cave is in the middle; you can see last year's cave to the left and next year's to the right.

Not quite the best English translation, but we got the point.

Sam keeping it real.

The ice is eating my arm!

The cave's shimmering ceiling.

It really wasn't very deep, but became remarkably chillier the farther in we went.

The beautiful but barren frozen landscape.

Tiny skiers peering into previous caves.

Back in Chamonix, Rachel telling secrets.

Isabelle looking quintessiantially Swedish.

Freaky Flumet

2006-02-15T18:04:00.000+01:00

Friday night, Rachel, Sam and I drove to Flumet to see our Swedish friends Lina and Isabelle. Here Lina's singing with her band. It was quite an enjoyable performance... and she came and stood with us during her breaks.

We were all happily reunited, and the joyful spectacle must've also cheered the jovial Frenchman in the back.

Flumet is a peculiar little place full of peculiar little people. It is most certainly not a tourist town and that sad fact leaves the unhappy townspeople with nothing to do but drink and inbreed. I suggest avoiding it at all costs. Exhibit A: the fellow wearing the USA jacket was a lecherous, bug-eyed old man who tried to grope every female in sight. Lina's friend Gustav (more on him later) is keeping an eye on him here. We were really the only sane ones in the entire bar. I've never met a larger group of unrelated rude, unintelligent and backwards people.

Isabelle is either trying to escape the groper or dancing atop a table.

This picture illustrates fairly well just how massive Gustav is. He embodied Sweden. Completely. Tall, blond, shy but friendly, expert at every nordic sport.

Talk about impulse

2006-02-13T17:53:00.000+01:00

I was just about to buy tickets to Barcelona for mid-March when my friend Matt reminded me that March 17 was St. Patrick's Day. Checked easyJet, found flights that would let me miss minimal amount of class... and bought a round-trip from Geneva to Barcelona March 15 to March 20 for $113.04 USD.

Total time, from Matt asking, "you sure you dont want to go to ireland for st pattys?," to receipt of confirmation e-mail: 3 minutes, 24 seconds. Thanks, Matt!

Pictures from the past week

2006-02-06T17:00:00.000+01:00

Oh, there's another strike tomorrow. This time it'll be students protesting new work contract regulations. Nobody knows what the extent of it will be, but it probably won't be too severe. Last week, Monsieur Guichard shared a revelation with the class: the Grenoble city administration is firmly in control of the Socialist party, and St. Martin d'Heres and Gieres, sites of the university campus, are two of the last remaining communes in France still under control of... the Communist party. No, I'm not joking. Once I learned that, a giant "Ah, I understand now" sign flashed in my head. The inefficiency, the apathy, the sorry condition of the dorms and classrooms - it's all so clear now! My Contemporary American History prof is rabidly anti-capitalist, but in spite of the collectivist surroundings, the Economist keeps me in Adam Smith's grasp.

Here are a bunch of random pictures from the past week:

Laura, Rachel and I somehow acquired three mugs from Couche-Tard after being treated rather rudely.

If I find who wrote this...

Culprit discovered.

Last week we went sledding in the Chamrousse mountains. The view was incredible.

The sleds went frighteningly fast... I actually ended up hitting a caution net, bending a support pole in half and catapulting over the net into the 'danger zone.' Luckily, my injuries were minimal.

Moi.

Christine and Rachel.

This is what happens when your hat has a five-foot long tail.

Bringing the sleds back up the hill was very difficult because we kept falling through the snow, almost up to our hips. Behind me you can see the net that I crashed into. It drops off pretty steeply right after that.

Beautiful.

For Laura's second-to-last night in Grenoble, we went to Restaurant Bombay and had some of the best Indian I've ever had. I've got to start researching Indian cuisine options back home.

Everyone seems to smile a lot here.

After our meal, we were given a bowl of... this. There's aniseed mixed in and it's supposed to freshen your breath, but it just made our hands sticky.

On our way back, we discovered quite possibly one of the coolest cars ever. The '75' on the plate indicates it's from the Parisian region.

Oasis! We were frighteningly close and I ended up dropping back a few meters because the crowd was so out-of-control. I finally bought replacement jeans, and I'm dreaming of all the cool things I could make from the old ones if I had any arts and crafts skills. If.

(That previous shot was Liam Gallagher, by the way, and this is Noel, his older brother. I think.)

Yes, we were close enough to count Liam's chest hair.

The Souchette slope where I spent most of my time getting acquainted with the hard snow covering the hard ice covering the hard ground.

I don't know how I remained upright long enough for this picture to be taken.

Silvia was really much better on skis than I was on my board.

Rachel's Scottish boyfriend Cameron came to visit for the weekend. I almost had to use two hands to heft that glass, but we had an awesome time -- and I brought back the vintage fall semester scarf. Thanks, Mom!

Watching the France-Scotland rugby match in the Chamrousse (we went sledding again yesterday). Scotland won, much to the chagrin of the cocky French barman.

My camera really can't take night pictures well, but this picture gives just a hint of how beautiful the setting sun lit up the rising sea of clouds.

Last night we had raclette at La Ferme a Dede, one of my favorite restaurants in Grenoble. There's a red-hot iron rod underneath that bronze shield; it slowly heats up the cheese and makes it drip onto the waiting potatoes below. You can then add various meats, bread and salad to create a delicious, gooey ensemble.

On our way back to the dorms, we spotted an entire outfit of clothing abandoned on a corner -- either Frosty melted, or someone was storing their work clothes in a rather hazardous location.

A(nother) Strike

2006-02-03T10:43:00.000+01:00

There's a(nother) strike today, but luckily it only involves "seven civil servant unions including nurses and teachers," and not national rail or mass transportation unions. I haven't seen any effects of the strike, apart from a notice posted at the library entrance: "As a result of a national strike, library functions and services may be affected."

I'm trying to decide where to travel next. I love being in Grenoble and hanging out with friends, but valley fever starts to settle in after a while. It may have something to do with the Chernobyl-like smog cloud hovering over everything.

I rented a snowboard and boots earlier this week and joined the student ski club, Ecole de Glisse. Yesterday was my first full day snowboarding (and the third time ever!). I went with Joanna, an American girl in my dorm. She brought a board from home, but had never snowboarded before so we spent a couple hours going over the basics and then hit the slopes. We had a ton of fun and I was utterly exhausted afterwards. My recovery plan? A mere half-day of snowboarding this afternoon with two Italian girls, Silvia and Beatrice, and Francisco, a funny, energetic Spaniard. I think I'll really rest Saturday, because Sunday morning is the korfball championship (I think), Sunday afternoon is the France-Scotland rugby match with Rachel and her Scottish boyfriend Cameron, and Sunday evening is the Super Bowl with almost every American in Grenoble.

The Oasis concert was fantastic, but my jeans were destroyed after someone stepped on them while I was moving, ripping them up to my knee. Tuesday night Tarek and I went to Le Tord Boyaux (The Twisted Intestine), a quaint wine-bar with live music and delicious saucissons, to see his friend's band play. Wednesday night Christine, Rachel and I had fondue at Stephanie's, a nice girl from Geneva, along with two guys from my basketball team, Jin and Delphin. We played cards, made cheese sculptures and looked up bad words in a French slang dictionary before sprinting to catch the last tram at midnight. Thursday night, after showering and dropping off all my snowboard gear, I went to an art exhibition downtown before turning in for the night.

2006-01-31T18:41:00.000+01:00

Grenoble is beautiful at night. This is a bad picture, but Place Victor Hugo, in the center of downtown, is one of my favorite, especially when it snows.

Laura and Rachel walking in the snowstorm.

This picture should win a prize.

Random square!

This could be the moon... or a streelight.

Germans and Italians and Swedes and Quebecois

2006-01-30T17:27:00.000+01:00

One of the first nights out, I went out with Mathis, Ana and Yannick to L'Art-Scene, a live music club near campus. We were pleasantly surprised to find a band still playing at midnight, and they kept going past 2am! Really, French bands are to be commended on their stamina; once they start, they just keep playing and playing!

We have an excellent party communication system on the floor. Whenever there's a party, little notes are posted to everyone's door a few days in advance - impossible to miss (and no reason to!). This one says "Floor Party Wednesday January 18 at 7pm - bring what you want."

Jenny and Johanna, two new Swedish girls on the rez-de-chausse (the ground floor where everyone spends most of their time). Swedish people are a little slow to warm up to non-Swedes, but they speak English like none othe, so we're confident they'll come around soon.

There is no one on the planet who parties like Moroccan Zach. He spent several years in Liverpool, England, and has an awesome English accent, especially forceful when he's listing the merits of his favorite football club... the Liverpool Reds.

The guy on the left is a random French fellow, but after him are: Maxim, Jean-Ives and Patrick, the Quebecois Three - absolutely inseparable and hilarious to hang out with. It's so difficult to understand them, though, Quebecois French is drastically different from regular French. Sometimes it almost sounds Germanic, so we often have to ask them to repeat things.

I was invited to a German-Italian celebration with Silvia, Beatrice, Matthias, Karin and Ana-Lina. I wasn't sure how I qualified for the invitation, but I accepted and we had a fantastic time eating German cookies and sweets that Matthias' grandmother had made, and a deliciously soft Italian Christmas cake the girls had found in a shop here. Matthias is explaining to Bea the culinary intricacies of the fantastic Elisen-Lebkuchen cookies.

Ana-Lina and Karin, the two nice and funny German girls. We went on the Font d'Urle excursion together last November and didn't talk much but now Karin and I have a class together and we've all gone to the same parties recently.

I had to fake Silvia out to take this picture. The only word I understood out of the stream afterwards was 'paparazzi.'

The aftermath!

Some spicy French mustard found its way to the table... and Matthias boldly consumed spoonful after spoonful until we begged him to stop, fearing that we'd be charged for negligence if he died from overheating.

The Italian and German girls eventually left, but more friends soon rolled around.

C'est la vie

2006-01-27T15:16:00.000+01:00

Classes have begun! Though I dreaded the thought before, I'll now most likely have - gasp - three days of class a week... and I think I'll really enjoy them. The lineup:

Theme and Version - Translation classes. Very easy. An hour of French-English and an hour of English-French.
Ireland: The Transformation of a Society - Like all other political science classes here, trivial and not terribly interesting. However, it should hopefully help to fulfill some requirements still needed back home.
Techniques d'expression francaise - Also continued from first semester, this is the most difficult class to stay awake in. 1:30pm to 3:30pm, sunlight streaming through the windows, the faint buzz of noise outside and the most tearfully boring subjects imaginable... Mais c'est pas ma faute, je suis narcoleptique!
Mythologie - A literature/mythology class, this promises to be one of the most interesting. The professor is a remarkable speaker and captured my attention the entire time. Very engrossing. It'll be difficult, but I'm planning to stick it out.
Grammaire francaise - I spoke too soon. It's really this class, taught by dear Monsieur Guichard, that's the most painfully boring. Oooof.
Contemporary American History - Super-liberal American professor, but this course holds great promise. Though slightly pretentious and enjoyed dropping names like Zinn and Chomsky, he's intelligent. Next week Megan and I are debating the merits of values socialization in schools. Fascinating!
Professional French - Another Guichard class. He's very nice, but I think it's his sonorous voice and the gripping subject matter that makes it so easy to drift off.
French Literary Methodology and Analysis - A short, 80-minute class designed to assist exchange students with adapting to French analysis of literature. The first session was really fascinating and the professor went off on a 50-minute discussion of existentialism and absurdism. I loved it!
Recits et spectacles de justice - Taught by an energetic and friendly French professor who spent quite a bit of time in the US. The first session didn't really cover anything ground-breaking, but hopefully it'll pick up.

Those last two classes are on Thursday afternoon, though, and a friend told me that there might be windsurfing (planche a voile) lessons at the same time, so... ahem. Another not so difficult choice to make.

I hope I don't come across as overly critical of Monsieur Guichard. He really is, as all the girls say, a sweet man. He single-handedly keeps Stendhal University functioning. It would crumble in a day without him. There are 10,000 secretaries and combined they don't come even close to the amount of work he does. He's knowledgeable, friendly and accessible - qualities severely lacking in almost every other administrative position. But oh man, not even two espressos can keep me awake in his classes.

I'm going to see Oasis tonight, along with almost every other English-speaking student and most of the German ones. I can't wait!

After almost a week back

2006-01-23T14:05:00.000+01:00

The laissez-faire routine has returned, for the most part. Classes are yet to begin - or even finalized - but I'm confident I'll have a fairly similar schedule to last semester's: brutal, agonizing Tuesdays followed by two easy classes on Wednesday. There'll be more literature this time around, and fewer fluffy translation classes, but I should have enough downtime to survive. A quick summary of the past several days:

Tuesday - Took TGV from Paris to Lyon, then traditional train to Grenoble. Met a nice South African humanities student studying in Grenoble for the semester. Shared all the little tidbits of knowledge I'd gleaned from my travails. Assured him that, "Yes, the water is quite safe to drink and actually tastes good," after he expressed worries about being exposed to a non-English speaking country's water supply. The flight from Johannesburg to Paris was his first, so I suppose it was a legitimate health safety question. Purchased my monthly tram and bus pass. Convinced the Accueil ("Welcome" Desk) to give me a spare key to my room. They wanted my passport as ransom, but I convinced them that a driver's license was an acceptable substitute. Success! They mentioned something about returning the keys within three days (it's been almost seven), but I can't do that until the FedEx package from home containing them is properly delivered. That was supposed to happen today, Monday, but I've come to accept that nothing ever works like it should here, especially if it involves communications, transportation or finance. Should you have the misfortune to require something demanding all three... oh la la.
Wednesday - Slept at least 13 hours. Started to improve the disastrous state of my room.
Thursday - Paid the monthly rent. Room slightly less disastrous. Think New Orleans, post-Katrina.
Friday - Little bit of grocery shopping at the dreaded Monoprix yieled an excellent find: Tomme de Savoie cheese. Reasonably priced, yet delicious, I ate the entire thing, about the size of my fist, in one sitting.
Saturday - Went skiing with Emma and Pippa (yes, lots of jokes were made about "Salt 'n Pippa" and the "Pied Pippa") at 7 Laux - a beautiful ski resort in the Belledonne mountains. Huge, expansive runs. We played in incredibly dense fog for a while, with ten feet of visibility at the most, then took chairlifts higher up where we were greeted with some AMAZING views. I'm bringing my camera next time. Skiing in France is very different from skiing in Colorado. The runs are rated more conservatively (i.e., a "black," their most difficult, isn't quite as hard as a black diamond back home), but there are hardly any boundary markings and you're expected to have much more common sense than resorts in the US demand.
Sunday - Woke up at 1:30pm to a phone call from Tarek inviting me to play football. Mumbled agreement, but wasn't able to roust myself from sleepy haze in time. Watched episodes 3 and 4 of 24. I'm hooked. Afternoon filled with laundry duty. Went to McDonald's, the place I have to go to if I want Internet access after 7:30pm or on the weekends, then to O'Callaghan's Irish Pub to watch the Steelers-Broncos game. No sound, tiny TV and enough smoke to signal the moon, but we still had fun. Politely declined challenge from heavily intoxicated Irishman to fight outside after he thought I laughed at him. Caught the second to last tram back to campus at midnight, talked with friends until 2am, then fell asleep watching Reservoir Dogs.
Monday - My temporary residency permit expires in three weeks and I was concerned about re-entering the country after its expiration, so I went to the Prefecture to inquire about the status of my medical exam forms (supposedly the last remaining hurdle in my carte du sejour quest). Harried desklady told me that it typically takes several months for the forms to arrive, so I should be patient. I reiterated my fears about re-entering after the expiration, so she stamped (ahh, stamps) my temporary permit with a two month extension.... now it's valid until April 22, so I only need to have my full permit for... three weeks. I would just forget about it, if it wasn't required to receive the not insubstantial government housing assistance, around $1400 USD in total. Indulged myself with a few on-sale items at H&M. Wardrobe is still seriously deficient, and if I didn't have jeans... yikes.

Interspersed in there are a few nights spent with my floormates, all French. I'm finally starting to get to know them, and it helps to put a name to all the bonjours. The cast includes Marc, Karim, Jean-Paul, Aurelie, Virginie, Sophie, Michel, Youan, Mathis (German, and not even from our floor, but seems to always be around) and then one aloof fellow who's extremely nice, looks like a Turkish prince and seems to maintain the corresponding royal distance. Sometimes I just want to bow and say, "I offer my humble services to the Almighty Pasha." They're all great fun and we routinely just talk, hang out and tease each other about our respective crazy politicians.

Unfortunately, many of my friends from first semester have left, either to return to their home countries or to work elsewhere, like my Swedish friends Lina and Isabelle, working in Chamonix for the ski season. Maria went back to Colombia, Gabriela to Mexico, Silvia to Italy, Marc to Canada and Jeff, Eli, Kristin and Brandi to the US. Sad, sad, sad.

I'm not sure if I'll sneak a trip in this week, since I'm not 100% sure about the class schedule, but I'm definitely planning one for next week. Greece seems to be surprisingly affordable to get to, so that's moved way up on the to-do list. Something closer might come first, though.

I'm cursed

2006-01-17T14:24:00.000+01:00

The travel gods are angry. The flight to Chicago was uneventful and my connection to Paris was only four gates away, so that wasn't rushed. Only as I was laying down on the three middle seats (the flight was almost empty, with perhaps 40 people total on the 280-passenger jet), somewhere south of Greenland, did it hit me: I forgot my keys. The search is on at home, but meanwhile I'm about to go to campus to beg the residence hall matron to at least let me use a duplicate key (if they have one) to drop off my bags. I'm staying optimistic: my semesters always start out like this. It can't get worse... can it?

My Winter Break: A Photo Essay

2006-01-11T08:42:00.000+01:00

After taking 2,500 pictures in four months - around 20 a day - I decided my camera needed a rest, so I've only taken a few during my long pleasant winter break. Here are some of the highlights:

A groggy Dad, Christmas morning.

An amazingly cheerful and chipper Mom, opening a small mug I purchased in Geneva.

Daniel and I combined forces to get this monster truck for Sean. Of course, Dad had to inspect it first...

Dad's favorite present? A furry balaclava, probably because no one could pronounce it and it made him look like Emperor Palpatine...

...or an Abu Ghraib prisoner.

I told Dan it was a mistake to get Sean a blowgun. A mistake rectified only by purchasing two for ourselves. The ensuing carnage is too shocking to be displayed.

A winter wonderland right outside our front door. Everyone enjoyed the Christmas snow, even if didn't arrive until the afternoon.

The sleekest and swiftest transportation in the Midwest. The blue snow saucer, I mean.

An evening at Applebees with fellow HCS alumni, mostly youngsters merely in their second year of college.

The Colts preparing to crush the Cardinals.

Margaret and I went to a rave...

...where we learned how to use glowsticks.

I might snap a few more pictures before I leave, but those sum up the break fairly well: home, family, Purple Bubble, Colts, friends. I love Indiana.

Besides having to say goodbye again to everything comfortable and familiar, another downside of the next semester: I dread returning to the tight confines of my tiny dorm room... I don't think our Christmas tree would even have fit in it. And the shower? Oh no... I've been so spoiled by being able to move more than one limb at a time. I need to go into shower detox to prepare me for the coming shock.

The Last Party... and a bit o' Korf

2006-01-11T08:19:00.000+01:00

At one of the last Berlioz parties, chatting with William from Senegal.

With my usual friends and... Canadian Marc; we met on the trip to southern France and usually talked a couple times a week while passing on campus.

Saying goodbye to Colombian Maria.

On the tram to downtown... Tarek displaying his usual cool reserve and Maria marveling at a Wint-o-green mint. (The best way to win friends and influence people, of course, is through American candy.)

Eli was the only other guy from ASU and we hung out often. Unfortunately, he discovered a required class back at ASU for his major, so his year in Grenoble... became a semester. Though we have dramatically different personalities, we got along well and enjoyed complaining about Grenoble's tragic lack of adequate NBA/NFL coverage.

Lina tried to spike my hair like hers, but failed, so we crooned in Swedish instead.

After the party at Berlioz was shut down at 11pm by the night "guardian," we headed to Couchetard until 2am, then went to the Vieux Manoir nightclub. That's a pace that one can maintain for only so long before trying to take a nap in the coatcheck line.

My second wind arrived, however, after I realized it was the last real festive night in Grenoble with many of my friends. So, with renewed energy Brandi and I stayed at Vieux Manoir until 5am, talked until the first tram of the morning arrived at 6:30am, then at 7am had the most unhealthy breakfast of my life...

...particularly unhealthy was the main course, a pre-packaged Texas Pork dish a few days past its expiration date and several miles beyond the threshold of human consumability. "Texas Pork" in France is definitely not from Texas and definitely not pork.

This, by the way, is my All-Star korfball team. We're going to win the World Cup. Of korfball. Front row, L-R: Loic "Nice", Unknown, Brigitte, Clementine, Emilie; Back row: Isabelle, moi, Tony, Jaws (he's Italian, we don't know how to pronounce his real name... Giousevie), Christophe, Laura and Amanda (English and Scottish, respectively; even though we're the native Anglophones we try to stick to French for the rest of the team).

The Countdown, Part Two

2006-01-11T04:40:00.000+01:00

The past three and a half weeks have slowly but steadily marched by and I now face the prospect of returning to Europe in less than a week for the second installment of my European adventure. I am, above all, thrilled. My time home has been remarkably fun, quiet, relaxing, nourishing and full of warmth as I spent weeks with my family after months of separation. I enjoyed seeing old friends, reveled in Mom's amazing cooking and constant affection, worked a little with Dad, joked and played games with my brothers, went snowboarding and skiing, attended two Colts games (I think it's my fault the streak stopped at 13, I'm very sorry), appreciated the ability to minutely customize an order at a restaurant and lamented the outrageous gas prices. In every aspect but the weather, it was summer. And I love summer.

Even though actual summer lies four months away, I regard with eager anticipation the ensuing time and the enormous promise it holds. I've yet to formulate any firm travel plans to exotic locales, but Croatia, Tunisia and Greece have all been considered. I'd be happy to make it to just one of the three and I'm determined to visit more accessible destinations like Spain (hello Matt and Ross!), Normandy/northern France (hey Sean!), Ireland, Berlin and at least one former concentration camp in Poland or Germany. Amsterdam is absolutely worthy of a second inspection and I wouldn't have any problem stopping in Brussels on the way up. I've also promised the French family that so warmly welcomed me in August that I would try my hardest to visit them again, too. Initially, I'd envisioned spending every afternoon on the ski slopes, but I think I'll have satisfied that urge after a few visits (and the price of lift tickets and rentals) add up. Two skiing and snowboarding trips to the mild southern Indiana ski "resort" Perfect North also forced me to face the painful realization that I am not the Olympic alpine star I remembered. If any opportunity arises to attend an Olympic event in nearby Turin, Italy, I'll seize it immediately. Supposedly there are still large numbers of tickets available.

I fear I won't have the same luxurious two-days-a-week class schedule I enjoyed last semester, but I'll settle, if I must, for a grueling three. I'll need therapy if I have to endure four days and five, well, is simply out of the question. I'll spend my added time in the city wisely: a rigorous exercise regime has already been undertaken, I plan to frequent the French cinema more and I might, just might, do some preliminary thesis work into the remarkable phenomenon of optimistic young gentlemen overcoming rampant rudeness and bureaucratic obstacles during their physically exhausting and mentally demanding exchange programs. Speaking of classes, the earliest I'll learn about last semester's grades will be sometime in February. I hear oddsmakers are taking bets as far out as August.

Mid-February also marks the expiration of my provisionary residency permit, the "recipisse du sejour." If I don't have a medical examination, complete stacks of more paperwork and submit it all to the monolithic Prefecture before then, I'll be an illegal alien and also ineligble for the generous - but thus far invisible - governmental housing assistance. Fortunately, the next most serious problem I'll face is how to squeeze all of my European-acquired possessions into the same little suitcase I arrived with. I hear faint echoes of FedEx in the distance... and Dad's booming "throw the junk away!" in my ear.

A bevy of random pictures is coming soon.

Instead of studying

2005-12-13T18:22:00.000+01:00

I've already had four finals: I discover the outcome of Grammaire Francaise tomorrow, it seemed wickedly easy but I've been deceived before. Luckily the professor institutes a very generous curve so the lowest grade I can get is a B. Whew. I had two translation finals today, one was English to French and the other vice versa. For the English to French final, we had to translate an International Herald Tribune article about the recent riots. We couldn't use dictionaries and I fear my French was woefully ugly and clumsy. Hopefully the other translation final, involving a French magazine interview with Daniel Radcliffe (the Harry Potter actor!), will outweigh it, since I think I only missed a few words. My fourth final was in the afternoon: Techniques d'expression francaise has been the most challenging - but also the best - course of the semester and I think I nailed the final. We had to analyze an interview with a young French boxer, then write a movie review using certain stylistic techniques we learned in the class. I chose Le Fableux Destin d'Amelie Poulain and am crossing my fingers that the few details (actors' names, specific plot twists) I forged will escape unnoticed.

[In light of "Confucius'" comment, and recent highly publicized news stories about people getting in trouble after negative remarks they made online were linked to them in real-life, I'll withhold judgment on my political science courses until a later point in time.]

The next couple days will thus be quite interesting. I have three more posts I want to make, but I doubt I'll have time right away. One will just discuss the fun events of the past week (French-English student dinner, tartiflette with French people, korfball and basketball victories, fun and mildly outrageous nights spent with friends) and include pictures, one will describe my friends, associates and the various people I encounter on a daily basis and the last will discuss how I currently feel about my life abroad - brimming with joy, essentially.

2005-12-07T18:37:00.000+01:00

That's too much Heineken to look at, let alone contemplate drinking.

Back in our hostel, Brandi suffering from a laughing fit. No idea why she was looking in a mirror.

Fabulous authentic Dutch food. From left: appleflapp, miniature pancakes and gooey delicious fruit cake. Best of all... they gave me real Canadian maple syrup with the pancakes. Mmm. We came back to the same little pastry shop half a dozen times.

The foyer in the Rembrandt House. At first, I was thrilled and then realized these weren't all Rembrandts; most are from his peers or pupils. Still, it was a great experience and I attended two brief workshops with interesting demonstrations of how Rembrandt made his paint and engravings.

The exterior of the Rembrandt House.

2005-12-07T18:32:00.000+01:00

The Dutch made remarkably hosts, but they lag behind their fellow Europeans in labeling random statues. I wish I knew who this was.

The perfect Amsterdam street. I want to live there!

The guest bed. Yes, the bed is in a box. I can't imagine how claustrophobic sleeping in there would have been.

This the "Waag," (the Dutch are exceptionally fond of the letter A.) an old city fort. Now, instead of serving up flaming arrows it offers delicious turkey and bacon club sandwiches.

I Heart Amsterdam

2005-12-07T18:13:00.000+01:00

I'll post a write-up of my time in Amsterdam soon. In short, I LOVED IT. For now, here are some of the 163 pictures I took, along with brief captions.

This picture encapsulates Amsterdam. You have quaint, diverse, narrow buildings built with only the faintest hint of order. You have lots of bicycles. You can also see the edge of a canal - still an important part of the city's identity.

An Amsterdam canal shot. It's even more peaceful and pleasant than it appears! The weather was crisp, but not freezing.

One end of a four-block long flower market. Yes, tulips were the most popular item and yes, they were dirt cheap (10 for 3 euros).

There was definitely some peculiar architecture...

...and even more peculiar tourists. I don't think it's possible to look goofier.

We went to the "Heineken Experience" at the Heineken Brewery. At 10 euros, it seemed a bit steep at first, but we enjoyed it. There were several interactive features, a few tastings and we each received a collector's glass at the end.

Part of the "Experience" included walking under a ceiling of glass with a few inches of water above it. There was a steady drip of water coming from the top of the container; it was a neat effect to stand under.

Afterwards, we were in desperate need for something more cultural. This is the backside of the famous Rijksmuseum, unfortunately undergoing major renovation under 2008. It looked fascinating and it had some interesting, well-kept gardens, too.

Looking the opposite direction, I believe this is the Vondelpark.

I loved the Van Gogh museum and his pointillist "Trees and Undergrowth" in particular.

This picture encapsulates the other side of Amsterdam. I took this picture at noon on a Thursday. I wish I knew where these guys were going. I definitely don't want to know what's in the box they dropped.

We went to the Anne Frank House, a moving and reflective experience.

More cool Dutch architecture.

We dined at "Japanese Pancake World" after reading a highly positive review of it in our easyJet in-flight magazine. I don't know exactly what was served to me, but it was certainly not a pancake and it was certainly not highly positive. I took a video of the fluttering fish flakes on Laura's... trust me, you don't want to see it.

A beautiful church near our hostel - well, everything in Amsterdam is "near" everything else. The city was remarkably small and easy to traverse. I read that it takes only 40 minutes to walk from one end to another.

An opening in the canals - the whole city is like this!

A picture of the old man himself.

Another wall packed with Rembrandt's contemporaries. It was interesting to read how he also made quite a bit of money as an art dealer... but even that little side business wasn't enough to pay for his 28,000 guilder house, repossessed only 10 years after he bought it.

The master bedroom... also in a box! The only difference is that Mr. Rembrandt had purple curtains and a few more pillows. I have to admit, I definitely do not see the allure of SLEEPING IN A BOX.

I loved wandering the tiny side streets and discovering creative apartment buildings.

You probably find all these photos dreadfully boring, but they continue to make me smile and appreciate the ecclectic and cozy Dutch streets.

The National War Monument in Dam Square, "erected in memory of Dutch soldiers and members of the resistance who died in World War 2. Unveiled in 1956, the monument stores soil from all of Holland's provinces as well as from the Dutch East Indies and if you go to the back of the obelisk tower, you'll find the provinces' crests." If only they'd chosen a different shape.

Green Eyes Fix You

2005-12-07T16:37:00.000+01:00

The Coldplay concert was "Serious Awesomeness" incarnated. I'd already seen them once over the summer and that excellent performance made me want to attend another. I wandered around Lyon for a while but unfortunately didn't have enough time to hit any of the major sights. Still, it's one of my favorite French cities. I met up with some English and Colombian friends before the concert began. Goldfrapp, another British band, opened. They were abstract but energetic - I enjoyed it, and the lead singer's extensive French vocabulary - "Merci" - made me feel better about my paltry skills.

The concert took place in Tony Garnier Hall. I think the same architect designed Grace Community Church because, aside from the lighting differences (and Coldplay instead of Michelle Branch - seriously, who plays Michelle Branch in church?) it felt very similar to GCC. We were able to thread our way near the stage by recognizing various friends from Grenoble and leapfrogging from group to group. Honestly, there was an entire British contingent; I'm surprised they didn't hoist the Union Jack and start claiming territory for the Queen.

The concert opened just like the one in Indy; with a spectacular crescendo and a giant three minute countdown timer. The special effects weren't as elaborate as they were back at Verizon, nor were there any TV screens projecting the concert to the unfortunate souls stuck at the back of the giant hall. Thousands of French girls screaming "Coldplay" were cute... for perhaps the first three minutes. Unfortunately, the wailing continued unabated for the following eighty-seven.

I started recording video at the beginning of "Yellow" and managed to capture the whole song, along with the giant yellow glitter-filled balloons dropped from the catwalks. Like in Indy, Chris Martin tried to keep singing until the balloons were all popped, but the audience didn't understand and he had to stop before his vocal chords shriveled up. This is just a picture of the last song from the set (before the encore), where he ran on the catwalk to the very back of the hall and shook the hand of the guy seated in the very last row, apologizing for the 'bloody long distance."

A few lines from Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" were part of the encore, but it absolutely baffled the mostly British and French crowd. I was one of perhaps 15 Americans singing along; it was hilarious because we could all hear each other over everyone else's confused murmurings.

A couple other notes: Chris Martin's French accent made me feel great about mine and also briefly put me en colère. The crowd understood (and loved) every word he said, while I've had French people stare blankly at me after I speak better than Jacques Chirac ordering something perfectly simple like "une bouteille d'eau, svp." Thus, either the French really do UNDERSTAND EVERY WORD THAT COMES OUT OF MY MOUTH and relish frustrating foreigners (no one ever automatically assumes I'm American; they always guess German or Spanish), or, more sinisterly, cool suave British rockers get more leeway than common folk. Gasp. That can't be true.

I spent the night in Lyon in the Hotel Dauphine near Gare Perrache train station. I had to leave my massive backpack there; catching the last train back to Grenoble wasn't an option (nor did I want to pay for a taxi since I would have arrived after the last tram back to campus) since it left from another station, Gare Part Dieu. Instead, I got a few hours of sleep and took a 5:36am train back to Grenoble. I did some homework, slept, dropped a few things off at my dorm and went to my 8:30 class "absolutely knackered."

I had little time to recuperate because the following day I flew to... Amsterdam.

By the way

2005-11-29T16:44:00.000+01:00

With the help of my father and co-conspirator, I snuck home for Thanksgiving and stunned the rest of the family.

My adventures in getting from Grenoble to Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport deserve a separate paragraph. I'll try to summarize briefly: let's just say it involved 10pm flunkyball, 5am train ride to Paris, frantic search for non-existent Air France coach to airport, sharing a cheap, fast and comfortable taxi to Charles de Gaulle with three French wome and successfully convincing French authorities that just because my ticket has my first and last names mixed up, I'm still the same person. I heaved an enormous sigh of relief once I was on the plane and was able to sprawl out in the empty seat next to me. My adrenaline was still pumping when I landed in Chicago NINE hours later, though I would fall asleep during the brief hop to Indy. Dad picked me up with his usual punctuality.

Dad, Mom and Dan had dinner reservations but Dad used a ruse about having to go do an estimate to leave the house alone. He picked me up from the airport and called Mom and asked her and Dan to meet him directly at the restaurant ; he said he'd had a car accident and would be running a little behind. Liar! We arrived 10 minutes before them and were able to get settled at our table. Dad had to hold his menu over his mouth to hide his chuckling and I just stared contemplatively at mine, with my back to the entrance. Mom walked by, with her nose slightly upturned. She later explained she hadn't recognized me from behind and felt indignant that Dad had invited someone to dinner without informing her. As she walked by, she glanced at me and stared, completely stunned, for several seconds. Know the expression "she did a double-take?" Mom did a quadruple-take -- and then the game was up and we beamed and embraced and tried to avoid crying while the entire restaurant grinned. Dan was equally astounded and we gave each other strong hugs. The rest of the meal felt surreal and we often randomly broke out into smiles and laughter.

I loved returning home. It felt so strange to be surrounded by so many American accents which are in such short supply here. I occasionally had moments where I thought, "Wow, this isn't as interesting. I understand EVERYTHING everyone's saying," but they were fleeting. Mom indulged me with home-cooked meal after home-cooked meal, with pancakes, Belgian waffles, French toast, sausage and scrambled eggs galore; it's been 48 hours since I returned to France and despite having only a granola bar, sandwich, raisins and in-flight meal I don't feel hungry in the slightest. Thanksgiving was spectacular. I can still smell and taste the delicious turkey, stuffing, creamed corn, mashed potatoes a la Dad, green bean casserole, warm apple sauce, pumpkin and apple pies.

We all saw the new Harry Potter movie - I fell asleep for less than 10 minutes, I promise - and enjoyed it. A carefully limited excursion to the mall on Friday let us take advantage of post-Thanksgiving specials without being sucked into the usual fashion black hole. I enjoyed shopping without the constant scrutiny of store security personnel. Driving came back instantly, though I annoyed Dan by making constant comparisons between the TL batmobile and my former BMW mistress (always siding, of course, with the latter). I spent Saturday afternoon with my friends at BW3s. It's likely to be the last time we're all together until next July - an odd feeling. I would've devoured the boneless chicken wings in seconds if they hadn't been so hot.

The return trip provided ample opportunity to sleep; there was an hour delay on the Indianapolis tarmac while we waited for traffic at O'Hare to clear up. The pilot reassured us that "if we're backed up, so is everyone else," but I was skeptical - with good reason, I found, as I ran off the plane and discovered that there was 15 minutes remaining before my Paris flight left. Worried I'd have to go through customs, immigration or some other nonsense, I was enormously relieved to discover that the plane was in the same terminal and only a few gates away from mine. I sprinted and the check-in desk attendant greeted me by name... I think I almost had a backpack strap caught in the door as it closed behind me. I mostly slept on the plane, reflected fondly on my brief sejour home and watched Intolerable Cruelty - quite a good performance by Mr. Clooney! Took the dreaded Air France coach bus to Paris Gare de Lyon train station, grabbed a train to Lyon and waited there for the 8pm Coldplay concert - details and pics coming soon!

Font d'Urle

2005-11-29T16:38:00.000+01:00

Little behind in posting... je regrette. Here are pictures from last weekend's awesome excursion to Font d'Urle, a quaint refuge nestled in the Vercors mountains, about 90 minutes west of Grenoble. I went with a student association called IntEGre (International Etudiants de Grenoble) - for twenty euros we received transportation, lodging, food, hikes and two rousing scavenger hunts Sunday morning: the regularly planned one, and an unintended sequel for a lost glove and hat... both mine... and both lost at separate times. Embarrassing, indeed.

I took this picture during a rest-stop along the way. I have no idea how this road was built.

Looking in the opposite direction... it's a long way down!

Font d'Urle, the little mountain refuge village we stayed in. There was only a bit of snow on the ground so only a couple of the chalets were occupied.

After arriving, we dropped our bags off and started on a hike immediately. This cave was one of the first Cool Things we found!

A beautiful bush glazed with snow.

The light dusting of snow made the terrain look like the lunar surface!

Wooden post + Snow + Wind = Natural Sculpture

The views were absolutely breathtaking and enthralled me... leading to another Japanese tourist award.

I wanted to explore this little gap but was fearful of what lurked beyond the loose gravel.

We spotted all sorts of natural wonders, like this spectacular hole - you can see one opening out into the valley, but there was another larger one directly below it -- really quite fascinating!

My German friend Matthias flirts with death.

I flirt with death - and the end of the world.

We picked up the pace back to the refuge once visibility dropped to 25 meters.

An evening meal with Germans and Italians... fortunately we all spoke French.

The Sono

2005-11-21T15:16:00.000+01:00

On Friday night, my friends and I - desperate to forget the heavy-handed French police crackdown of the evening before - went to 'Sono,' a large venue fifteen minutes away from our dorm. We had a fabulous and enthusiastic evening. Here are a few pictures:

From left to right: Yacine (Morocco), random French guy, me, Rachel (England), Rishi (India), Tarek (Tunisia)

Isabelle (Sweden), Rishi, Tarek, me, Yacine, Maria and Lina (Sweden), Sophie (France), Matthias (Germany), Alexia (S. Africa)

It was so cold on our walk back - at most 20 degrees (Fahrenheit, I still haven't mastered Celsius).

Oh, I forgot to mention my basketball game Thursday night, before the Beaujolais celebration. My team and I were absolutely mauled by our opponents; the refs called perhaps one in five fouls. A couple of our players had to restrain our coach; Monsieur DeValuez resembles Bobby Knight in more than appearance. Nevertheless, we were able to come from behind and tie the game right before the last buzzer. Excited for overtime, we watched in stunned silence as the refs blew a final whistle and started packing up - apparently the concept of overtime, along with most other standards of fair-play and generally accepted norms of athletic competition, doesn't exist in their rulebook. Another bizarre twist: after a shooting foul, the first free-throw is worth two points (thankfully then, there's no second foul shot; otherwise that would be a remarkably easy four-point play).

It's true

2005-11-21T15:11:00.000+01:00

I don't know how these things happen.

COPS

2005-11-18T19:39:00.000+01:00

My friends and I - and at least a couple thousand other people - were tear-gassed last night. November 17 was "Beaujolais Nouveau," a celebratory release night for a mediocre wine. Somehow it's built up an international reputation, with bottles selling in China for 150 euros - when the same product sells for 3.60 in grocery stores here. Flocks of people were downtown and apparently the celebration was getting out-of-hand... so around 12:40am police started launching tear gas canisters. There were thunderous booms as they were released; I thought it was a riot shotgun or some type of noise machine at first. Then my nose started aching and people around me were coughing, rubbing their eyes and covering their mouths with scarfs. Throngs of people left the "Place aux Herbes," the main gathering point, and streamed down side streets. After watching the situation from a distance (tried filming it, but the video is lousy quality), we walked half an hour back to the dorms. Perhaps 10 police cars raced in the opposite direction, towards downtown. A friend said he saw police in full riot gear in a van but I don't know if they were actually deployed. Another exciting night in Grenoble, to say the least.

Relatively calm

2005-11-16T13:28:00.000+01:00

The past week in Grenoble has been relatively calm: a little bit of classes, a lot of mulitculturalism. We had a massive water fight on the third floor last Wednesday; I was the designated videojournalist until I was forced to put down my camera and join the fray. The mess didn't take too long to clean up... under the watchful eye of the stern dorm "guardian." I let my inner nerd venture out Friday night and played Counter-Strike on a wireless LAN with several French guys. We also swapped a lot of music and movies. I've been listening to Ben Harper, Bloc Party, Bob Dylan, Bright Eyes, Coldplay (going to their Lyon concert in 12 days!) and Elliot Smith.

Our ability to go downtown was restricted for several days; the trams stopped running at 8:30pm every night (instead of the usual 12:30am) until Monday, November 14th, in an attempt to avoid possible confrontations with rioters in the Grenoble suburbs. That's really been the only visible sign of the "urban violence" I've seen in the past three weeks. I noticed more groups of young hoodlums' downtown, but never felt unsafe - mainly because I've avoided going to Grand'Place, Arlequin, Malherbe, Villeneuve, Residence Universitaire Olympique or any of the other sketchy areas south of the city.

I'm trying to book my flight home for winter break, but the final exam schedule hasn't been decided yet - and the administration won't release it until "the first week in December." The university system can't be privatized soon enough.

Main group of friends continues to be... English, Swedes, Colombians, Mexicans, French and Americans, with various representatives from Tunisia, Morocco and South Africa thrown in. Dorm life is really fantastic; it was with great regret that I left a dinner party last night (followed by a movie and an excursion downtown) to go play korfball. I left my frustration on the court: we won 18-7 and I had several goals (and no reprimands from the referee, of which I usually receive four or five a game).

There's a student association sponsored trip to a "mountain refuge" in Font d'Urle, about an hour away in the Vercors mountains, this weekend. We leave Saturday morning, spend the day in the mountains, sleep in a cabin (I hope; my sleeping bag's not warm enough for the outdoors!) and then return Sunday evening. If there's snow, we'll go luging!

I'm off to the theater to see "Lonesome Jim" - reviews so far have been positive!

Les Anglais!

2005-11-09T18:06:00.000+01:00

Before I continue with the pictures, here are several highlights from the trip:

- Chelsea buns: We bought these sweet glazed delicacies at Fitzbillies, a niche pastry shop and quintessentially English. Chelsea buns are like cinnamon rolls, but instead of icing, they have glazed honey (?) and little soltanas (some little fruit similar to raisins). We could feel the pounds being added to our stomachs, but kept eating anyway. I had my first Cornish pasty at the same shop. It's rather difficult to describe - imagine three flaky croissants combined, with meat and onions inside, and then baked to an almost unbearably hot temperature. Apparently they come in lots of varieties; I'd like to try a ham and cheese one next time.

- The "hostel" where Rachel lives is more like a hotel. High-speed internet access, a luxurious common room (where I was violated. Read on...) with TV and DVD, several fully equipped kitchens, sheets changed weekly, bedroom floors vacuumed daily and the bathrooms are, well, I guess they're still bathrooms in a student residence. Some were actually smaller than the smallest French bathrooms; I was shocked!

- Approximately twelve yards from the entrance of said hostel is a square with a fantastic open-air market each day; we visisted a couple times but had always just eaten and thus passed on the ostrich sandwiches. (What kind of barbarian can eat an ostrict anyway? Imagine how frightened the creature is when it's being pursued; it panics and shoves its head in the ground! What really must kill it when it's yanked from the ground is a brain aneurysm or cardiac arrest from the sight of a sharp, shiny machete.)

- After one late night outing, we had chips and cheese - French fries liberally covered with shredded cheese and kethcup, mmmm - from a little white van that mysteriously opened up shop in that square.

- Dojo: an excellent Japanese/Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese noodle shop with super-generous portions.

There were lots of other neat, quaint attractions, but I forgot them all in my hurry to return to second-world, riot-ridden, expensive, unhelpful and unfriendly France. Here's the rest of the pictures:

Getting ready for the Emma formal. This was a *ahem* quick process.

I had to sneak this picture after the head waiter reprimanded people for taking pictures. Apparently dinner photography violates some sacred culinary covenant. I was woefully under-dressed and kept my jacket on until the very last moment possible.

Rachel also snuck a photo - we were all stunned at her boldness, and fearful of being kicked out for guilt by association. Our dinner companions were all history grad students, and very interesting people. The guy to my right was friendly and extraordinarily intelligent. I enjoyed conversing with him and exercising vocabulary dormant for months. The fellow with glasses across the table was also smart, but a bit of a philanderer... apparently all the ladies were wooed by his performance on a British reality show.

With friends like these, who needs enemies? Yes, half my left shin is shaven. No, I didn't notice it until it was far too late. Yes, everyone at my korfball practice pointed and laughed. Note to self: don't fall asleep around mischievous WANKERS. Just kidding. It was pleasantly smooth but now's been overrun by evil stubble.

Unfortunately, the rest of my stay was marred with typical English weather - clouds and drizzle. Otherwise, we would have gone "punting" on the Cam - like gondolas in Venice, except it's do-it-yourself!

The mishaps continued as aforementioned reality fellow let his drink explode all over me at his otherwise very cool flat party. The napkin he handed me was nice...

Open defiance of the Emma maitre d'. Rachel, thank you for such a great time!

Just let me play one round of golf on it

2005-11-09T17:43:00.000+01:00

I'll need Rachel to remind me which college is which - there are 31 in Cambridge and very few of them properly labeled (usually the ones constructed within the last two centuries). This is one of the first she showed me, but it would reveal a common theme: beautiful, classic architecture, finely-manicured lawns and carefully trimmed vegetation.

A replica of the Venetian "Bridge of Sighs." I saw the real thing two days before :)

The grounds of St. John/Trinity.

Take a look at the clock... or the lack of it. An old Cambridge city code prevented more than one clock-tower within a mile of the city center - and this college lost the race.

The King's College "quad." There are automatic sentry turrets in the center gazebo and they're designed to immediately fire 50-caliber bullets at anyone who steps on the grass for more than 1.3 seconds (accurate time - I witnessed the unfortunate demise of more than one ignorant Japanese tourist.)

The Trinity College "quad." I wanted to re-enact Chariots of Fire, but I left my running shoes back in Grenoble.

Another view of the King's College Chapel and the Bates Building.

The King's College Library had the most pleasing "library" smell that I've ever experienced. There were all sorts of little nooks and crannies, wonderfully creaky floorboards and rows and rows of classic books, inches away from my fingertips. It's open 24 hours, but if you're the last one to leave, "please turn the lights off."

The famous "Backs" view, looking towards King's College Chapel and the Bates Building from across the Cam River.

Rachel pointed out this sign a few yards from her hostel. She said she just discovered it a couple weeks ago. The actual church was fairly well-hidden by dense shrubbery.

Emmanuel College's "quad." The next evening, we would attend a formal dinner in their dining hall, but first...

...we strolled among the famous Emma surely-they-are-heavily-sedated ducks. They were bold little creatures and we decided to leave before they grew incensed at us for not bringing food.

London-is-really-35-miles-away Luton

2005-11-09T16:22:00.000+01:00

Cambridge was absolutely awesome. The taxi driver who drove me from the Cambridge train station to King's College Porter Lodge asked if I was visiting to consider studying there. I said, "No, I'm just visiting a friend. I think I'll go to grad school in the States." But I would consider changing my mind after experiencing a few days in the life of a Cambridge student. (Unfortunately, this experience didn't include anything from the academic realm - I arrived too late for lectures on Thursday, Rachel didn't have any on Friday (I wonder where she learned that scheduling tactic) and I left early Monday morning.)

Getting to Cambridge was extraordinarily difficult. We took the rental car back to the dorm around 5am; it didn't have to be returned until 1pm... a deadline that would come in handy later. I unpacked and went to sleep around 6am. I didn't wake up until 10:15; I'd wanted to start doing laundry around 8:30. I pulled on some shorts, threw my laundry in my suitcase and started as many loads as possible.

While my clothes were spinning, I went back to the dorm and started packing my backpack with other essentials: laptop, umbrella, miscellaneous cords and chargers, my trusty Economist. My laundry didn't finish until 12:15pm; I'd had to dry it three times because of the lousy dryers. Everything else was packed, so I hastily folded what I needed and left the rest strewn on my bed. I put my clothes in my big blue marshmallow suitcase and technological essentials in my backpack, then snagged the tram west to the bus station.

I had planned to take a bus to the airport (35 minutes away), but while I asked the bus station cashier where the bus was, he called a colleague and proceeded to chat with the person for five minutes - a huge delay, because my plane's departure was 3:00pm, and flight check-in would close, promptly, at 2:30pm. As he babbled away, the one bus that had appeared to be going to the airport left. The cashier finished his conversation, simply looked at me and said, "Taxi" and pointed at the line of taxis outside. I resisted the urge to strangle him and after frantically searching for another bus, approached a cabbie to ask what the fare would be: 68 euros ($80 USD), he told me. I didn't have that much cash, so I tried to use the only ATM at the station - but it would only accept French cards equipped with a little microchip. Most of my money was in my US Visa account, and I couldn't remember my PIN code for my French account!

Completely desperate, I began to contemplate taking the evil bus station operator hostage with a baguette and commandeering one of the nice Mercedes taxis to the airport. However, just as I was going into la boulangerie to buy a stiff loaf from last week, Isabelle called - she and Rachel had just finished returning the Hertz car and were at the train station! Overjoyed, I quickly met them and explained my plight. Isabelle didn't have her bankcards with her but Rachel instantly offered me 100 euros from her account. Eternally grateful, I hugged them and sprinted to the nearest cab, first confirming the price - now 65 euros. Only briefly tempted to see if I could lower the price further, I threw my bags in the back and said, Allons-y!

I arrived at 2:10 and swiftly made my way through check-in and security (talk about redundancy; no less than five different checkpoints inspected my passport). I slept on the uneventful plane ride, only waking up to fill out an immigration landing card - and staying awake while 45-mph winds jostled the plane on its descent. Undaunted by the less-than-pleasant greeting from the English weather, I took a bus from London Luton Airport (what a stretch - "London" Luton is 35 miles northwest of central London) to the Luton train station, where I bought a ticket to King's Cross Thameslink station. I timed it perfectly and only had to wait a couple minutes before that train arrived. I lugged my huge suitcase aboard just before the doors closed. An hour later, I arrived at King's Cross Thameslink station. I bought a ticket there to Cambridge, but had to go to a different station, King's Cross, to take the right train. Rachel had reminded me to take a picture of a certain platform and I took this picture with 2.5 minutes before my train left:

I hopped aboard and eagerly looked for an open seat, but the train was jam-packed. Simply happy to be going the right direction, I perched myself on my suitcase and leisurely read the Economist. 52 long minutes later, I arrived at Cambridge Station! I exited and found the taxi stand. While waiting, I experienced my first taste of the British fixation with lines ("queues"). No less than three people asked me, "Is this the front or back of the queue?" I replied that it didn't matter to me, and they happily shuffled into line behind me. My Thai taxi driver was pleasant but not particularly adept at navigating small, dark streets.

Breathing a sigh of relief as I left her vehicle, I met Rachel at the King's College Porter Lodge at 6:25pm. We went to the last part of her King's Voices choral practice - and I received my first impression of the tremendous talent at Cambridge. There was no hesitation between the choir director's commands and the group's singing; they instantly responded to his commands and spontaneously adapted to different requirements. I politely declined his invitation to join in the singing, remembering that apart from my best-selling "Broadway: Super Shower Soundtracks" performance, I hadn't formally sung since 8th grade.

Practice finished at 7pm and we went to her graduate student housing building. The English term for it is a "hostel," but it's a far cry from the youth hostels in Prague or Geneva. Her room was quite expansive and there was more than enough space for the oversized spare mattress (a pleasant change from my French dorm mattress, about half the size) that we dragged out from a storage closet. However, there was little time to inspect the bedding - we had to change and dress-up for "Curry and Clubbing" night with her women's soccer team and the Christ's College men's Rugby Club ("CCRC" was chanted so many times that evening, it's forever imprinted on my memory). I imagine that 500 pounds sterling ($880 USD) is also forever imprinted on two rugby players who had to pay the sum after damaging a sink and mirror in the Indian restaurant we ate at. The English are currently engaged in a nation-wide debate over the harmful effects of the country's infatuation with intoxication - and I think I'm now qualified to testify as an expert witness. The rest of the evening was fun and full of interesting people only slightly tainted by snobbishness. On Friday, we went sightseeing - pictures coming soon!

Pigeons. I hate pigeons.

2005-11-08T12:59:00.000+01:00

This tower used to be a lighthouse and we took an elevator (I wanted to climb the stairs, but that wasn't possible) to the top, for more breathtaking views.

The front of the Basilica. The inside was incredible; I barely resisted the temptation to whip out my camera, but didn't want to incur clerical wrath.

More pigeons. Yuck.

Unfortunately, while you could see much of the city from the top of the lighthouse -- you couldn't see a single canal!

A quaint little island.

Another shot from the lighthouse.

We ate lunch at a horrible tourist trap (the food wasn't bad, but the prices - argh!) and were further aggravated by the toilets, apparently designed for dwarfs.

I tried to get a clear photo of the Basilica, but there were too many tourists, pushy maitre d's, construction and peculiar flagpoles in the way.

This Best Western, tucked away on some backcanal, is only accessible by boat - it's impossible to enter by foot.

Venice at sunset.

More fabulous architecture.

Arrivederci, Venezia!

We left Venice around 6pm and headed back to Grenoble, but had to wait an hour on the Italy-France border while the mountain tunnel was "repaired." Having lots of faith in the quality of joint French-Italian construction, we let a couple cars enter ahead of us... just to be courteous. We arrived back in Grenoble at 4:30am... and I left for Cambridge seven hours later.

Venizia!

2005-11-08T12:46:00.000+01:00

As you can imagine, the first impression of Venice was stunning, even at night.

We found an excellent three-star hotel and for 150 euros receieved the penthouse suite, complete with all sorts of funny Italian decorations.

Venice also had fantastic architecture and it was even more tucked away than in Prague. We found streets that were so tight, 35% of Americans wouldn't have been able to squeeze through. I'm serious. There were three-foot high archways, two parallel streets with the same name and all sorts of other little tricks that street criminals must love.

We arrived in Venice around 10pm Tuesday and the city was essentially ours - there was no foot traffic and only the occasional boat.

Another picture of the beautiful canals.

There were all sorts of neat little touches, like this angelic streetlight, with the lamp surrounded by three glass umbrellas.

Art was EVERYWHERE.

A famous bridge - Ponte Rialto (?). Italian sailors at the top were wooing almost every passing female.

The dreaded mist followed us from Prague, but we were still easily able to enjoy the city during the day.

We took a waterbus to Piazza San Marco, along the Canal Grande - the Basilica was jaw-dropping.

Speechless.

The sights just kept coming, one after another.

I wish I knew the name of this building, adjacent to Piazza San Marco.

I hated the pigeons. The girls loved them. Yuck.

Whipped cream and communists

2005-11-08T12:13:00.000+01:00

There was a club called the Tom-Tom near our hostel and we went there one evening. Much to Jeff's annoyance, he received a Kahlua + Whipped Cream, after trying to order a Kahlua + Cream. He asked the waitress to correct the error and was told "that's the way we do it here" in return. We left shortly afterwards, in an effort to keep him from strangling the unhelpful staff. It was really our only unpleasant experience in Prague.

We found our way to a B.B. King favorite - the Ungelt Jazz Club, a little cellar club that had a vibrant band - and poor ventilation. The repetitive beat and lack of air circulation made us all drowsy, so we were eager to breathe the crisp Prague air after it closed at midnight.

One afternoon we stopped at a thoroughly Czech cafe and had delicious rotisserie chicken, along with interesting side dishes (everything fried and battered!). Divide the numbers by 24.5 to get prices in US dollars.

I think this is Namitzy Square. Again, it really conjured up my Disneyland memories!

Another view of the square.

The famous astronomical clock: "The oldest part of the Orloj, the mechanical clock and astronomical dial, dates back to 1410 when it was made by clockmaker Mikul of Kadan and Jan Indel, the latter a professor of mathematics and astronomy at Charles University. The Prague Orloj was the third clock of its kind, the first having been constructed in Padua in 1344."

We went to a great Communist Museum. It offered a scathing indictment of communism - and let you experience the joys of capitalism with a next-door casino where Jeff and I played blackjack afterwards (I won 2,000 krona!), but still couldn't shake the images of the 1989 student protests that led to the Velvet Revolution, and the overthrow of the communist regime.

King Wencelas Square during the daytime, looking towards the National Museum (which looks cool, but my guide book dismisses it as "only of interest to geologists and zoologists."

The Soviet-era trams zipped everywhere and appeared remarkably efficient.

A night-time view of fhe National Theatre.

A moving memorial on a hill where an enormous statue of Stalin used to stand. The human figure is broken and fragmented at the top, where ths statue used to be, and becomes progressively more whole and complete as it walks down the stairs - representing the evolutionary healing process and improvement of mankind after escaping communism. The plaque reads: "The memorial to the victims of communism is dedicated to all victims, not only those who were jailed or executed but also those whose lives were ruined by totalitarian despotism."

We made our way back to Cheb and dashed across the border to Schirding, Germany. We were reprimanded for not having train tickets - but otherwise the return was hassle-free... and happily our car was still there! We paused to catch our breath and consulted a map - "looks like we have to go through Austria" was the group consensus. Off to Venice...

Prague just keeps getting better

2005-11-08T11:48:00.000+01:00

I loved the Prague streets. Here's the first of three streets. I'm standing in the same place for each photo.

View two...

...and view three.

Back on the Charles Bridge with Rachel and Lina!

A six-man band playing catchy folk music on the Charles Bridge. They had a large audience. I think the fellow on the far right is Castro in disguise.

Moi!

More fantastic Prague architecture.

We climbed to the top of the hill and were granted a sweeping view of the city - it was impressive, but would've been spectacular without the fog.

(I'm not vain, I just remembered Mom's maxim - "get pictures of yourself; otherwise they're just fancy buildings!")

A nice English woman took this great photo of us, from left to right: Lina, Isabelle, me, Rachel and Jeff.

At the castle Jeff and Rachel were fascinated with the palace guard. The poor fellow was shaking and trembling and I think they helped cheer him up, even though the rest of us were worried they'd get bayoneted.

I wish I could've seen the St Vitus Cathedral (I think that's the name) at day, but it was also superb at night.

I turned on my mega-flash and illuminated the entire facade, but then had to run away from an angry monk. (Not true.)

On our way down, we paused to capture the beautiful nightscape. I had to climb an eight-foot wall and used my camera's self-timer function to get this relatively clear picture.

The Castle at night.

We ate at an excellent Indian restaurant (much to my pleasant surprise... I had been very skeptical.) and after dinner, our waiter brought this little bronze car to our table, with the top hatch and hood closed. Curious, we opened it up and found toothpicks, aniseed (?) and sugar - all the ingredients to clean and freshen your teeth!

Prague Sights

2005-11-08T11:31:00.000+01:00

We met a handful of French people in the youth hostel in Prague, and two Germans. We hung out with the French for a bit but then... "lost" them... accidentally... and didn't look for them.

Drinking the Czech speciality.

Group hug in Karlovy Lazne, "the biggest night-club in middle Europe." Five stories of pulsing music until 5am.

Our beds had secret hiding spaces... probably quite popular during the Communist days.

The architecture in Prague was amazing. Every street corner featured another soaring cathedral or elaborate church.

This is a giant, full-scale functioning metronome at the north end of the city.

Prague Castle, from a distance, across the Charles River. It looks like Disneyland, except it's real!

The Charles Bridge was absolutely jam-packed with tourists, and this was in late October. Apparently the summer months are even more crowded. Mission Impossible fans recognize anything familiar?

Yes, I know my scarf looks funny.

Let me sum up an entire year...

2005-11-06T03:49:00.000+01:00

...in one photo: from left to right, French Sebastian, Colombian Camilla, English Rachel, Mexican Gabriela, Swedish Isabelle, American me! and Tunisian Tarek.

Germany, continued; Welcome to the Czech Republic

2005-11-05T05:00:00.000+01:00

Exterior of the Golden Nugget... yes, this really was in Germany.

The girls loading the car. Jeff and I were wandering around looking at all the BMWs, Audis and Mercedes while they did the heavy lifting.

Nuremberg had awesome fortifications... I wish we could've spent longer touring the city!

'Ausfahrt' - the German word for 'exit.' For a while the girls were awed and considered it Germany's largest city since it appeared at every offramp. You can imagine how we pronounced it.

Isabelle driving on the Autobahn at 150km/h, around 93mph. Even at this speed, the Porsches and Volkswagens flew by us.

Czech Republic countryside... I suspect that's a submerged bridge in the background.

This is what we usually saw when the train stopped.

These little train-buses were everywhere in train stations! They were so little but always jam-packed with passengers.

A teaser image (The National Museum) from Wencelas Square in Prague... I adore Praha.

The Golden Nugget

2005-11-05T04:54:00.000+01:00

Lina, me, Rachel and Jeff at a random German service station. Almost every gas station we stopped at had a full-scale buffet with piping hot food - even at 11:30pm. I had some tasty soup - vegetable beef, I hope.

In the Golden Nugget! Yes, that is the Confederate flag, and yes, that is a one LITER can of beer on the table next to me. I had to hold it with two hands.

The amazing breakfast facilities at Golden Nugget - now imagine it with several friendly and helpful German ladies offering you hot chocolate, tea and coffee. There were two other tables also, one offering salmon and cheese and the other with pastries, donuts and muffins.||

What a whirlwind week!

2005-11-04T11:42:00.001+01:00

I'm in Cambridge now, visiting Rachel, a friend from ASU who's a grad student at King's College. The past week has been such a whirlwind - France, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria and Italy. I'm exhausted, but finally have a few moments to catch my breath and post some pictures. It'll take a while to recount my adventures, so I'll try to post mainly photographs and update the narrative in installments...

Last Friday, I left for Prague with four friends - Rachel from England, Isabelle and Lina from Sweden and Jeff from Michigan. We rented a Hertz car and were going to drive straight through... until the rental agent informed us that Hertz cars weren't allowed to be driven through the Czech Republic. Blast. After some hesitation, we resolved to get as close as we could, and then figure out border-crossing logistics. We spent the night in a hotel called "Golden Nugget" an hour away from Nuremburg. For 125 euros we received a penthouse suite with five bedrooms, two bathrooms and a living room. The owner was quite enamored with the American West; cowboys and Indians were everywhere, including some depictions that probably would have invited lawsuits and outrage back in the States. The breakfast room had two flags: the American flag and the Confederate flag. Breakfast was absolutely delicious and by far the best morning meal I've had yet in Europe. Scrambled eggs with ham, fresh fruit, yogurt, orange juice and sausages. Salmon and various cheeses were also available. We arrived in Nuremburg in the early afternoon and were dismayed to find out that the train wouldn't leave for several more hours, was horribly slow and horrendously expensive. We briefly considered renting another car (cheaper than the train!) but opted to continue to the border after spying a border town called Schirding along the rail route. We snacked at Subway, then raced to Schirding, only getting lost twice.

I think the population of Schirding quintupled once we arrived at 3:22pm. There was no car park, only a long stretch of pavement next to the most basic train "station" you've ever seen. We parked the car, grabbed our bags and leapt aboard at 3:23pm. Talk about breathless. We had no tickets but the immigration officials didn't appear to mind; we received a departure stamp from the German authority and an arrival stamp from the Czech one. There was no way to divine where exactly the train was headed, but we managed to learn (without knowing any German or Czech) that it was only a shuttle between Schirding and Cheb, the nearest Czech border town. Once we arrived in Cheb, we had to buy tickets to Prague ('Praha' in Czech). They were only 108 Czech Krona - around $4 - apiece. The train through the Czech Republic was so interesting. The cities looked relatively prosperous, but the countryside was full of tiny cottages and ancient Soviet infrastructure. We arrived in Prague at 7:45pm, thrilled, excited and absolutely clueless about where we were going to sleep.

Praha

2005-10-30T02:30:00.000+01:00

Prague is amazing. I love it.

Only in France

2005-10-25T11:11:00.000+02:00

I was very concerned about waking up on time for class this morning, so I set my cellphone alarm for 7:50am and set it on my desk chair - far enough out of my reach so I couldn't subconsciously fling it against the wall in a rage-filled sleep stupor, but close enough to sufficiently irritate me into sitting up in my amazingly-comfortable-when-you're-dead-tired bed, casting off my warm and cozy polar blankets and telling myself, "Don't you dare reset the alarm for 5 minutes later, don't you dare." I dared. Four times. Fortunately, I'd set my computer to start playing Green Day and Nirvana songs at 5 minute intervals around the same time, so I had to repeatedly stumble over to shut off that ruckus. After several trips, I was still groggy but somehow found my way to the bathroom and splashed cold - and I mean COLD, it's straight from the Alps, which have had snow for the past couple weeks - water on my face.

I quickly dressed, said silent thanks that I'd showered before going to bed and rushed to school... sort of. I waited in vain by the bus stop for 6 minutes and then headed to the tram stop (no need to rush; trams come every two to four minutes from 8am to 4pm). Arrived slightly late for my Version class (translating English press into French) but luckily teacher primarily is concerned about attendance, not punctuality. It passed uneventfully, as did the Theme class (translating French press into English) afterwards.

However, I knew I was in for some excitement when I saw about 150 students and professors gathered in front of the more often closed than open library. There was some sort of unenthusiastic speech going on - there was only sporadic clapping and most people appeared more interested in huddling together to stay warm. I continued walking to the political science building, only to be greeted by a few students standing around a table with juice and leaflets. They were guarding the entrance to the building -- which had a construction fence and a large log crudely barricading the doors. I smiled and took a leaflet, "The Closed University." The students are protesting against moves toward university privatization and believe that the best way to bring the government and administration officials to the negotiating table is by blocking access to university facilities. Riiiiiight. Only in France. Back home, that would be met with SWAT teams and tear gas... and black helicopters.

Where else?

2005-10-25T04:06:00.000+02:00

After basketball practice this evening, I walked to the tram stop with two Chinese guys, Lee and Bo. I took the tram for two stops, and then disembarked at my dorm. I walked in, sweaty and tired and lugging my backpack -- and was somehow persuaded to go out on the town. I went with two Swedish girls (Leena and Isabelle), an English girl (Rachel) and her Scottish boyfriend (Cameron, and a South African girl (Alexia). We started off at the Bukana Pub with a couple of pints -- I must've impressed the owner with my French, because he offered me a job and asked me to work next Monday, Halloween. I declined -- because I want to go to Germany/Prague -- but told Alexia, and we talked with the barman and he happily enlisted her. As we were getting ready to leave, I took our empty glasses up to the bar and all six of us received a free round! We strolled over to the Couche-Tard (The "Sleep Late") and enjoyed a couple more pints and another round of free drinks as Cameron treated everyone in an attempt to get rid of his euros. We all bonded quite nicely and met some interesting Brits and an Italian along the way. The Couche-Tard closed at 2am, so we poured outside and debated whether to head to a nightclub or call it a night. The fresh air helped us come to our senses and we remembered it was a Monday evening, so we walked to the FNAC (like Best Buy) / McDonalds area near the Victor Hugo tram stop and caught a taxi. We combined all our charm and won the cabbie over -- he pulled out a bag of marshmallows and gave us his last four marshmallows, didn't charge us the "4th person fee" that taxis usually charge and gave us a discount on the final fare (around 3 euros ($3.60 USD) apiece. Amazing.

Where else could I enjoy a night out with such a diverse crowd? Where else could I plan a trip to Prague with Swedes? Where else could I get offered a job in a foreign bar? Where else... but Grenoble. The city is slowly starting to redeem itself...

No flash, please

2005-10-22T20:37:00.000+02:00

Here was another interesting... "piece." Unfortunately a videocamera in the room was supervising and thus deterred us from playing tag on top of the stumps.

Here are the aromatic glass balls at the wine-tasting event we went to downtown (read my post for a bit more of an explanation).

Me lurking in the fog at the Bastille, the old fort at the north end of the city. We took the cable-car up Wednesday night and went to a not too shabby pop/punk music concert inside the fortifications.

A kind fellow volunteered to take our picture at the Bastille. The well-lit road on the right side of the picture is Boulevard Gambetta... or Boulevard Jean Jaures. Probably the latter, which is the longest straight road in Europe - eight kilometers, I think.

On Friday we had lunch with Loic and Megan at the Buffalo Grill. I wanted to saddle up on the mighty plastic bison, but it was raining and I was concerned about goring myself on his rather pointy horns.

My awesome friends: Loic, who has single-handedly helped redeem an entire nation, and Megan, who makes me miss all Midwesterners and will someday be besting Emeril on the Food Network.

An early Halloween

2005-10-22T20:26:00.000+02:00

Sarah carving a pumpkin that Mom sent... this would be a three-day affair and her fingers were bruised afterwards. Styrofoam pumpkins are much less reluctant to be carved than real pumpkins.

Wow, she looks French! In fact, everyone assumed she was until she told them differently. I thought it might help us get better service in restaurants, but they seem to treat everyone with equal disinterest.

We visited the Grenoble Museum - it had an incredible assortment of classical and contemporary art. I was utterly fascinated by this huge sphere made of thin metal rods. Its diameter is at least 10 feet.

The libertarian in me perked up at this piece, "Surveillance is Your Reason to Be."

The not so world wide web

2005-10-22T18:59:00.000+02:00

Wow, the things I'll go through for internet access... right now I'm sitting in the dark, on a park bench on campus, connected to a random wireless access point ("U2-ESA"; I think it's a university network) and shivering in the cold while squinting at my dim screen (if I don't set it to 'Etch-a-Sketch' brightness levels, the battery drains in about an hour) and staying on guard against potential assailants. I have my headphones on, but there's no music playing; clever trickery designed to lure my attackers into thinking they have an advantage, but really serving to alert me of their approach sooner. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not really out to get me.

All of this would be much simpler, of course, if the university could simply install internet access in the residences. However, that is too great of a demand to make and, considering my school's track record with maintaining simple mechanical things like refrigerators and stoves, perhaps it is better that they steer clear of electronics. I'm not sure how to describe it - but outside my building there is a curb ramp that I honestly believe would have been better designed and constructed by the Romans. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow. It's sad how much of the university is in disrepair. I tried to go to the library today and it was closed, with only a sign in the window, "Library will be closed 10/22, 10/29, 10/31, and 11/1," and no other explanation. I yearn for ASU's 24/7 Hayden Library.

It's not all gloom, though. Yesterday Sarah and I went to the "Millelisme," a wine-tasting event in downtown Grenoble, at Place Victor Hugo. For 12 euros, we both received a nice wine glass emblazoned with the event's logo (I'll try to bring them home for Christmas!) and access to around 30 different vendor booths. Most were winemakers, but there were also foie gras and cookie tents, a live jazz band and a tent with fourteen glass balls containing different scents and aromas, and information on how they factored into winemaking. We were really unsure of the protocol at first, being such wine debutants, but eventually mustered the courage to approach random strangers with glass outstretched and request "un peu de la rouge, s'il vous plait." To look more authentic, we performed the hold-the-glass-up-to-the-light-and-nod-thoughtfully-while-really-wondering-where-you-could-find-a-Sprite ritual, follwed by the swirl-it-gently-don't-splash!-they'll-think-you're-drunk exercise and topped off with the plunge-your-nose-in-the-glass-and-pray-no-boogers-fall-in-then-INHALE-like-you-just-escaped-drowning routine. Usually by the end of that delicate dance we were sufficiently far enough away from the booth to try the sample, grimace in disgust and pour the remainder out as quickly as possible.

Sarah shopped more on Thursday, mostly at the Swedish clothing store H&M... and I got my haircut! That was a terrifying experience. I walked in, was greeted by "Marc" and told him that I would like a haircut, in a sort of French style, but not too bizarre. He said, "Alors, vous voulez... (So, you want...) chic, elegant, cool, sexy... class, oui?" I grinned and nodded and thought it would all go well and nodded off to the lulling sound of snipping scissors. I looked up and said, "Whoa, c'est court!" - that's short! - and then stayed awake out of fright for the rest of the experience... and now I'm wearing a hat. Grr. It might not actually be that bad, but now it's more crew cut with peculiar French spin, and less sexy spiky American. At least I got a 20% student discount - students get discounts on almost everything here. It's baffling. Even the McDonald's clone 'Quick' gives students a 5 or 10% discount on food. Speaking of Quick, that's where we ran to after the wine tasting, in urgent search of bathrooms. We raced to the second floor and were stymied by a stern looking door equipped with an unfortunately very functioning keycode system. It only took a little bit of deduction to figure out that a purchase was necessary to obtain a keycode... and then right after we'd bought the cheapest little cheesy bacon fried nuggets available and used the restrooms, someone simply asked us for our code. We gave it to them and tried to post our receipt with the code outside the entrance but gave up after the horrible rain THAT HAS PLAGUED GRENOBLE SINCE I ARRIVED beat us back.

Sarah and I took a painfully early 5am bus to Lyon's St Exupery airport this morning. We said goodbye around 7:45am and I took an 8:30am bus back to Grenoble, where I then slept, played online until my battery was exhausted and read the Economist until I fell asleep again. I'm trying to plan a trip next week to Strasbourg, Munich, Berlin and Prague. I'm not sure if I can fit them all in in just eight days, but I'll give it a shot. November 3rd I'm off to Cambridge for the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawke's Day and to observe first-hand the swirling intrigue around Rachel's remarkable romantic entanglements.

I just got a call from Eli, another American guy from ASU, letting me know of his intention to go downtown to "an Irish bar by the river." There are lots of Irish bars downtown and there are two rivers, but I'll be hitching along - that's typically how a night goes here. Once one person finds something to do, he/she texts/calls as many other people as quickly as possible, so we all converge on one establishment in a large horde, like roaming barbarians. I would try to hang out with French students, but it's the weekend and they always retreat to their family homes far, far away from Grenoble.

It's raining, it's pouring

2005-10-19T10:47:00.000+02:00

The past week has been relatively uneventful. As long as I avoid financial institutions, grocery stores, housing assistance offices, police officers and educational facilities everything goes well. I went to Lyon on Sunday morning to meet Sarah - 7:13am trains are brutal, FYI. However, she got the really rotten deal... Air France lost her luggage! (They tried to console her with a little toiletry bag with a razor (no shaving cream), a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a men's XXL white t-shirt.) While she filled out endless paperwork in Paris I wandered Lyon and was sitting in a random church's Mass when my phone vibrated - "I'm here!" I rushed back to the station and we collided in an embrace that would've dazed Ray Lewis. The train back to Grenoble was punctuated by total silence and sound sleep. Sarah napped a little more back at campus, and then we had a delicious dinner of "raclette" (sp?) at Loic and Megan's. There was a central pot on the table that heated little pie plates with handles - you dropped thick slices of cheese in the pie-plate, waited for them to sizzle and then poured out the gooey cheese on potatoes, various meats and broccoli. Yum.

Air France graciously gave Sarah a 100 euro allowance for "essential" clothing... I'm not sure how classically European black knee-high boots qualify as an essential item, but luckily they only say "shoes" on the receipt. We contemplated hopping over to Italy for a couple days but I think lounging in Grenoble will be a bit more relaxing. On verra.

I received my first grade yesterday - a 10 (out of 20) on homework. Ouch. I think I lost points because I turned it in on yellow legal paper, not the crisp graph/notebook paper the French adore. Grr. A '10' is a 'B' back at ASU - I need to get a 13 or higher for an A. Off to the store to search for les papiers corrects...

Greetings from Geneva

2005-10-11T17:33:00.000+02:00

This is me before finding out about all the wicked things my bank and International Relations office did to me.

I went to a modern art museu and was really stymied by some of the pieces. Like these... rolls of tape... symbolizing... the need... to buy... more tape.

One of my favorite attractions - enormous chess pieces in the park! I wanted to play, but all the old men were busy arguing back and forth about who could lift a pawn with the fewest amount of bones cracking.

Nestled in the Old Town is this gorgeous church - I took an archeological tour of the original church, underneath this one, built in ~200 A.D. Quite amazing, really, and superb excavation work. I saw monks' little work areas, the bottom of a bell casting, and all sorts of preserved artificats. I must've been speaking excellent French that day because the museum fellow was astonished to find out I was an Anglophone and offered to take me on some "special tour" of Geneva. He batted his eyes a few too many times, though...

The longest wooden bench in the world - 413 feet!

Here's the exterior of the Musee d'Art et d'Histoire. It was, believe it or not, rather difficult to find.

I loved the Musee d'Histoire et d'Art. It was enormous, interesting and FREE! They had an incredible section on weapons and armor - all sorts of knight's outfits, huge pikes and deadly crossbows. I think there are enough pistols in here to arm half the country.

In the basement of the museum was the Egyptian section. Here are some fragments from the Book of the Dead. Oooh...

I'd never heard of it before, but this is Geneva's "Jet d'Eau," an enormous jet of water (132 gallons per second) that shoots 459 feet high. It's visible from most places in the city and is an excellent landmark. You can actually walk up really close to it; I went within 50 feet and had to turn back because there was so much spray and mist.

I'll conclude with this picturesque, quintessential Geneva photo. The water is so amazingly clear; you can see straight to the bottom even at night.

The Grass is Greener in Geneva

2005-10-11T17:31:00.000+02:00

The grass was extraordinarily green and I saw several outdoor photo exhibitions. This one was sponsored by the UN and had pictures of families from all over the world and quotes from them about their lives. The gardeners were getting ready to plant new flowers... probably some super-hybrid strain that can survive the bitter lake effect.

Trees grow funny in Geneva.

Geneva had lots of interesting public art, including this peculiar spinning fountain center-piece near the youth hostel (which, incidentally, was not bad. quite sterile and lacking in personality, but relatively clean and affordable).

The European streets are really starting to look alike... this was just a little south of Lake Geneva, near the Old Town, and home to lots of pricey shops -- well, pricier shops. Everything in Geneva was pricey.

There were numerous churches throughout the city and almost all had lovely clock-faces.

Inter-fowl conflict... call the UN!

Speaking of the UN, I took a tour of the Geneva complex -- zzzz. Security there was utterly inept, so I wasn't scared at all and stuck my hand through a thick gate to take this picture. I'm not sure if that's a sniper on the roof?

However, this building was a little more intimidating... the "Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation." Yikes. This is directly across the street from the UN complex (i.e., where I was standing when I took the picture!) and appears to have brought excellent financial success to barbed wire contractors.

This was a beautiful... building on the Rhone River, just before it meets Lake Geneva. I wish I knew if this was a museum -- it was right next to a dodgy area of Geneva that we dubbed the "warehouse district" - and stayed out in until 5:30am. There was a huge discotheque in one of the warehouses; we chose the more contemporary music area... but the drum+bass section sounded INSANE. Apparently a popular DJ from Brazil was in town for the weekend and he had a huge following.

Rotten Luck

2005-10-11T10:52:00.000+02:00

The temptation to return home at the end of the semester has returned. My bank here, Societe Generale, "couldn't find" my 300 euro ($360 USD) deposit; supposedly they're "looking into it." The International Relations office changed the amount of credits one of my classes was worth, and absolutely refused to budge, so now I have to find another class to take - in the fourth week of the semester! - or receive a failing grade back at ASU for the difference between the number of credits I take and the number required. I need a stress ball that has "French Bureaucracy" written on it.

Other than being cold, dark and small, the dorms here aren't bad at all. When I walked in the building last night, some kids from Thailand invited me to eat dinner with them. Afterwards, I walked with Indian and Mexican guys to a French/English/American apartment party. Last week there was an enormous party on the floor above me; I met an incredible amount of French students, Morrocans and Algerians. Everyone is stunningly friendly; yesterday afternoon I played American football with some French guys on a grassy hill near our dorm.

I had a nice time in Geneva (had the fortune to meet two great Australian guys and we all hung out together, every night until 6am), but the city was definitely not worth spending four days in - two would have sufficed nicely. I took a plethora of pictures and will start posting those soon.

A la poubelle

2005-10-05T01:25:00.000+02:00

More details are forthcoming, but... this afternoon I was grabbed, shoved and manhandled by a store security agent after I took a picture of him harassing an older man - at the time I took the picture, I didn't know he was store security; I thought it was a repeat of the event on the tram I recounted here two or three weeks ago, when I described a younger guy yelling at an older man and eventually kicking him in the head until he was restrained. I called the police as I followed the security agent into the store - I snatched my camera back and then the security guy pushed me, grabbed my arms and shoulders and lunged at me, trying to get the camera back. Another security agent came and they pushed me against a clothes rack, and restrained me from moving.

I forcefully refused, again and again, their demands to "come to the back with us." I waited and waited for the police - and when three plainclothes cops came, they grilled me, even though I said, "c'est moi qui a vous appele" - I'm the one who called you! They took my camera and deleted the picture in question. This was poorly explained to me, but the store manager said that something called "liberte individuel" prohibited me from taking pictures of the store security... even outside the store... even when they were possibly committing a crime.

I would've been in huge trouble if I hadn't been able to convince the policemen that my driver's license was my national identity card - I showed them a photocopy of my passport and birth certificate, and one cop said, "a la poubelle" - "to the trash." I whipped out my license and showed it to him, explaining that it was an identity card. He seemed to be placated, and recorded my name, DOB, and address in France. Oh no, I'm in the (thankfully, horribly organized) system! The police accused me of helping a thief get away and I bit my tongue (I found out later, according to Loic, that 'aiding and abetting' offenses really don't exist in French law). They repeated it, and I had to speak - "Pourquoi nous etions plus importants que le voleur?" - Why were we more important than the thief? (I was with a friend, Santiago.) That seemed to especially aggravate them and as they moved in on me the situation detiorated from "uncomfortably surrounded" to "nauseatingly encircled." As the three policemen, two store security agents and two store managers chattered away in rapid-fire French... I said I didn't understand. They slowed down, and I said nothing, assumed a blank stare and waited until they all left, one by one, until I was standing alone, trembling inside, astonished at the events of the past hour.

Loic helped me recover the picture that started the whole fiasco, along with Santiago's movies - unfortunately they're rather shaky and unclear; you can see me calling the police and walking after the security agent who had just stolen my camera in the first video, and hear Santiago swearing in Spanish under his breath in the second, as the camera pans past me edged up against the clothes rack, confined by the security agents and police.

I should've... been farther away when I took the initial picture, had the camera strap around my wrist, grabbed the camera back in the street and ran, or escaped once I had my camera in the Monoprix. I don't know how I could've presented my case any differently to the police that would have made them more receptive or sympathetic. Understandably, they were on edge because of the strike, but -- a picture taken of a store security agent? In the street? I didn't know that ranked so high on the priority list - or the "awful crimes against society" list.

A rousing game of korfball afterwards helped ease some of the remaining tensions, but my adrenaline is still going at 2:40am. I suppose, on the bright side: I wasn't arrested and I have my camera intact...

I think sources close to my administration will, um, soon leak those movies and the picture.

A bank account!

2005-10-02T16:56:00.000+02:00

Poor ASU. I demand a government inquiry into how the game deteriorated so rapidly after our 21-3 half-time lead. Blame MUST be delivered!

The past week has been relatively uneventful. I opened a bank account - a momentous feat - at Societe Generale, not out of any particular alluring features that they offered, but because they had the least stringent paperwork requirements. I only had to show... my passport, my student card and the "attestation" that allows me to move into the university residence. Other banks demanded the "carte du sejour," basically a French green card and harder to obtain than Fazio's resignation, or additional proof of lodging, like a gas or electric bill. Those are hard to produce when you live in a dorm... I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Societe Generale had a relatively low monthly fee, only 90 euro cents. Other banks range from 1.50 to 5 euros. The paperwork that I received is absolutely astounding - fifty pages of general banking regulations, fifteen pages of legalese related to their internet banking access (as a student, I benefit from free internet banking - until I'm 25, whereupon I have to pay 50 cents per login!) and thirty more pages of miscellaneous rules. Grr. I have to wait seven days before I receive a letter with a secret code. Then, I take that secret code into my branch and they give me a bank card and a Visa debit card. If I want to login to my account online, I take that secret code, add 8 more secret digits to the end and fill out a complicated, asinine form online. Then, their system automatically snail mails me a letter that I have to print out, sign and mail back -- then I'm allowed to use the online banking 'feature.'

I'm now allowed to play basketball in France. I successfully had a doctor examination (free for students!), which consisted solely of the doctor taking my blood pressure and pulse and asking me if I smoked. I took that approval form to the "bureau des sports," filled out another form and paid 25 euros for a license. The paperwork has to be sent to Paris, and I'm supposed to go back to the bureau des sports in 15 days to retreive the official license, but I'm cleared in the meantime. Tuesday night, Loic, my French friend, invited me to play "korfball," a Dutch hybrid of basketball and handball - involving lots of passing, no running and eight people per team, four male and four female. Rather bizarre at first, but fun once I started to finally make baskets (more difficult than basketball since it involves no backboard and an actual wicker basket suspended on a 12-foot high pole).

The rendezvous with my ex-roommate went calmly, if icily. She showed up with a massive fellow who looked like he was a mercenary. I said thanks under my breath for the remaining daylight, grabbed my massive box of Frosties and bade au revoir for good, I hope.

There's a massive country-wide strike planned from 8pm Monday to 8am Wednesday, as workers protest the "economic policies of the center-right government." Luckily I'm moving into the university residence Monday and won't have to worry about taking the tram or bus for classes on Tuesday. It'll be interesting if we even have class... which won't be a problem, since they're so easy. Confusingly, homework appears to be voluntary. I completed requisite translation assignments, and worksheets for a grammar class -- and none of it was checked, collected or even acknowledged. Slightly peculiar.

I went to a chocolate museum with a group of American girls (whose personalities are vastly superior to those of their French counterparts) last weekend. The museum was called "Le Paradis du Chocolat" and was in La Cote Saint Andre, birthplace of famed composer Hector Berlioz:

Like usual, the country scenery along the highway was magnificent:

Some sections of the museum were, um, a bit ethnically anachronistic:

I successfully completed a chocolate trivia scavenger hunt, but then fell asleep during FOUR consecutive 'history of chocolate' videos. Outside, the fresh air woke me up, and I contemplated the deep, dark mysteries of chocolate:

The "Palais" was set high on a hill and featured a gorgeous view of the valley's farmlands:

On our way down, we spotted the Chateau of Louis XI, constructed between 1274 and 1281, and then rebuilt in the 16th century after being destroyed (by fire?). I went to investigate, even though the front door didn't look very inviting:

After eight flights of stairs, I made it to the top and tried to go out onto the roof -- but as soon as I tried to jiggle open a little locked door, I was almost deafened by a massive buzzing sound produced by a fleet of crazed hornets, thirsty for my ripe American flesh. I beat a hasty retreat, and then bravely went back to document the rather eerie spiral staircase:

The rest of the afternoon passed relatively calmly, as afternoons tend to pass when you're not being pursued by predatory parasites armed with mutant stingers.

Last night I went to the first event of the week-long Grenoble Arts Festival. For seven euros, I watched an awesome performance by two bands - "Poum Tchack" from Marseille and "No Mad?" - and I have no idea how to describe their music. It was like a "fusion" of... French, Italian, Greek, Yugoslavian and gypsy music. Both bands had six members - Poum Tchack had drums, an accordion, a violin, bass, saxophone/trumpet and guitar, No Mad? had drums, accordion, violin, bass and two guitars. The music had a frenetic pace, incredible energy and infectious tempo. I loved it! (And regretted not bringing my camera with me; I need to get a shoulder holster for it.)

It's overcast and raining here (surprise!), but I'm going to escape to a movie theatre soon. I've spent the afternoon planning excursions - my calendar is filling up! I'm going to Geneva and possibly Zurich from Oct. 6th to 10th, Eastern Europe (vague, I know) at the end of October/early November, Florence and Rome in mid-November, London ~ when my friend has successfully completed her courtship of Jude Law, and Lyon on November 28... for a Coldplay concert. Hopefully I can sneak in trips to Madrid (siesta, fiesta!), Amsterdam (Van Gogh, Anne Frank museums) and Munich (BMW museum, WW2 museums).

That's not narcolepsy

2005-10-01T18:59:00.000+02:00

I had guitar lessons this afternoon. I can now play the opening riff from Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water." However, I was a bit tired after that strenuous activity and soon fell asleep... and my camera was commandeered!

Some observations

2005-09-26T22:41:00.000+02:00

I just got back to my friends' apartment - tomorrow's the three week anniversary of my arrival here. Wow. Talk about an imposing guest. Fortunately, a departure is in sight. I finally prodded CROUS BLEU, the student housing agency, to give me a room in the university residence Berlioz. I went five times to their office, each time trying to convey as much urgency as possible. I wish I could have hired a small, battered child to serve as my spokeschild. Surely that would have spurred them on more, and perhaps only required three or four visits. The rooms are 12 square meters, or around 108 square feet, and include a bathroom with toilet and shower. Oddly, individual mailboxes are unavailable - instead, each hallway, around twelve people, shares one mailbox. Whoever gets the mail first becomes the mailman. I'm interested to see how this works... I might have to end up using my friends' address or buying a PO box.

Here are a few sweeping generalizations about life in France:

McDonalds burgers are better here. Or at least that's my opinion after tonight's "Royal Bacon." Mmmm. (Don't yell at me for getting McDonalds in France - it was 10:30pm, everything was closed and I needed something quick after my exhausting basketball practice.)
Everything's dirtier... at least compared to Indiana. It'd be on par with Tempe, if it wasn't for the dog poo EVERYWHERE OH MY GOSH THERE IS SOME MORE BEING EXCRETEDAS I SPEAK SEVEN FEET AWAY FROM ME.
Everything's smaller. Taking a shower, using an elevator, squeezing inside a public telephone booth, sitting at a cafe and attending class have all become daily acrobatic adventures. It's like you're always wearing an invisible corset.
Shower curtains are extraordinarily rare. Thus, one must take care to splash as little as possible while showering.
There is no organization in the university system at all. I registered with the International Relations office... but not for classes. I had to go to a different floor to receive my student card. How does one choose classes? You find out - via obscure bulletin board, random sheets of paper or by consulting tarot cards - and then show up for the first day of class. Eventually - no hurry - you find another obscure office and "inscrire," but only for language classes. If you're taking political science classes, like me, you have to go to a completely different building and office and pray, really pray, that the office will be open. You usually have a 50-50% chance of waiting in a horrendously long line to see a bored, rude and ill-informed bureaucrat, but if it's Wednesday or Friday, you're better off just standing in front of the tram and letting it run you over.
One must have absolutely no fear of traffic, whether it's giant city buses, stealthy trams, tiny scooters or little cars. You have to step out in traffic, clench your fists and MAKE EYE CONTACT. If you do this, 95% of the time traffic will stop well in advance, smile and wave you across. But if you hesitate, you might as well be wearing a George W. Bush mask.

That should be enough for now. I've heard some curious things about the USA, too -- one quarter of our government is Israeli (unfortunately, after saying this, Ahmed from Lebanon lost much of the credibility he had earned up to that point), all of our school materials and classrooms are sponsored by Coca-Cola (a British girl said this, and I laughed) and 70% of us don't know where Canada is.

One parting note - the bathrooms (90% of which are unisex, quite bizarre) are like cages. Literally:

Ah, I forgot - I saw Shane Black's "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" at the movie theater today. It was excellent - very witty, very gritty. It was in English, with French subtitles - slightly distracting, but helpful when the characters mumbled. It's not out in the States yet - I think it comes out in a few weeks back home - go see it! The movie theater was nice and cozy, and the picture quality was good - but snacks were entirely lacking. The ushers stared blankly at me when I asked if there was popcorn, but directed me to the "bonbons." The "bonbons" consisted of two vending machines in a narrow, dark corner. One had three items to offer - old gum, old French tootsie rolls and old Mentos mints. The other machine was out-of-order, but even if it did work... you could only buy its ice cream with francs - the currency that was phased out three years ago. Next time, I'm taking my own food.

Photo barrage

2005-09-25T23:37:00.000+02:00

We stopped for a photo moment on the way to Monaco. I took a picture of my Nice villa, wanting to make sure the gardeners have been doing their job. Yep, excellent as usual.

Here's a wider shot of some of my neighbors... unfortunately, it was a little overcast and God's currently not responding to my requests for increased sunshine. I think He lost His beeper.

Many houses looked like were sprouting out of the rock. The construction effort and skill needed to build these must have been amazing.

My first view of Monaco, from inside the bus! My first thought, "Wow, that's small." You can see the renowned soccer stadium with its open roof in the middle of the picture.

One of the more memorable exhibits in the oceanography museum - the prince's favorite harpoons.

After leaving the museum, I spotted these relics and had to grab my camera. If it weren't for the French signs, I could've sworn I was back home, perhaps in somewhere exciting like Greencastle.

I've never seen an 'Excalibur' car before, and apparently neither had many of my fellow tourists... we all crowded around it; you could practically hear the males purring in delight.

There was only one guard outside the palace, but he looked fierce... or maybe that was the shiny M4A1 he appeared to be very comfortable with.

Here's a shot over the whole bay - those are crowded piers!

...and this is some of the densest, most crowded housing I've ever seen. 32,409 people live in Monaco, and I think you can see almost all of them in this picture.

After leaving the museum, we walked for a bit... and realized we were entering another world.

There's a few nice cars here.

...but I'd rather take this one.

Where were we? Oh, that's right - Casino Monte-Carlo.

Across the street was the equally posh "Hotel de Paris."

Some of the public "art" in Monaco was rather bizarre.

After I lost $3.50 gambling, I decided to cut my losses and caught up with the group. We headed back to Nice, but before entering the city, I took this picture. That bright crescent is, I believe, the Quai des Etats-Unis/Promenade des Anglais - the happening place to be!

It's going down today

2005-09-23T10:41:00.000+02:00

"Tomorrow, 5:15pm in the park."

My ex-roommate sent me that cryptic text message last night, apparently in reference to her giving me my pillow I left during my hasty departure from her apartment, along with the mail I've received over the past couple weeks. I'm going to the impromptu rendezvous with a couple of friends who have a car, so we'll be able to make a quick getaway if the situation sours. Maybe I'll try to take my camera and take a few spy photos... once my mail is safely in my possession, of course.

I'll continue the picture posting later tonight, along with a verdict on how the mail drop went, but to keep you satiated, here's a picture I took while having lunch at Nice's Atmosphere Cafe. I have no idea what this man is smoking, and neither did any of my lunch companions. I guessed, "a twig." Anyone have any other ideas?

P.S. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them! (:::nudge, nudge, Dad::::)

St. Paul de Vence

2005-09-23T04:49:00.000+02:00

On Saturday, I woke up brutally early in order to take a morning bus to St. Paul de Vence, a small artistic commune about 25 minutes away from Nice. Here you can see the enormous medieval fortifcations that still surround it.

Those huge ramparts guard things inside like this, some sort of skinny elephant sprouting a triangular prism-shaped tumor.

But they also help create views like this, which you could see if you peeked down almost any alley.

If you squint, you can see '1850' on the top ring of the fountain. This was one of the larger squares in St. Paul de Vence... and it wasn't very large!

The cement had all been designed (remember, artistic commune) with little suns, because in the south of France, the sun's always shining.

Finally, here's what it looks like from outside. I couldn't find the clocktower - the streets were too narrow and unmarked, and once you're on them, the buildings tower over you!

Telepherique Part I: The Good Trip

2005-09-21T21:17:00.000+02:00

As long as I'm posting pictures, here are two from my first (and much more pleasant) trip up the telepherique cable car system. This picture is of the "zone pieton," the pedestrian zone of downtown Grenoble where cars are forbidden. It's definitely my favorite part of the city; it's very vibrant and always bustling.

Here's a view from inside the cable car, looking slightly southwest over the city. Those two main avenues, from left to right, are Boulevards Gambetta and Jean Jaures. In the picture you can barely distinguish the omnipresent mountains; the city's smog and cloud cover contribute to the poor visibility.

Oops. Just kidding.

2005-09-21T15:01:00.000+02:00

Oops. Just kidding - this is the last image from that village. These were the public toilets. They smelled so bad I couldn't use them. Supposedly they are "self-cleaning." After one person used it, the door would lock and it would go through some sort of cleansing cycle, spraying everything down - allegedly - with disinfectant. Ugh. Luckily there was a makeshift urinal that I was able to use, just inside this little hut of feces.

Our other "stretch stop" was beside a very pretty lake nestled in the mountains. A few of the more adventurous members of the group actually went swimming in here. I decided to wait for a real beach.

And here it is, the Mediterranean at night. Wobbly picture, because it was cold out and the waves were crashing rather fast. There was a full moon, and it was so gorgeous.

Nice's Palais de Justice, brightly illuminated.

The conclusion of the day on Friday. As we walked around the old section of Nice, I saw a plaque and went to inspect. It told me just how old Nice is - it was first settled in 500 BC. Wow.

On the way to Nice

2005-09-21T14:50:00.000+02:00

On the bus to Nice, we saw some amazing scenery. The busdriver took a mountainous route that was a little slower than the highway, but it was well worth it.

There were mountains as far as you could see, and they were enormous. The villages looked so tiny in comparison.

We stopped for a rest break in a little town. This huge soaring rock was its main claim to fame. It really looks like those buildings are about to be eaten at any moment.

Another picture from the same little village. The mountains were so huge, they looked artificial.

Final image from the little village. I love French clock towers! I hope the new ones in Hamilton County are half as appealing.

There's treasure everywhere!

2005-09-19T22:38:00.000+02:00

Oh, I'm so glad I went on the weekend excursion! It was awful for my hopes of improving in French, because 90% of my fellow participants were Americans. The remaining 10% were from Canada (English-speaking, of course), Venezuela (also English), Colombia (Spanish), Swedish (English), Greece (French) and Japan (French). Breaking the weekend down into days isn't elegant, but it's easier to summarize!

Friday - Left campus around 1:30pm aboard a gigantic tour bus. Throughout the trip I was very impressed with our driver's skill. One would certainly not guess looking at "Geezelle" that she was an adept tour bus conductrice - I couldn't believe some of the corners she maneuvered around, the bridges we squeezed through and the narrow streets we barreled down. Most of the Americans I met were from Swarthmore or Calvin. There's a girl from Heritage there, but none of them knew her. We arrived rather late into Nice - the bus took a mountainous route and it was totally worth it - the scenery was absolutely incredible! I took a few haphazard pictures through the bus windows; I need to peruse my camera memory card to find good ones to post... I took almost 300. In Nice, we had a communal dinner at "Le Strasbourg." It wasn't too great, but it filled me up. I went out with five guys and a girl to explore the streets of Nice.

Our hotel was about a half-mile from the beach, so we headed straight for it, and then went to the Marche aux Fleurs, a crowded avenue running along the boardwalk (called the Quai des Etats-Unis) with more flower vendors, street merchants and cafes than you can count. The rest of the group was intent on becoming very intoxicated, but the memory of my previous Friday night was still fresh in my mind, so I satisfied myself with an Orangina (like Fanta, except with a splash of semi-real orange juice) and some pseudo-sour patch candies. I loved the beach and Mediterranean. There was a full moon and it illuminated the entire Baie des Anges. I rolled up my jeans and stood in the tide for almost 15 minutes. We made our way back to the hotel and arrived at 1:06am... 6 minutes after the close of the KFC right next to the hotel. ARGH. I had such a craving for American food, too!

Saturday - What a busy day! I woke up early in order to go on a morning trip to St. Paul de Vence. It's a little commune, nestled amidst medieval fortifications, perched on a hill about 25 minutes from Nice. Artists have retreated there to seek solitude for a couple centuries and it was instantly clear why. I've never seen such tiny winding streets before! They were practically minuscule and the surrounding views, once you went to the top of the fortifcations, beautiful. You just feel protected and shielded from everything around you, but the sea is still very visible, even on a cloudy day. I had lunch at the Atmosphere Cafe in Nice. It was not very good, mostly because every course was somehow ruined: unidentifiable vegetables, overcooked salmon, and a hair in my ice cream. Ugh.

The trip to Monaco in the afternoon fixed everything, though. I loved the oceanography museum MarineLand in Monte Carlo! The royal family's favored harpoons were prominently displayed in the historical section of the museum (the zoo part was also very interesting, but the Italians were horribly rude and I had to calm down a British fellow who was getting especially irate at one bumbling Italian who had barged in front of him while he was videotaping), along with a 1911 picture of Prince/King Albert sitting down in his boat while his Irish captain Patrick O'Leary (I'm just making that name up, I don't remember it) aimed the harpoon gun at a whale less than 20 feet from the boat. Impressive photography! We went to the casino afterwards, and I gambled... in the slots room that I snuck into. You had to be 21 to even approach the tables, I was told, and I didn't want to tempt fate by ending up in a Monaco prison (do those even exist? the whole country is only 2 square kilometers!). I changed five euros into goofy 50-cent tokens, quickly lost almost every spin but walked out with three jangling in my pocket as souvenirs. The cars outside were a comfortable sight. I've never seen so many Bentleys and Ferraris in one place!

We returned to Nice rather late, and I had another mediocre dinner with the group from Calvin. Most of them were tired and headed to bed after dinner, but I stayed out with a few. We went to an Irish pub that closed at... midnight?! Argh. Then, we found a cafe (I don't think it has a name, it was just two wacky symbols) and waited 30 minutes for drinks. We paid as soon as possible, because we were worried we'd never see the waiter again, and headed to the Metal Cafe where other kids from the group were. Unfortunately, that closed at 2am, right when we arrived, so we walked a short ways and went to L'Escalier. I hate to continue the trend of negativity, but it too was pretty mediocre! Its only attraction? Open until 5am. In retrospect, that should have been a warning sign... if you have to keep your club open until 5am to make money, you might want to re-think your business plan! We didn't stay that late, though, and left for the hotel around 3:45am. Because it was raining out, a "bathtub party" was planned and then executed jn a 5th floor room. It sounds really exotic, but it was relatively simple: put on a bathing suit, go in a bathroom, crowd around a full bathtub and struggle for control of the shower nozzle, thus soaking the entire bathroom (and its occupants!) in the process. Luckily that was our last night in the hotel... I knew it was time to head to my room when I fell asleep during the blackjack and Indian poker afterwards. Before I collapsed I looked at the time... 4:42am.

Sunday - Somehow, I woke up to my cellphone alarm at 8:37am. I roused myself at the thought of the Henri Matisse museum, and hurried downstairs for the meager hotel "breakfast;" bread, butter and one tiny cup of orange juice OR hot chocolate OR hot tea. I met up with some fellow art lovers and we took Bus 17 to Cimiez, where we spent a little over an hour in the Matisee museum. I loved it. My favorite piece was "Descente du Croix" - sixteen or eighteen white ceramic tiles with some sort of black paint illustrating Jesus' removal from the cross. We had to run to catch the bus back to Nice, barely making the 12:45pm deadline in time. The bus took us to Antibes, where we waited 15 minutes or so until 2pm for the Picasso museum to open. It was also enjoyable (but I preferred Matisse... shhh!), particularly so because it was free! We lucked out and traveled during "le weekend du patrimonie," when all the museums across the country, I believe, are completely gratuit. My favorite piece was "Joie de Vivre," mostly because I eavesdropped on the tour guides explaining it. Antibes also had quaint, tiny streets, and ancient fortifications, but it lacked the allure and intimacy of St. Paul de Vence. My three scoops of ice cream, chocolate, strawberry and "straciatella," like mint chocolate chunk, were expensive... but delicious. I picked up a liter of water for a euro in a little store. As I walked out, I spotted the same water in a cooler and asked if I could just grab that instead -- nope, the water in the cooler was more expensive, because it was "colder." I laughed and contented myself with the minutely warmer, but more affordable water.

Cannes was the next stop, and I worked up the courage to go swimming. "Brr" can't even begin to express the near-Arctic temperature. However, once completely submerged and swimming vigorously, it felt more temperate, like Lake Michigan in December. I saw the "Palais des Festivals" where, I believe, many of the important film premieres are held. I walked on the permanent red-carpet and marveled at the ongoing Audi A8 show. The building itself was pretty non-descript, and would've been considered downright ugly if I hadn't been distracted by all the colorful movie posters everywhere. The bus ride back to Grenoble was quicker, but I want to completely forget the "dinner" I had at a rest-stop we stopped at. I've never had such awful food. I must have subconsciously anticipated the culinary horrors, because I bought a 100 gram Tolberone bar at the gift shop before the meal, and tore into it once I'd tasted the "food" from the cafeteria. My Orangina and the packaged, sealed yogurt were the only redeeming factors. The "steak" and its "sauce" were disgusting, along with the "carrot" garnish and accompanying "fruit cup."

The bus arrived back in Grenoble around 12:40am, but I opted to stay on instead of calling a taxi - the bus dropped me off 500 feet from my friends' apartment in Echirolles! Hooray!

I did little today - responded to an apartment lead, did some laundry, went to the first basketball practice. My body immediately felt the toll of having exercised little for the past four weeks... I gulped down water like a madman. I took the tram back, and talked with Lee, a Chinese guy also at the practice. He was quite nice and offered to teach me Chinese if I aided him with his English. Hooray! Beijing 2008, here I come! After he got off, I transferred trams and spotted two other guys on the new tram who were also at practice. I talked with one, a French fellow who looked like Carrot Top, until he got off, and then conversed with his friend Patrick from Mauritius until he had to leave. My conversation with them caught the attention of another guy on the tram, and he came over to talk to me - Ahmad from Lebanon was very nice and it turned out that he had had basketball practice that night, too, but with a different intramural team!

Some sort of verbal altercation between a young French guy in his 20s and an older-looking scraggly fellow turned into a physical confrontation. I tried, along with other passengers, to separate the two, and to calm them down. I pulled the "emergency" lever after the young guy pushed the older fellow down and started kicking him in the head. Yikes. The conductor ambled back and asked who pulled the lever (the two had since been separated, and were just slinging insults back and forth). I said it was me, and he asked if I wanted the police called. I asked the older fellow, and he said, No, so the conductor didn't blink an eye, turned off the alarm and went back to continue the conducting. I felt like an international observer. The other passengers who helped restrain the two got off and I stayed on until the end of the tram line (only two stops after mine) because the young guy kept menacing the older fellow. They went separate ways, and I assumed everything was well, so I doubled back and now am preparing to head to bed - the first day of (real) class is tomorrow!

What a strange keyboard

2005-09-16T10:35:00.000+02:00

The bus to Nice does not leave until 1:15pm, but I took the bus to campus at 10am because yesterday I noticed several flashing notices on the public transport message system warning about perturbations today. The last time I saw that word used, there was a strike by SNCF rail workers, and it delayed my arrival in Grenoble by a day. I did not want to risk missing the bus this afternoon! I was so engrossed in the latest Economist, though, that I missed by bus stop and had to double back.

I am not bringing my laptop with me, so I am in an on-campus bank, BNP Paribas, that coincidentally also offers free internet terminal access in the branch. Unfortunately, there are several downsides to this service: one, you have to listen to the mostt awful pop music from some obscure internet radio station. I really think that it is designed to make you want to leave as quickly as possible. Two, the keyboard, if it can even legally be called that, is a piece of brushed metal, set flush with a wooden counter-top. It is absolutely possible to develop any rhythm at all because the keys are simple circles that barely depress at all, no matter how much or little force you use. Also, the keyboard is in an abridged French style, which means there are no apostrophes - notice how I have not used any contractions - nor any parantheses or quotation marks. Please excuse any typographical errors. Three, non-bank customers are supposed to only use the terminals for 15 minutes. If you recall my vicious dilemma - I cannot open a bank account without proof of housing, and I cannot obtain housing without a bank account - you will understand that the time restriction is particularly galling. Thankfully, it does not appear to be strictly enforced.

The housing hunt continues. Nobody really knows anything, but they all know someone in a random hole-in-the-wall office on the other side of the city who might be able to help you, if you get there during their office hours, which are probably 9:30am to 11:30am, and 1:30pm to 4:00pm, Monday to Thursday. Finding a French bureaucrat in his office on a Friday is like winning the lottery.

I have been able to read extensively about New Orleans and Katrina - actually, that is one of the first things that most of the other students I have met asks, Are you from the South? Until I correct them, many do believe that Indiana is in the Deep South... I am very happy that the death toll appears to be much lower than anticipated. I always thought that the initial projections of 10,000 dead were outrageous and designed to garner more media attention. I doubt that the total among all the states will exceed 1,000.

Now I am being kicked out, but I will be sure to post more after I return from Nice!

Ce weekend

2005-09-13T13:03:00.000+02:00

I just signed up for a trip for foreign students to Nice Cote d'Azur. It leaves Friday afternoon and returns Sunday evening, I think. For 160 euros ($196.29 USD), here's what we'll do:

"Nice, capital of the Azur coast, situated on the Mediterranean, at the foot of the Bay of Angels, is renowned for the charm of its location, its tourist appeal and rich artistic and cultural attractions. You'll visit Nice's old town center, a Picasso museum in Antibes, an oceanography museum (MarineLand) in Monaco, and the cities of Cannes and St. Paul de Vence. Nice's beaches are pebbly, but you'll find fine sand in Cannes and Antibes."

I'm bringing my swimsuit. Anyone want any souvenirs?