What is there to say when it's sunny every day? When I spend Tuesday afternoons in parks drinking cider, nights drinking magnums of cheap rosé in outdoor cafés, and Wednesdays eating ice creams and having walks along windy beaches? When stealing chairs and dancing in fountains constitute normal Monday nights? When I have few classes, and no ( Read more... )

Several hours ago, I went outside to buy books and phone credit. I get only several steps away from my door when a older French lady stops me to question me about my attire, and whether or not I'd been frostbitten yet; this happens, perhaps, more frequently than it should.

La Dame: You haven't cold in your neck?
Me: Oui, but...
La Dame: Oh, are ( Read more... )

In ways which I am currently too exhausted (from doing what, I could not tell you, but exhausted nonetheless; watching TV and eating baguette is tiring, I guess...) to tell, the past few months of my life have been incredibly, unbelievably surreal. I now, at least, understand why the French love absurdism so much: they dwell in absurdity. And I, ( Read more... )

I went to Uni at 9:00 this morning to go to my first class in three weeks, only to find that all the buildings were blockaded and that the strike was not so over as the university website still insists. A very nice militant French student explained to us that they were not on "official strike" but that they were, nonetheless, barring entry to all ( Read more... )

Apparently, last week, Uni wasn't officially closed, it was just being occupied by militant French students. This morning, the police forcibly removed these occupying students, and the University is now officially shut. There were also talks of the students of my University helping out the transit strikes by occupying transport buildings and ( Read more... )

I went for a haircut yesterday. And, like many other things in France, it was overly complicated and lasted over three hours. Like too few things in France, it was executed by a man who looked like Heath Ledger if Heath Ledger were a werewolf ( Read more... )

Yesterday morning, when I arrived at Uni, the students had barricaded the gates with tables so that they could force everyone walking in and out to take a flyer about their grievances. Then, at four, several bulky, skin headed men (one of whom, I'm told, had an impressive ponytail) walked into my friends' tutorial with a big ring of keys and ( Read more... )

it's too warm to write, but I'm going to London soon. Hopefully two days in the capital of chilly Britainia will inspire this lethergy to leave me. Probably not. I would debate it some more, but I can't be bothered with the words. I think I'll just spend this year as a mute.

It's not often that I go to a live sporting event. In fact, the last time I was present at anything that could be considered even vaguely athletic was probably a Philadelphia Kixx soccer game in 1997. Last week, however, when I was ever-so-slightly inebriated, I agreed to go to see "The Rugby" under the pretense that there would be attractive ( Read more... )

this week I learned (and by learned, I mean looked up) 330 French* words. That is far too many. Some of the most "useful" include :

allaiter - to breast feed
moine - monk
nonne - nun (admittedly, I should have been able to guess the meaning of that, but at least it finally clears up the issue of whether or not there really was a story about ( Read more... )