Just a few more steps. (Right...)

So I've survived the week-end, my feet would beg to differ.
The first half of the day was spent waiting in line outside Notre Dame de Paris and going up round and round on the spiral staircase.
Here's a nice terrestrial view.
And here's the rest of the high-quality photographs, taken by yours truely.

La Tour Eiffel:
Montmartre:
Handsome devil #1:
Handsome devil #2:Top-most tower, looking toward the back of Notre Dame:

Ain't Paris a beaut...

How to save money on lodgings in Paris...

Just kidding...

Holy Crap, France won

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/7030471.stm

It was amazing.
The whole city erupted with the win.
I, also, learned "La Marseillaise". Allons enfants de nos patrie...

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On a side note, anybody want to go to New Zealand after watching this Toyota commercial?
Maybe we can get a group rate going...

Ciao et bises!

On the road again

Heading back to Paris this weekend.
It's the first birthday of my host mother's grandson. He's so adorable. It's the only time in life when having creases where there are no joints and no teeth melts a person's heart.
I picked up "The Very Hungry Caterpiller" (en français) as a gift for the little party on Sunday.
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So, what to do on Saturday? What to do?
Well, you would have thought that this trip falls on a biweekly hash. (Don't worry, family, it's got nothing to do with drugs.)

Alors, je hashe, donc je suis...

Catch y'all on Monday!

On-finallygettingmyhashon-on

Is that really a calender?

With all the rugby action going on at the present moment (the quarter finals are this weekend), I'd like to take a second to show one of the special souvenirs that one can buy.Nothing but shadows, baby.

These calenders are sold in pretty much every bookstore and souvenir shop. O my, o my. So that's what's going on under the rugby jerseys. Aunt Cathy, if you happen to be reading this, I think this beats out the firemen and cowboy calenders in the "Hey, good looking" catagory. What do you think?

If any other family members should be reading this, I only looked because of the peer pressure (see previous post about the scaves). Just trying to absorb the culture. 0:-)

Salut!

French culture, anyone?

After about a month in France, I've figured out a few things that make me stick out like a sore thumb. I've tried very hard to blend in (I even found myself carrying around a baguette one morning, very French), with slight to moderate success and I'll keep working on it. Some of the difficultely comes from 21 years of American social interaction.

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Lesson 1- Never smile.

To be more specific, never smile at people you don't know. This is a dead-giveaway of a foreigner. My friend, Megan, and I noticed this when we were walking around a particularly touristy city in Normandy and people would give little smiles as we passed. This noticeably stood out after riding the métro every day for 4 weeks with dozens and dozens of neutral faces.

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Lesson 2-Careful with the eye contact.

Apparently, making eye contact is one of those subtle French signals that invites flirtation. This can be harmless and fun or annoying, depending if you're late for class or not.

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Lesson 3-Scarves for everyone!

I swear that people here must have at least a baker's dozen's worth of them, in all lengths, colors and fabric. No neck will catch a chill in this country. Due to the alarming peer pressure, I've started my own collection of scarves (2 and counting). I must be blending in, or else I wouldn't get questions about where stuff is. Too bad I give the game away when try to mumble that I, in fact, have no idea where anything is located.

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Lesson 4 (for students)-Make sure and have at least 20 different highlighters.

All the students here have little sacks for carrting around their 20 different highlighters, 13 colored pens, white out, 2 pencils, and one giant eraser. I haven't figured it out yet, but apparently they turn a textbook into a "paint by numbers" masterpiece. I have 1 pink highlighter and 1 blue pen. I'm so behind in the game.

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Lesson 5-Dry-humping is not out of the ordinary.

So Megan and I were walking around the main park in Rennes, when we stumble onto a happy couple (I can only assume happy by the way she was straddling him on the park bench) grinding away. This, of course, was not the first excessive PDA moment and I think that the colder months will only push them indoors.
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That's all I can think of right now for the subtle/not-so-subtle differences.
Ciao et bises!

Normandy Beaches and the American Cemetery

I don't think that I can put down into words what the visit to these places was like, moreover I think that each person would have a different experience. So until you can get over to this side of the Atlantic, take a peak at some of the photos that I was able to take.
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Beach at Arromanches
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The American Cemetery



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Omaha Beach