The universe still exists. You're welcome.

_{This girl barely came up to my knee. I wouldn't try this even if you put me in a suit of armor first.}

We had our first visitors this week – our friend Chihiro, from Amynah’s former lab, and Brigitte, her former boss. Brigitte didn’t stay with us, but as she has many scientific collaborators here in California, she spends a month here every year to touch base and recharge her batteries.

On Saturday, she took us to Venice Beach, where we were hoping to gawk at the assembled freaks. Amynah, in particular, was hoping to go to Muscle Beach, haven for those whose anatomy requires topographic maps to describe. Sadly, the temperatures were just cool enough that most of them were flexing to keep warm in their gyms, with the exception of one barrel-chested guy in roller-skates and a Star-Spangled speedo, whose intimidating scowl was considerably undercut by the fact that he was holding a radio blasting Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely.

The Venice Beach boardwalk is a circus of jewelry sellers, noxious clouds of incense, medical marijuana dispensaries, and street performers of unreliable quality. There’s a skateboard park, where we watches a serious four year old girl whip around an empty pool like she was born with wheels on her feet. I would have been jealous, but while it seemed effortless, her expression made it look like she’d rather be doing her taxes.

At one point, we all sat near the water’s edge, watching sailboats in the distance. As we chatted, a pair of girls in bikinis came in our direction. One stood in the water, the other got ready to take her picture: as a wave came in, the girl in the water jumped up, kicking up her heels and putting on her “laughing” face – striking the kind of pose you see in fashion magazines when they’re trying to capture “carefree youth.”

It was one of the more “meta” moments I’d ever witnessed: they weren’t having fun – they were playing at having fun, mimicking photos of people pretending to have fun. I would have taken a picture of them taking a picture of something they’d seen in a picture, but I was afraid the paradox would cause the universe to collapse in on itself. Plus, I didn’t want to look like a pervert.

They call it a geyser here too - what a coincidence!

Waiting for the Geyser:



What a geyser looks like when you're standing right next to it:



What it looks like after you've dried off your camera and retreated to a safer distance:

Lazy post

Too busy to write a proper post - we saw off one pair of guests this morning, and will be receiving another pair in about 45 minutes. The ones just departed were a delight: I've given my city-tour many, many times now, and I must say that there are not many people capable of making my umpteenth repetition of my various anecdotes fresh to me, simply by taking such enjoyment in listening. Here's hoping the next crew are as energizing (not to mention forgiving: I have to lock them in the guest bedroom as soon as they arrive so that I may do a phone interview). Fun!

In any case, here's some clever graffiti - after all, if you're going to vandalize, you might as well show some creativity, says I. The one above is from a massive mural in Marseilles, the one below a modified parking meter in the market town of Arles. For the uninitiated, "pute" is not at all a compliment in French.

The walls have eyes

_{Girl on a turtle - fountain near Place Austerlitz. I think it's illustrating a Hans Christian Anderson story. I don't remember which, but I'd put a Euro or two on it being about a girl. And a turtle.}

Looking at the Canadian news, I can't help but see headline's promising snow for the Atlantic provinces, low temperatures in the sub-zero range, and general unpleasantness - in mid April! In sympathy, I will therefore spare my snow-maddened Canadian readers any account of our day yesterday, which was spent nibbling on a selection of European cheeses, cold Japanese green teas, and apple tarts, shading ourselves from the robust sun (23 degrees!) on our balcony, nor will I torture you all with any description of the tarte flambée and microbrewery beer enjoyed on a sidewalk terrace shortly thereafter.


_{Awww... did I do that again? So sorry.}

I will not speak of the magnolia and cherry blossoms perfuming the spring air, nor of the vase of fresh tulips now occupying pride of place on our dining room table. These things would be cruel - not to mention, I find it hard to type when I've suntan lotion greasing up my fingers.

Instead, I'll just post some pictures I took while wandering around my neighbourhood this morning. I tried to keep images of Strasbourg's exuberant vegetation to a minimum because hey, to do otherwise would be cruel, wouldn't it?


<sub>Graffiti in France trends towards pseudo-gang tags and political slogans. This is a nice exception, on Quai Finkwiller


Another clever graffiti, taking advantage of some gouges in a wall on Rue Dentelles


This is in the square directly in front of our apartment, one of three angels keeping an eye on the parking lot there</sub>

Beau Dingle-y

_Sheep!

I’m just about done with my Ireland posts!

Day after St Patrick’s, Amynah and I piled into the car and made for Dingle (yes, the Irish looked at their maps, saw a long slab of land thrusting into the Atlantic, and named it the Dingle). Shockingly, the weather was perfect – sunny, and nearly twenty degrees. This was not the Ireland that we had expected.



We had no real destination in mind, but on Eilis’ recommendation, we took the Connor Pass to get to the seaside Dingle scenic route. While the narrow, twisty Irish roads were no less terrifying when snaking their way up cliffsides, the hidden lake near the crest was well worth the shattered nerves.



The Dingle peninsula was everything we could have hoped for – dramatic cliffs, sandy beaches, ancient beehive-shaped stone huts, and sheep, sheep, sheep. The weather was a little off-putting though – at the historic site with the stone huts, the man who sold us our tickets was apologetic for the seltering 17 degree temperatures: “I can’t believe this weather. It’s too hot – I don’t know how people in California or Florida can stand it.”


<sub>Beehive huts: made entirely of piled stones, they were used for thousands of years, up until roughly the Middle Ages


There were abandoned stone cottages like this all over Ireland. Unfortunately, I never got to take a picture of one in overcast weather, which might have been thematically appropriate.</sub>

Breaking news!

So, there is an enormous General Strike here in France. There are, according to the radio broadcast to which I occasionally listen, protesting the increasing cost of living, layoffs, the economic crisis, to protect the 35-hour work week , stop university and education reforms, for public service integrity, against capitalism, for fuzzy kittens and against bad weather.



There are supposedly 65,000 people on the streets of Paris, (if you’re reading this now-ish, check out the webcam on Place Bastille here.


_{The brewers are on strike! This is more serious than I had thought.}

In Strasbourg, there are apparently 10,000 people on the streets. I ventured out, just as if I were a real reporter, on the assumption that they’d be congregating on either Place Kleber or Place de Republique. I tried to get to the head of the line, causing at least one union goon to follow me, presumably thinking I was a narc or something. The fact that I'm wearing a second-hand Canadian prison guard's jacket probably did not help.


_{The theatre people are on strike? But what will we do without... hey, did you guys see that funny youtube video that's been going around?}

In any case, they appeared to be marching in circles, and when I gave up tracking them, the lead marchers were just about to catch up to those at the end of the line, thus completing a striker’s doughnut, that would presumably march around the downtown until their megaphone batteries ran out.

Premature nostalgia

_{Thick, chunky ice}

This should be our last year in Strasbourg, if all works according to plan. As such, Amynah and I have found ourselves saying "We're really going to miss such-and-such a Euro-thing" with greater frequency. I've been going out of my way to take photos of images from our daily life, as insurance against future senility.

In any case, one of the things we're going to miss terribly from Strasbourg is the bike paths. There are hundreds of kilometers of dedicated bike lanes in this city, and drivers actually respect cyclists rights to be on the road. One case in point is the Rhine-Rhone canal, a short, tree-lined portion of which serves as Amynah's bike route to her work in the suburb of Illkirch.

Most mornings, we both hop on our bikes and pedal the seven and a half kilometers to her lab (I go along for the exercise). The nature of the paths mean that we need only share the road with cars for one kilometer of virtually traffic-free road between our apartment and the lab.

Yesterday, on my way to French class, I paused and snapped a few shots of the waterway, which has been more-or-less frozen over for the last few weeks.


_{Thin, smooth ice}

The town is small enough that you start to recognize the other cyclists on their way to work, especially now the weather has eliminated all but us and the hard-core bikers. My favourite is an older lady, who manages to be out on the path with her two dogs both in the morning and in the evening when we return. The long haired, high-strung poodle-like creature she keeps on a leash, but her bulldog needs no restraint: every time he sees a cyclist coming, he freezes, terrified, as if any movement would invite an attack from this strangely speedy, legless species of humanoid.

Vanity, thy name is Fish Marcher

Thanks to everyone who posted on the previous entry - it's very gratifying to know that people enjoyed my account. I was very fortunate to have been able to attend the event, and am glad that I could share my experience.

I do hate to follow up the last post with something so utterly facile, but I did promise readers a peak at my facial hair's progress, once it had reached the not-embarrassing stage (though, on reflection, no one specifically asked to be exposed to such horrors). In her ongoing campaign to rid my of my whiskers, Amynah has progressed from Three Musketeers references to pointing out, that they make me look "Old" and "Haggard" - but in a bad way. For those of you who wonder what Amynah's eyes have to endure every day, here I am in all my hirsute glory.


_{Good lord, it looks like I don't have any arms in this photo! What the heck am I typing with?}

And for comparison purposes, here I am earlier this year, in more innocent times.



I myself am undecided - I think I look a little like evil Spock, but am not entirely convinced that is a bad thing. Feel free to share your opinions.

Mary, Mary, Why dost thou buggeth?

_{These are just a bunch of candles. Do I need a reason for everything I do here?}

One of the many features of Christmas in Strasbourg is the annual return of the 18th century tapestries. The 14 draperies show the story of the Epiphany, and used to hang year round. Today, they are only displayed for the month of December. You can see why – the ones exposed to the sun are noticeably faded, while the other half are still quite vibrant, even after 250 years.

Taking pictures in a dark church poses a bit of a challenge with my camera; relative to modern devices, it’s a primitive beast that may well have crawled out of the Paleolithic ooze. The dim image here was the only one that came close to capturing the colour on display.


_{Get your hand away from the vicinity of the Sacred Bellybutton!}

When you don't have anything nice to say...

...post photos.



These are from a bike ride we took this Sunday to Obernai, a town about 40 km from Strasbourg. I've written about the route and its glories before, plus I checked the forecast, meaning that I managed to avoid getting lost, subjected to a rain of toads or any similarly entertaining disasters. On the other hand, it was the first time I'd done the route just prior to the harvest, meaning the fields were dripping with purple orbs of Reisling-to-be. I only took pictures, but Amynah assures me that they were plenty tasty.

Gimme shelter

Another weekend, another hike. This time it was quite simply a walk in the woods; there were no rocks or gates of the devil, no castles, no mountains. Despite this, we still managed some adventure when Luc, our guide, decided that we were on the wrong path and therefore led us through 400 metres of thick, thorny underbrush to get us on the proper path. Given how itchy my legs have been since, I’m not sure all the vegetation was of the non-poisonous variety (though that does not include, I hope, the mushrooms Amynah picked for dinner).


_{Foxglove, aka digitalis - very poisonous, though not nearly so menacing seeming when you translate its name from English to French and back: "The gloves of the fox."}

On the other hand, we did see a stag, and I learned that Amynah and Luc are apparently coordinating their outfits before leaving the house in the morning.



The day before, we were at a farewell party for our friends Danielle and David. Danielle was my French teacher, and the woman who introduced us to Sami the Finn, along with many other good friends we've made here.* Danielle and David are moving to Great Britain for David's job, and the party took the form of a picnic on the German side of the Rhine. We're very sad to see them go - not only have they been good friends, but they've been an excellent source of English-language movies and books. It was slightly cheering, however, to be biking over the Rhine just as the fireworks from the Foire St Jean Baptiste reached their climax.

Unfortunately, the organizers of the party had neglected to tell us that they were planning on giving the guests of honour a photo montage of their friends here, for which we were supposed to bring photos of ourselves. To my chagrin, Amynah happened to have photos: spares from our recent renewal of our passports, in which we were forbidden to smile. Thus, my farewell gift to them consists of a photo of me looking like I want them dead.

_{* For whom I cannot think of any good, mobster-esque nicknames. Fast talkin' Lama? Breakfast mix Qi? Catalan Carlos?}

Cherry blossoms

Taking a break from matters mouse-related, a slew of photos from Sunday's hike in the cherry orchards of the Black Forest can be found here. There's plenty of flowers, for those that like that sort of thing, and a puppy, for those that like that sort of thing.

The trip was organised by my French teacher, and included a bunch of her other pupils from Amynah's institute, making it a very international expedition indeed, which made the picnic a particularly interesting experience (though not as varied as you'd think: my teacher made rice balls, as did all three of the Japanese on the hike).

Plantagenets, plants, castles and caves

_{The cloister, Abbey of Fontevraud}

All righty – last post on this...

Technically, this is end of day one, for one we realized we couldn’t get into the castle of Saumur, we hopped in the car and made our way to “Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud” (translation: Royal Abbey of Fontevraud).

Sadly, it was closed when we arrived, so we booked a hotel in the village and stayed there for the night (La Croix Blanche, which I highly recommend to anyone who finds themselves in Fontevraud l’Abbaye in need of a bed. Hey, it could happen). The place has been around since 1696 according to their card.

I won’t go into to much detail about the hotel, but they were extremely courteous, sitting Amynah and I in a separate dining area because they were afraid that the large group of people celebrating a family reunion would disturb us. They also had parking, which as a relief, as it meant I didn’t have to leave the car in the weird little Potempkin suburb that lay on the village outskirts.

All of the villages and towns we saw on our journey were of the same kind of beige limestone with black slate roofs (the slate roof is supposed to be a local trademark. Black slate roofs – you sure you want to go with that as your distinctive local selling point? Okay…). In the rain, the unrelenting limestone looks soul-suckingly drab. In the sun, it looks warm and inviting.

Fortunately, we got a bit of sun for our visit to the Abbey. The place has a fascinating history. It was founded by a hermit who, apparently not understanding what “hermit” means, decided to found a large religious community on a large hill not far from the Vienne river, a tributary of the Loire.

The huge complex ended up hosting a community of nuns, another of monks, lay brothers, lepers and repentant sinners. All of it – even the men folk – was under the authority of an Abbess. The holder of that office was usually related to royalty in one fashion or another, and so the Abbey was pretty good at attracting some fairly influential patrons.
_{Richard, Couer de lion}

These include a couple of historical Mega-Celebs: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard the Lionheart. Ricky spent very little time in England – most of realm was in fact in France and he was much more interested in looting his way around the Holy Land. In any case he is buried here, along with his Plantagenet parents, all of whose effigies are in the Abbey Minster.
_{Eleanor of Aquitaine, catching up on her reading}

After the Revolution, the Nuns were dispersed and the place became a prison, holding some 1800 prisoners in some pretty horrible conditions (though, presumably not much more horrible than what the nuns endured, given that only one room in the whole complex was ever heated). In the 1960s it became a meeting facility and historic site.
_{The Judas Kiss - note the Nuns on either side. It was customary to depict the donors in religious art, sort of like "American Idol is brought to you by Chevrolet."}

Abbey done, and faced with a debilitating long list of potential chateaux to visit, we asked our innkeeper for a recommendation. Without hesitating, he recommended Vilandry – “It has the most beautiful gardens – even this time of year, they are amazing.”
_{Vilandry Chateau}

Ok then, Vilandry it is. Driving there was an adventure – Amynah foolishly recommended we take the highway route that was direct and recommended by our hotelier. I, using navigational skills honed in my numerous backwoods adventures, was confident that if we just followed the river we’d be fine. As if we were in the Rockies and I was Simon Fraser in an Opel or something.

When we arrived at Vilandry in the mid-afternoon; me, tense and communicating in monosyllables, Amynah grinding her teeth with the effort of not saying, “I told you so.” It was a pretty drive though – French highways are amazing.


The sky looked particularly changeable when we arrived, so we decided to hit Vilandry’s garden’s first. They were amazing, to say the least. I’d just finished reading a book in which Frederick Olmstead’s (he of New York’s Central Park and Montreal’s Mont Royal) landscaping theories were featured prominently. He would have hated this thing.

Everywhere, nature was controlled, boxed, categorized and slammed into little green cupboards. The hedges were perfectly shaped – I saw exactly one twig that was out of line.
_{Note the Maltese Cross in the centre}

The gardens had various parts to them – some were purely decorative, though the flowers hadn’t grown in yet, the postcard we bought makes me want to return in two months time. Others were for herbs and medicines. There was even a hedge maze. Amynah, remembering the lessons from Carol Shields’ “Larry’s Party” better than I, turned left at the entrance. I turned right. She thus made it to the central viewing platform to mock me from on high as I floundered about, reduced to looking for trails of crumbs to find my way out.

The most interesting patch was the “garden of love” which consisted of four large squares, each designed to represent a different kind of love: passionate love (with a pattern of wounded hearts), while adulterous loves features horns and fans and is dominated by yellow flowers in season. Tender love has flames and ballroom masks while tragic love gets swords and blood red flowers, representing duels.
_{Garden of Love}

All of this was due to Joachim Carvallo, a Spainard who purchased the place in the 1900s. He brought his considerable art collection and poured much of his American heiress wife’s money into the gardens. The family still owns the place, though they no longer live there. They did leave the art though, and much of it was spectacular, including an Islamic (or Islamic inspired) ceiling imported from Spain and painstakingly reconstructed.
_{Fancy ceiling}

Next on the list (he said, breezily skipping the driving to Tours debacle) was the troglodyte village of Rochemenier. Turns out these are quite common here in France – we picked up a freebie magazine where one of the stories was a Better Homes and Gardens-style “I love my trogdo!” complete with all the glossy photos and Bauhaus type furniture that implies, only in a cave. Hole-based living is quite common – we saw a row of quite modern-looking dwellings whose facades were right in the middle of a cliff face.


Rochemenier, strangely enough, is nowhere near a cliff. Rather, one drives though the kind of rolling French countryside one sees in the movies before seeing a few scattered homes in the distance.

This is Rochemenier – or rather, the above ground portions of it. Two thirds of the town is below ground, even today. Probably this is a good idea – during the Thirty Years War this place was spared the incendiary fate of its neighbours because, after all, you cannot raze that which is not raised.
_{Trogdo village}

The museum itself was not all that different than the “Here’s how the old timers did it” farm museums you might find in North America: a lot of old photos, farm implements, old cloths and the like. In addition, there was a small section debunking the negative connotation the word “troglodyte” has acquired, which they depicted with a couple of panels of a sputtering Captain Haddock from the Tintin books. Charmingly unpretentious.
<sub>Chapel nave

Chapel stairs</sub>

The most interesting spot was the underground chapel, converted in the 1600s into a chapel. It came complete with a staircase to the surface, a bell “tower” and a floor plan in the rough shape of a cross. There was no word as to whether it, like its above ground cousin, was dedicated to St Emerance, patron saint of the village and reputed to be able to forestall thunder and hail.

In addition, if you had diarrhea, she was supposedly the one to run to.

Upside down, wrong way round

It's a little backwards to start a travel log with the equivalent of a post-script, but here goes: I just got a phone call from the lovely people in Hertz's Nantes office, who politely asked me if I had filled up our rental Opel with diesel fuel. I had, I replied. It was not a diesel vehicle they informed me. I replied with an expletive or two. I owed them 75€ they said.

Merde.

Anyway, I'll do a proper write up later, but in the interim, I leave you with the fruits of my ongoing efforts to get artsy with my camera. It ain't always pretty.

The Ides! Beware the Ides!

Ok, the photo is embarrasingly blurry but I'm rather fond of it nonetheless. Besides, it's rather reflective of my mod at the moment. I have a phone meeting scheduled this afternoon to discuss a story I really want to do, suspect I won't be able to do, and am frankly terrified I might end up getting. I will not explain anything beyond that as I believe this isn't going to go anywhere, but at the moment it is dominating my mind. If I get it, I'll update, if not I'll probably just delete this.

As a distraction for me and for you, more on the movies. We went to see The Painted Veil last night. I vaguely recall it was not terribly well reviewed, but I can't quite recall why. Sadly, I cannot say anything entertainly negative about it - I found the story to be compelling, Naomi Watts was incredible and Edward Norton was decent.* The scenery - inland China - was astounding though everything was a little too pretty and honey-drenched for a story that was occuring in the middle of a cholera epidemic. Overall, worth a rental, but I'm not sure I'll remember it in a month.

One thing Amynah and I have noticed that makes the cinema-going experience unique here (beyond the subtitles and lack of nacho chips), is the trailers for French movies. All of them, for reasons Amynah and I cannot fathom, appear to work as a precis of rather than an advertisement for a movie: in other words, they're trying to tell you what the movie is about rather than just throwing the best lines and fanciest special effects at you. Therefore they'll take you through the whole thing, plot point by plot point.

Based on our sampling of the dozen or so trailers we've seen so far, it would appear that all French movies are about attractive people meeting each other, having complicated affairs, then a crisis. At least one of the characters will be very old and several fetchingly young. Frequently the old person wil be Gerard Depradieu. There are always at least five people, all of whom are in love with each other in various permutations. Their feelings will be expressed in witty, yet philosophically grounded conversations about the nature of love and destiny. These conversations must, and I mean must take place in a sun dappled field with some sort of symbolic vegetation, like a decidiuous tree that will lose its leaves or flowers that may be plucked. But botanical degradation is for later, because for now all is sweetness and light, as portrayed by lively conversations over dinners on balconies and laughter over wine.

At this point in the trailer, the serious music starts. There is much rapid talk, which fails to fill the silences that fill the gaps between the characters. There will be much ennui. The old character, whoever they are, will endure many close-ups of the cavernous wrinkles. Some or all characters will run places (it's never clear where), sometimes mancially, oft-times despondently. The field will be returned to, the tree bare, the flowers crushed. Audrey Tatou or someone who looks remarkably like her will appear, stare out a window on which raindrops are falling, cast her eyes fetchingly downward and turn away.

Amynah will testify to this: every trailer for a French movie we have seen looks like this, even the ones set in Paris where one wouldn't expect to find fields so conveniently isolated and sylvan to serve as appropriate backdops for the love and disillusionment of so many French peple. Some of them are comedies, some of them dramas but NOT ONE lacks these essential elements.

Someone has to introduce these guys to the exploding car.

_{* Given that of the last three films I've seen Norton in the only one where he even merited "decent" was this one, I'm seriously re-evaluating his place on my very short list of actors I like. It's been a long time since "Fight Club" or "American History X." Hell, even "Death to Smoochy."}

Movie Madness

In response to Travis's comment below, I will try to achieve some semblance of balance in my visitor reports by saying some really nice things about Zack (who I already referred to as reasonably attractive, which is a pretty nice thing for one straight dude to call another).

In addition to being reasonably attractive, Zack is also very talented at graphic design and its related arts. Combine that with a shiny red rally car discovered in one of Kaysersberg's back alleys and Zack's offbeat sense of humour and you get this poster.

An unrelated side note, but Zack's visit also threw the deficiencies of my tour into sharp relief, further accentuated by Daniel and co. Namely, everyone that comes here has an annoying habit of having their own interests and fields of expertise, which do not necessarily coincide with my knowledge base.

For instance, when Anna's friend Daniel insisted on asking about the local trees I wrote it off as a odd little quirk I needn't be concerned with in the long term. Zack, on the other hand, seemed only mildly interested in my Cathedral tour and the living postcard that is Petit France but was thrilled at some 1980s-era apartment blocks and office towers, as they feed into his theories of urban development. When my latest guests left me blank faced and grasping with even more botanical questions I realized I either need to develop a green thumb, stat, or insist future visitors sign a waiver that would protect my ego by obliging them to refrain from asking me questions to which I don't know the answers.

In any case, to shamelessly abuse Travis' gift to my vocabulary, (while subtley praising his awesome word-power) here is another motivation for potential visitors: sincere enconiums to your many graces posted online for the world to see!