Virtually Home

Today, France decided to let me catch a break. I was told Auchan might come sometime today. My phone rang at 10 a.m., and I, having been awake until five, struggled to be awake enough to understand French through the phone. For some reason it's a lot harder than in person. The guy on the other end said he'd be at my house somewhere between right that instant and 11, so I scrambled to get dressed and go get cash from the ATM to pay him with. When he arrived, he started tinkering with the washing machine and asked me if I still had the estimate. Awkward, because we never got the estimate and no, I didn't even have the bill that the first guy left me when he came to make the estimate. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized he might decide not to do the work, lacking that damned signature on the form. To my surprise, he kept working. He called the company to get the price of the part, installed it, and was in and out in fifteen minutes -- the total cost...

So I went to the book store this afternoon and picked up a Robert & Collins English vocabulary study guide, which I'm planning on using backwards. I thought it was pretty clever. Plus, it'll teach me Britishisms! The better to understand my rapidly expanding base of non-American anglophone friends. On the way to the book store I took several photos of the various Christmas trees and light displays near my house. Unfortunately, I discovered that the photos are just a little too blurry even for my hasty posting here. I'll go back and take more time with them. Practice holding my breath and being really still for those long exposures. Maybe I should get a tripod. Point being: you have to wait a while for Christmas photos. In other Christmas news, I've expanded the Great European Christmas Adventure of Ought Nine/Ten (I'm rethinking this title as a result of the awkwardness of the year 2010. On the one hand, I'm already angry about not being able to use the ...

Yesterday I went to see The Box with Anthony, which, by the way, was pretty confusing and not at all what I expected. But beforehand, during the inevitable pre-preview commercials, I saw something I've never seen before. A commercial soliciting volunteers for the French Army! And I was struck by all the differences in the advertising campaigns. Lately, the US Army ads I've seen have been all electric guitars and montages of guys doing things like scaling cliffs alone, or drilling with rifles in the rain. The French ad, on the other hand, was all about interspersing images of soldier life and personal life -- I guess kind of like the ads for the Reserves at home. The guy would be on a motorcycle with his girlfriend, and then he'd be leading a troop of uniformed soldiers out of a helicopter, and making hand signs. There was always lots of technology in the picture, and no silly feats of strength. The shots never focused on the guns. There were no swords, and there were no...

Today I left the apartment with the full intention of finally completing my administrative enrollment and getting my student ID card made before I leave town this weekend. So, I hopped on the tram in time to get there about 30 minutes after the office workers were supposed to come back from lunch -- I figured I'd give them some time to NOT be back when they were expected...since that seems to be what's expected. And, of course, the tram service was "interrupted", since it so often seems to be, a few stops from my apartment, for a "suspicious package". At least, that's what I translated it as -- I hope I was correct. I guess it was a terrorist scare. Anyway, we had to disembark, and we walked what google tells me was 2.3 km to school, on the way passing the "suspicious package" which was completely invisible, but roped off and sort of swarming with police who only seemed to be keeping foot traffic away, and not really looking at the problem at...