Photo post!

SO because i haven't been blogging for a while, but i have been taking loads and loads of photos, here is a gratuitous photo blog entry about nothing in particular!

First off: the People of Paris.


The civ bunch! Funny and cool.


The Asian people who speak a language i am only beginning to understand.


And the people i hang out the most with. Seen here outside sacré coeur. Not that blur looking guy on the left, of course.

Also, to quickly dispel any myths that i haven't been eating well:

Foie gras!


Steak Tartare! It tastes about the same as it looks. But it was interesting nonetheless.


Happy people eating Salmon quiche by the roadside, of which of course i partook. Damn good la!!!


More foie gras, this time with duck and salmon and caramelized apples. Good stuff.

etc.

So actually, i have been eating pretty well, but i just haven't really been eating a lot quantity wise. And that's because EVERYTHING HERE IS TINY.

Evidence:

Baby mussels as big as your fingernail!


Tiny salt shakers for tiny sandwiches! Apparently the French think you shouldn't feel the need to add salt and pepper to your food, which is of course very good. The sandwich in the background providing scale is by the way wincy's favourite sandwich.

Ya. So now is the promised what have we been doing photospread.


See gargoyle.


See church. (Notre Dame at night)


See more churches. (Basilisque of St. Denis, note the stained glassed light cast on the wall. Cool!)


See castle. (Chambord in the Loire Valley)


See Eiffel tower. (At sunset!)

I could go on.... but this is probably big enough a strain on load times anyway. More in the next post! Whenever that may be. =)

oops, technical glitch

So this is what happens when you try to change publishing options: I was accidentally publsihing on fandingo.blogspot.com for a while and that's where all my new posts were going. Now changed back!

Rie: what's that about publishing on your own server? I tried but the blue bar at the top is still there. Irritating.

The dining room is proud to present......your dinner.

So it's probably a function of how i wasn't very hungry and was merely eating for nutritional purposes, but wow what an amazing spread there was for dinner tonight.

Blue option:
1. Failed attempt to transmute a dead chicken, served with beans on the side

Red options:
2. Patty of hambeefmeat, with mashed potatoes, which was actually decent but i didn't really feel like reprocessed meat today
3. Steak and fries.

woooo steak. I decided that for the same price, who wouldn't want steak and fries over reprocessed meats?

Only i later realised it was more like steak and fires. Lots and lots and lots of fires. On closer inspection it seemed like the ideal cooking process for steak in the Resto U is to put the steak on top of a fire, add kerosene to the flames, and then go off somewhere to read the papers. La Monde, LA Times, New York Times, the lot of them. Then came back and remembered all about the steak and tried to hide it a bit under the fries.

So i drank a lot of water because i was dehydrated and everyone knows that water is good for you and thus is essential to a nutritionally balanced meal. Then after about 600ml i remembered how a certain bio major said how you shouldn't drink water at a meal coz it hinders digestion. So i stopped.

At least the fries were good.

A little less conversation

So it's been a really long time since i last posted, and i thought i'd put something quick up to let people know i'm still alive...

These past few weeks have been insanely busy, one quarter of civ has gone by in a flash with tonnes of readings and quizzes and a paper and stuff. Add a visit from a friend in Switzerland and a whirlwind trip back to Chicago for Beauty World (which was absolutely amazing!!! but i'm biased of course)... boom and we're in the end of April.

So today i take this well-earned long-awaited non-alarmed nap in the afternoon, and the next thing i know i awake from a weird dream where i'm drinking water from a tap, and it's bright out. *momentary disorientation* and a wonder as to what time it is (switch on handphone to check) and i realise.... wtf! 8:30pm! Whereupon my immediate thought is not "what a pig i was" but "dining hall closes in 30 minutes".

So i wake up and head for dinner (what an exciting life!!) and being alone for once, hunt down a nice spot to sit. It wasn't until later that i realised i'd subconsciously chosen a spot near a bunch of people speaking in heavy zhong guo qiang, perhaps for the more familiar soundtrack they provided me with for dinner.

Now not too long ago i was completely enamoured with the french language and thought it one of the more flowing and pleasant sounding ones around, and i was very happy to be going to Paris where there would abound endless amounts of such aural beauty. Which makes it strange that i ended up appreciating the chinese language's sound now that i'm here. I guess the only measure of value is scarcity.

Strike two...

So spring is very much in the air in Paris, and the sun is setting later and the wind keeps all the air pollution away and circulates nice fresh air all over. Perfect weather for a walk.

So we walk home from The School, and stop by chinatown which is naturally on the way home for dinner. We see a macdonalds with a chinese menu (Wah!) but my chinese isn't powerful enough to figure out what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in Paris at a Chinese Macdonalds. And we stop to eat at a random place which had nice roasted meats hanging in the window.

Enter Roast Duck:



Damn exciting. Rice. Duck. Yum.

BTW the stale you tiao in the background is 1.60 Euroes.

Anyway. So then we walk home from there, passing by at least 4 buses which run the route from dorm to school. Amazing how efficient the transport system is and how many buses are on the road at the same time.... pity none of them are moving due to this absolutely frigging humongous traffic jam caused by the strikes. Ya. First Paris Chinatown experience, courtesy of the CPE.

Time cost: 1hr 45 min (no we didn't eat really slowly)
Meal cost: E$6.30
Nice Rice: Priceless.

C'est la vie!

In the sense that this is THE life!

Paris is a wonderful city full of wonderful food and wonderful sights. And now that i'm alive after my first quiz and have my server back online, we have the beginning of photo marathons.

First. This is the outside of where i live.

The words read: "Foundation of the US" as you can probably figure out. Which doesn't actually mean anything, it's an international dorm and there are people here from lots of places, and the people who work here don't understand english. Which isn't too bad, because you're forced to learn french to express basic human needs like "the sink in my room is leaking", "i would like to buy some of your hideously expensive laundry tokens please" and "help why can i not get a password for the internet? Has the guy spontaneously taken leave for 3 days?"

This is my spartan but soon becoming homely room:



The more observant of you will note the presence of milo on the shelf, which unfortunately is difficult to make in the absence of a hot water making device, but tastes pretty good with cold Volvic anyway. Also the source of illumination at night is an upturned reading lamp which serves pretty well, really.

This is a face of 1/4 of my favourite pillar:


It's Esus, the gallic god of the Harvest on the pillar of Nautes, and my favourite stone pillar of the moment.

This is food i windowshop for:


Because window shopping for food is a complete and utter possibility. Everything here is really pretty and creative, and i've seen utterly amazing creations of food and confectionary which look too good to eat, and are usually also too expensive to eat on a regular basis. Those little cakes above? $4 Euro apiece.

This is what i ate:


Which is a really good pizza. In the background is a salmon and cream cheese pizza, which was also pretty good stuff. Interesting food to be found here, but a great lack of vegetables, so i'm beginning to fruit a lot. Today by mistake I ate the best strawberry (singular) of my life, which came from a bunch which cost $24 Euroes per kg. It was a happily unfortunate mistake by my friend, placed cunningly as it was underneath the huge "4.90 Euroes per kg for strawberries" sign, and next to the tiny sign stating the actual price. It was DAMN GOOD though. A nice uniform raspberry reddish color, nice and soft and slightly bouncy, but firm on the inside and totally sweet, without that slight sour tang which often accompanies strawberries. Gosh. I could totally eat those strawberries until i develop some form of food allergy.

As for what i do with my time.... that's the subject of the next post.