Virtually Home

French stereotypes that make a Jessie happy: Men in striped shirts. Ridiculous mustaches. Poodles. Hearing anyone, at any time, say "Ooh là là". Seeing French children rollerblading with baguettes under their arms. Terrifying cheeses. Seeing anyone selling escargot, ever. The omnipresence of wine. French stereotypes that make a Jessie unhappy: Constant smoking of cigarettes. That guy who reeks. And inevitably stands next to you on the tram. Complete lack of efficiency, promptness or competence.

But that's not really the theme of this post. I just thought it was funny. The photo on the left is just down the street from my house, as they were finishing a building-cleaning job on both sides of the street. I was intrigued by the catwalk between projects, but I guess when the scaffolding gets to a certain height that might be a good idea. What seems to not be a good idea is the way they build and tear down the scaffolding, throwing lengths of steel piping at one another from a great height. It looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I cringed every time I had to walk by a guy tossing something heavy down at the street. I have definitely fallen down on my blogging job. Since my last post I have endured a few more days of incompetent workmen to end up with a kitchen that is less leaky and also less waterproof, as our countertops have now changed from laminate to wood, varnished with a single coat. I like the visual effect. They're less ugly and easier to keep clean. Not th...

On Saturday we woke up earlier than any of our bodies would have liked, and the extra-France residents had their first experience with a curtainless shower. Meredith was still feeling pretty exhausted and opted to stay home for the first part of the day, and save her energy for the Eiffel Tower that night. Mel and I took a few metro lines to the RER C and rode it all the way out to Versailles, which was a trip I hadn't taken before. Since we'd seen the Louvre just the day before, the whole trip felt like a big tour of Louis XIV's ego. The palace was, of course, beautiful and incredibly grandiose. It was also choked with people, and Mel and I were pretty constantly exclaiming over various photographic opportunities we might have had, were we given a shot that wasn't full of other tourists. There was a photographic exhibition on display, celebrating the palace and its significance over the years. They had photos from pretty much the inception of the camera, to the sig...

Last night we went out with our friends Carley and Danielle to celebrate the end of their finals week. It was still sort of surreal to me, maybe because I really only had about two weeks of actual work during the whole semester, and most of that was me procrastinating my paper rather than just getting it done. Still, it was a good celebratory outing. Vianney and Benjamin ended up meeting up with us. Somewhere near the park at Gambetta at around midnight we encountered the only group of violent people I've yet run across in France, who, after asking us if we had any cigarettes, for some reason I couldn't understand, hit Alex and then pushed Benjamin over twice before disappearing into the night. Everyone was okay, if a little confused. We hurried home. This morning was its own trial. I had alerted our landlady to the possibility that Something Was Very Wrong with our kitchen plumbing. Every couple of hours there's this tremendous gurgling and water sort of shoots out of...