Virtually Home

My friend Bethan is leaving town in a few hours. We met for coffee today at a shockingly American coffee shop called, inappropriately (and in English) "the French coffee shop". They had all kinds of fancy, sugar-filled coffee drinks in addition to the espresso that is normally available. We started talking about the things we miss about home, and what we'll miss about France. I think the thing that drives me crazy about being here is the utter lack of pressure or stress that exists. There is no emphasis placed on efficiency or customer service, as far as I've seen in my several months here. All of the concentration of those people I've directly observed goes to aesthetics. Leisure. Personal relationships. Which is great for the worker or the citizen, and pretty terrible for the consumer (or, maybe, my type of consumer). Maybe my problems stem from my deep hatred for shopping and desire for blitzkrieg execution of all plans that involve buying things or services....

Last night there was a "tempête", which the internet translates as "gale" or "storm" or "uproar". I'm guessing that first is the most appropriate, because there was a lot of wind. However, it wasn't enough wind to shut down anything except maybe the C-152s at training schools, had it happened in Oklahoma. They shut down the trams on account of the storm hours early, and I was expecting more. The sky was clear and the moon was full and we ended up at a house party with some friends. The remarkable thing about a house in Bordeaux is that it's more like a multi-story, multi-bedroom apartment, since all of the buildings in Bordeaux are connected to each other. This particular house was among the most spacious places I've seen in France. The bathroom was, as Nico said, big enough to play soccer in, and there was a small garden in the back yard, complete with a magnolia tree. When the gale was starting, it was oddly warm and felt a lo...

This morning I woke up thinking about my maternal language, and how it puts adjectives in front of the nouns they modify. And I thought to myself that, probably, this detail has influenced the way that I think in some way. And that way is probably to make me put more emphasis on the quality of a thing, relative to the type of thing it is. And then I thought it was too early to have this thought. I may think about it more later.