Saturday in the park

Spent most of Saturday at the Parc de la Villette having a picnic with some multinational friends. The weather was gorgeous, the food was good, and the company was quite nice. The park itself is pretty interesting - lots of examples of avant-garde architecture, including several huge museums and a striking Imax theater, the Géode, which is a huge, silver sphere.

Working on a sort of book report for my cinema class, about science fiction cinema. Hard to believe that I have only two weeks left here.

more notes

Slightly anxious about classes resuming tomorrow (I think, anyway - my Gender class has nothing listed for tomorrow in the syllabus, but I'm guessing that that's just an error). Hard to believe that there are only three weeks left until the group flight home.

Today is the first round of France's presidential election. I assume, along with most others here, that Le Pen won't make it to the second round this time. I certainly hope he doesn't.

Question after seeing a screening of The Philadelphia Story the other night at a charming little cinema that specializes in showing old films (there are a number of these in Paris, particularly in the 5e and 6e arrondissements: what's the point of watching a subtitled comedy if you don't know the original language? The subtitles can only capture a portion of the dialogue, and so many of the nuances are lost. I guess this is true for a lot of films, and not just comedies. Of course, watching English-language films with French subtitles has also made me realize how much I'm missing when I see a foreign-language film with English subtitles.

Ben & Jerry's in France - pre-election oddness

So, yesterday was Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day. To promote it here, they did an ad campaign themed around the upcoming presidential campaign here, which included staging fake marches led by someone in a cow costume for "l'autre candidate," the "spokes-cow" Woody, who campaigns "pour une France gourmande," "the struggle against violence in the stables," and "the redistribution of wealth in cream." Though if any ice cream place in Paris could further the first of those goals, I don't think it'd be Ben & Jerry's.

Attended a Dems France political discussion of globalization last night, at an Irish pub near St. Michel.

By the way: Chantal and Stephanie, nice seeing you at the Rome airport.

Various observations from my trip

• Gaudi's architecture is bizarre, but fascinating. I love Parc Guell. Spectacular hilltop view of Barcelona, in addition to the Salamander.
• If you stay in Barcelona, I highly recommend the Centric Point Hostel.
• The Sagrada Familia is a fascinating, if bizarre melange of architectural styles - the older facades depict biblical figures in a realistic, neoclassical style, whereas the newer ones use a stylized, quasi-Cubist style, and the whole thing is topped with Gaudi's organic spires.
• Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are interesting artists.
• The Roman forum is too easy to get lost in.
• Ostia is a nice break from the mobs of tourists in Rome proper.
• If you're waiting in a long line outside the Vatican museums, do not believe the people selling overpriced guided tours when they tell you that it'll take three hours to get in. (It took Aaron and I around a third of that - fortunately, we didn't listen to them.)
• Il Gelato di San Crispino is, judging from my one trip there, a bit overrated - not good enough to justify the high prices. Instead, I recommend the Old Bridge Gelateria, near the Vatican, which serves generous portions of excellent gelato for much lower prices.
• The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica are both spectacular, and well worth the wait in line.
  

Photos

Barcelona

Rome

Tues. in Rome

Spent the morning and afternoon at Ostia, a site near Rome with a huge ancient city in ruins. A nice break from the tourist-heavy commotion of Rome proper. We also saw and photographed the remains of the oldest preserved synagogue in the Western world. There isn't much to see there anymore, but Dad should get a kick out of it.

trip update

Short on time; will post more details later, hopefully before I get back.

Barcelona was great. The cathedrals, particularly the Sagrada Familia, are spectacular. I also loved Parc Guell.

Rome is also fantastic, particularly the gelato; gelaterias are almost as ubiquitous as boulangeries in France. Saw the Coliseum, the Trevi Fountain, Trajan's Column, and a lot of the Ancient City today. Whew.

Seders

I finally finished my paper on Monique Wittig. Thank god. She had a few interesting ideas, but it's hard for me to relate to the views of a radical feminist who concludes that "les lesbiennes ne sont pas des femmes." (Lesbians are not women.)

Passover finally arrived, though. First seder: at the home of Rabbi Stephen, who's a friend of my dad's from way back when and was kind enough to invite me. He was the only person there I knew at all (and I only met him for 90 minutes or so about a month back), but everyone was very friendly and I managed to feel at home. Not everyone was French - there was one girl from Macedonia in attendance, and others from Israel and a few other countries.

Second seder: organized by Kehilat Gesher, a Franco-Anglophone bilingual (trilingual, if you count Hebrew) synagogue. It was in a massive room, with well over a hundred people, which, with the limited number of servers, and along with the incredibly long Maggid ("Magguid" according to the somewhat odd-seeming French transliteration), this resulted in a late and slow dinner; the main course didn't even arrive until after 10! More importantly, though, I met some interesting expatriates, along with a couple families who were traveling and just wanted a Seder to go to. It would be quite an experience to live in Paris, but I don't see it happening for me; still, a decent number of Americans I've met seem to have found fairly lucrative careers here.

Photos from the Loire Valley, and Aaron's visit.



Leaving for Barcelona tomorrow, where I'll meet Aaron, and then Rome. Looking forward to it.