Sylvain l'Américain

So, first off, a GOLD STAR to everyone who commented on my blog. And that includes my Aunt Glad, who is a loyal commenter by email. It's good to have readers :-) Now I just need regular shout-outs to make sure I'm not in a void, because rambling in a void is no fun. I'll assume no one is interested anymore (and wouldn't blame anyone if that's the case!) and get bored.

Anyway, this week has been Sylvain's introduction to American living. And Sylvain's owner's reacclimatization to American-style biking. I think Sylvain is adapting better than I, hahahaha.

First off, Sylvain had his first car ride, to Valley Forge:


That's when my father and I realized that he has some heft to him...not as light as some bikes, but what can you say? It takes material to be that awesome.

So we got to the bike path near Valley Forge, and I realized that Sylvain is indeed a city slicker. Note the basket:


I was all set to put my water bottle in the basket, which turned out to be a rather ill-conceived idea, as I had no way to secure it. My usual bungee cord was too big to fit through the loop of the bottle. So I just took the risk and rode with the bottle rolling around, as I was passed by all sorts of hard-core mountain bikers in their fancy attire with backpack water canteens and under armor gear and the like. Felt like a total tool with all that outdoorsy snaziness going on around me, although it was a very nice ride. The basket is genius for my Sunday trip to the market since I can strap everything in...not so practical for one little water bottle, however.

All in all I was sitting there like, "I should be biking down the Boulevard Saint Michel in my miniskirt, on my way to happy hour, thank you very much." It was already a concession just to put gym clothes on, and of course I picked my shorts to match the bike. And if you look closely, you'll see my sports watch is even pink. What can I say? An awesome bike needs an awesome accessory, and it takes effort to rock that.

That's also when I realized just how uncomfortable Sylvain's seat is, since I don't usually spend extended periods of time on it at once. The longest I ever traveled routinely in Paris was about 25-30 minutes. Granted, I did feel it when I made those trips a few times in one day, but that wasn't all that often.

Moral of the story: I'm not a mountain biker (or a national park biker, for that matter). I'm a city biker. I need cars, motorcycles, and stoplights. Otherwise I get bored and my butt starts to hurt.

That was this weekend. Then yesterday I was stuck at home without a car, so I decided it was time for Sylvain's coming out in Collegeville. haha. The biggest problem, not surprisingly, is the lack of parking. I went to our local café and had to tie him up to a pole off to the side, right off the road:


Then at the post office, there's a whole special lane for drive-in mail drop-off, but no facilities for the lowly biker. So I left him attached to the handicapped parking pole:


As you can guess this picture was taken on the fly, since I figured I already looked toolish enough arriving on a bike, I didn't need to augment the toolish factor by then ostentatiously standing in the parking lot taking pictures of the bike. ha. So I did it quickly and clearly got my finger in the way. And didn't notice until I uploaded the pic.

Anyway, no biking for me today, as I'm in town sans Sylvain. But perhaps he needs to be introduced to Philadelphia. He would feel much more at home. But he might also lose his seat or basket or something, if I don't have the proper locks for everything (haha).

Sylvain lives again!

Brought to you by the Germans, the Brits, and the Americans. But NOT the French:


Wow it's been a long time. Almost two months apparently. Does anyone even read this thing anymore? If so, you have to let me know! I've been hemming and hawing (sp?) about whether or not to keep it up, because I just don't have any clue if anyone is really reading it. I kind of feel like I'm writing in a void here, so if anyone is reading, PLEASE COMMENT! Do I keep it up or not? If I don't get any feedback, I'll assume no one's following and turn it off. After all, it IS rather presumptuous of me to assume anyone is reading, particularly now that I'm back to the trite banality of my American existence, haha.

But one last holdover from France: I finally got Sylvain put back together this week! Woohoo! He made it just fine, in really great condition according to the awesome guys at the bike shop.

The saga began in early July. I was initially planning to sell Sylvain, since I have a perfectly fine bike here. But then I got to thinking about how much I liked him and how much I'd miss him, and I figured, what the hell, biking was one of the best parts of my year in Paris, why not at least try to bring him home???

I looking online at British Airways and figured out that it was actually quite easy to do, with the appropriate packing. It was just the same price as an extra bag, which was 35 euros. So I figured, ok, for $50, that's totally worth it. Of course I had to buy a bike bag to store it in during the flight, but that would be reusable if I ever want to travel with the bike again.

The easy part ended there, alas. I went to my local bike store for a bag, and they were like, "yeah, we're out, we always run out in the summer, you'll have to call one of the big sporting goods stores, but they often run out too." So I called the big sporting goods store by the BN (Decathlon), and they were like, "yeah, summer's a high demand time, we always run out." I asked if they knew when they'd get them in, and they said they had no idea, they always run short in the summer. I then called another big sports store (Go Sport), and got the same message.

Which raises a fundamental question: HAS ANYONE IN THAT COUNTRY EVER HEARD OF CAPITALISM??? I mean, seriously now, I was calling all around, TRYING to spend my money, and everyone was giving me the same message: demand always outstrips supply in the summer. Right.

So then I did what ever smart consumer in France probably does: I went to Germany. Well, not physically, but cyber-ly (ok, I just made up a word, but you get the point). I went online, found a great bike bag from a German store, and I bought it. No wonder Germany is faring so much better during this financial crisis (best in Europe). Their economy WORKS.

Perhaps the funniest part was that I had a great email exchange with an employee over there (in French). I contacted them to see if I could get rush shipping, since at that point I only had two weeks left in France. They were super nice about it and sent it UPS, with a tracking number and all. I wrote back thanking them and saying that I didn't realize how difficult it would be to find such a bag in France and that I was so happy to have found them. The woman wrote back (and this is a direct translation of her message) and was like, "of course you'll be happy with it, it's a great bag, it's German." hahahahaha. Of course she was right, the thing arrived a few days later and it was perfect.

Getting Sylvain to the airport was no joke, however. I had to take an airport shuttle and then shuffle my way through Terminal 2B (the really packed one...obviously) with my overweight suitcases, overweight carry-ons, and a big old bike bag. Imagine me, with a cart, wheeling all that through crowds and crowds. And because it was the start of the annual summer vacation time, the airport was insane. One particular area I had to pass through was MAYHEM...guess what it was: Air Tahiti. Of course. Assholes. All on their way to exotic vacations while I was trying to get the damned bike through the hallways, haha.

But miracles do happen and I got it all checked in, and all the way through my connection at Heathrow. He was there waiting for me in Philly, safe and sound! And thank god for those little suitcase carts at the airport, I don't know what I would have done without them!

Took me a few weeks to get him put back together since, well, my knee is so messed up I'm not really going anywhere these days. I finally figured it would be a good idea to make sure he was ok, though, so I took him in this weekend and just rode him home. Perfect!

Bordeaux means two things: heat and wine

Today was our first full day in Bordeaux, and if there's anything we learned, it's that it sure can get hot here. I suppose we didn't *learn* that, per se, but whatever. We sure rediscovered it. It was easily close to 100 here today, and as I've always said, that whole "dry heat is better" routine is total bullshit. When it's 100 out, it sucks all around. It's of course true that the shade can provide some relief when it's dry heat, but that's not going to get you very far when you're out walking through vineyards, where the vines are all only a foot or two high. No shade to be found anywhere.

Anyway, I don't have much to say about Bordeaux yet, mainly because we haven't spent much time here, haha. We are going to be hittin' the town for real tomorrow (and you'll all be proud of us, we're starting our morning off right, with a wine tasting class at 10 am! hahahaha. It'll be 6:00 somewhere. Just not here. Details, details.) So I should have more to say about Bordeaux later, once I've actually seen the place!

For now, all I've experienced in Bordeaux is its tramway:

It's a super special tram system that only uses a fraction of the energy that other trams use. Apparently the rails are only electrified a few feet in front of the train, so the only electricity is just what the train uses. The system is fairly new; when I lived here in 2004-2005 and mentioned wanting to go to Bordeaux, people were always like, "it's great, but the tram isn't working right, give them some time to figure it out." haha. So I waited, and 5 years later, the tram is indeed awesome. Very convenient.

We've actually spent a good amount of time on the tram, since it connects the city center with the train station. We arrived late yesterday afternoon, and today we went on a day trip to St. Emilion:

As you can see, St. Emilion is quite literally IN the vineyards. Perhaps the coolest thing about the vineyards is that they're lined with roses, as a "canary-in-the-mine" sort of thing. The bugs that go after the vines also go after roses, but roses succumb three days sooner. So the winemakers get a bit of a lead on the bug. So here are some vines with their rose protectors:

But there's also an awesome medieval village, as you can also see:

But in the end it's really all about the wines and macaroons, as this is the town where macaroons were invented. Apparently macaroons are indeed a gift from god, since they were invented by nuns in St. Emilion in 1690. All I have to say about that is thank goodness they figured it out, macaroons sure are a winner. And a dairy-free one at that.

Every other store front is a wine seller, and we stumbled upon a great place with a whole collection of tastings. My father ended up buying a case, so we tasted 4 reds and 2 whites, all of which were awesome. And that leads me to what is clearly the Picture of the Day:

This has GOT to be his new facebook profile pic, don't you think? Totally made my day when I saw the result. hahahaha,

Ah, more ghettofabulousness

So a week before I left for Spain, I got an email from the ENS that I had to leave my room by June 28...A FULL MONTH BEFORE THEY HAD ORIGINALLY TOLD US.

I spent that week scrambling to get another room, which was a major pain because the ENS is the model case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. Or for administrators with their heads up their asses. But that's another story.

The important thing is that at about 4 pm on the day before I left, I finally got a new room. Major sigh of relief.

And while I won't complain about my new room since hell, there was a chance I'd have nowhere to live, I do think the ghettofabulousness of this one is worth sharing.

We will start with Exhibit A, the classiest nightstand ever:


Yeah, you're seeing it right, it's a suitcase. I was going to just forgo the whole nightstand thing and put my clock on the floor (if I had been in this room all year I would have bought one, but since it's only a month, totally not worth it). But then when I went to sit and read, I realized that there was no light whatsoever. In my old room I had shelves behind the bed, so I had bought a clip-on lamp (the only kind that would work). And it worked brilliantly in the old room, of course. So I was sitting here trying to figure out what to do and had the eureka moment of clipping it to the handle of the suitcase. And that's how a suitcase became my nightstand. All about having light to read by. I was going to send that suitcase home with my parents when they come, but now I'm thinking I might send them home with a different one. Can't lose my nightstand!

To add insult to injury, I set my clock last night and discovered that the radio doesn't work in this room! I'm on the other side of the building, maybe that's interfering or something. It was a little sensitive in the other room, but at least it worked! Now I just get scratchiness. humph. No more NRJ for me.

And since I don't have those shelves behind my bed, the shelves I do have are all the more cramped. God help me if I need a book:


And yeah, that's the fridge right in front of the shelves, although there is a bit of space (the black shadow is the cello case).

There is, however, no space between the bookshelf and the desk, which is a huge hassle:


Guess I better not eat too much dessert over the next few weeks, or I won't fit!

Good to be back...for a bit, at least!

Got home from Spain yesterday, and sure enough how is France welcoming my return? With a HUGE-ASS national strike, of course! Yes! This time it's a big one--not only are the trains and subways out (obviously), but so are nurses, teachers, etc. All government employees (which is quite seriously about half of the population here). Screws up my plans to mail some postcards from Spain (haha). Thank goodness the weather is fabulous so I can get where I need to go on the bike.

Despite all that, Spain was awesome (and will write more about that later). But before I do, it seems appropriate to mention our exceptional adventure home yesterday, since we perhaps almost didn't make it. Unclear.

Anyway, so Kari and I got to the Málaga airport yesterday morning (which was a bit of an adventure in and of itself, as we checked the buses the night before to be sure we were set and then literally overnight the bus system changed and there was a new airport bus when we woke up in the morning, haha). We had our Starbucks and boarded the plane. And sat. And sat. The flight attendants kept going up and down the aisle with one of those clicky counter thingys and looking confused.

Finally they got on the PA system and were like, "sooooo, we have a problem, the check-in counter said we should have 124 people on the plane, but we've counted 7 times and there are 125." Right. They claimed there must have been a computer error and that two boarding passes must have the same name, Ibrahim something-or-other. I don't know how they knew which name was doubled. In any case, they asked us all to check our boarding passes, but no one came forward with a problematic boarding pass.

So then they had to check each one individually. Kari and I showed our passes and then...one row in front of us, at the window of the exit row, this dude DIDN'T HAVE A BOARDING PASS. He had some sort of print-out of an e-ticket, but the flight attendant was like, "uhhh, this isn't a boarding pass." The guy was like, "I don't know, that's what I have, I got all the way here with it."

He then wove this complicated story about how he had lost his national identity card and was unable to take his plane the day before. The flight attendant was nice and asked the guy to follow him so they could work it out, but the guy refused. The head flight attendant then came over and asked him to come, and he was like, "I spent the night in the airport, I'm not leaving this plane." The flight attendant then said he'd have to call the police, but the guy remained impassive.

Now, Kari and I had front-row seats for all of this. Kari had the window seat and I had the aisle in our row (no one in the middle). So the dude was right in front of Kari. At that point the exchanges weren't heated, at least from the flight attendants. The guy was being a jerk, but really only people in the immediate vicinity could hear. When it was clear that this was going to take a few more minutes, I went back to the bathroom (as I had been kicking myself for that Starbucks, haha). When I got back there, I heard the flight attendants talking about how he had apparently stolen a boarding pass from the day before and somehow used that to get on or something. The details of just how it all happened remained fuzzy, I doubt the flight attendants even understood how it all transpired. What we did know what that he was on the plane illegally and was sitting at the exit door, so the flight crew was pretty convinced that he was planning on pulling something funky, even if it was just to open that door mid-flight. Who knows. Maybe he was just a tired traveler who had lost his ID and had taken a stupid pill. But you've GOT to realize that in any confrontation with air marshals, the police will ALWAYS win. I mean, seriously, DUH. Maybe that was also his point, to inconvenience the rest of the plane (or scare the shit out of us, which worked pretty well). And it shouldn't matter, but he was Arab. Most definitely French, but French Arab nonetheless. I'll be the first to say that racial profiling shouldn't make a difference, but given the world we're in, he had to know it wasn't going to end well. Maybe that was the point.

It took forever, but the Guardia Civil finally arrived. Kari and I were a bit unimpressed by the ground crew from start to finish--I mean, seriously, who lets someone on the plane without a boarding pass? And then when the air marshals get a phone call that some dude has illegally boarded a plane and is refusing to get off (and let's be honest, you KNOW they got a call that an Arab dude had illegally boarded and was refusing to get off), wouldn't that be an all-systems-go emergency? Short of some other medical emergency, that strikes me as a "get our asses in gear and get the hell to that plane" type of situation. All in all, the flight attendants actually ON the plane were the only ones we had any faith in, more power to them for catching the error and finding the problem.

Anyway, the Guardia Civil finally arrive (Kari and I still had front row seats at this point) and one officer comes up and sternly but politely asks the guy to come with him. AND HE STILL REFUSED! Started shouting about how he had no money and wasn't going to spend another night in the airport. Perhaps it was indeed fatigue, but it sure was stupid. A whole crew of police officers then comes up, loaded with guns on their belts, at which point Kari and I got the hell out of our row and back into the aisles. At this point everyone in the plane is staring (obviously), and someone in the back was even taking pictures.

The first officer grabbed the guy by the wrist to pull him up, but the guy continued to resist. So then the others went into the rows in front and behind him (so the row Kari and I had just vacated) and literally tackled him. In his window seat. Talk about a feat of gymnastics. They obviously overwhelmed him and hauled him up and off the plane, already handcuffed. Another officer looked in the overhead compartment to see if he had any hand luggage, and he actually almost took my backpack. He picked it up and Kari and I were like, "noooooo!" haha. And that is how my backpack almost got arrested too, haha. In the end it turned out that he had brought NOTHING on the plane--no hand luggage whatsoever. And of course we had to wait while they searched the hold to check everything out, and apparently there were no suitcases either. Yeah. If that doesn't scream close call, what does?

They also searched the plane for bombs and whatnot--tore apart that guy's seat and row, etc. But of course they found nothing, thank goodness. So who knows, maybe it was indeed just some pathetically tired and frustrated traveler trying to get home...but the circumstances sure weren't in his favor. And if that's the case, he was a total idiot. I scoured the Málaga newspapers for any indication last night but didn't find anything. Will obviously be checking back today...

Ah academia...

...nothing like a socially awkward, self-congratulatory conference to make me wonder all over again what the hell I've gotten myself into. Why are academics so weird???

This conference has managed to hit all of my conference pet peeves, I think. À savoir:

- Name dropping. Oh, the name dropping. Postcolonial studies lends itself particularly well to this phenomenon, we've had to deal with Spivak, Butler, Bhabha, Glissant, Naipaul, Saïd (these people are like Madonna in this field, so famous that they only need one name). Particularly Saïd. But then we also can't forget Derek Walcott, Paul Gilroy, CLR James. Google them if you want. Or don't bother. I wouldn't.

- Jargon. Again, postcolonial studies excels at this. We spent HOURS discussing the difference between "postcolonialism" and "postcoloniality." And the thing is, I'll accord that the two words are different. And everyone agrees. So let's move on already.

- Gossiping. As if anyone really cares in academia, other than to make themselves feel better about their own lives. cf the conference participant who tried to pump me for info on a superstar prof in my dept, what his wife is like, etc.

- Running over time. Let's be honest: there are only two kinds of papers in academia. The 20-minute version and the 50-minute version. Really. There's nothing else. If you're on a panel, EVERYONE knows you're supposed to talk for 20 minutes max. No, this does not mean that your paper is special and deserves 30 minutes. It means you need to do the work to cut down your argument as necessary to fit within the time frame, just like everyone else has done. The rest of us want our break to have a coffee, not to keep sitting here listening to you ramble because you didn't organize your thoughts enough in advance. For some reason this conference seems to be full of these people. I can probably count on one hand the number of people who have respected the time limit. bah.

- That guy. You know, the one who asks a TEN-MINUTE question when the session is already running overtime. And the question has no point, is full of theoretical jargon and name dropping, and missed some detail in the presentation. You know it did, it always does.

- The other guy, the one who thinks he's being all cutting-edge in his paper, when he's actually talking about something no one cares about outside this closed room of academics. cf the guy who was so proud of himself yesterday for saying that the phrase "postcolonial studies" has almost become a curse word in some circles. Ooooooh you're just a bad-ass, saying such a dirty thing. Postcolonial studies. That's as bad as insulting someone's mother! Really now, go to the drug dealer down the street (not that I've seen any in this neighborhood, which is actually rather posh, don't worry!) and say "postcolonial studies." If that doesn't get you a punch in the face, I don't know what will. I mean, really now, anyone here found this guy's lost sense of perspective???

- The non-committal historian who is perfectly happy to analyze the past but refuses any application to today. cf the keynote, who went on about "provincializing Europe." Then "that guy" asked the ten-minute question, which concluded by asking how to "provincialize Europe." The historian looked at us blankly, and with absolutely no sense of the ridiculousness of what he was saying, was like, "oh, I don't know, I'm a historian, I don't look at the present, I just say things about the past." Without even thinking about it, he just totally dismissed the relevance of his work. The old maxim about those who don't know the past are condemned to repeat it bears some expansion, namely that those who know about the past but don't use it for anything also also condemned to letting it repeat itself. Really, now, what's the point of all this if we're totally open about the fact that it doesn't mean anything? Or, more precisely, that we don't want to take the risk of making it mean something??? Does anyone in the real world really care about "provincializing Europe" as a concept rather than as a project? That's what I like to ponder at night, instead of watching TV. ha.

- The self-importance. Claiming we accomplished something. Yeah, right. All we accomplished was another line on the CV. That's something, at least. Something totally self-promoting. Sure, I'll be doing the same thing along with everyone else, yet another line to prove that I "do" stuff. But let's be honest, no one in this room changed the world today. REALLY. We sat around congratulating ourselves on our ability to manipulate buzzwords and show off what we know.

All that said, the ENS Lyon is bizarre, looks kind of like an orphan Frank Gehry building or something?

On that note, I have to run to my panel now, where I'll be doing all those obnoxious things mentioned above. Within reason, I hope!!!

This seems like a losing battle, but...

...I'm still going to try to catch up, haha. A good two weeks ago, the Champs Elysees was all dressed up...in nature.

It's a very French thing, you totally have to commune with the land. This is the sort of thing that can make or break a presidential candidate, that's how serious it is. I'm not kidding, Sarko has lost MAJOR points here for not being interested (or at least pretending to be interested) in agriculture. There's an agriculture festival every year, and it's basically obligatory for the pres to be seen smooching a cow. The problem is that Sarko has screwed this up repeatedly. Chirac, on the other hand, was quite good at it. And no one beats Mitterrand for the theatricality of regionalism.

But I digress. The point of all that was to say that the Champs Elysees being covered in trees and bushes was not at all supposed to be funny or kitschy, it was dead serious. The point was to show off French agriculture. And it was indeed impressive, as you can see:

Even the nuns were rockin' out, haha.

I went with Ben and Amanda and Kari (not pictured):

The even was divided up by type of agriculture, so there were trees:

And vineyards (obviously). As I was standing there admiring the oysters, some random dude came up to me and started chatting about grapes and wine. Seeing where this was going, Kari high-tailed it out of there, leaving me to fend for myself from the lecherous dude looking for some sort of trophy mistress. So I agreeably said yeah, wine was good, then he was like, "do you like castles? Would you like to come to mine?" hahahahaha. That's when I said I had to go join my friends and bolted too. When I found Kari again, we wondered who the hell would fall for something like that? I mean, really, wtf??? I was like, "yeah, I mean, seriously, it's a perfect set-up, the whole 'come to my castle but let's go to the hotel first, then suddenly you find there's no castle and no car and you're left strangled on some bed somewhere.'" Kari thought I was being rather extreme on the dénouement of that one, that it was probably just "let's go to a hotel and oh, oops, too busy to show you the castle, I'll just take you home." But in any case, seemed like a perfect sociopath psychokiller set-up to me. So much for the vineyards.

And even oysters!

One of my favorites was the real food pyramid, haha:

The quote of the day, however, clearly goes to Amanda. We were walking down the street when all of a sudden she was like, "Man, every time I think, 'no, really, France can't be THAT politically incorrect...then I see something like THIS...'" Not realizing what she was looking at, I looked around and stumbled upon the object of her gaze. My response, "oh YES, that HAS to happen!"

Yeah, you're seeing that right. Some random dude was walking around as a "redskin" (literally...there was even a woman with him reapplying paint wherever the sweat wore it off) and taking pictures with people. Oh, the political incorrectness. At least he was promoting environmental awareness? In any case, I think everyone else was horrified, but OBVIOUSLY I had to get my picture taken with him (haha).

Afterwards we went for drinks in honor of Ben's birthday:

And here's Luis and Anne-Helene: