It's sad, because soon I'll be on my way out of Montpellier. It's exciting to be continuing my journey, but you can't live in the same place for over 2 months without starting to meet people and to get attached to stuff. Especially, since we found OVS and accelerated our rate of meeting people. I can't stress enough how good OVS to anyone coming to live in France. I wish there were an English version in Seattle and Vancouver.
Anyway, we put up some ads on montpellier.kijiji.fr and in our residence. We sold the TV for 10 euros--a full 2 euros more than we paid for it. We sold it to someone in our building, so we don't have to lug it far. Whew! The residence rents smaller TVs for 20 euros per month, so the 10 euro price tag is pretty good. We have a buyer for our Ikea kitchenware. The buyer is coming over on Thursday to pick it up.
We still don't have a buyer for our Ikea drying rack, wooden shelf we got from the cute German girls who sold us the TV, and the cheap coffee machine.
We're meeting our friends for the last time, telling everyone our plans, and saying goodbye. Actually I don't know Elena's plans anymore. Her friend Philippe from Paris is interested in traveling with Elena for a couple weeks, so she is rearranging her plans again. The funniest part of her plans is to work in Ireland on organic farms for room and board through an organization called WWOOF. Her friend Ashley in Vancouver spent some time traveling from farm to farm with WWOOF and recommended it.
I'm also getting ready for French karaoke. I'm trying to memorize the words to "Les Copains d'Abord" by George Brassens. The guitar player playing for Cafe Riche a few days ago played it and it became an ear worm. I didn't know what song it was, but it seemed familiar. So I figured I probably heard it when we went to Sête to the George Brassens museum. A little searching on iTunes, and voila! So I downloaded it and now I'm trying to learn it. It's helping me to break some of my bad pronunciation habits. I just hope I don't start trilling my 'R's in my spoken French.
I like to have lots of 1€ and 2€ coins. I have a really hard time keeping enough for total liquidity. I just spend them faster than I get them.
Here is a list of observations I made from an unpublished post. I'll post it now.
1) The French are not rude at all. At least not down here in Montpellier. They are extremely helpful, courteous, friendly, and patient. Anyone who experiences rude French people needs to visit the south.
2) Visualize all the images of French people with baguettes. The man walking with a baguette under his arm, the woman walking with two baguettes sticking out of the top of her grocery bag... There are many images of the French and their baguettes. And I've seen all of them. Already. Every conceivable combination of French person and baguette carrying is to be seen.
3) Dog poop. Yep, on the streets which are so paved, there is dog poop. It's not too bad. There is a law that owners have to clean up after their dogs, and there are occasional bag dispensers where people can get a poop bags for free. But you stil have to look down when you walk. Fortunately, most of it is dry by the time we get to it. Only occasionally is it does it have that sickening glistening sheen of freshly pinched loafage.
4) Cafes everywhere. You can't walk half a block without going through some cafe where people are sitting and having a coffee or a beer. Sadly, the cost of these beverages make the casual purchase of them a bit painful.
5) Other very common things: fountains, real-estate offices, banks, wine stores, medical analysis laboratories.
6) Things that are uncommon: convenience stores, rectilinear intersections.
7) Cash register drawers are different. They lift up a stainless steel lid on a hinge instead of having a drawer that rolls out.
8) You can buy milk in the refrigerated section, but the cheaper milk is in the boxes on the shelves at room temperature. As long as you refrigerate it before drinking, it tastes no different.
9) Stuff closes for noon and on Sundays. And it also closes early. I guess that's the 35 hour work week for you. They can't man the stores 24 hours.
10) They use the 'minus' sign to mean 'less than'. So the express lane at the grocery store has a "-10" above it and a TV show for adults might have a "-12" in a circle in the lower right hand corner.
11) They use the 24 hour clock. I wish we did that in the United States. Along with metric.
12) The TV shows start and end at odd times--like 8:50, er I mean, 20:50.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Winding Down
Monday, May 26, 2008
Churches In France
One of the odd things about me is that while I don't even believe in any gods, I love going into old churches.
The old churches in France fall into 2 basic categories: Romanesque and Gothic. The typical tell-tale sign is the shape of the top of the arches. Are they round like AND gates? Or are they pointed like OR gates? If they're round, like in the abbey in St-Guilhem-le-Desert, you're probably in a Romanesque church. If they are pointed, like the Saint Pierre in Montpellier, you're probably in a Gothic church. The pointed arch has the property that it converts more of the weight of the structure into vertical force and less into horizontal pressure. That means there is less force pushing the top of the wall out and the church is less likely to collapse. Since it is less likely to collapse, they could build it higher.
How high? Well sometimes too high. Collapses weren't as uncommon as one would want them to be. And the state of mechanical statics and the science of building material properties was probably not as well developed either. It reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin was in the car with his family and they were crossing a bridge that had a tonnage limit. Calvin asked his dad, "how do they know the weight limit?" His dad told him, "they drive bigger and bigger trucks over the bridge until it collapses and then they rebuild the bridge and put the weight of the last truck that made it across." Then Calvin's mother yelled at the father, saying "if you don't know the answer, just say you don't know the answer!" Well Gothic cathedral architecture seems like it worked more on the model of Calvin's dad.
In addition to building higher, they also didn't need so much structural support in the walls which meant--bigger windows. Romanesque churches are very dark--maybe having slots more than windows. But Gothic churches have large stained glass windows that let in a lot of light. They make the whole thing lighter and airier. Of course, these days there is electric lighting, so the effect isn't as noticeable, but you can still feel the difference between a Romanesque church and a Gothic one.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Un Diner Presque Parfait
Last night we finally got together at Caroline's place in La Grande Motte for sushi as we had been planning since our first sushi night. Jean-Christophe picked up Cressida, Elena, Elena's friend Philippe visiting from Paris, and me.
We made the trip to La Grande Motte and found Caroline's place. It's a nice house owned by her grandparents. She is quite lucky. She has one cat that's hers and 2 kittens she is nursing to health after finding them abandoned a few weeks ago. The color pattern is quite interesting on her cat. Her face is dark on one side and light on the other. Just like in that episode of Star Trek.
We started out by making the sushi. My first time. After a discussion we decided on a course of action. Jean-Christophe recorded it for posterity for revenge after my jabs at the French for not knowing anything about sushi. ;-) I did the first roll--a kani-mayo roll. Crab meat with mayonnaise.
First make the rice. Then chop in some vinegar. Be sure to add enough.
Then get a sheet of nori.
Lay it out on the mat.
Spread some rice on.
Add the crab. Elena was either trying to show me how to roll it.
Roll it up.
Elena did the rest of the makis while I tried to turn cocktail shrimp into ebi nigiris. They didn't look well formed, but they tasted good.
Voila!
Then we sat down to eat.
We talked in half English half French about all sorts of things and just had a nice time.
Cressida then cooked up a marinated chicken dish. And Caroline made a salad. When all was said and done, we had all eaten and drunk various beers, and wines to our hearts content. We had 6 flavors of ice cream. And finally finished with sake in little cups that showed a naked lady in the bottom of the glass only when there was liquid in it--thus presenting a dilemma: drink or look?
We kept one eye on the Eurovision song contest through the evening. My favorite was Spain. The French guy seemed to be hampered by some really bad camera work. There was apparently quite a controversy because he would sing in English.
After the contest ended but before the results were announced, we went out for a walk in La Grande Motte. We went down to the sea and admired the forces of nature, then walked around where there were still bars and restaurants serving those able to already vacation.
After that, we piled in the car and headed home. It was a very fun party. Our sushi wasn't bad at all. In typical south of France style, we went to bed at about 1:30 am. The French can party!
Here are my Un Diner Presque Parfait notes:
Cuisine: 9 (my roll was too thick and my shrimps were malformed)
Décoration: 10
Ambiance: 10
Friday, May 23, 2008
OVS Freezes on the Comedie
I just got back from a cool OVS event. About 150 of us OVSians met at 7pm at the Pavilion Populaire near the Montpellier Tourist Information Office. We then strung ourselves out and walked toward the Polygone which is the mall in downtown Montpellier. Then about at 7:15, all 150 of us froze. Stopped cold in whatever position we were in at the time. We remained frozen for about 3 minutes.
I had noticed a musician and dug out a couple of coins to give him when I froze. So there I was with 2 50 cent coins in my left hand, and my right hand in the pocket putting the money back--frozen for 3 minutes. I wish I had 3 more seconds to actually be in the act of dropping the coins into his hat. Oh well. Two women came by and figured what I was up to, so they took a picture of me. There were a few people with cameras taking video. It's kind of cool because the people who weren't in on it had various reactions. Some stopped and watched. Some just went on their ways. One English speaking person on a cell phone told the person at the other end that there was a flash mob. It was fun to see them wandering around all us frozen people.
I broke character once--cracked a smile for a second. But other than that, I stayed still the whole 3 minutes of whatever it was. And when it was over, I did in fact drop the coins into the hat of the musician.
I'll post You-Tube video if I find it. The OVS link to the event is: http://montpellier.onvasortir.com/sortie_read.php?Id=16919
Hopefully it will bring some more publicity to OVS because OVS is the best events organization I've ever been a part of. The software is excellent (I recently bumped up to a gold star and Elena to a platinum star, btw). And it's nice that an event like this can bring out 150 people on a Friday evening.
Edit: Some YouTube
Friday, May 16, 2008
Google News, Requiem, and A President of a Corporation
I look at Google News a lot to see what's up in the US. A few days ago there was a story about a helicopter crash that killed the occupants of a medical helicopter. I noticed it because it happened in Wisconsin--at my alma mater, in fact. I was actually surprised that a local story would make Google News. That night, Elena, out of the blue, said she wanted to go see Mozart's Requiem at Saint Pierre cathedral in Montpellier. I had never heard it performed, so I thought it would be good to check it out.
Flashback to 4th, 5th or 6th grade (I'm fuzzy on which it was). Jimmy Carter was President of the US. And we were in class voting on who should be the president of our class model "corporation". It was the year that we learn how the stock market works by making a little "company" and issuing stock for a quarter a share. Then electing officers. And then they would decide on a product to manufacture, and then we would sell the product at the West Elementary Open House. We decided on little keychains shaped like Wisconsin. After we sold our product, a stock buyback occurred and the shares presumably would increase in value (can't remember exactly what the results were--just that I had one share).
Being the class brain (nerd), naturally I ran for president. The results, announced just before recess, were a tie--because for some reason I felt it was wrong to vote for oneself. After recess, a runoff. I lost. Oh well. C'est la vie.
The winner of that election, and president of our model corporation, was Steve Lipperer. I just found out in an email from my parents that he was the pilot of that crashed helicopter. That's my most lasting memory of Steve--a worthy adversary who beat me fair and square mano-a-mano. I've always respected him for doing that. I wish I could say I was thinking about the occupants of the helicopter as I was marveling at the height of the ceilings of Saint Pierre during Mozart's Requiem. I wish I had known someone I knew was killed hours before. I didn't. But from now on, when I hear Mozart's Requiem, I will think of Steve. I can't do anything else for him, but I can at least associate him with a work of Mozart that I first heard in a church in Montpellier just hours after he parted.
Goodbye Steve.
More Sushi
Last night Elena and I went to the house of a guy named Stefane. He invited about 20 people over to his place for homemade sushi. It was a fun and interesting night. Stefane is about to head off to Japan for a vacation, so I guess it was a sort of Bon Voyage party. Elena and I brought wasabi peas and Japanese sembei thingies as a snack. It was fun watching the guests try the wasabi peas--none of them knew what they were in for. Ha Ha!!
The interesting thing is that French people know next to nothing about sushi. When the dinner was served, everyone gathered around it and proceeded to commit every sin in the book. I saw people passing food from chopstick to chopstick (a practice reserved for bones of the dead), people biting the sushi in half (faux pas), people not knowing how to use the wasabi. People not knowing the purpose of ginger (to freshen and cleanse the palate). At one point, one of the dishes of wasabi got empty enough that I could pour some soy sauce into it and mix the remaining wasabi a bit. It was humorous to me. I think more Japanese people need to come to France. It is interesting that there is really a difference between Atlantic migration and Pacific migration. Since Elena and I live on the Pacific rim, we have been exposed to much more Asian culture on a far more regular basis. Anyway, I give the host an A for effort and the cojones to invite OVSians to his place for sushi.
After sushi, the party started. Drinking, chatting, performing kept us occupied. I watched one guy take a bunch of pictures of one particularly attractive woman (he showed them to her later). They were excellent pictures--I'm not sure if it's because he's good at taking pictures or because she just looks so good. Mystery...
We left the party a bit early as our North American bodies aren't equipped to handle the Mediterranean late night party lifestyle. Whew! Those guys can party. And it was a Thursday, no less! The last thing before we left was a woman doing a couple of performance pieces. She did them with sign language as well since one of the partiers is hard of hearing. I wonder how different French sign language is from American Sign Language. I know the Japanese sign language is quite different. Anyway, she did two performances, neither of which I understood very well. I understood enough of the story, but I didn't understand enough to know why the punchlines were funny. Elena tried to explain the second story to me, but even with her explanation I didn't get it.
The first story was about 3 boys each who walks a different way. They went to the beach where they saw a voluptuous woman on the beach. But the sand was too hot for them to walk except for the third guy.
The second story was about a drunk guy who urinated behind a door. An old woman came out but he couldn't stop. She asked if she could hold his balls. He finally agreed. Then she squeezed them and knocked them together and told him not to urinate into her door.
As you can tell from my retelling, I must have missed something. Oh well. I guess the more important part was her telling of the stories rather than the punchline. Maybe it's like the Facebook movie reviews of many a French movie where the Americans say the movie is bad and the French say that you have to be French to understand the movie.
