So this morning I was listening to RFI, the French equivalent of NPR, where I learned that yesterday was Sarkozy's big "coming out" of the rentrée period. The French take their "back to school" time very seriously, as the terminology suggests. "La rentrée" means "going back" in all domains--back to work, back to school, back to life after the big August holidays that everyone takes. So there's a tradition that the president kicks off the new year by going out into the provinces somewhere. This time he was up in the North, and the RFI commentators were discussing how he chose to go to a region with exceptionally low unemployment. There was of course a lot of cynicism going around about his choice of visiting a factory in a low unemployment town, particularly since there were apparently some strict rules about which workers got to meet him. They were carefully vetted to be sure they weren't going to screw up his whole show. The requirements included: not being too political, not having any issues in their personal lives that they might complain about, and...not being taller than Sarko. Yes, apparently that was part of it, Sarkozy's advisers actually vetted people based on height.
This is of course amusing in and of itself, but it was compounded by the RFI commentators who, keeping in mind that this is a highly respected news source, were like, "wow, that must be tough, the only place he can guarantee being the tallest one around is with the pygmies!" The political incorrectness of France continues to know no bounds...
Anyway, all that aside, I had a quite the series of adventures this weekend. It started on Friday night, with Paris roller, which is kind of difficult to capture on camera because, well, the blading is rather intense and I had to be paying attention to the road, haha. This is the best I could do, but there were actually hundreds of people there:
Then, on Saturday morning Antoine helped me move my fridge into my room and then drove me out to Melun, his home town. Melun is about half an hour south of Paris, and its claim to fame is probably being near Fontainebleau. We had time to check out the gardens but didn't go into the castle itself:
Antoine insisted on posing that last one, hahaha. From there we went to the forests of Fontainbleau, which are apparently NINE times the size of Paris. I checked on the map and it is indeed enormous. We took a hike in the woods with some of Antoine's friends.
Having never grown up with brothers, perhaps I am a bit unpracticed in what immature guys can be like, haha. The hike ended up being rather tiring. It wasn't that the guys were playing stupid pranks on each other (some of it was admittedly kind of funny at first). The problem was that they can play the SAME STUPID PRANKS ON EACH OTHER OVER AND OVER. It never gets old! I mean, my god, hitting someone with a soccer ball might be amusing the first time, but three hours of the same damned thing got a little exhausting. I couldn't help thinking that I told them so when their ball got lodged way high up in a tree, but then Antoine's friend Jules insisted on going to get it:
You can see him way up there, and the ball is a tiny speck to the right. He got the ball out, but it sure wasn't the safest thing I've ever seen. But what can you do, I was just the guest and the only adult (haha).
Saturday night we went to a housewarming party, which was very cool. I met all sorts of interesting people, and on the walk home, was able to pose with Heloise and Abelard, who were from Melun:
Melun's library is even called "Astrolabe" after their son, hahahaha. This picture was from the same time, it was after 2:30 am:
Antoine's family is quite well-equipped, so I actually had an entire apartment to myself. I had to take pictures because it was just so...well, upper-crust French:
The apartment even had a minitel, the very first form of internet that the French have been using since the 80s!
Antoine's family lives in this gorgeous house, which actually used to be the Algerian consulate...right:
On Sunday we had the traditional French lunch (big meal of the day) in the garden, which was downright gorgeous:
Finally, the last thing we did was visit Jules' family, who lives on a houseboat in the Seine:
This is of course amusing in and of itself, but it was compounded by the RFI commentators who, keeping in mind that this is a highly respected news source, were like, "wow, that must be tough, the only place he can guarantee being the tallest one around is with the pygmies!" The political incorrectness of France continues to know no bounds...
Anyway, all that aside, I had a quite the series of adventures this weekend. It started on Friday night, with Paris roller, which is kind of difficult to capture on camera because, well, the blading is rather intense and I had to be paying attention to the road, haha. This is the best I could do, but there were actually hundreds of people there:
Then, on Saturday morning Antoine helped me move my fridge into my room and then drove me out to Melun, his home town. Melun is about half an hour south of Paris, and its claim to fame is probably being near Fontainebleau. We had time to check out the gardens but didn't go into the castle itself:
Antoine insisted on posing that last one, hahaha. From there we went to the forests of Fontainbleau, which are apparently NINE times the size of Paris. I checked on the map and it is indeed enormous. We took a hike in the woods with some of Antoine's friends.
Having never grown up with brothers, perhaps I am a bit unpracticed in what immature guys can be like, haha. The hike ended up being rather tiring. It wasn't that the guys were playing stupid pranks on each other (some of it was admittedly kind of funny at first). The problem was that they can play the SAME STUPID PRANKS ON EACH OTHER OVER AND OVER. It never gets old! I mean, my god, hitting someone with a soccer ball might be amusing the first time, but three hours of the same damned thing got a little exhausting. I couldn't help thinking that I told them so when their ball got lodged way high up in a tree, but then Antoine's friend Jules insisted on going to get it:
You can see him way up there, and the ball is a tiny speck to the right. He got the ball out, but it sure wasn't the safest thing I've ever seen. But what can you do, I was just the guest and the only adult (haha).
Saturday night we went to a housewarming party, which was very cool. I met all sorts of interesting people, and on the walk home, was able to pose with Heloise and Abelard, who were from Melun:
Melun's library is even called "Astrolabe" after their son, hahahaha. This picture was from the same time, it was after 2:30 am:
Antoine's family is quite well-equipped, so I actually had an entire apartment to myself. I had to take pictures because it was just so...well, upper-crust French:
The apartment even had a minitel, the very first form of internet that the French have been using since the 80s!
Antoine's family lives in this gorgeous house, which actually used to be the Algerian consulate...right:
On Sunday we had the traditional French lunch (big meal of the day) in the garden, which was downright gorgeous:
Finally, the last thing we did was visit Jules' family, who lives on a houseboat in the Seine:
Jules, his brother, and his parents all live on the boat, which is filled with pot. Here's Antoine on the boat:
And the view:Not too shabby for my first weekend back to France, I don't think!
I would write more but it seems like this entry is already getting rather long...
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