Au Revoir Paris, Hej Stockholm!

Friends!

It has been far too long since my last post, and I promise that this is not about to make up for it.

I have been talking with many of you on the phone and through email, so I have kept up some content, but here's a quick update:

My Dad came to visit, it was nice. I just finished up 15 credits of school in a months time (not including my yet-to-be-written essay. I can finally walk up stairs without horrible pain (meaning that I've recovered from that trampoline madness that I hope I got to before taking a break from blogging). I leave for Stockholm again in about 8 hours.

I need to start packing and get some food in me, and maybe even write an essay, so today I give you all a video that I shot last night that reminded me of home, and a picture to signify my leaving France.

In terms of stuff that I have yet to post, I have some insane videos of Rage Against the Machine playing, and some other stuff, but until I get those essays done, most time-consuming updates will have to wait. Expect my Europe blog postings to continue until mid-late September (or later).

A sad sign of the flight to come:

'See you from Stockholm,

-Joel

Ma Maison

So I realized while getting off of the RER (one of many types of public trains in Paris) that I've not yet shown off where I'm living whilst abroad. Here is a visual tour of part of the Cite-Universitaire de Paris.



This is the park across the street from the Cite-U.












Another picture from inside the park.







This is my local basketbo' court (which I've not balled at yet).
Also in this picture is a kitten that is featured in one of the videos at the bottom of the page.











The US house here (not where I am living).

















This is the main gate of the Cite-U. Classy, eh?
















The International Building. This is where the cafe, restaurant,
pool, and theater are (when it's not August when Paris and most of the things in it close down).

This is the view from the cafe's terrace behind the building.

This is a view of the back of the building from afar.

This is just about my favorite building that I've seen here, guess what country it's for.

My building.

A close-up of said building.

This is our kitchen, I have used it precisely one time thus far.

This is the view from the kitchen's terrace, off on the right is the RER station, which is across from the main entrance. Down that median in the middle is a tram that goes down to Porte d'Orlean, where the Metro stops. Between those three, we can hit every form of railway in Paris very easily.

Here is a view of our room. I had another, but it seems to have disappeared, and if I import it again it will take way too long to reformat. It's pretty spacious, as you can see.

As promised, below is a video of first the kitten from the park, and then a realization of a Mitch Hedburg joke of yore that I noticed whilst on the Metro today. If you can't see the youTube videos, hit up the site directly. I feel like I had something else to report, but I can't remember it. My bad. I bought Chee a present, so now I've got Juice, Goulet, and Chee covered, but am still lacking a gift for Chase or anyone else who requests one.

I might think of more later, but now I need to continue working on a project. I hope all is well at home, I have been watching Michael Phelps occasionally and it looks like we're doing pretty decently in the Olympics (despite China beating us for gold medals :-/ )

'Merica!

-Joel

p.s. it's really creepy that in the 20 min between uploading those videos and pasting them into this page there have already been 4 hits on both.

School Days

As apologizing for a lack of posts seems to be the name of the game over here, if you don't mind, I'll skip it.

France is nice. It's not great, it's not Stockholm, it's not London, it's just nice. As I mentioned before, the food is strange (in good and frustratingly bad ways when you're trying to find sliced bread or looking for a cheeseburger). And while I may throw in some pictures of happenings and the like, I think I'll center today's post about what I've seen concerning my studies (which is by far the most noble way to tell people that you spend half your time watching American television on your laptop).

Normally free breakfast (coffee and chocolate croissants) is offered at 8am for whoever would like to go down to "The Studio," a studio-apartment here in the Maison des Etudiants Canadiens that rather than living in, we use for breakfast in the mornings. Then, depending on what group you’re in (I had the privelage of being in the early group last week), you stick around for a phonetics course, where we sing lines from songs individually, mispronounce the letter err, or do other similarly embarrassing speaking practices. Members of the opposite group get to sleep late. Next week I have reason to believe I will be one of many who gets to sleep until the wee hour of 8:30 instead of 7am.
After phonetics we break for lunch. Lunch thus far has been cooked by our wonderful professeur, Hélène, and is a different adventure every day. It always includes baguettes, some jambon (pork, which is obligatory here), fromage (cheese of various types), and then some zucchini salad, assorted goos, and other salad-y-type-things. All-in-all it's a great meal, mad props to Hélène.
In the afternoon we have either Parisien histoire or medieval literature, which centers around The Letters of Abeland and Heloise. It's a tragic tale of two lovers in medieval times, but a fun read all the same.
Later in the afternoon we often go on a field trip to somewhere in Paris, where a student or two will present on its architecture or its innards. Thus far we have been to St. Denis (pictures later), the Louvre, Notre Dame (pics later), and a few others.

Overall, on a day to day basis we tend to have no idea when our studies will end or when our breaks will actually come, so it would resemble an adventure, was everyone not as sleep deprived as we tend to find ourselves.

At this point I am going to have to bid you all adieu, and go meet a friend (d'Angleterre (definition)) for lunch. Enjoy the pictures, and tell me what you people want to know about in comments, it'll make me post more often, and focus this madness a little more.

Sorry the formatting is so bad and there aren't more pictures, but I'm really late. More up tonight/tomorrow, I promise.

-Joel

Food in Europe post

So I have been thinking of something to write about, and I have come up with food. I meant to write this post while I was shopping in Stockholm, and now this is happening.

Food over here tends to be similar, lots of burgers, hotdogs, chicken burgers, and french fries (frites en francaise). The only exceptions are that the English and Swedes eat more fish, the Swedes favor the Korv (hotdogs), and french sandwhiches are basically a baguette (about 6" long roll), sliced open (not in half), with a slice of cheese in it. It's also about $4.70 USD for that luxury.

Here are various pictures in no real order.

Breakfast that I made in Stockholm after I discovered Pucko (chocolate milk).

LCD tags at the grocery store. They are everywhere here, kinda cool.









Crepe in Paris. This is basically a really thin pancake with some cheese and ham inside. it's not filling.










Cola that tries to convince us that it is the original taste of America. Or something.















This is what they called a sandwhich somewhere in Stockholm. It had tomato, pesto, cheese, uhhh....other vegetable-things, and a really long slice of bread.











The milk cartons in Sweden to me are just childish looking. I think the little bit under the "Lattanmjolk" is the fat content, wihch is also weird and terrifying, compared to US standards. People in stockholm drink a lot of milk (in small containers), and have a lot of granola cereal, mixed with yogurt, with some milk on the side. Just a weird meal, in my opinion. Milk in Paris is called UHT (Ultra-High-Temperature), which you don't have to refridgerate until you open it, and comes in creme, demi-creme, and something that I don't remember. Again, weird.


I absolutely love that hotdog buns scream 'Merica!













That Nesquik is everywhere here, I don't remember it in the US. People here either eat Special K or cereals with chocolate. Nothing inbetween. Kinda weird. The other cereal just had an amazing name.

Well that's all that I have time for now, I have to do some hw. I hope you enjoy food in europe more than I do. If there is anything that anybody wants to see, leave it in the comments.

-Joel

Video

The youTube video works now. Woot.

From Paris

So as this was supposed to be a video blog, and it takes me a lot longer to type and arrange pictures and so forth, I decided to put up a video. Like I say in it, it's brief, unedited, and just a quick update until I can blog to avoid school work. I might throw a few pictures in the end from around, cool?

-Joel

From O'Neils (at one point)

I wrote this post while at lunch, but then my internet died. I know that I promised an update for last night (my time), but my bad, at least I started it, right?

So I promised an update, here's some pictures for you, the "adoring" fans.

Right now I'm in a pub off Regent St. in London called O'Neills A Taste of Ireland. My taste of Ireland was a BBQ Chicken Chiabata, who'da known that came from the Micks? Imagine, if you will, your average pub, soccer (footboll) pictures on the wall, loads of english accents, and the bartender singing along to Natalie Imbruglia's Torn. That, friends, is O'Neills.

Anyway, here's what you came for. Presenting: Stockholm:

Stockholm

After a long, long day of walking, I sat down to eat dinner at another O'Neills location, as I was so impressed with the first. I sat down and ordered another taste of Ireland, a BBQ Chicken Burger with Bacon. After finishing my meal I found a group of Americans from Portland University (one from "Northern" Tacoma, no less), but I'll save that for my London-Roundup, to be written tomorrow on the train au Paris.

Tomorrow I'll also do some commentary on these pictures, some are rather deep (such as the statue of the friar with a pegion sitting on his head). If you don't see the album here, hit up the website directly (http://www.notjoelshapiro.com/).

-Joel Out.