Conception, or Another Bout of Negligence

Let me first start off by apologizing for slacking on the updates. I know it's been a while and (if only this sounded humble...) I'd be curious if I were you. In reality, though, the life of a student here in France can best be represented by this video:



I've been busy. Well, let me tell you about this past weekend. On Thursday night some friends and I went to a percussion concert at my university. It was conducted by my host mom's choir leader, which is how I found out about it because she recommended it to me. They played the drums, some xylophones, some more drums, and then did a cool clapping thing and then it was over. During this whole spectacle, my friends and I played the game "Boy or Girl" because one of the band members looked like they could be either a teenage boy or a middle aged woman. Turns out it was a woman. Just so you know.

Friday afternoon was quite nice, and I didn't have anything to do durning the day so I went back to the Musée Hébert and sat in the park listening to music and reading a book. In the evening we went to see a contemporary dance. Which was... interesting. Strange. Confusing. And apparently about conception and birth? Or the conception and birth of a deer? There was a lot of milling around by the dancers, not so much dancing. It started like this: The dancers we in the audience and then got up and walked onto the stage, all the way to the back and started undressing. They stripped down to their underwear, took a blanket, wrapped it around their shoulders, and went to their places on the stage. Then some weird water buffalo or bull sounds started up. Then they started slowly walking around each other, sniffing... using their feet as tails... I don't know. They moved around some more, had dance/weird/stroke victim/mock sex, did some crazy sounds in the microphone... I just... I'm still so confused. In the words of Margaret Cho: it was just so nonconsensual for me. My program manager, Marie, told us that the dancers were from Belgium, and that usually they're pretty avant garde about their art and dance. I guess I liked it, but in another way I feel like it had so much potential... oh well.

Saturday I took a long walk with my friend Carrie. We were on a mission to climb this hill and get to a church that we've seen lit up at night sometimes. We got up there, but the street leading to the church was blocked off so we went around the other side still with no luck. It was a nice walk, anyway. Next, we went to her house for lunch and to prepare for a wine tasting that her host parents were having that evening. We then went into town for pastries and to window shop with our friend Rachel. I then realized that the wine tasting that evening (to which I had been invited) was for Beaujolais. I'll tell you what that is! Beaujolais is wine (and the celebration of it) that's the first of the harvest. It's not good. Kinda gross. In the past years people go absolutely nuts in town, everyone's drunk, there's broken glass and shop windows and not long ago Sarkozy came to Grenoble after the destruction that Beaujolais caused to reprimand and to make an example of the Grenoblois. So I stayed home and kept warm.

Sunday I went to my host mom's concert which was quite nice. Afterwards my host dad asked me how I liked it and I said it was fantastic to which he replied "Really? Hmm..." like it had never occurred to him that the concert was good. They love not supporting each other.

Homelessness Tends to Creep Up on You

Just a little note: Second semester apparently I will not be staying with my current host family as they only signed up to have me for this semester and not the full academic year. I'm 88% certain that the year students were told that they'd have their families for the year, but apparently my family was the exception, much to my surprise. It'll get figured out, but come January I'll have a new family and plenty of new stories. Hopefully less faux pas. Hopefully less spilling of the water across the dining table.

A bulleted list of things to take note of:

• The cups here are tiny. They're probably about 1/4th the size of the cups we drink from at home. You're constantly refilling your class. Or at least us Americans are. Apparently they're less thirsty here.
• People don't clean up their dog's poop. It's on the sidewalk... people step in it... something needs to be done.
• So many kinds of cheese. A cheese for everyday of the year. Most of the cheese I've had here is delicious.
• Transportation here is the greatest thing ever. It's so easy. Subways, tram ways, bus systems. The only form of transportation that doesn't seem to work well enough is the automobile. Or rather, the way people drive. Their cars are uncannily fancy! (Nearly) Everyone has a really nice one. Also, there are some people here driving Fords. What is that? (Cars here: Renault, Citroën, Pugeot, BMW, Volkswagen, uh... that's all I can think of. Look 'em up!)
• Kids misbehave here. Mainly teenagers running amuck, but I'm sure most of their antics wouldn't fly in the U.S. Or at least in suburban areas. Maybe it's the city...
• Cell phones here = bricks. Remember those Nokias? Still in action over here! Everyone's phone is large and in charge.

That's it for now, folks!

Hot Blooded!

Title for Stephanie S.

Fantastic Strike

Well I should be put away for negligence, shouldn't I? There's much to fill you in on. First, school is going fine. These weeks have been filled with grèves, or 'strikes,' and manifestations, or 'protests.' Mainly due to the changes being made by the government over France's retirement age, but these protests are about all the changes the French wish to see. For us students, it basically means that the tram isn't running the way it should and it's harder to get around.

Let me start with last weekend. The first night of the weekend, my friend Carrie and I went to the wine bar that I've mentioned before, Le Tord Boyaux, in search of lavender flavored wine. First of all, lavender is not only a flower, but also a cooking spice. Indeed, good ladies and gents! I've never had anything with lavender cooked in it here, as I believe it's mainly used in the south of France, but lavender ice cream back home is delicious. Anyway, somebody from our group said that this lavender wine exists at the bar but indeed it does not. We were flabbergasted. Instead we got some apple cinnamon to keep up with the autumn spirit, but it didn't taste as great as the liquid gold that is lavender wine would have been. After finishing we called it a night.

Jack, Rachel, and Nick

The next day I hung out with my friends Allison and Rachel, mainly walking to the movie theaters to find a good movie to watch but we found ourselves disinterested, and instead went to Rachel's to watch a movie on her computer. Before that, though, we went to Allison's and played with her dog, Jack, for a bit.

That night I got home and as I was sitting on my bed I realized that my bug friend was hanging out on the wall above my door. I wasn't going to make a fuss myself, so I waited until my host mom popped in to say goodnight. She went into my host brother's room and asked if he wanted to kill it but he declined so she got out some spray from the bathroom and sprayed it on the bug. It did a lazy little dance and then fell on the floor, at which point she stomped on it and cleaned it up with some toilet paper. The spray is now in my closet but hopefully they leave me alone for good.

The day after that, I hung out again with Rachel and her very nice friend from Paris. The day wasn't so nice so we stopped in a café and had coffee and talked. Allison showed up too. The rest of the weekend I watched movies and did homework.

This weekend:

Yesterday my program went on an excursion to Voiron, where they distill Chartreuse. Long ago some monks made this "elixir" of what's supposed to be long life, and that elixir is Chartreuse. It has a nice green color (there's also a yellow kind... more on this later) and how the monks obtain that is a secret. In the cellar of the distillery there were gigantic barrels of both green and yellow and on the big barrels they have written the percentage of alcohol, color, and quantity. It was a huge cellar.

La Jaune

Then we got to taste it. First of all, I wasn't too thrilled about this because 1. the whole cellar smelled of it and I can tell you... It wasn't bad but it wasn't at all enticing. 2. 55% alcohol content... no thank you. So I tried the yellow, while some others had green and we shared to see which was better. I chose right. I can describe the green as having a very strong alcohol taste that was bitter and kind of tasted like flowers or plants, but also had a cinnamon or nutmeg taste. Yellow was the same except it was a little less tart and a little more sugary. I'll never enjoy it, I'm sure.

After the distillery we were headed to the monastery and Chartreuse museum which was opened as a special treat to us, as they aren't usually open this time of year. However, on the way (scenery was absolutely beautiful. Fall is the best time of year for nature views) there was a blockage in a tunnel due to a car accident so our bus was parked on the side of the road for an hour or so. When it was clear we had to turn around and go home. Although this was disappointing, I do like a nice relaxing bus ride. Road trips are the best.

Today I had a picnic with some friends by the river, then some ice cream, and I believe later I'm going out to a café. I'm also writing a second post as a treat and to update you on a bomb that has recently been dropped.

Special thanks to Molly P., and Allison L. for pictures.