As I'll be changing locales soon, I've been packing as many adventures and good times into my schedule as possible!
Last Wednesday: Sarah, Steve, Zandra and I headed to Armand's parent's house in Tavel, home of France's #1 rosé. Apero (pastis for me, as usual), great BBQ, great local wine grateful Frenchies (Armand's dad thanked us for our ancestors' kick-ass bang-up job in Normandy, on a June 6th way back when...we said, "Uh, you're welcome?"), the sun, a pool...idyllic. The day ended with Steve scootin' me home...did I live that day or did I dream it?
Thursday: Party chez Julie, the Arizonan mom-of-a-5-year-old-1/2-Frenchy who lives here in L'Isle. The party guests were 3 English truck drivers (one of them Charlie, my 2-doors-down neighbor), 2 North Carolinian girls from Peace University (no joke) who were "studying abroad" in L'Isle sur la Sorgue (what?!?!? In a 20,000 person tourist trap in rural France? Yeah, that's what I thought...), and a partridge in a pear tree! We sat on Julie's sweet terrace drinking wine, laughing, getting drunk, and eating good eats late into the eve. Then I had to wake up and teach the next day. Suck!
Friday was my last day of teaching little kids! I checked out weeks ago, so this was a VERY welcome turn of events! I got some presents from some of my students (a cell phone sock and some sweet black and red feather earrings), and it's true I'll miss the little buggers, but I'm stoked to be officially en vacances!
This last weekend was Avignon's first pride festival (I think), and I was there! I saw part of the parade (yeah tourist trains finally being put to good use!), and got bubbled (it was basically a foam party in the street), but other than that, it was pretty underwhelming. San Francisco it ain't! We went to L'Esclave Saturday night (translation: The Slave), but there were too many people (among them too many straight American girls...didn't my friends and I have a monopoly on that??), and I wasn't rockin' the Sardine scene. [Though I was rockin' my new H&M dress with parrots on it...my mom sends me 6 fab dresses in the mail and what do I go and do? Buy another one...I'm a mess...a hot mess!] Plus we ran into a confused French friend, (cruising solo but has a girlfriend...uh huh, that'll last), and as Steve says: "It's annoying when people don't accept themselves." So we went home and I promptly fell asleep.
Like I said, underwhelmed. Maybe the gayest part of the whole day was all the Michael Jackson music videos we watched. And that's not a comment on MJ's sexuality or alleged pedophilia, but rather on his fashion sense...that man can dress himself! Rest in peace Michael, and thanks for Ben, my new favorite song...oh those homicidal rats!
Today, Sunday, was another spectacular day, beginning around noon. Zandra and I woke up and promptly ordered all our friends over to Zandra's house for coffee...and to bring food. So in short order we had baguettes, pain au chocolats, and croissants at our fingertips, and we hadn't lifted a finger (unless you count texting)! I bought Carly's bike for 15 euro because the bike I'd borrowed from one of my teachers was stolen...and I felt bad. [Plus I have to even out my karma: I broke a pinkey swear I made to a couple kids on Friday promising them to come to their end of the year spectacle and raffle...sleep was just way more important.] So Jeff and I had bikes, Steve and Zandra had a scooter, and Sarah had a train (well, she could catch one). We all headed to L'Isle sur la Sorgue. That's right, I rode a bike from Avignon to L'Isle sur la Sorgue! That's like 22 kilometers (or about 13 1/2 miles)! WOOT WOOT! I'm so proud! I had thought about doing that before I came here, but then I saw how far it is, and how big that hill by Chateauneuf de Gadagne is...which today I made my bitch!
Once here, we got ice cream and walked to Partage des Eaux. On the way we saw water jousting! Jousting, on boats, in the river! None of us had seen anything quite so simultaneously ridiculous, amazing, bizarre, and stupid before. Oh these L'Islois! It was kind of like this, only minus the music, and the boats we saw were motorized.
What's next? Two days of cleaning, packing, recycling, distributing of things to their old or new owners, mailing my modem back to my internet provider, checking out of my apartment, and by Tuesday night I'll be in Avignon again! Last week I got an email from my summer family (the family for which I'll be au pair-ing this summer) that something came up and they don't need me until July 11th. So I'll be living with Patrick (South African/Irish Settlers aficionado, among other things...therefore, cool as shit) for about a week and hopefully catching the beginning of the Avignon theater festival I've been hearing about for 9 months. Sarah, Zandra, Patrick, Jeff and I will be crying into our beers, missing Steve like crazy by that point. Then I'm hoping to head to Carcassonne (really old French fort action, ho hum) on my way to Biarritz (well technically Seignosse, a beach town a bit north of Biarritz). Phew! This adventure continues...
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Me vs. Ugly Animals
In the last 7 days I have (unwillingly) hosted a dung beetle (read: HUGE! As big as a doubly-large walnut!), a dragonfly, and most recently, a big, meaty, green grasshopper chez moi (at my house). They are too big for comfort, especially in my tiny INDOOR space that is meant for ME (and any humans I choose to invite). Bugs = outside, I = inside. End of story.
This has ended in 1) sustained detention (I held the dung beetle, read: rhinocerous horn, for 4-5 days straight, inside a glass glass, and it didn't die. Finally, Guyanian 'Alex-le-noir,' (he's black, you know), came to the rescue and set the little bugger free...much to the chagrin of Steve, who was planning on making a brooch out of him...), 2) Death by candlelight? (I don't know...I kept some candles lit to attract the dragonfly to his waxy, hot doom, which woke me up in the middle of the night, but Steve says he say him fly away today...alive...), and 3) fairly-harmless freedom (I used a folder to shove the grasshopper out of doors before slamming my window shut FOR GOOD!, for once and for all).
Hmm...I wonder who will visit me tomorrow? ...
This has ended in 1) sustained detention (I held the dung beetle, read: rhinocerous horn, for 4-5 days straight, inside a glass glass, and it didn't die. Finally, Guyanian 'Alex-le-noir,' (he's black, you know), came to the rescue and set the little bugger free...much to the chagrin of Steve, who was planning on making a brooch out of him...), 2) Death by candlelight? (I don't know...I kept some candles lit to attract the dragonfly to his waxy, hot doom, which woke me up in the middle of the night, but Steve says he say him fly away today...alive...), and 3) fairly-harmless freedom (I used a folder to shove the grasshopper out of doors before slamming my window shut FOR GOOD!, for once and for all).
Hmm...I wonder who will visit me tomorrow? ...
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Logical Thinking FAIL
I was walking around town and saw an oldish man (let's say 60's) with a young woman about my age pushing a stroller with a little kid in it (somewhere between 2-5 years old...that's as specific as I can get). While probably some sort of father-figure in the girl's life (cue Prince), I was wondering if the old dude could actually be her lover (shudder) and the father of the kid. So I decided to look at the kid and see if he had any of the man's traits. The first thing I looked for? Grey hair. I FAIL.
Friday, June 19, 2009
A Slow Ride to Lyon, Part 1
A joint entry! A few weekends back, my friend Steve and I took the slow regional train to Lyon to visit our friend Alicia. Because we're cheap. Being the adventurers we are, interesting people gravitate to our awesomeness. So we decided to write a blog entry together to google docs-ument our encounters, (haha). Et voila! Steve's black, I'm red. This could be the start of something very, very scary...scary awesome!
It all started with a great deal, the five o'clock train to Lyon at the unbelievably low price of 19 euros. Then Europe had to come and trip up some perfect trip planning with its functional efficiency, ironic in the same country where banks and public offices spend more time lunching than working. We all know that they've gotten rid of inches and feet, replacing clunky units of twelve in favor of the easily-plugged-into-any-math-equation metric system. In the same spirit, "The Europeans" have semi-abolished the 12 hour a.m./p.m. in favor of its military reincarnation, the 24 hour clock. Of the many things I've learned in this new language, it's one of the hardest things to get along by telling people that it's fifteen twenty o'clock when it's really 3:20 p.m. Therein lies the secret of a cheap trip to Lyon: try to go anywhere before the sun comes up and you'll pay in yawns not euros. What I had assumed was a 5 o'clock post-meridiem train was actually a brisk 0500 and there we stood in the Avignon Central station, sweating from our power-walk through the sun, wondering why our train had not been posted. Perhaps it was posted somewhere, perhaps in Paris by then, perhaps I felt unworthy of all those stamps in my passport for having booked a train that left twelve hours ago.
Annette filled me in that perhaps I should have acquired some 17 o'clock tickets, but since there were some more trains she wouldn't kill me for my novice traveler mistake. We took our newly issued tickets and sat down in the bar in the station. I ordered a coffee. Annette ordered hers with whiskey. Unfortunately, the barman didn't have any whiskey on hand (I suspect that he really did, but was in his late afternoon slump, or was not going to do anything outside of 'on-the-rocks' with whiskey, or was just not going to serve a flitty young American hard-A, or 'spirits' as the English say, or, what is most probable, just hadn't understood my request in the stilted French I speak).
What started as a mistake (Steve's total amateur move with the tickets) turned into possibly the coolest part of the whole weekend. Let's call it a gift. Luck favors the procrastinators in the world and good company comes to meet those who don't really seem to know where they are yet. Also: compartments! The trains we're usually taking around the PACA (Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur) region have boring, uninspiring seat configurations. All they inspire me to do is...talk really loudly in English and avoid looking other passengers in the eyes. Geez, all they inspire me to do is talk to old ladies about their sons and how they speak fabulous Anglais. But compartments! They're so old-school, so Hitchcock, so Anastasia (the animated Fox film, an old mild obsession of mine). I say it looked like the orient express. Exactly! If we were going to take the slow train to Lyon (3 hours versus 1 hour...consider it 'taking the scenic route'), we were going to sit in compartments!
Before we got to take in the scenery from our old school 8-seat compartment, the train rolled in like Chinese New Year, all fire-crackers and hell... louder than my American friends. I have never heard such an unnecessarily loud and obnoxious racket in my life (well, apart from me and Zandra chatting...anywhere...we are helplessly loud, and American, two points against us)! Apparently we were celebrating the final trip of our trusty conductor, we thank him for getting us here and there safely on those iron rails, and for bursting our eardrums while coming into the station. Getting to blow the horn for as loud and long as he liked, like a final 'fuck you!' to the man (and us). He was on a personal grève, maybe, but soon the racket died down and we climbed in, searching for a place to talk loud 'Merican and see the sights. The only unoccupied compartment had a single bag sitting on the bench. As the 'orange alert' airport lady played in my head to report the unattended baggage, I thought to myself, je m'en fou and we took up residence in our very own cabin. Yeah, and what's a bomb exploding in return for our very own corner sans Frenchies? If the owner ever did come back, I was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to stand being in such a cramped space with two loud (and awesome!) étrangers.
Soon enough the mysterious bag's owner came back to claim his spot, one of those guys that wears his 'does-everything' phone on a band around his neck. We clammed up and committed faux pas number one in France. That is, to not greet every single person in the room you enter is just so uncultivated. He stared in return at us aliens. Actually, more at Annette than me. I wonder if his "This is so much better than an iPhone" phone slung round his neck got a few good pictures of my traveling companion... it sure looked like he wanted one. It was a little disconcerting, but 9 months in L'Isle sur la Sorgue has gotten me used to pervy guys staring and making unwelcome comments...just practice for when I'm famous someday! Finally the staring became too obvious not to ignore, so one of us (probably Steve) opened the floodgates.
It went something like, "Bonjour, vous-etes d'Avignon?"
"No, I'm from the town where they bottle Vittel water." I wondered, is it like being from a town where they bottle a famous wine? I guess I'll never know. Well, you do live just a few kilometers away from Chateuneuf de Pape... Oh heavens, bring me my tire-bouchon, toot sweet! But back to our story. . .
"But I know where all the cool clubs are in Montpellier and I'll take you there!
"And you can meet my friends, they're famous footbal players!
"Look at my phone!"
If I know anything about pro soccer players and cool nightclubs in Montpellier (which I don't), I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be as eager to entertain us as this guy was. The last time we tried to get into a club with a dresscode they gave us the once over scan and decided the club was full. They had opened 15 minutes prior. Maybe it was the felt flowers I had attached to my lapels. Or my $7 Goodwill dress from the '70's! Which should have been an instant 'get in free' card if you ask me! No. Somebody in the group was wearing. . . des baskets! Rubber soles are death to cool.
As it turns out, this Sylvain (I'm only guessing from the email address he gave us) was a very chatty fellow. I'm currently using his email address as a bookmark...forecast for ever getting around to actually emailing him? Unlikely. We talked our way down the tracks as I worried we were on the wrong train (some inexplicable signs proclaimed loudly that our destination was Marseille, the opposite direction).
"I'm going to Miami!" For what he was (obviously cool and important enough to wear his social life around his neck like an Olympic gold), Sylvan was an easy going fellow. He loves his clubs, he loves playing dress up to go visit said clubs, and he loves Miami (which he's going to go visit this summer with his ex-girlfriend, he made sure to point out). IMHO, Miami is an imaginary town, whose population is 1/2 Cuban, 1/2 French, from what I've heard. I will believe it when I see it.
Fortunately Sylvain's stop came up about a half hour into the journey.
Tune in some other time for part deux: The Foreign Legionnaire OR Where The Hell Did You Pick Up an Accent Like That?
It all started with a great deal, the five o'clock train to Lyon at the unbelievably low price of 19 euros. Then Europe had to come and trip up some perfect trip planning with its functional efficiency, ironic in the same country where banks and public offices spend more time lunching than working. We all know that they've gotten rid of inches and feet, replacing clunky units of twelve in favor of the easily-plugged-into-any-math-equation metric system. In the same spirit, "The Europeans" have semi-abolished the 12 hour a.m./p.m. in favor of its military reincarnation, the 24 hour clock. Of the many things I've learned in this new language, it's one of the hardest things to get along by telling people that it's fifteen twenty o'clock when it's really 3:20 p.m. Therein lies the secret of a cheap trip to Lyon: try to go anywhere before the sun comes up and you'll pay in yawns not euros. What I had assumed was a 5 o'clock post-meridiem train was actually a brisk 0500 and there we stood in the Avignon Central station, sweating from our power-walk through the sun, wondering why our train had not been posted. Perhaps it was posted somewhere, perhaps in Paris by then, perhaps I felt unworthy of all those stamps in my passport for having booked a train that left twelve hours ago.
Annette filled me in that perhaps I should have acquired some 17 o'clock tickets, but since there were some more trains she wouldn't kill me for my novice traveler mistake. We took our newly issued tickets and sat down in the bar in the station. I ordered a coffee. Annette ordered hers with whiskey. Unfortunately, the barman didn't have any whiskey on hand (I suspect that he really did, but was in his late afternoon slump, or was not going to do anything outside of 'on-the-rocks' with whiskey, or was just not going to serve a flitty young American hard-A, or 'spirits' as the English say, or, what is most probable, just hadn't understood my request in the stilted French I speak).
What started as a mistake (Steve's total amateur move with the tickets) turned into possibly the coolest part of the whole weekend. Let's call it a gift. Luck favors the procrastinators in the world and good company comes to meet those who don't really seem to know where they are yet. Also: compartments! The trains we're usually taking around the PACA (Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur) region have boring, uninspiring seat configurations. All they inspire me to do is...talk really loudly in English and avoid looking other passengers in the eyes. Geez, all they inspire me to do is talk to old ladies about their sons and how they speak fabulous Anglais. But compartments! They're so old-school, so Hitchcock, so Anastasia (the animated Fox film, an old mild obsession of mine). I say it looked like the orient express. Exactly! If we were going to take the slow train to Lyon (3 hours versus 1 hour...consider it 'taking the scenic route'), we were going to sit in compartments!
Before we got to take in the scenery from our old school 8-seat compartment, the train rolled in like Chinese New Year, all fire-crackers and hell... louder than my American friends. I have never heard such an unnecessarily loud and obnoxious racket in my life (well, apart from me and Zandra chatting...anywhere...we are helplessly loud, and American, two points against us)! Apparently we were celebrating the final trip of our trusty conductor, we thank him for getting us here and there safely on those iron rails, and for bursting our eardrums while coming into the station. Getting to blow the horn for as loud and long as he liked, like a final 'fuck you!' to the man (and us). He was on a personal grève, maybe, but soon the racket died down and we climbed in, searching for a place to talk loud 'Merican and see the sights. The only unoccupied compartment had a single bag sitting on the bench. As the 'orange alert' airport lady played in my head to report the unattended baggage, I thought to myself, je m'en fou and we took up residence in our very own cabin. Yeah, and what's a bomb exploding in return for our very own corner sans Frenchies? If the owner ever did come back, I was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to stand being in such a cramped space with two loud (and awesome!) étrangers.
Soon enough the mysterious bag's owner came back to claim his spot, one of those guys that wears his 'does-everything' phone on a band around his neck. We clammed up and committed faux pas number one in France. That is, to not greet every single person in the room you enter is just so uncultivated. He stared in return at us aliens. Actually, more at Annette than me. I wonder if his "This is so much better than an iPhone" phone slung round his neck got a few good pictures of my traveling companion... it sure looked like he wanted one. It was a little disconcerting, but 9 months in L'Isle sur la Sorgue has gotten me used to pervy guys staring and making unwelcome comments...just practice for when I'm famous someday! Finally the staring became too obvious not to ignore, so one of us (probably Steve) opened the floodgates.
It went something like, "Bonjour, vous-etes d'Avignon?"
"No, I'm from the town where they bottle Vittel water." I wondered, is it like being from a town where they bottle a famous wine? I guess I'll never know. Well, you do live just a few kilometers away from Chateuneuf de Pape... Oh heavens, bring me my tire-bouchon, toot sweet! But back to our story. . .
"But I know where all the cool clubs are in Montpellier and I'll take you there!
"And you can meet my friends, they're famous footbal players!
"Look at my phone!"
If I know anything about pro soccer players and cool nightclubs in Montpellier (which I don't), I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be as eager to entertain us as this guy was. The last time we tried to get into a club with a dresscode they gave us the once over scan and decided the club was full. They had opened 15 minutes prior. Maybe it was the felt flowers I had attached to my lapels. Or my $7 Goodwill dress from the '70's! Which should have been an instant 'get in free' card if you ask me! No. Somebody in the group was wearing. . . des baskets! Rubber soles are death to cool.
As it turns out, this Sylvain (I'm only guessing from the email address he gave us) was a very chatty fellow. I'm currently using his email address as a bookmark...forecast for ever getting around to actually emailing him? Unlikely. We talked our way down the tracks as I worried we were on the wrong train (some inexplicable signs proclaimed loudly that our destination was Marseille, the opposite direction).
"I'm going to Miami!" For what he was (obviously cool and important enough to wear his social life around his neck like an Olympic gold), Sylvan was an easy going fellow. He loves his clubs, he loves playing dress up to go visit said clubs, and he loves Miami (which he's going to go visit this summer with his ex-girlfriend, he made sure to point out). IMHO, Miami is an imaginary town, whose population is 1/2 Cuban, 1/2 French, from what I've heard. I will believe it when I see it.
Fortunately Sylvain's stop came up about a half hour into the journey.
Tune in some other time for part deux: The Foreign Legionnaire OR Where The Hell Did You Pick Up an Accent Like That?
Friday Night
I went to a retirement party for one of the teachers tonight. Nowhere else is it as clear that there are different stages of life. There were lots of young families (*sigh! the hott teacher I've been crushin' on all year showed up with a gorgeous, PREGNANT, Aladdin-pants-onesie-wearin' girlfriend/wife/I-don't-know-because-I-didn't-bother-to-ask), and the whole thing was hosted by a 50's-something-dish who wrote and sang a song for the occasion, AND is getting re-married this year (you go girl!). What thing wasn't like the others? Footloose and fancy free little ol' me, fiancee-less (as one woman keenly pointed out) and ready for adventures.
It was illuminating. I definitely want to rock out at parties for myself throughout my life, e.g. graduation from grad school; weddings 1, 2 and maybe 3; just-got-that-great-job-party; made-it-past-my-27th-year-so-I'm-not-as-cool-as-Janice-or-Jimmy-but-I'm-still-gonna-party-party; retirement; just-signed-that-book-deal-party; etc. BUT, I realized why I spend all my time hanging out with wandering/wondering 20-somethings: because we don't have fiancees, careers, or rugrats to awkwardly make small talk about. DUH!
I stuck around for some traditional French music played by the band. I left after their rendition of Hallelujah. 'The Holy Goat was moving too...' Just like French radio, you gotta love/cringe at the French accent when singing English songs.
So what am I doing now? Hanging out at my apartment with my new pet beetle (he's under a glass and I've been watching him twitch on his back in his death throes for almost 24 hours now...I would slide a paper under there and set him free, but then he might come back! Maybe I could give him to the cats to play with...), blogging away my life, cheap bottle of wine from the 'servo' (that's Aussie-speak for gas station) at hand. I am one classy bitch.
It was illuminating. I definitely want to rock out at parties for myself throughout my life, e.g. graduation from grad school; weddings 1, 2 and maybe 3; just-got-that-great-job-party; made-it-past-my-27th-year-so-I'm-not-as-cool-as-Janice-or-Jimmy-but-I'm-still-gonna-party-party; retirement; just-signed-that-book-deal-party; etc. BUT, I realized why I spend all my time hanging out with wandering/wondering 20-somethings: because we don't have fiancees, careers, or rugrats to awkwardly make small talk about. DUH!
I stuck around for some traditional French music played by the band. I left after their rendition of Hallelujah. 'The Holy Goat was moving too...' Just like French radio, you gotta love/cringe at the French accent when singing English songs.
So what am I doing now? Hanging out at my apartment with my new pet beetle (he's under a glass and I've been watching him twitch on his back in his death throes for almost 24 hours now...I would slide a paper under there and set him free, but then he might come back! Maybe I could give him to the cats to play with...), blogging away my life, cheap bottle of wine from the 'servo' (that's Aussie-speak for gas station) at hand. I am one classy bitch.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
16 Days and Counting!
Being one who aspires to live for today, I usually try to focus on the moment, here and now. But JUNE! Students and teachers alike across the Northern Hemisphere must feel my pain and agree that June is the slowest, hottest, ickiest, stickiest, most antagonizing and desperate of months. One can't help but dream about how great July will be, lament that it isn't here already, and count the days, hours, and minutes until it gets here!
I have been spending my days dragging myself from cup of coffee to cup of coffee to nap, living for my evenings (spent avoiding sleep with a book or my favorite news websites) and weekends, which are always over too fast, even when I skip Friday, like I did last week. June weekends are all about reconnecting with friends I don't want to lose after we part, and making sure I exploit the locales (Lyon, the banks of the Sorgue, the patch of grass above the Rhone my friends and I have shanghai'd from couples in love) which I will miss terribly the second they're out of my reach (well, except for Lyon). And it's only the 14th! Not-quite-but-almost halfway through this hellish nightmare. I am dreading everything about the next two weeks: packing, showing off my apartment to possible future residents (um, doing my rental agency's job???), shutting down accounts, getting my mail forwarded (can/do they even do that here???), working (ugh! still! i'm not clear yet!), cleaning, throwing things away, checking out of my apartment (what will she say about my broken bed and window?), and not to mention (dramatic pause and inhale): saying good bye to the people who have made this year...well, what it was. I won't complain too much, c'est la vie, after all. And I will shortly have Carcassonne, Biarritz, surfing, and eventually Cambodia with my dad to keep me occupied.
In honor of this impending change, things France has taught me (or rather, things I feel I've learned, or learned better, in the past year; France doesn't deserve all the credit, not a chance):
I have been spending my days dragging myself from cup of coffee to cup of coffee to nap, living for my evenings (spent avoiding sleep with a book or my favorite news websites) and weekends, which are always over too fast, even when I skip Friday, like I did last week. June weekends are all about reconnecting with friends I don't want to lose after we part, and making sure I exploit the locales (Lyon, the banks of the Sorgue, the patch of grass above the Rhone my friends and I have shanghai'd from couples in love) which I will miss terribly the second they're out of my reach (well, except for Lyon). And it's only the 14th! Not-quite-but-almost halfway through this hellish nightmare. I am dreading everything about the next two weeks: packing, showing off my apartment to possible future residents (um, doing my rental agency's job???), shutting down accounts, getting my mail forwarded (can/do they even do that here???), working (ugh! still! i'm not clear yet!), cleaning, throwing things away, checking out of my apartment (what will she say about my broken bed and window?), and not to mention (dramatic pause and inhale): saying good bye to the people who have made this year...well, what it was. I won't complain too much, c'est la vie, after all. And I will shortly have Carcassonne, Biarritz, surfing, and eventually Cambodia with my dad to keep me occupied.
In honor of this impending change, things France has taught me (or rather, things I feel I've learned, or learned better, in the past year; France doesn't deserve all the credit, not a chance):
- How to be alone and like it. I love curling up with my computer or a good book (or a good miniseries!) for hours on end.
- How to be well-informed. What am I doing for hours on end online? Browsing Slate.com, thedailybeast, (in addition to MSNBC and CNN) or other people's blogs for the latest in news and opinions. Listening to the latest podcast of NPR's 'Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.' Crying if the internet wigs out. (Credit goes to Whitney and Steve for turning me on to these)
- That teaching is hard. And (probably) not for me in the long run.
- That being an American is cool again, or more accurately, that I enjoy being an American (thank you Obama and crew, Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert, staples in my life as much as any 'real' news, and no thanks to Sarah Palin). Also, being an American gets you things, like border crossings within the EU where you should have had your passport but didn't...
- How to cook...a little. I can sautee veggies, boil noodles, use herbes de provence on everything, and make a bravas sauce. It's a start!
- That I'm not going to be friends with everyone I meet. Obvious. But still, a lesson driven home a lot recently. It pays to be discriminating: the good friends are REALLY good, and worth the time, effort, energy, thought. The others...will always be there, and are not worth getting too worked up about.
- That fresh market produce is always, ALWAYS better. Worth the difference in price. Worth planning out my shopping a little better (ok, I'm still working on that second part).
- That Oregon isn't inherently bad just because I'm from there. I'm really excited about coming home in the fall.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
The Way We Live Now (how are British mini-series one of my favorite things about my time in France?)
Eerie when a British mini-series based on a book written in 1875 seems to be describing The Way We Live Now. Anthony Trollope's novel of that name about the Ponzi-scheming swindler Melmotte* seems to be the fictional inspiration for the real-life Bernie Madoff (at least from what I've read about Ponzi schemes and Madoff). One character even accuses him of being the cause of the suicides of some prominent financiers. Melmotte sweet talks and bullies his way into people's pockets, taking the money meant for a Salt Lake City-Veracruz railway (which struck me as a stupid idea anyways...go west! not south!) for himself while all the while attracting new investors and pushing stock prices up, up, up, insisting that profit, not charity, is the driving force of humanity. Your obligation is to make yourself rich, he says, and that will improve the world more than charity ever could.
Melmotte's M.O. was to close down shop and move on before anybody realized they'd been fleeced. In London, he gets especially power hungry and obsessed with becoming a real English gentleman, decides to run for an M.P. seat, wins (his speeches are scarily persuasive, of course), and thus ends up staying in one place too long. People start getting suspicious, and in a move that I thought was arbitrarily moral (he's been stealing people's money this whole time, after all), he fumbles the forging of his daughter's signature but gives up trying, knowing his getting caught is impending. What does he do? He commits suicide, rather than face prison and public humility. And then a young and foxy Cillian Murphy, who had been fuming that the railroad wasn't actually getting built, got his railway anyways. The American, Mr. Fisker puts it simply, probably even with a shrug of his shoulders: this is how things always work out, the first wave of investors get screwed, but the money from the second wave actually gets routed to the actual project that was supposed to be funded all along.
What the?!?! After watching this, I am as wary and suspicious as ever of stocks and bonds and money that I can't touch or even visualize (futures trading? Does any layman understand that?). Is this how the world works? Nothing risked, nothing won, I guess, but I think I'm going to stay away from anything other than a mattress (or maybe a Swiss bank account) to store my money.
The Way We Live Now was deliciously unsettling and off-balance throughout; I was always stressed about characters trapped in different perilous situations. The ones about to lose all their money. The two girls with the playboy Felix who was just using both of them but skates by with no consequences. The crazy pioneer American woman, who once shot and killed a man who betrayed her (where? Orygone, of course!) who ensnares. Women who dare put love before marriage, and others who succomb to put comfort and position ahead of love. And a young and foxy Cillian Murphy to top it all off. (Eowyn and Moaning Myrtle also show up!) Definitely worth a gander.
*An anachronism, I know. Charles Ponzi was circa the 1920's. Why aren't they called Melmotte schemes? His name is too reminiscent of a cuddly cross between a marmot and a muppet? 'Ponzi' just has a slightly more crazy and posh connotation? 'They' (whoever they are) wanted to name the scheme after someone who actually lived and screwed over real people?
Melmotte's M.O. was to close down shop and move on before anybody realized they'd been fleeced. In London, he gets especially power hungry and obsessed with becoming a real English gentleman, decides to run for an M.P. seat, wins (his speeches are scarily persuasive, of course), and thus ends up staying in one place too long. People start getting suspicious, and in a move that I thought was arbitrarily moral (he's been stealing people's money this whole time, after all), he fumbles the forging of his daughter's signature but gives up trying, knowing his getting caught is impending. What does he do? He commits suicide, rather than face prison and public humility. And then a young and foxy Cillian Murphy, who had been fuming that the railroad wasn't actually getting built, got his railway anyways. The American, Mr. Fisker puts it simply, probably even with a shrug of his shoulders: this is how things always work out, the first wave of investors get screwed, but the money from the second wave actually gets routed to the actual project that was supposed to be funded all along.
What the?!?! After watching this, I am as wary and suspicious as ever of stocks and bonds and money that I can't touch or even visualize (futures trading? Does any layman understand that?). Is this how the world works? Nothing risked, nothing won, I guess, but I think I'm going to stay away from anything other than a mattress (or maybe a Swiss bank account) to store my money.
The Way We Live Now was deliciously unsettling and off-balance throughout; I was always stressed about characters trapped in different perilous situations. The ones about to lose all their money. The two girls with the playboy Felix who was just using both of them but skates by with no consequences. The crazy pioneer American woman, who once shot and killed a man who betrayed her (where? Orygone, of course!) who ensnares. Women who dare put love before marriage, and others who succomb to put comfort and position ahead of love. And a young and foxy Cillian Murphy to top it all off. (Eowyn and Moaning Myrtle also show up!) Definitely worth a gander.
*An anachronism, I know. Charles Ponzi was circa the 1920's. Why aren't they called Melmotte schemes? His name is too reminiscent of a cuddly cross between a marmot and a muppet? 'Ponzi' just has a slightly more crazy and posh connotation? 'They' (whoever they are) wanted to name the scheme after someone who actually lived and screwed over real people?
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
A Good Day
Didn't Peter Mayle write a book, that eventually became a movie starring Russell Crowe, called A Good Year? (Answer: yes...oh that omnipresent Peter Mayle! He's everywhere here in Provence. I don't think I'll be able to read any of his stuff until I'm old, immobile, and have nothing else to do but romantically reminisce about my fabulous year in Provence-I think it'd be overload to read him now)
Anyways, my life on Sunday reminded me of this movie I've never seen:
The day started out bleakly: grey and too early. Steve, Zandra and I caught a 9am bus from Avignon to L'Isle, where we wandered around the infamous market and got drenched when the foreboding clouds finally burst. Then we disgruntledly tromped out to one of my teachers' homes, where we picked up her car which she generously lent us for the day to discover the nearby countryside. But only after drinking coffee and chatting it up with her for awhile, and learning that Provencaux are pretentious bastards, and the main reason she's so nice and friendly and welcoming to me is because she's originally Parisienne. (Suddenly, much about the last 9 months makes sense...)
Gordes
We made our way to Gordes, one of the most beautiful cities in France (according to themselves, of course, and some official list). We ate our picnic in the car because it was still drizzly (spicy olives, bread, goat cheese, strawberries, apricots, does it get any better?). We walked around. I saw a snail.
Rousillon
Known for ocres (ochre? ocre), brilliantly bright red/orange/yellow sand/dirt from which they extract fabric and paint dyes. We couldn't have planned it better: just as we were walking through the ocre park, and commenting on how it felt like we had been transported out of France, the sun decided to gloriously appear, making the breathtaking natural wonders even more breathtaking.
Apt
Underwhelming, but we stumbled onto some carny-infested, teeny-bopping, ghetto-ass fair in the middle of town, complete with a D-level parade with pirates on stilts, the Marquis de Sade, and an olive princess that entertained us for a time (yum churros).
Bonnieux
A drive-by photo-op, but I can say I've been there, done that!
Lacoste
Ditto.
Faire le stop
To top it all off, we got the car back to Dominique, a queen among women, right around the time the last train was leaving for Avignon. Let it get us down? Never! Zandra proposed we hitchhike the 20-odd kilometer trek, and so we did! The first guy took us only to the next town over, the second guy (originally from Reunion, an island off the coast of Madagascar) took us almost all the way, and then a young woman (about our age) drove us to the city walls. We are rockstars! Then we made enchiladas and watched some more of the greatest miniseries of all time: Angels in America.
Today Robyn (American baker) drove me and a Japanese pastry chef interning with her husband for a few days around Les Alpilles, and we checked out Les Beaux. Hooray for checking things off the list! Now I just need to get to the Chateau d'If (I've been here going on 9 months and still haven't gotten down there!), and I'll be content.
Anyways, my life on Sunday reminded me of this movie I've never seen:
The day started out bleakly: grey and too early. Steve, Zandra and I caught a 9am bus from Avignon to L'Isle, where we wandered around the infamous market and got drenched when the foreboding clouds finally burst. Then we disgruntledly tromped out to one of my teachers' homes, where we picked up her car which she generously lent us for the day to discover the nearby countryside. But only after drinking coffee and chatting it up with her for awhile, and learning that Provencaux are pretentious bastards, and the main reason she's so nice and friendly and welcoming to me is because she's originally Parisienne. (Suddenly, much about the last 9 months makes sense...)
Gordes
We made our way to Gordes, one of the most beautiful cities in France (according to themselves, of course, and some official list). We ate our picnic in the car because it was still drizzly (spicy olives, bread, goat cheese, strawberries, apricots, does it get any better?). We walked around. I saw a snail.
Rousillon
Known for ocres (ochre? ocre), brilliantly bright red/orange/yellow sand/dirt from which they extract fabric and paint dyes. We couldn't have planned it better: just as we were walking through the ocre park, and commenting on how it felt like we had been transported out of France, the sun decided to gloriously appear, making the breathtaking natural wonders even more breathtaking.
Apt
Underwhelming, but we stumbled onto some carny-infested, teeny-bopping, ghetto-ass fair in the middle of town, complete with a D-level parade with pirates on stilts, the Marquis de Sade, and an olive princess that entertained us for a time (yum churros).
Bonnieux
A drive-by photo-op, but I can say I've been there, done that!
Lacoste
Ditto.
Faire le stop
To top it all off, we got the car back to Dominique, a queen among women, right around the time the last train was leaving for Avignon. Let it get us down? Never! Zandra proposed we hitchhike the 20-odd kilometer trek, and so we did! The first guy took us only to the next town over, the second guy (originally from Reunion, an island off the coast of Madagascar) took us almost all the way, and then a young woman (about our age) drove us to the city walls. We are rockstars! Then we made enchiladas and watched some more of the greatest miniseries of all time: Angels in America.
Today Robyn (American baker) drove me and a Japanese pastry chef interning with her husband for a few days around Les Alpilles, and we checked out Les Beaux. Hooray for checking things off the list! Now I just need to get to the Chateau d'If (I've been here going on 9 months and still haven't gotten down there!), and I'll be content.
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