France

• **My account had been overtaken by a ruthless New Mexican ex pat having a hard time dealing with Texas and its great qualities. This original blog has been returned to its original state***

I was in the pub yesterday when I suddenly realized I desperately needed to fart. The music was really, really loud, so I timed my farts with the beat.

After a couple of songs, I started to feel better. I finished my pint and noticed that everybody was staring at me.

Then I suddenly remembered that I was listening to my iPod. - Joke circulating on the internet

There are lessons in life that we all learn, or at least should learn. Some are big. Some are small. Sometimes you learn from them. Sometimes you don't.

After a long, warm day of classes, I figured I owed myself a cool afternoon watching a movie. I went straight to the cinema, bought my ticket, and sat down for the movie. The movie, The Hangover, had been translated into French as Very Bad Trip. I agree, a hangover would result in a very bad trip, but I would think if you were going to translate an American English language movie title into French, you might want to use the local language, French, rather than a completely different title still in English.

The thought never crossed my mind when I bought the ticket that the movie may not be in English until the half hour of previews that were either in English with French subtitles or dubbed completely in French. Thus my chances were 50/50 I would have the chance to watch it in its original English track version. The movie started, in my mind with all neurons crossed, I'm hoping it's in English. The phone rings in the first scene, and the actress slowly picks up the phone and responds, "Allô!" Damn!!! It's dubbed in French. Fight or flight sets in as I quickly asked myself "stay? go? stay? go?" Due to the fact that it was nice and cool, and I could zone out a little, I stayed. Now I just have to see it in English in the future.

Four weeks away from home, it's inevitable that I would have to wash clothes. But when I entered the grocery store, I was posed with the dilemma of buying laundry detergent. I only needed enough detergent that would last 2 washes. Even if I bought the smallest quantity available, I would have enough for 10 washes. The result, I decided against buying it, and I spent 4 weeks with 2 washes without detergent. Don't worry, I actually did wash my clothes, twice, yet without that detergent. I think I'm becoming more and more enculturated, I'm smelling more like the French everyday.

In general, a bunch of foreigners outside of the U.S. enjoy smoking, even Americans for that matter at times, but as Western Europe becomes more and more smoke free, it's making smoking more of a challenge, especially those used to smoking wherever they want. It's common for residents in our residence to open their dorm window and smoke out the window rather than making that long walk downstairs and outside. But late one night around 2:37, someone smoked a little too much and set off the fire alarm. Everyone was in a state of confusion and staggered outside, while I thought it was part of a dream where I am somehow trapped inside the borders of that horrific state of New Mexico and trying to flee. The other international students also found out at that time that I like to wear Dora the Explorer pajamas to bed. Boy was that embarrassing.

Finally, I have found the ultimate test of balance and accuracy for males. First you drink a decent quantity of any liquid (could by H2O, beer, wine, Dr. Pepper, green chili, your choice), then you go and try to pee standing up in the toilet of a moving French train on its way to Luxembourg. If you can remain standing, accurately direct the pee into the toilet, you have quality aim and balance.

Next up - that actual trip to Luxembourg.

Looking back at the week of the Tour de No Pants

I can now check of two events from my "life to do" list. The first being in France during Bastille Day. Second, attending a part of the Tour de France in person. Check and check.

In front of the stage of the Tour de France

July 14th was a free day at the university, so I joined a group for a day trip to Strasbourg. The only negative was that we had to be awake and at the bus stop at 6:45. As I slept as late as I possibly could, I had to make up for those extra 3 minutes of sleep by making a cool trot to the waiting bus. A cool trot falls directly between a full spring where one looks like a dork and a leisurely walk where one seems rude.

That is alot of beer

In Strasbourg, we dodged raindrops boarding the bateau mouche to explore Petite France, the old town center. Following the boat ride, I had a creppy lunch next to a really large keg of beer that was twice as tall as me. The creppy lunch consisted of a crêpe filled with meat and cheese, and a side plate of mozzarella and tomatoes. Actually it was delicious. The rest of the afternoon was spent strolling downtown among the German influenced architecture.

Petite France in Strasbourg, France

The bus returned and from there I headed to downtown Besancon with classmates to celebrate Bastille Day. Like alot of national holidays, people like to go out to eat, and Besancon wasn't any different. Thus, our reservationless asses were shit out of luck trying to find a table. After our dozen attempts at various restaurants, we had to grab something from the local kabob eatery (fast food), duck into a covered alley to protect us from the rain that was falling while we waited for the next 30 minutes until the fireworks started. But as we huddled in an alley to eat our gourmet dinner, we decided to find a better place to enjoy Bastille Day, back at the dorms. As we tramped through the rain and festivities, French teens find this the time to fully express themselves, with fireworks. They find it quite funny to throw it directly at each other. One happened to be thrown directly above my head, not so funny, but no need to worry, my face is fine, or at least as fine as it's going to be.

Notre Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg

As fate and life in general would have it, we were diverted from the dorms to another locale that exists in every corner of the globe, an Irish pub. Thus I spent the national French holiday in an Irish pub with a group of Irish students. As the ever so wise Alanis Morissette stated, quiet ironic don't ya think.

Russian Rider that finished in first place

Fortunately for me, I didn't have to go to the Tour de France, the Tour de France came to me. This is the July event where 160 or so cyclists jump on a bicycle and race around the country trying to finish in the shortest time possible so they can sport a yellow jersey. The interesting thing is that that yellow jersey fits pretty snuggly, maybe it's the European fit for shirts.

Waiting for the cyclists on Pont Canot

Undoubtedly, the Tour de France brings alot to the table such as lots of people, big money, and visitors and interesting from all over the world. The day of the race, I headed down to Pont Canot, a prime spot on a bridge to watch the racers fly by. People had waited 2 to 3 hours. I waited about 50 minutes. Leading up to the racers arrival, team cars, floating advertisements on passing trucks, and a couple of stores on wheels passed by us and the interesting characters.

There was one interesting character in particular that you might expect to see in the streets of New Mexico. It was a rather rotund guy wearing a three sizes too small green Gatorade jersey with pink tights and boots. Let's call him Mathieu, because he was obviously French as he sang various chants to get everyone excited. Didn't work. He also sat on one side of the road before cyclists arrived where he laid in the middle of the road and posed for photos. Since he wasn't getting an arousal out of the crowd, he felt it would be cute to just pull his pants down and swing his little French baguette around. Unfortunately, everyone on the other side turned their heads and missed the passing cyclists. Just kidding.

Yep, there goes the Tour de France passing by

Once the Tour de France passed, it was pretty exciting to see and experience for about a minute. As long as people waited for the cyclists to pass, 1 to 3 hours, it took those guys only a minute to pass.

Alright, time for bed. Next up, the country known as the tourist magnet - Luxembourg.

John

The finish line of this blog entry

Bienvenu à Besancon

As my flight from Frankfurt arrived in Geneva, Switzerland at 7:30 p.m., I was mentally prepared to have to stay the night in Geneva and travel the next day on to my destination city of Besançon. The last train out of Geneva left out of Besançon at 8:30. Not alot of time for an international arrival.

Fortunately, a flight attendant told me that the train station was right next to the airport. Once I got off the plane, I ran so I could wait 10 precious minutes for my bags to come out. I grabbed those bags, ran to the train station where I found out that I would have to transfer to another station downtown to get me to France. "Merde!" After another train I was finally at the correct station. I ran up to the ticket office and with a little less than 3 minutes to spare, I bought my ticket, literally ran through customs since noone was actually there working, and jumped on the train and onto Besançon, France.

I am taking French classes this summer at the Centre Linguistique Appliquée here in Besancon. These classes go towards my Masters Degree. I have to say that my first week of classes and living in Besançon had been really interesting. First of all, the set up. We have to attend 3 classes a day from 8:30 to 3:00 with an optional forum after these classes. My classes have either been really well organized or poorly organized along with forums consisting of a presenter reading statistics for an hour and a half in a monotone voice or interactive presentations. Classes are either right on the mark or off in left field.

One of the stereotypical qualities of France is their food, but considering that we have been eating in a school cafeteria, food hasn't been the true treat that you might imagine. On the other hand, our classes are extremely international. Compared to my classes last summer in Argentina which was comprised mostly of Americans, classes here are comprised of students from Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Ireland, France, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, Syria, Botswana, Senegal. You can definitely say it is eclectic as Crawford, Texas.

My diverse classes

The majority of the students are staying in dorms. During the first week, I stayed in the dorm named Jérome. I soon found out that Jérome was the dorm where French students that didn't return home for their summer vacation stay to drink and talk right in front of the entrance of the building. Unfortunately, my room just happened to be situated right above the entrance. For 5 consecutive nights, they felt like sitting in front to drink, talk, sing, and yell a few times for extra flavor as it prohibited everyone trying to sleep to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning. That's completely bollocks isn't it?

So each night, I would go down in between midnight and 3 a.m. to ask them to take their ass somewhere else. Finally, on the last night, I went down and had a heated discussion about the fact that I had to go to class the next morning while they didn't. If I had a better vocabulary in French, I would have peppered the conversation with alot more colorful words like bollocks and you smell like catfish. I changed dorms on Monday.

One of my goals on this trip was to make a side trip to Westvletern, Belgium to purchase the number one beer in the world. This beer, the Westvletern trappist beer is very scarce and tough to wrap your hands around. You process requires that you make a reservation two weeks before you plan on buying it, then two weeks later, you drive up, give them your name and your money, and then they give you best tasting beer in the world. That was my plan, BUT, what a big but, there was one big item impeding my visit. When I was looking to get a train ticket to Belgium, it was going to cost a nifty $500. I enjoy beer, but not quite that much. Maybe sometime in the future.

Enough of this negative crap. Now for the uplifting and the bit odd to make you laugh. A great way for me to integrate with locals has always been basketball. During the first week, I found a set of basketball courts where guys come and play three times a week. I quickly put myself in the mix. I have been playing basketball for a good two to three hours each time. I know that makes you feel better.

Now the school that we attend tries to provide several cultural activities within Besancon for us to take advantage of. One of the first activities was a French movie preluded with a concert from the guy that produced the music for the movie. Sounds great in theory. Two other graduate students, Norah and Sarah, both came and we were a little perturbed that we were a little late for the start. Once we entered, we were glad we were late. Up on stage was the musician making odd music with his clarinette. He reminded me of Will Ferrell in Anchorman when he starts playing his jazz flute. The French musician would play a note and then use his computer to change the sound. Basically it sounded like a whale under water in a great amount of pain from constipation. He felt the music and began to levitate using his one leg to push himself up and tucking the other one behind his other leg. It looked more like he was practicing yoga.

Finally the movie started 40 painful minutes later. This didn't mark the end of pain, just a pause, and then a continuation of another long dragged out piece of French cinema. We left early and ate some ice cream.

Leading up to the Citadelle

Looming high over the city of Besancon is the Citadelle, a place that protected the old city below and was designed by Vauban. I took a Sunday afternoon to visit it. To my surprise as I walked across the drawbridge, underneath were a couple dozen baboons. What?!?! Baboons up in the citadel. Unknown to me, the back of the citadel is a zoo containing kangaroos, several types of monkeys, lions, tigers, fish, flamingos, and llamas.

The funniest moment came by a few monkeys. It always has to be the monkeys. One male monkey, we'll name him Santa Fe, felt it best to swing around the cage quickly until the female, Albuquerque, was away from her baby. Santa Fe would then quickly swing over in her direction, and seemed to be trying to jump over Albuquerque. He wasn't successful since he kept trying in rapid succession to jump over her. There's nothing like humping monkeys to make you laugh.

That was the first week of Besancon. The next week brought the Tour de France to town.

Peace
John