Summaire

The last three weeks before going home were the best since I'd left. I didn't engage in particularly exciting activities, but maybe that was the point. First I went to La Ferme Musicale. It was located in the village of Palau del Vidre, Catalan for "Glass Palace." On the farm, they grew mostly peaches and other fruits and vegetables and also made jams and chutneys, raised chickens, and taught percussion lessons. Here's a plan of the farm from their website. When you move the mouse over different areas, the box on the right tells you what grows there.



I am in love with Ursula and Vincent, the farmers I worked for. They were so darn nice and cool and interesting. They travelled the world for 18 months after they were married, and Vincent had spent even more time in Cuba, Africa, and South America before that. That's where he learned how to make and play traditional Latin and African instruments, which he continues to make every year out of dried gourds from the garden.

It was so nice to wake up early, eat fresh jam on toast, work a few hours in the fields, and have lunch and be done, spending the rest of the sweltering afternoon basking on a hammock or reading a book. They lent me a bike to ride to neighboring towns whenever I felt like it, and I even biked to a concert nearby of one of my favorite current musicians.
My usual assignments were picking courgettes (zucchinis), slicing peaches for jam, diggin potaters, and weeding. I also got to pick apricots while I was there, which was just as pleasant as it sounds.

About twice a week, groups of kids would arrive by bus to spend an afternoon on the farm. Ursula would show them the farm, then they would have a "goûter," or snack, consisting of zucchini quiche, peach tart, fresh jams, sliced peaches, and drinks made from the syrup of plants. They would end with a music lesson and a little parade around the front yard, blowing whistles and banging mallets.






My last few days I went to Barcelona, which I loved. Such a cool city. I mostly tagged along with my roommates from the youth hostel I stayed in, who were four goofy Dutch boys. Traveling by myself really helped me to be more self-sufficient and outgoing. I was surprised that I actually had fun and made friends. I would love to go back to Europe and travel more than I did this time around. Good stuff.

Calme avant la tempête

You know how when something calamitous is about to happen and you see it in slow motion and you just kind of stare at it and then it happens and you're like, "Why did I let that happen!!?" Well I have all my semester's work condensed in a space of two weeks and I see it all building up right before my eyes, as if I'm about to knock over a glass of milk or step in a puddle or walk off the edge of a cliff or something.

Not only do I have both my final projects coming up (a paper on a work of art, a presentation on a landmark), but I am also scheduled last or nearly last to do my normal class presentations, that came earlier in the term for everyone else. And what's particularly unfortunate about the end of the semester is aside from having more work than usual in school, I also have more work in life, namely, packing and getting home.

Before now and going home I'm going to work on a farm in the city of Elne, in very southern France, and then hopefully make it to Barcelona and Velencia, Spain. Then back to Paris from where I will fly to America the Beautiful. This means figuring out how to get from point A to H (and B, C, D, E, F, and G in between).

My family will be visiting during this pivotal week. Hopefully that means that rather than distracting me, I can put them on a homework assembly line: "Charlie! Write the introduction to my paper on Daumier! Mom! Start researching Louis XIII's medicinal garden! Dad! Hm, well, what's something you're capable of doing..."

I am looking forward to the end though, because I've surprisingly started to get a little homesick. My dad sent me pictures of our house, and one of them reminded me of Monet's garden, so maybe when I get back I'll become a famous turn-of-the-century impressionist painter with a long beard.

Coup de cheveux, more like I want PLUS de cheveux!!

My internet has been mighty shoddy lately, so I couldn't get pictures up, and hence no blog, since I didn't have anything to say so much as show, if you will. I'm liking Paris according to the weather these days, and as it's been sunny and warm for the most part, I like it. I've also been getting to see a different side of the city. In the same way girls have a special summer wardrobe, Paris, too, refrains from wearing white after Labor Day (or something). Anyway, enough of that, the point is that people are sprawling themselves every which way under the sun. I didn't know when I walked into the Luxembourg last week that there would be hundreds of people speckled across the lawns (the permitted lawns). So here is photographic proof that French people lay on grass.




Next order of business. Last Tuesday at the Louvre. Take a look. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Heyyyy, there's no people!

Our professor hooked us up with her curator friend Sébastien who let us into the Louvre on a closed day. Unfortunately no playing hide-and-seek.
Pretty spectacular walking around when no one's there. And a lot less enervating. I got to actually see the Mona Lisa, which is a little more impressive up close, cause honestly, I never really got it.

There was also Versailles...


And a cool ceiling in the Opéra Garnier

Today I went to get my hair cut after class and ya know, I don't really care how poorly I described what I wanted, at no point did I mention Frankenstein or his bangs. And lacking though I am in vocabulary, I'm dead sure that "un peu" means "a little" and that signaling with your forefinger and thumb about an inch apart doesn't in fact mean, "an inch long." (because they use the metric system)

No wonder she kept repeating, in English, "Eets terr-ee-ble! Ho-ha." I thought she was just trying to be clever.

The worst part is I've been suffering through a horribly cumbersome, tenacious stage of shaggy bangage, all for the good of finally being rid of them. Well THANKS Mme. Unqualified. You managed to cut my hair as short as possible without digging into my scalp.

On a positive note, I recently bought an overpriced bowler hat, so at least I'll be getting use out of it.

Vacance: Deuxième Partie - Freiburg & Amsterdam

Next I went to Freiburg and stayed with my friend Gabe. It was a pleasant little town. One day we climbed to the top of a hill (or mountain, who knows), on top of which was a tower. We climbed that too. I was complaining the entire second half of the climb, but hey, it was great exercise and it allowed me to take some good photos. I guess I worked off the pickled herring I accidentally ordered the night before.

There was a really fun bar that we went to which played "world music," but it was really just polka with a beat, and it ruled!

Dr. Leary's Laboratory:

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Then came Amster-damn! I met up with my friends Evelyn and Suzy who are also in my program. It was a really cool place for the first day and a half... I didn't see anything significant because my friends decided to go to to the Anne Frank house as I was getting in instead of waiting two hours! (thanks!!) But I enjoyed walking around the pretty place. The canals are gorgeous, and everyone rides around on bikes which is amazing. And a little scary for pedestrians. We stayed in two different hostels which was more beneficial than hasselsome. We got to see two completely different parts of town. The first night we were near a lot of restaurants (ethnic restaurants, Argentinean places everywhere for some reason) and bars, and pretty close to Vondelpark (beautiful!). We had dinner right across from our hostel at a Spanish restaurant. All of us shared a selection of their most popular tapas. Man, was I full after that.

The next day Evelyn abandoned us to go to LIVERPOOL (she thought John Lennon wrote Let It Be!), and Suzy and I galavanted around the city. We stopped at some bar for lunch where this crazy guy working there recruited us to blow up balloons and wear boas and lantern-hats (I mean it, he was crazy) in preparation for Queen's Day. Oh how innocently we helped them prepare!


That second night we were basically right in the red-light district. It kind of fascinated me, and I didn't feel grossed-out at first, which is probably the intent of such a standardized, legitimized form of prostitution, but the more I thought about it the less comfortable I was. I think it's even more unsettling than its illegal, surely less safe, counterparts. Anyway.

There was a carnival set up for Queen's Day, so we took a ride on the swings. But don't let the unassuming name fool you. These so-called swings would lift its passengers higher than all the buildings around it, and spin them at lightning-fast speeds.
Swings of Death
I like these pictures. It's like outer space as depicted in an 80's movie.

Then came queen's day, which totally ruined everything. At first it was fun in a "this is wild" sort of way, but by no means was it intrinsically fun. After a couple of hours of walking through massive crowds and broken glass at a rate of .02 mph I was ready for it to be over. But ohhh no. It's Queen's Day, silly! Meaning 24 hours and not the span of time when the sun is out.

We were planning on hanging out in Vondelpark just to evade the whole situation, but alas! The park, too, was filled with people. We would have had to have walked completely out of town to get away from the crowds. Toward early evening, the mass was eerily drifting toward the train station. It looked like a cult procession.

Deceivingly pretty: all that orange is a drunken crowd blowing deafening horns and wearing orange afro-wigs.

Some of the aftermath (substantially calmer):

Around 10:30, after Suzy had left me too, I had nothing to do but sulk in a café, so I went to a movie theater to dodge the trash and vomit. There were only two [awful] movies playing. I went to something with Dennis Quaid about assassinating the president. DO NOT SEE IT (unless it's Queen's Day).

In brighter news, the next day I got to go home, and I think I had a first-class ticket cause they served me a meal about every hour and a half. It was so nice to be back in Paris, and to my surprise, it had become sunny and deliciously warm! So I just relaxed. One day I sat on the steps of Sacre Coeur (tons of people were there doing the same thing) and colored and watched a cool street artist kick a soccer ball like a hackey-sac and balance it on his neck and head and arms.

Vacance: Première partie

I just returned from a two-week vacation which I spent in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. I went first to the province of Alsace, and stopped in Strasbourg and Mulhouse.

I think the highlight of Strasbourg was the tarte flambée. I only had about a day and a half there, so I took it easy, did a little sight-seeing around town, took a boat tour down the canals, popped into the Cathedral, and tried to find a traditional Alsacian restaurant. It was surprisingly an unsuccessful odyssey.

The mean streets of Strasbourg
My Mulhouse/Altkirch experience was a wee-bit strange! I was there 12 years ago with my family to visit our distant cousin Madeleine. Unfortunately, she recently passed away, and I assumed there were no more relatives living there. Well, the night before I headed there my mom informs me that we do still have family in Mulhouse. So she finds the phone number of Madeleine's brother, Pierre, and his wife Paule, who were also there with us back in '96. I thought it'd be fun to reunite with the people I met way back when, but I didn't really want to call because of the inevitably awkward phone conversation. Trying to explain in broken French how I'm related to them, and that we met years back, and that I'm in town--that day--for only a day. Wanna drop everything and have lunch?

Mulhouse, 1996. I'm the surly child in the middle.
I called anyway. I even wrote down what to say because I was nervous! But when Paule answered, I only got so far as, "Hi... I'm a cousin of your husband, and I'm in Mulhouse today and tomorrow" when she interjected, "Ok, come over for dinner at 7:30."

Whaa!

Wait, it gets wackier.

Altkirch
They lived in a nearby village, and I thus arrived by train in Altkirch, a tiny bumpkin town with one huge supermarket and not a whole lot else. There was a bar right next to the train "station," so I sat there and waited for Pierre to pick me up. I was, at this point, still a little flustered since I was doubtful they even mildly comprehended who I was and why I had called them. When Pierre got there, I stepped outside to meet him clumsily, and said, "I don't know if you remember, but we met 12 years ago at your sister Madeleine's house..."

"No."

...

Well. It felt pretty silly telling him how we were related now that he didn't remember us. "Your father was my great grandmother's cousin."

"Oh, that's far. Very far," said he.

He obviously wasn't trying to ease my embarrassment. Still, their hospitality (and trust) really struck me. He took me back to their house where Paule greeted me with excitement. They showed me pictures of their kids and relatives, I ate dinner with them, we talked a lot, and I spent the night. They were so thrilled to have me there, though I could not figure out why! I think I even heard them snicker, "Wait till we tell ____ we had an American at our house!"

Pierre et Paule
Well, the next day Paule went out to the store expressly to make me a traditional Alsatian lunch, which I was grateful for, since Strasbourg had failed me. I, meanwhile, went on an excursion with Pierre. He drove me through some of the neighboring towns (they're all very small and close together), enabling me to see some lovely scenery and very cute houses. They're like Easter eggs, Alsatian homes. He also took me to the restaurant he owned before he retired.

The houses in this video aren't really the greatest examples. They seem to be more recent and more bland than some of the really authentic ones.


Le restaurant de Pierre et Paule
Lunch consisted of pretzel-ish bread rolls spread with truffle paté, some juicy meat-roll of sorts, and approximately billions of pastries from the local patisserie.

Pierre drove me to the train station. We were going to stop at Madeleine's house on the way, which would have been neat, but we were late. Then I hopped a bus to Freiburg.

View from their balcony
If there's one thing I learned from staying with these lovely people, it's that family ties inhabit an important position in the hearts of a person of tradition. That sounds like some sort of adage or something, cause it rhymes and all, but I actually just made it up and didn't intend the rhyme.

Lions et Tigres et Perroquets, mon dieu!

This weekend I went to a party. A costume party, I quickly learned, thanks to the pirates and parrot who walked in with us! A real, live parrot. And a David Bowie. And a Viking, French chef, and Steve Buscemi. The costumes were cool and all, but what I honestly liked best were the bottomless plates of assorted cookies. I talked with French Steve Buscemi for a spell, but the only thing I understood of his English was "My English isn't very good," which I had kind of gathered anyway. Well, he did sing me a Serge Gainsbourg song called "Elisa" (my nickname in French), which was nice. But in the end I didn't know what to do so I sort of walked away.

The parrot and I got on real well. He was especially fond of Kat, one of the friends I went with, as was his owner. But he [the parrot] had a fine time nibbling my nose. Thank goodness Suzy got a picture of that blissful, albeit fleeting moment.
Oh maaaan, look how beautiful we are together. Look how well he matches my scarf.


I'm a little jealous of Kat, cause I mean, look at her--she could be a pirate, for sure.

In other news, I told my French crush to "smell better" after he told me he was sick. Whoops!

Eiyeiyei...

DETRUISEZ LA SERVICE PUBLIQUE D'EDUCATION!

HEY, HO, I DON'T WANNA LEARN NO MO'
Just strolling along, doin' my own thang, eatin' muh sandwich and BAM- I walk into a huge demonstration taking up two large blocks, madness everywhere! Drummers drumming, pipers piping, flares-a-flaring, coppers copping. Smokers smoking, punks-a-punking, dirty hippies... not doing much. It was weird because to walk into it, I had to pass a row of police men with shields who weren't letting anyone out of the mess but evidently had no problem with people walking into it. Well, no matter, I'm just glad nobody initiated violence on me for looking so blasé with my tuna melt. They were "protesting the school system," which is French for, "We're bored, let's hold up traffic." It was fun to watch for a while, until I noticed my path home was obstructed by hoooligans! And then I had to beg another row of cops to let me out.

"What do these students want?" I earnestly ask my old French lady. "To annoy people." IN-deed!

Well, I guess I found the Scene. I should start hanging out at protests, pretending I'm For The Cause. I only pray they don't make me grow dreadlocks!