Novemblog: It begins

Yep. This is happening.

So, the deal is that, as many of you are aware, I like to use parentheses. I haven't used one yet. This is clearly an injustice that must be remedied, but not yet (I guess now is fine though).

As many more than read this blog are likely aware, November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. I would not and should not write a novel at this point in my life, because, man, med school. It's just a lot of work. HOWEVER. The word quoto (which should be quota, and I suppose that I could correct my spelling on that if I really wanted to go back and handle it, but really? You can't deal with my human imperfections? What does that say about YOU, dear reader? Holding people to a higher standard than you hold yourself? Or are you just a perfect speller and always have been? Little Hermione Granger out there, correcting my spelling mistakes. It's a blog, there are few rules (though there are some, I'm sure). And while we're on the note of Hermione, did anyone else ever wonder how she did in Muggle school? I mean, she clearly was a rock star at Hogwarts academics, but as she says, wizards aren't particularly good at Muggle subjects like math and science. She clearly applied herself a lot, but that may have just been an acquired inferiority complex developed from 5-6 years in Muggle schools. Meanwhile, she's gaining a Muggle perspective on logic, math, and science, and is therefore able to do well at Hogwarts simply because she has a different perspective and the drive to succeed cultivated by her previous ostracization (IT GETS TO BE A WORD TONIGHT, DAMN YOU) during her formative elementary school years.) is something around 50,000 words. That is, clearly, a lot of words, and I haven't even remotely hit that in my blog posts now or ever. However, over the course of 30 days, I believe that it comes to 1,667 words per day, or about 70 words per hour, or about 1 word per minute. And man, I can type WAY more than one word per minute (thank you, Mario Teaches Typing, for providing me with a means of looking at people type while they played a video game, because I didn't have a Nintendo growing up and it was therefore the only way I could experience the Mario mystique. More importantly, thank you AIM, Facebook, Quesadilla Night, and Skype for providing me with outlets that forced me to be able to type reasonably quickly, even if I'm no Donna Noble. Yeah, my references, although esoteric, are rather obvious tonight, as opposed to previous comments I've made about blah blah if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him blah blah.). I mean, I can type my parentheticals in under an hour, which is probably pretty solid.

But, as always, I digress.

I clearly haven't done a good job of updating this blog over the past ever. I want to change that this month. My goal is to reach 50,000 words in this blog in 30 days, with hopefully daily updates. I would have started this post earlier, but I had class, Taco Bell, a hangover, a hangover nap, a haircut, and laundry to take care of before I could do such things. And now I'm rushing to get enough words in, and I don't even know how many I've got or if the blogspot has a word count function. Yeah, I suppose Blogspot should have been capitalized the first time, but again, Hermione Granger, why don't you go back to Muggle School and be the star of some British version of She's All That where you realize that you were beautiful all along despite your nerdy loner artistic ways, because you're just, like, so alternative. Man, I am just hating on Hermione tonight, and undeservedly so. She's really not that bad, I'm sure.

By now, maybe you've gotten an idea of what this month is going to be like? And then my page views slump to lower than they are now, which I don't know to even be possible (yes it is).
 

See what I mean?

Speaking of, yes, I was that guy for Halloween. Once people got what I was going for, they seemed to enjoy it.  But yes, another digression, and there will hopefully be more about Halloween in another post, perhaps tomorrow (or perhaps later).

So yes. This will probably continue to be me just rambling into this thing in a manner that many will find unnecessary and annoying, and Blogger just tried to spellcheck a part of a word, which is a newfound source of rage for me. I thought I had tapped them out. Nope. Not even a little bit. And now my laundry is done (it's the whites, ladies. And you know what that means. That's right- it's the socks. And you know when I'm down to my socks what time it is. It's time for business. It's business time. IT'S BUSINESS- IT'S BUSINESS TIIIIME.), but I'm not going to get it out of the dryer yet BECAUSE I'M A REBEL, THAT'S WHY.

I really have no idea how many words I've typed (or not typed. Well, I suppose I have an idea of the words I haven't typed, because it's likely infinite, though I'm sure someone stronger at math than I am (i.e., NOT HERMIONE GRANGER) could make some sort of G"- gosh dang it, why won't you stay as U.S. International- Gödel argument about being able to solve such a thing, which is clearly possible, as indicated by Mr. Tsoukalos above.), but maybe I'll bring this to a general close with an idea of the things to come.

Yeah, this clearly isn't 1,667 words. But I need to be up tomorrow to present a poster on my research, which is pretty awesome guys, because man. Science. How does it work? Sorry, that's magnets.

Anyway, things I hope to discuss on THIS VERY FORUM in the next 29 days (since it's past midnight and man, I'm nowhere near one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven words, but if I keep typing things out longhand, I might be able to come close) include (BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO):

Maybe something about what I've learned in med school (but you know, all wacky, like most of my blog posts. They are wacky fun, right? Or would you describe them with another adjective? If so, which adjective and good Lord I need to do evals for the last block, but that will have to wait until tomorrow because at this rate I'm not going to get the good night's sleep that I need to rock this poster presentation tomorrow gaaaaaaaaaaah and gaaaaaaaaaah is only one word and I don't know if I added enough a's on the second one, and now I've taken to polysyndeton without the proper comma usage to denote separated independent clauses grammatical gaaaaaaaah).

Perhaps something about my journey to the Balkans a couple of springs ago (because that's still so fresh in my mind and all).

Why not a few recipes to pass the time (though they probably won't be original, and I don't even know what's up with my camera these days, since I'm no longer keeping it in my pocket like I did in France, mainly because why would I carry around a camera in Charleston? That's for tourists, yo.)?

And possibly some other various subjects and things along those lines, though I may just run out of things to say by Day 30. Yep. This could get hairy. Like my chest, and soon to be my back. Such is the curse (more of a blessing, really) of the Brown/Cameron/What have you genes- we're like timberwolves, and we will totes mcgotes cut you like one would cut you. Except more likely with tools than with claws or teeth, because we're more refined than that. There are rules after all. Hermione Granger probably knows each one, what with having to stay late after Muggle school and copy them repeatedly onto chalkboards.

I mean, come on. It's Hermione Granger.

Yeah, I was about to put a picture of Hermione there, but that seems like a lot of work, and I really should get some sleep, because now my wrists are starting to hurt a little bit (but no parathesia or other business, so hopefully it's not the carpal tunnel syndrome, because that would be the worst thing ever right now. Okay, maybe not the worst, but it would certainly not be good, agreed? Agreed. Thank heavens we agree on this. Are you sassing me? Oh, I wouldn't DREAM of doing that. You're doing it again! I saw those capital letters. Malarkey. Baloney. Phooey. So's you're old man!), and I really should get some sleep.

Isn't it grand?

Montpellier Days 1 and 2!

Okay, here I am typing into a Word document because the Wifi doesn’t work right now. But it all works out because I’M IN MONTPELLIER! Which really doesn’t merit that much excitement in the grand scheme of things. I mean, it’s great that I’m away from Combs, especially given my most recent “Oh, Bev” posting (speaking of, she was much nicer the next day- maybe I was just in a bad mood that night, maybe there’s a reason I don’t like dealing with other people AKA Bev while I’m cooking, but either way, much better, even though she did her usual vaguely passive-aggressive, “Oh I wish I had the money to travel like that” and being somewhat critical of my initial plan to go to Avignon (thwarted by a lack of lodging opportunities the night before) because I guess she didn’t think that I maybe wanted to see the Palais des Papes rather than a general medieval French town? But I digress and prattle on in my parentheticals), but Montpellier has been kinda meh. Don’t get me wrong, lovely city, plenty of museums to see, but the ones I’ve seen so far have been somewhat mediocre/not really my thing, and there’s a distinct lack of bodies of water to take pictures of canals and bridges. But that doesn’t stop me from trying!

Anyway, yes, I decided on Montpellier on the advice of another assistant because Avignon was booked and I couldn’t figure out lodging on the cheap anywhere else. I grabbed an early TGV out of Paris (having gotten far too little sleep, as I’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks, alas) and got into Montpellier just before noon (like, 5 till) and made the 15ish minute walk to my hostel. And this would have been great if the hostel wasn’t closed (and I mean doors locked, no one inside) from noon until 3. And so, I wandered. Want to see what I saw?

Of course you do. And I want Word to stop this extra spacing baloney so that I don’t have gaps you can drive a truck through between my sentences.

So right off the bat I got to see the Place de la Comédie, which is very nice and sunlit and full of overpriced restaurants and cafés that are surprisingly (or maybe not given the convenience) hopping around noon. And there’s a MacDo that I considered going to today to get Wifi, but I settled on another café down the street to get a more French experience and part with more of my euros than I otherwise would have. But the café crème was very good, and they served it with a little bit of chocolate. Daww. However, that’s more of a later thing, but you knowing it now saves me the need to go back to it later (or something like that). Either way, your chronology gets to be a bit wacky, as is my wont. Just pretend you’re reading Les Mis around the time of that really long sentence about Louis d’Orléans. Wait- no. Don’t do that. That sentence is really boring and uses semicolons like I use parentheses.

Anyway, since I had to wander around with my backpack (you know, the Philmont pack that has served me well lo these many years), I decided to shy away from museums a bit, which disrupted my initial plans a little. I went by my hostel and then backtracked to the gare to get an idea of how long it takes to get there when you know where you’re going (and to find more or less the most direct route). Then I continued to wander and came across the Faculté de Medecine, where you can find the Musée Atger, which I wanted to visit after I got my stuff dropped off at the hostel. Then (after a jaunt back to the hostel to check on how long it would take to get to the Atger from the hostel, because I had nothing better to do I guess), I went over to the Jardin des Plantes.

In all its planty goodness

See that? It's all closed.

The Jardin des Plantes is actually pretty cool in theory, but in December, it loses a bit of its allure. The concept behind it is that the medical school established it as a source for the students to do research on botanical remedies and such. (I’m sure Bev, naturopath that she is, would love this until she realized that this is how the so-called “medical mafia” finds new drugs. Of course, even then she’d probably deny it because she knows what she knows, and she’s read things, and I’m too young to understand. /rant) Again, I’m sure in summer, it’s absolutely wonderful with all sorts of flowers. As is, it was surprisingly green, mainly due to the evergreens and cacti they’ve got there.

Also, a significant portion of the gardens are closed for renovations or some such. Ah well.

And then I kept wandering, where I saw such things as…

A nice French street

A nice view

How precious. Anyway, my shoulders thoroughly hurting after all this, it was finally 3, and after getting a bit lost again, probably looking vaguely ridiculous with my giant backpack, I meandered back to the hostel and got checked in, whereupon I met a group of American students studying abroad in Aix-en-Provence (2 from Vandy, one from John’s Hopkins, one from Barnard, who called Barnard a “girl’s school.” I was amused by the latter’s comment).

Anyhoo, I convinced them to come along to the Faculté de Medecine to see the Musée Atger, because hey, it’s free, it’s open, and it could be fun. So we went there and saw a surprisingly well-furbished building (French universities are pretty run down- we admittedly didn’t go into any classrooms, but the hallways in some places were a bit sketchy looking). We finally figured out where the museum was (it’s housed within the Faculté, but there are no signs for it when you just go in), and we made our way up there!

Hooray!

And then we found that it’s closed for electrical work. Basically this weekend only. Great. Fine. We didn’t want to see any of your Italian and Flemish drawings anyway. Nyah.

So we headed next door to the Cathedral (St. Pierre I think?), which was nice. I took pictures. They’re the obligatory ones, and you can head to the Picasa to see the interior shots, but I’ll give you a nice exterior shot of it.

See? Wasn’t that nice? Of course it was.

Then we went to see the Arc de Triomphe (or tried- one of the people in the group had a rather irritating tendency to just suddenly run off in another direction, which made keeping the group together a tad difficult) and the park around it. It was very pretty, though cold.

Around this time, we were starting to get a bit cold (by we, I mean they, because I’ve gotten a bit used to the Parisian winter, where there’s no sun and it’s a bit colder, so I can deal with wind and such. They’re only a few weeks into Aix, where it’s likely warm enough to not make a huge difference), and then we started to get hungry, only to find that places for dinner only open at 7.

But at 7, dine we did. I found a little Italian place down a side street near the hostel that had pretty cheap (under 10 euro) main dishes. It was an incredible buy- the portions were pretty well sized, the waiter kept bringing us water and bread without us having to ask (which is somewhat rare from what I’ve seen of French restaurants, but then that’s just the Parisian ones). I opted against dessert, but one of our party went for it, getting an ice cream thing and initially asking for one spoon. He probably thought, as I did, that it’d be maybe a scoop or two with a little bit of topping.

We thought wrong. Thankfully, the waiter convinced us to go with 5 spoons (for the 5 of us), because this thing was huge. It was about 4 scoops of coffee ice cream, a Nutella center, a chocolate mousse topping (which was gigantic- took us about 5 minutes to get through just that part), and had some sliced almonds over the top. I wish I had had the presence of mind to have gotten pictures of this, because it was goodlordamazing.

And then after dessert, the waiter brought out some (I think) Limoncella (lemon after dinner drink- sorta like a somewhat alcoholic lemonade?).

Basically, it was quite possibly the best value French dinner I’ve had since I’ve been in France. Full and tired as I was, I opted to go to an Internet café (because the hostel Wifi, as I noted before, is down. Grr.) for a bit to check e-mail and run my Mafia (yeah, I have a problem) and check my webcomics (crap, forgot XKCD. Oh well- I’ll get that next time I find Internet.). At this point, I finally met my roommate, an older (40s maybe?) German actor who is trying to improve his French. So I got some French speaking in, read a few more pages of Madame Bovary (yeah, that’s what I’m reading right now. It was great for the Monet expo, which I’ll talk about in a shorter post than this one, because I’m on page 3 of my Word doc and am only almost through day 1), and went to sleep, whereupon I was awoken several times by the older German fellow snoring and then some 3^rd roommate snoring.

And so ended day 1.

Day 2 began with me eating way too much of the free breakfast (bread and cereal with material for hot chocolate and some sort of orange nectar thing which was terrible but likely had vitamin C, and I don’t want the scurvy) and heading out to find museums. Unfortunately, all the museums I’ve seen thus far (one more for tomorrow- the actual art museum) forbid photography. I don’t really get why they forbid ALL photography, because it’s not like these are newish things that could be copied or something, but whatever. Anyhoo.

First museum was the Musée de l’Histoire de Montpelier (I think- maybe I’ll check before I post this, but probably not). It’s actually really cool- it’s in the crypt of the old cathedral, which was destroyed during the Revolution. The guy who was working when I got there was really cool, and you basically walk an audioguide while they show you pretty bad animations and films of the history of Montpellier. Got to see the crypt, a couple of reproductions of sarcophagi looking things, and got to see the ossuary. Very informative and a cool atmosphere, and like I said, the guy running it was really good about the tour. Plus, I was the only one there, so he was basically my personal tour guide.

Also it was free (since I’m under 25) and gave me a ticket for two other museums.

After that, it was around 11:30, and since most of the museums close around noon, I didn’t want to try any of them and just wandered, whereupon I found a charming little exposition of barrels.

Seriously.

Apparently it’s an organization (located in an old cathedral I think) that runs programs to get underprivileged kids in the area involved in art and other organizations. While some were a bit too modern-art for my taste, most of them were really cool. Again, they’re all on Picasa, go, check them out. They’ll be on Facebook too, of course. Also, there was some sort of sweepstakes where you could win either your weight or a barrel of wine (wasn’t clear on the translation)- different wines for different prizes (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, etc).

Anyhoo, I wandered a bit more and ended up settling for that café I mentioned earlier. After that, the museums were again open, and I went on over to the Pharmacy and Chapel museum, which was surprisingly interesting given the size. It was basically 3 rooms, and the guide explained the whole history of the pharmacy, which was run by nuns and was (I think) the first laïque and government sponsored pharmacy for the poor in Europe. The tour guide complimented me on my French (rough start because I was coming off of some time on TV Tropes, which always throws me into English-mode), and we got to see two rooms of the pharmacy (including various receptacles for medication and such) and a chapel with a few paintings.

Then I went to the Musée du Vieux Montpellier. This one houses Renaissance and Revolution-era stuff. It’s pretty much self-guided, and…  I wasn’t too impressed. I did get a few pictures before the lady said that it wasn’t allowed. Mostly maps and rooms and some portraits that weren’t well labeled. Cool if that’s your thing, but not really mine. But hey, it was the last of the three free ones (Pharmacy being the other, and the exposition being free but unrelated).

Finally, I went to the Musée Languedocien, which houses a bunch of Roman/Greek/Egyptian artifacts. I didn’t know photography wasn’t allowed for a while, so I got a couple of shots. But I didn't put captions in here, so you get a wall o' text and the chance to look at the pictures on facebook/picasa. They weren't that great, honestly, but the albums are worth looking at anyway.

Ultimately, I wasn’t a huge fan of that one either. At the end, I did ask the worker a question, and he was really good about answering it. I think if I’d had a guide, it would have been a much better experience. Also, it was 6 euros. That’s a pricey ticket for a pretty small museum. I guess that’s why I was the only one in there? (Seriously, there was NO ONE going to museums today- I saw one tour group in Vieux Montpellier, and I think they may have hit Pharmacie as well, but it was bizarrely empty. Maybe something else was going on that I should have been doing instead?) Anyhoo, I finished that and headed back to the hostel, whereupon I proceeded to throw some pictures on my compy and get this thing written. Whereupon I used far too many “anyhoos” and continued to do a very event-based blog rather than giving any real perspectives. Maybe they will come later? I don’t know.

And for tomorrow (wow, hit the 5 page mark without pictures), I’ll hit up the actual art museum, maybe walk around a bit more, and hopefully have a groovy time. I’ll be back in Combs on Monday (hopefully after Bev has gone back to work after lunch), and then I will do some more baking- going to do cookies (likely Toll House or a variant) and maybe a quiche to run through some eggs and have something for (as Pete would say) brekky. Yeah, I’ll get Pete introduced in here soon, hopefully. Still lots of catching up to do, but this Word doc thing might be an idea.

EDIT! Yeah the quiche didn't happen. Oh well. Cookies did, though, and are forthcoming on the regalia.

Keeping that promise

Okay, much as I would love to post my banana thingy (ahurrr) and go to bed, I said I'd put December in the next post, which is now this one. So let's talk about December in Paris and try to avoid pretending that you want to talk about other things. And there comes in that famous second-person blogging. Great. I'm already starting to write like things I don't like. And there goes my vocabulary.

Okay, break time for a bit. Gonna clear out the head a bit.

Okay, a bit of Metalocalypse and conversation and no music helped out. Now then, December.

After the wine expo, it was basically December. Funny how it works out that shortly after the last weekend in November, December comes.

Okay that rhythm sucks. I'ma go brush my teeth so I don't eat any more of that banana business that is so delicious.

Now let's do this.

So December! It, um.

It snowed? A lot?

Nah, I kid. It snowed, but plenty more happened, or so I think, but I'll leave all that business for the philosophers and GOOD LORD I NEED THIS RHYTHM TO GET BETTER. GROOVE- COME BACK.

Dear Reader will help. It often does.

Maybe it did. Let's find out...

Okay, so December was actually pretty uneventful in Paris, though I was admittedly only in Paris for like 3 weeks in December, and a lot of that was Christmas, which will be covered later, because that's the way Gerry wants it. And while we must confound Gerry at every term, I'm going to go with his wisdom in this case.

So yeah, Paris started out with free museum day! The first Sunday of a month, pretty much every museum in France is free for everyone (excluding some private exhibitions and such, but who cares about those). Before that, I think there was also a visit with Grace and one of her absolute brats darling little children that she so lovingly cares for as an au pair to the Science museum for an expo on Science Fiction. All these pictures are on the Picasa, which once again is http://picasaweb.google.com/rbcameron3, and the specific photos from that should be under Museums and Expositions. Of particular note are the photos putting posters for Soylent Green and Zardoz next to each other, because we all know that an iconic movie with Charlton Heston has the same cultural impact and relevance as a crappy movie with a balding Sean Connery sporting a ponytail and a diaper. It also identified Ghost in the Shell as an example of urban decay but not for their stuff on cyborgs and robotics. It also also misidentified Zuckuss' mask as that of 4-LOM, which is just absurd, right? Who's with me on this? But it was still an impressive exhibit, so I'll forgive it these snafus, for I am a magnanimous blogger who will certainly smack the bajeepers out of you if you wrong him so help him Blog. Or something that makes more sense. Still finding that groove.

Anyhoo, museum day got off to a decent start as I went to the Musée d'Orsay and found this:

Yeah. Look at that line. Really drink it in. Get a nice feel for the heft of it. Thankfully, the line moved pretty quickly and I was in the museum soon enough. I made it through pretty much all of the permanent collection that was there (a bunch of Monets are at an exhibition elsewhere in Paris that I still need to get to), save a couple of rooms, and got to see the exhibition on Gérôme.

But Rob, you may be saying, forgetting that quotation marks might be useful in a text based format to indicate that you're talking and aren't just the blogger being a pompous ass (shame on you for even considering giving other readers that impression), who's this Gérôme fellow? I hear he's the guy, but I wanna be the guy too!

Well, he's a dude. He painted and sculpted some stuff in the late 19th century, including some pretty impressively photorealistic paintings. A lot of his stuff was a bit more historical/orientalist, and he definitely had a tendency to go with lots of anachronisms in his paintings, but the end result was still pretty nice.

After Orsay, I headed on over to meet Grace at Musée Rodin. I'd already seen Rodin- oh, also, you can't take pictures in Orsay, so that's why there aren't any- so I just sorta tagged along so she could see it, but I got some nice pictures anyway.

AND HERE THEY COME NOW!

Starring The Gates of Hell!

Also featuring SassyPants Hugo and his amazing heads, able to undress you with their eyes at 50 feet!

And introducing, Obligatory Shot of The Thinker!

And after all that (since the indoor part required money and I was having none of it), Grace and I met up with Olivia (another assistant from up North AKA Utah, because I have no sense of geography, but she went to Haverford, so you can't blame me for thinking, right? Okay, fine, blame me, it was a silly mistake to make and wasn't too just) to go to the Centre Pompidou.

There, we said the word tubes far too many times. It was glorious. Those were the halcyon days, riding on the escalators that would shake violently if you grabbed the handrails, moving through the tubes at breakneck speeds of 3 mph, seeing Paris from within tubes, like some sort of cheap imitation Jacques Cousteau but without the super-poetic narration, but dangit I'm trying here, but it's too fun to say tubes (and you have no idea how hard I had to fight to keep from saying "tube fun to say tubes," such is the allure of tubes).

Tubes.

Tubes tubes tubes tubes tubes tubes.

Okay, there we tubes.

I mean, there we go.

Anyhoo, Centre Pompidou has a lot of the contemporary art stuff. Not terrible, but as contemporary art can be, some of it is a bit "Huh?"

For example (before I get into the few pictures I have from there), there was the colonoscopy video playing on the floor. Or "Barbe bleu," based on the Perrault story but with an all-female cast and lots of very "Modern independent art film" choices for camera angles and dialogue. I just remember, "Would you love me, even with this beard?" Which I assume was supposed to be very vaginal and would lead to the art being lauded in some circles. Also there was some string that got cut, which, hey, umbilical cord. Hooray for subtlety I guess? Or just straight up incomprehensibility or unwatchability, as I walked out midway through and kinda stumbled back in later. But enough about my discomfort with the female form.

And onto pictures!

So first, we have a lovely lightbulb dress. It's wonderful, isn't it? I think it was in the feminist art section, which is where most of what we saw was, so groovy. I don't quite understand it- maybe something about the objectification of women by the fashion industry and their not caring about their comfort with what they wear? But then, I don't think they really got the point, since this dress would totally be able to pass on a runway I think. Ah well. I'll just go with it. It's not terrible looking on a stand I guess? Probably wouldn't want to approach someone actually wearing it. Why yes, I am just trying to pad for some space so there's not a huge blank space between the end of this business next to the picture and the start of the next one. Thank you for noticing. Do you come here often? Haven't seen you around much before- you should come by more! Bring your friends, too- they always help things.

My God- I think my blog just became as bitter and unsuccessfully ironic as that sculpture.

And onto a more interesting sculpture! Of course, I didn't take down names on these guys, because that would make way too much sense! But I like to call this one "Make 'Em Laugh." Some of you know why- you can explain to the class

Hint: It has to do with the mannequins and a song. Go to Youtube.

And while I really wanted to do that banana thing tonight, I'm exhausted and need to meet Susan II tomorrow (a cousin who's an English prof at Franklin College and is taking a group to France right now). Also I'm apparently scary when I'm tired. To which I say...

Ummm...

Nuh uh.

Where am I? Over here!

For all two of you who might be reading this who would get that joke, good on you.

But seriously, I have no clue where my updates leave off. I mean for serious. What the hell, damn guy.

Okay, it's looking like you've seen the apple pie and Annecy, but not much since then.

Good Lord am I vaguely tired. Not like to the point of "MY EYES ARE FALLING! MY EYES ARE FALLING!" and it turns out to be the table of contents (yeah obscure American humor- such a children's book hipster this guy. Who does he think he is? King of the trees?) and certainly not to the point of "Oh, look at those lovely red worms filling up the board next to Dr. McKeever" (true story. Another true story from that class- I feel asleep in an exam review session while he was answering a question that I asked. This took place during a semester when (GOOD GOD IS BEETHOVEN'S 9TH ROCKING RIGHT NOW) I was doing about 15 med school applications and secondaries and oh by the way taking 5 classes. This resulted in a lot of all-nighters and lots of falling asleep in classes but valiantly struggling not to do so and trying to keep it discreet, but there is NO way you can do that subtly.)

(Yeah long parentheticals.)

Also there should be a period somewhere up there. Here's another for good measure.

.

Now that we've got our punctuation nice and balanced and have left the grammarians thoroughly fainting in shock, let's figure out what I'ma talk about. TO THE PICASA WEBS.

Oh yeah- I have a photo thingy there (technical term, that). Here's a link: http://picasaweb.google.com/rbcameron3

But yes. Let's talk about December in Paris I guess? Pretty pictures there, and a decent start to this, as is the music, as we've now got some "Black Dog" by Zepplin. I totally just went back and added in quotation marks to appease the many English majors who read this. Didn't stop me earlier, but hey, hooray for inconsistencies.

Actually change of subject. We're not doing December yet. That can go in the next one, as there will hopefully be several, including a regalia or two this evening. I know I've got something in terms of Oh Bev, but I can't think of specific examples, which shames me deeply.

No, dear readers (oh God totally watching that tonight), we're watching (actually oh snap, I'm going to watch that between blog posts. It will totally free up my writing style, because it's not like I'm playing fast and loose with grammar rules and the things that I vaguely reference and now we're on Cocaine by Clapton, who I find sorta meh, but he's supposed to be groovy I guess?), no, not watching, rather talking about something more fun and deadly.

We're going to talk about the Wine Expo.

That's right- Wine Expo. Technically it's Le Salon des vins des Vignerons Indépendants, but we'll call it the Wine Expo.

So here's what goes on: You pay 3 Euros (if you're a student- you can usually find a deal to get a ticket for cheaper anyway). They give you a glass.

They set you loose on an unsuspecting populace of vineyards.

Really, it's for these smaller vineyards to get their product out to restaurants and collectors, but it's basically "If you like wine, come here and taste as much as you want and get a snazzy glass for a low, low price." You can of course buy bottles as well, but I was like, "Hey, this is good, but is it worth paying about 5x more than I could pay for a cheap AOC wine at LIDL? No, I need to save money rather than take advantage of this opportunity to actually get really good wine for pretty cheap."

You can't see this part of the post yet, but you'll know it when you see it.
And to that I say, See?

Anyway, I went over two days with Stephen and one of his friends who's assistanting in Corsica (as well as a bunch of others who are around because some reason, and yes, the "because some reason" was intentional because I wanted to avoid profanity on that point, but it was tempting nonetheless. The things I do for you crazy kids...). See? Here's Stephen and Corsica Johnny. Corsica Johnny... took a while to leave the first night. It was a bit frustrating for all involved, as it was cold outside, and I had a long train ride home. Oh, and music- just got through Celeste Aida being sung by some bro Jon Vickers. But yes, it was a great time- there were all sorts of wines (a sommelier friend- is Richard a sommelier yet? Help me out Fijis who read this...- was floored by the size of the (EFF Just started like 3 conversations and am getting a bit overwhelmed- also, music, went through Wake Up by Rage Against the Machine (screw quotation marks, too many people) and am now on the Money Song from Avenue Q) exposition. It was like a 63 page long pdf of the vineyards there. And lots of people.



Taking a break to nom. Stephen proves his sobriety.

 So yeah, we basically went and drank (and spat- déguster, c'est recracher after all) for most of the time. But we also brought food with us (bread, yogurt, fruit, and a Twix in my case) to nom in the interim and avoid nastiness.

Also EFF MUSIC. Um, Wolf or whatever by Metallica and now Letter Duet from Figaro by some ladies, and you can marvel on who they might be. And now I'm Not Wearing Underwear Today from Avenue Q. And now another will start, and it's Welcome to the Jungle by GnR.

As for the wine, it was really good for the most part. They kinda blend together after a while no matter how hard you try. Mainly, we'd just go to a booth and try their driest white and go down the list from there, but then you run into personal preferences, and after a few hours, your palette gets pretty screwed up. There was one great wine that I remember- Symphonie I believe was the name. It was actually a really apt name for the wine. A sweet but not cloyingly so white wine (and when I get to the parts where I actually SHOULD use parentheses, I don't. Way to go, Rob.), and I couldn't find the booth after that first day where I tried it. Ah well. And now we're on "This Is Who You Are" from Beethoven's Last Night by Trans Siberian Orchestra, accompanied by Bev and Bev Jr having the whispered arguments that you get at night when they think I might be asleep. Oh, scratch the whispering part. Le sigh.

Let's temper that story with an unrelated picture of the crowd.

But yeah, it was a good time, aside from one booth. (See? An attempt at linearity!). That one booth was one where we all kinda sidled up, and Stephen and I hung back for a second. Everyone else gets a tasting of a red. Stephen and I come up and ask for what she'd recommend. She proceeds to rant at us (us being Stephen and me) about how it's not just about tasting and how it's (OH GOD IT'S TANK BY THE SEATBELTS OM NOM NOM) about the vineyards selling their wine to people, and we shouldn't be wasting her time. This was directed uniquely at Stephen and me, and if there was at any point a chance that we would have bought wine from her, she certainly screwed it over.

But after that, there was more wine to be had, and it was groovy. Got myself a wonderful ham and cheese sammich- the food there was pricey of course, but it was really good. There were also people selling wine cellar materials and such. But you know, I honestly didn't take enough pictures of the place, and it was really basically just us going around and tasting wines for hours on end. Lots of fun, but doesn't make for riveting blogging.

So I'll leave you with a picture to give you an idea of the size of this place.

That's a view from the corner of an empty convention center warehouse. Now imagine that packed with tables of vineyards. Awesome.

ANNECY HAPPENS NOW After I talk about the GREs

Okay, I'm one post into my blogstravaganza (patent pending) tonight, and I clearly haven't had enough wine. But I don't want to use all of it tonight, so I'm making do. I guess the next logical post (screw it, I'll follow a somewhat reasonable chronology for this) would be Annecy.

AND IT HAPPENS NOW. (See, this is what happens when you get Rob writing at all, much less with wine.Caps Lock (had to see if there was a space in it) and parentheticals happen. ALL. THE. TIME.) (Well, not all, that would be an exaggeration, but you can probably see why Rob was able to dig on what he got through of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Douglas Adam's body of work.)

Around mid-October (maybe after the Nuit Blanche? Let's assume after to avoid the embarrassment of having said Rob would follow a reasonable chronology and discovering he was lying.), I went to Annecy! Why Annecy? Well, first off, I love me some French Alps. I really would have loved to have been placed in/around Annecy for the people, architecture, and scenery, but I'm glad I got to be in Paris, because I really like a lot of the assistants around here. And I'm tangenting again. No, I don't ramble. I just tangent. Repeatedly... But I digress/tangent.

Anyhoo, the other and honestly more important reason for going to Annecy specifically is because Lindsay "FrauBrow" Brownell was going there with her Swiss Semester kids. Kelvin Bates (of The Nuances fame) also came up, and although he said he would, Ben Riffe was unable to make it. But I don't really know Ben, so it worked out nicely for a Davidson reunion. And I took a TON of pictures, all of which are up on my facebook (http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/profile.php?id=9421694- friend me if you like) and my Picasa Web account (http://picasaweb.google.com/rbcameron3), and hold on my parents are calling on Skype so I can find out my Chem GRE results.

Okay, so the Chem GRE results are in! And I suppose I'll break chronology to talk about the GRE and add a bit to the title to reflect that change. So! I took the Chem GREs in France. There's a GRE site waaaay up north in Paris, and the guy who runs it is a total jerk. I think he was a New England transplant to Paris, but he was clearly unhappy with his job either way. He refused to speak anything other than English when giving priority instructions (even though he spoke French reasonably well) and was generally a pain. But hey, that's what the Subject GREs are all about, right? Pain and suffering. Anyway, I felt pretty good about the GRE, and I ended up scoring an 860 (90th percentile), which is great if I decide to do just a PhD while those scores are still valid. Unlikely, but hey, things like that can happen.

And back to Annecy after that sojourn into pain, suffering, and chemistry. Anyway, the reason why were actually there was teh Alpenage festival. For those of you not in the know about Alpine farming habits (I hear they're famous for their nuts), the Alpenage is when the farmers bring their animals/herds back down from the pastures in the mountains down into the barns and fields closer to home. Most cities might have a little parade or something. Not Annecy. Annecy brings every shopkeeper, every artisan, every giant horn-blower, every animal, and every bit of cheese or apple in a 10 mile radius into the city center for a delicious smelling festival. And the apples are made into cider. Delicious, unpasteurized cider.

Let's take a journey though pictures, shall we? Also Grace is totally IMing me right now and I'm trying to keep a flow, but she's quite awesome and will get some of my attention. Sorry blogosphereotopia!

Anyway, pictures?

Yes. Pictures.

Oh you wacky hostel dwellers.

First off, the hostel. It took some doing, but I DID find a hostel in Annecy, i.e. the only hostel in Annecy. It's a FUAJ one I think, and it's cheapish if you've got a FUAJ card, which I didn't. But they were out of cards, so I couldn't buy one even though I totally would have, and as a result, they gave me the FUAJ rate. Good story, right? But it gets better! After the Parisian hostel experience, I wasn't expecting much, so I left my computer at home to discover that the hostel was PHENOMENAL and had free Wifi. There was also a great continental breakfast (wonderful for working off hangovers when, say, you've had most of a bottle of red wine the night before), and it was super spacious. The only two complaints I had about the place were 1.) it was hard to get to. You had to walk up a hill on a pretty steep (30 to 45 degree) incline to get up there. Since Annecy is a skiing town, I can't imagine what it's like in the winter for backpackers, much less cars. The other one was that it was so spacious that it was hard to meet people. Granted, I was only there for a night and was meeting friends down in town, so that one might not be the best assessment, but it's what I saw.

Another funny story about the hostel! So I get there on the first day and wander into the kitchen, because I brought some snack food (fruit, cheese, bread), not expecting a full kitchen to work with. I feel a bit curious and decide to explore. And by explore, I mean see if the stove burners are on. And by see if the stove burners are on, I don't mean check the dials. Nor do I mean put the back of my hand a reasonable distance away to check the heat. No. I mean stick two fingers on my left hand (I'm left-handed) on each burner in succession to find that the one with the tea kettle was actually on and get two ridiculous 2nd degree burns on my fingers. But they're healed now, so it's groovy.

Anyhoo, I got to Annecy and started to explore that night/meet FrauBrow and co. for drinks. I did see a bunch of rollerbladers around city hall, but I couldn't get a good picture, so you'll have to settle for these pictures of Annecy's canals. If that's a problem, then please dial 382-5968 for a refund.

A nice side street

A main drag of restaurants and cafés

So after a good night's sleep and that wonderful breakfast (Cocoa puffs, toast, milk, etc), I headed out for the festival! And what a festival it was! For example, there were horns!

Everywhere. I cut the pictures down to a minimum on this, but if you look on the Picasa and the Facebook, you'll see that they. Were. Everywhere.

But for now they're right here, along with Kelvin who didn't know I was there yet.

And of course, since it's a festival about cows, you need more cowbell. And boy howdy was there. Possibly more than you needed.

False. No such thing as too much cowbell.

And honey. But more than that, your basic Nicolas Cage repellent: THE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.

Thankfully not stinging my face. But I'm not punching women while in a bear suit.

And like most French open air things, there's this delicious stew. I wish I could make this delicious stew. I think they put it on sandwiches, but I would totally eat that straight. I can't really tell what's in it other than sausage and spices and probably onions and garlic, but I can say that it's absolutely delicious smelling. One day I'll actually try it. One day...

You tell 'em, Rob.

You also have your basic absurd amounts of meat. Wait. Why am I not doing this exposition in captions? Oh wait, because captions are groovy but they can cause issues and I can't remember what they are. Clearly I need more wine. Be right back as I get some maybe. Shouldn't, and actually I won't. Take that, liver!

Aaaand your basic folk-singers. There were yodelers and accordian players- I don't think there were any yodelers in this picture, but there's the accordian guy. And everyone is playing these slappy percussive instruments and dancing. It... was not as good as the food.

This gets captioned. I will leave you centered and caption you. The geese are supposedly in bowties for the parade, but we missed that part of the parade. Alas and alack, right? Right.

And more importantly than any of the other animals and such was, of course, the cider. The delicious, delicious, delicious, unpasteurized, got carbonated on the train ride home but was still deliciious, cider. Here's me with the cider. Also, this apparently shows how unhealthily I was eating the first month here? I don't really see the sunken cheeks people are talking about, but maybe I'm just in denial.

Or focused on that receding hairline.

And there's a picture of the prison and the canals in the daytime! And also the absurd amount of people at this thing. Seriously. You could barely move in some parts. Still, the cider and free samples from the cooking school made it totally worth it.



This would have been a caption, but that would have been stupid.

 Pies. The French can do pie in a very appetizing way, but they always seem a bit light for my taste. Speaking of pie, I"m going to reward myself with some once I've got this blog a bit more caught up. I would do it once it's totally caught up, but man, it's late. I had a 14 hour bus ride with a French dick who thought it was okay to crush my legs with his seat. And then I didn't get enough sleep last night. And then I taught today. I'm tired and will sleep. But I will have pie before I go to bed, because Bev is worried about it spoiling (not as if she's helping with the eating much, because apparently it's too heavy for her sensitive French tastes. This will go into a future Oh Bev, but I'll throw the tag on for the heck of it.), and it's too delicious to spoil. But the pie pictures will go up tonight!

And here are some pictures of the crowd and the parade. Wait.

Wait.

The flow is gone for a bit. Let me get it back. I can so do better than what I just did. Also the wine is done from my glass. Saaad day.

Okay, let's get this flow back. Mafia Wars is always good to numb the brain for a bit.

So after a day of wandering, FrauBrow, I-Got-A-Fever-And-The-Only-Cure-Is-More-Kel-Bell, and Yours Truly, The Insane Nicknamer and Blogger Who's Probably Not Reaaally Insane But Who Can Tell These Days Anyway And Where Are the Hyphens And Why Is The Capitalization Not Consistent went out to the parade. Probably a bit later than we should have- we had wonderful coffee with gummy gators...

I feel like we named the gators. Did we name the gators?

... and it was groovy, though pricey. But hey, Annecy. But we got to the parade and found this:

Pictured: This.

Thankfully, some people did end up moving, so we were able to shift up and get some good pictures. Such as these!

What? Nine-Cowsand?

But wait! There's more!

Christmas? A humbug, uncle?

Yeah, those captions subtle enough for you? I thought so. BECAUSE I READ SHIT. Ooops. There's another swear. And an irrational one at that. We'll see if I can actually get those pie pictures up. I hope I can. Eep.

But then we've got some nice couple shots.

Frau Brow and IGAFATOCIMKB

Whatever the long nicknames were and Rob's fanny pack birthing a cider

Don't judge the fanny pack. It has swallowed up greater men than thee.

And before my sanity slips tooooo much more, let's leave with a nice picture of the mountain by Annecy (taken from the Annecy park).

That's right. Soooooothe the crazy.

All in all, a fabulous Davidson reunion in Europe. If only there had been more cider to take home...

Okay that's a crappy way to end the post. We can do better than that? We can do better than that.

Okay, maybe I can't. I'm getting a bit groggy and such. We'll end with the thought of the upcoming entry on pie. Nothing can beat that.

NOTHING.

Okay, let's do this: Meh, could do holidays, but let's start with Nuit Blanche

Give me a moment- I'm working through some Bergerac (totes dece) and trying to figure out what I've said on here already. I'm sorry for the absence- that will get explained via some updates as soon as I feel like I should get to that one. (Long story short- New Year's in Germany. But you'll totally get the long story once I get to that post.)

Anyhoo, I think I'll start with Nuit Blanche. "Why, what is Nuit Blanche?" you're probably asking. "Is it the hip new band that all the youngsters are listening to? Is it Cloak and Dagger's evil twin (triplet?)?" No, true believers. Nuit Blanche is a night where lots of things (museums, metro, etc.) in Paris are open "really late." See, Nuit Blanche means "all-nighter." But as someone who has actually done all-nighters (enough to hallucinate that one time in Reason and Argument- I still say those weird red worms were on the chalkboard and McKeever just couldn't see them), I can tell you that the Parisian standard is a bit low. I mean, they were done by like 3:30 AM. What is this? Not an all-nighter, that's what. But enough about my elitism about all-nighters (to say nothing of my general elitism, to which I'm sure many can attest). Let's get on with the show and the pictures!

The lovely and inimitable Grace Wang and I met up on this year's Nuit Blanche. Grace opted to meet up with an assistant named Suzie. And well... we met up with Suzie. And some of Suzie's Moroccan friends studying in Paris. They were reasonably cool, and were nice enough to offer us drinks, but everyone except Grace and I had already done a Nuit Blanche, which I think contributed to the fact that we stayed in that... not gonna swear despite the wine... darned apartment for about 3 hours before going out. As a result, we didn't get to do nearly as much as I would have liked. Moral of the story: if you're doing a Nuit Blanche one time, make sure you have a plan before you go out. Anyway, I'm not bitter about that. Not at all. But I'll show you some pictures. Why it's a but rather than an and or a so or even a lack of conjuction, and why I didn't use quotation marks for those various words is beyond me. But I have pie once I finish these blog posts, so I'll try to keep this flowing and growing.

So our first big stop was Sacré Coeur. We took some pictures there. I don't think I got a good shot of the view from there, but it was pretty nice. Let's roll those pictures!

Pretty church.



The pretty church (Sacré Coeur for the attention-challenged) again.



Me, Suzie, and Grace. We're smiling because we haven't realized how early everything will close. WHOOPS SPOILERS.

Oh wait. Found one of the view.

Not a great one, mind you.

And then we wandered a bit. I took pictures of it because damn was it stereotypically Parisian. Oh whoops. Swore me a cuss there.

But so Parisian that the cuss was worth a swore.

That one, not so much. Let's see if we can't do better, shall we?

Oh that's a bit better. A for effort I suppose.

We then went to the Palais de Tokyo, which was a major disappointment- there were about two rooms open, and it was modern art, so they were pretty sparse. Then, the Moroccans and Suzie decided to bail to sleep, because they know nothing of all-nighters. I mean come on. This was at like 2 AM. If that. Come on guys. Man up.

Anyway, Grace and I came across someplace across from Palais de Tokyo. We were attracted by the flashing lights. And here's a picture of the light not flashing! But seriously, it was. You can totally trust me on that fact.

If you want to simulate the flashing, blink at irregular intervals. Also try to take a picture in the meanwhile. Fun for the whole family! Unless epilepsy is around.

There was also a statue there. It was hard to get a good picture with the flashing chandelier, let me tell you.

Ah, Naked Dude in Pelt. Not his real name, most likely, but I'm trying here.

And around this point, everything started to close, but Grace and I didn't know that, so we wandered over around Musée Rodin and whatever is over there. Musée d'Orsay and other stuff. Maybe the Louvre? It smelled good at least- food vendors were still in full force, though we did not partake. Hélas! Anyway, here is a groovy picture of the Seine.

Okay, C for effort this time. Seriously man, keep your hands steady.

And there's also a government building whose name I cannot recall. It's an important one though. Note to Dr. Sutton if he's reading this: I totally paid attention in Contemporary France. My test scores will however reflect that I do not have the mind to recall who lives where and works where in Paris. Condolences.

Nor do I know the laws Mitterand passed between 1980 and 1981.

Pretty, innit? Anyhoo, around this time, EVERYTHING was closed. We made it over to the Champs-Elysées, not knowing that everything (including metro) was closed, but hey, we tried. We basically sat in a metro station for a couple of hours while Grace tried to sleep a bit. I then tried and failed to get my Navigo bought, because the offices weren't open when they said they would be. Hooray for Paris.

Seriously, better times have been had. Once again, if ever doing a Nuit Blanche for the first time, please plan ahead. You don't have to stick to it too seriously, but it at least means you'll have a reason to leave a bunch of Moroccans' apartment rather than spend most of your time there.

Not that I'm bitter.