Travels with MissElaineous

I know my affection's been waning. You see, there's another blog.

2010-01-03T05:47:00.003+01:00

I missed writing. This is mostly for my own fancy as well as a way to document my meandering path through 2010.

http://dejaclue.wordpress.com/

Bon appetite.

The title I’ve spent all summer waiting to write: American Girl in Paris, Part Un

2008-07-30T23:12:00.013+02:00

The title I’ve spent all summer waiting to write: American Girl in Paris, Part Un
Brownie points for those of you who caught the infamous Sex and the City reference
Approximately 7:18 p.m.

Once again I find myself blogging on board a TGV high speed train originating in Paris and bound for Strasbourg. There was a rather disruptful complication with the high speed lines that caused all the trains before ours to be delayed and consequently ours too; however we just reached normal speeds and I’m now watching the French countryside breeze by my window.

Paris: the baited breath of my entire summer. I muse that I did most of my weekend traveling in reverse-logical order, saving the more practical and renowned for last.

As I said to Jeremy (my co-worker whom I spent the weekend with - at his grandmother’s), how could I not leave Paris with a positive perspective and pleasant memories? I’m the charmed American girl who had a personal French tour guide to take me directly to all my highlighted sites AND had a local grandmother fuss over my meals and comfort all weekend long. Transversing Paris remained a breeze and all the locals were so accommodating when you have a French escort. This American girl cannot fathom the attitude she was warned about.

Friday

How did I end up going to Paris with Jeremy anyway?

Jeremy came to the lab in June and spent two months working on his summer intern project as part of his chemistry requirements for his university in Leon. (The French have a very different system for their summer internships). All of France – this is no exaggeration – takes the month of August off for vacation so Jeremy is currently going out to the west coast of France in Brittany for vacation with his parents. There was a problem moving out of his flat in Strasbourg that meant he had to change his train tickets to either a Friday or Sunday and find somewhere to stay until he met up with his parents.

Meanwhile I was perplexed about what I was going to do in order to get to Paris. I figured I couldn’t call myself an American tourist if I spent three months here and left without a glimpse of the Tour d’Eiffel.

Jeremy was thinking of spending the weekend in Paris with his grandmother. Like an idea light bulb turning on over his head, he offered to have me come and stay and we could go see all the sites around Paris since he rarely goes around as a tourist. Perfect.

Friday was busy just like my past two weeks have been. After work Jeremy brought in some snacks and wine and we had a small lab going away party. From there Jeremy and I gathered up our bags and headed for the train station. It looked pretty humorous that I had one rolling bag and he had a three.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, buying tickets with a Frenchman proved quite handy. We ended up with 1st class tickets for cheaper than the rate for 2nd to Paris. Awesome.

The train ride was uneventful and we just planned out (using my handy-dandy Lonely Planet guidebook that has everything) our three days in Paris.

We got to Paris, took the metro, took the suburbian train, and arrived at his grandmother’s. She had dinner all ready for us. [See Dinner with Grandmere subset for the details] Jeremy’s grandmother lives alone in a relatively quiet suburb of Paris. She’s about a 15 minute train ride from one of the train stations/metro. She lives on the 6th floor (American 7th floor) which is reachable by a tini-tiny elevator that was smaller than a coat closet. Since she raised many kids (I think 6?) she also took over a flat on the second floor that was converted to just bedrooms, a bathroom, and a laundry room. Jeremy and I got our own rooms on the second floor, and I got to stay in the larger guest room.

Diner avec Grandmere

Let me take a moment and put you in my shoes:
I’ve been living away from home -- in a foreign country -- for three months now. I was lucky enough to get a visit from my dad, but other than that…
- I live in a shitty dorm with toilet-seatless “shit holes” that I share with boys and my showers are timed to 5 second intervals
- While I’m doing a good job cooking for myself, this still takes preparation and effort after work on my part
- I don’t touch anyone. Strasbourg is a spread out city, and any contact I have with humans (Dad’s visit aside) involves the one time a week I might end up in a crowded elevator with strangers. If someone helps me in the lab, this contact remains shielded through a lab coat and gloves
The last statement might read odd at first, but it’s something I realized a few weeks ago. I never hug a friend, or my parents, or my cocker spaniel Phoebe, or cuddle with my big strong boyfriend. Living so long without any human contact starts to wear on psychological state…

So here I am. I show up on the doorstep of this typical, doting grandmother who made dinner for us every night, made sure we slept well, prepared breakfast, talked to us, smiled at us, and greeted us with the quintessential French two-cheeked kiss. I didn’t have to wear shower shoes in the shower and there casual creature comforts everywhere (rugs, Kleenexs, soft sheets, fluffy pillows, a TV, lamps, photographs of family… I could elaborate forever.)

Hopefully you see why it felt SO GOOD to stay in a “home” instead of a makeshift dorm or budget hotel.

I’m going to do my best to relay this accurately. While nothing was every overly done or formally fancy, there were definitely observable and particular Parisian/personal habits. For instance, when she showed us our rooms she got out a bottle of water and a glass, placed in on a miniature tray covered with a laced, white linen doily. The glass had a cartoon character on it and I later discovered the bump under the doily was really a tiny child’s toy; abandoned undoubtedly from one of her many grandchildren.

For dinner we had linen napkins, though none of them matched and only mine came in a special crocheted pouch. Dinners were essential, everyday France at its best.

We never had less than three courses and always ate after 7. The over the three nights our first course consisted of tiny triangle sandwiches covered in a type of pate with a tiny pickle, the next day a small salad, and finally a slice of very fresh cantaloupe (which came with it’s own special seriated spoon.)

Baguette slices were always served as well. The first night we had chicken cutlets with browned, scalloped potatoes. Saturday we had fish on a bed of rice and a tomato cream sauce, and then we had chicken in a mustard crème sauce followed by homemade ratatouille.

We were always offered cheese as a course afterwards though this was always declined.

Dessert was a must. Friday we had a miniature frozen cup of an ice cream sundae, then Saturday she made a fresh Tarte aux Pommes (apple tart, not to be confused with American apple pie), and then Sunday held a special surprise. We had mini éclairs (both chocolate and caramel) and then Fromage Blanc (translation, white cheese). It had the flavor of cream cheese but the consistency of yogurt. I had never had this before and it was one of those instances where I casually had to watch how everyone else ate it before attempting it on my own. We swirled in berry jam (though I understand you could do just put in plain sugar) and then ate it that way. Can’t say it was my all time favorite dessert ever, but I enjoyed it. Wouldn’t mind eating it again, though I’m not going to cry that we don’t an equivalent in the United States.

The French are not big on breakfast. Cereal apparently is a relatively new cultural trend as well. I read when I first got here that the French mostly like to have yesterday’s baguettes with jam and croissants only on the weekends. Pain au Chocolat (a type of croissant pastry with two kit-kat sized chocolate sticks in the middle) is also a common breakfast item.

So at grandma’s she always had coffee heating and then we had no other than Florida orange juice. She we also had cereal, toast, jam, and Nutella. It was great.

Just another Saturday in Paris

After breakfast Jeremy and I left the north western suburb of Bécon les Bruyères for the outskirts of Paris: destination Versailles.

This would also be an appropriate place to note that heavy rain and clouds were predicted all weekend long in Paris. Expecting the type of miserable weather I’ve had on several other weekend get-aways I packed my umbrella, coat, rain jacket, and positive “go get ‘em” attitude.

So didn’t need it. The weather was cool in the morning and got warm by the afternoon. Special thanks to whoever un-did a rain dance for me from the United States.

Jeremy had never been to Versailles, so he was just as eager to see it. Ok, maybe not eager, but didn’t mind actually seeing it. We arrived and of course there were mobs and mobs of tourists. There was a guy talking French on a loudspeaker and Jeremy exclaimed “he’s not even French! He has a weird accent, not even the tourguides working here are French!” That was fun, because he sounded French to me.

The lines were terribly – and I mean terribly – long to get inside the palace so we decided that walking around the gardens would be just fine. Honestly I’ve seen enough palaces, cathedrals, castles, that missing the hall of mirrors and four hours in line was not a loss. After my two cups of coffee, I needed to find a bathroom. There was a huge line for the women, of course, and Jeremy and I joked that this better be one spectacular bathroom if you have to wait that long.

Let’s just say it was a disappointment.

During the summer Versailles puts on “Les grandes eaux musicals de Versailles,” or musical fountains, and puts on all the fountains in the morning and then in the evening while literally blasting classical music from speakers in the bushes. We both found this whole thing kind of humorous. We couldn’t even carry on a conversation when we were next to it, but once you ventured to the side gardens it was actually pleasant.

Also hilarious: lazy tourists. Apparently you can rent a golf cart type thing to go around the garden. I mean really, unless you are handicapped there is no reason for this. Get off your butt and walk around. It’s not like it’s a mountain or something. So Jeremy kept joking that he was going to steal some carts so we could race around with each other. Now that I think would have been neat. Moral of the story, if you go to Versailles, why don’t you work off that croissant and get some fresh air.

Once again, I got to feel like a mild badass. Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna was built by Maria Theresa to rival Versailles. The only difference is they used techniques like stucco to stretch their treasury. If you remember, this is also where Professor Waldman was actually a total badass by telling off the guards (in German) inside for accusing him of not being a registered tourguide and giving tours. When they protested, we did it anyway. It was just neat to actually have the two to compare.

After walking around the gardens for a long spell, and seeing a bunny!, we headed for lunch on the recommendation of my guidebook. We went to this small creperie and got the set traditional meal of a galette, crepe, and some cider. Jeremy told me I should get a traditional galette (like the ones from Brittany, where he is going and has family) that had ham, egg, and cheese inside.

It was very good, duh. I really love these things and have a feeling I’m going to love my recent purchase of a authentic, 28 cm crepe pan. For my dessert crepe, I picked “Belle Hélène” (which was my French name in high school). I was very good. Chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream.

According to Jeremy he said this place really wasn’t that good, but I disagree. Then again, I’m not French and I can count the number of galettes I’ve had on one hand. Maybe two.

Next stop downtown Paris. This involved getting back on a train. While we were sitting, resting our legs, Jeremy looked up and said “guess what I see…” and I turned and got my first look at the Eiffel Tower.

Now I’ve spent two months explaining to Jeremy the obsession Americans have 1) with Paris, 2) with the Eiffel Tower. So we had fun talking about how I can die happy now, my life is complete, blah blah blah.

So when I saw the Eiffel Tower I squealed, we laughed, and enjoyed the moment.

We got off the tram turned metro, walked up stairs, around a corner, and then boom, there it was. The monument to France I’ve seen only about a million times in my life. Even my desk lamp at home is the Eiffel Tower.

I’m going to admit it: the Eiffel Tower was cool. I think it symbolizes everything about me being an American in France this summer.

haha that’s crap. But you get my point. It really does make a visual statement and it’s easy to find yourself temporarily mesmorized by it.

While walking around the base, we came across a group of British activists preparing to cheer “home” their loved ones who had been on a bike marathon thing from England to Paris. I talked to one of the ladies (in English!!!) and she said they were raising money for premature babies (Office Fans: how about rabies?) and we talked about how their tushes must be tired! It’s nice to quickly, and merrily, converse with someone in English.

After that we did more walking around, walked over the Champs-Élysées, which was getting prepared for the end of the Tour de France. We crossed it, and I got my picture/glimpse from the middle of it. I’m a risk taker.

Next we went over to the Louvre so I got to see the glass pyramid. We sat down by the fountains and watched people get yelled at every 15 minutes for playing in it.

After that we went back to his grandmother’s for dinner. While Jeremy went to take a shower I watched a little CNN and got to hear things about America, including Obama’s visit to Paris.

Jeremy and I then went back into the city to a bar he had been to with his friends over Bastille Day weekend. They had a live singer, who sung American songs, and we just sat and talked about life. Mainly we talked about dating, bad dates, good dates, girls, why girls sometimes suck, how guys can suck, etc. Looks like dating is the same in France as it is in the US. Even Jeremy thought my dating stories before Adamo was horrible. This was both sad and amusing.

Also to get to the bar, we took the automated metro. Jeremy and I sat in the front of the train, on opposite sides, so we both got to see out of it as it careened through the dark tunnel. Well these two guys, who looked like French rappers came and sat next to us, and started making it obvious (unbeknownst to them) that they were talking about us. Apparently they were making bets if Jeremy was English or French since he was talking in English. Then he smiled and started talking in French to them, and they burst out laughing that he understood everything they had been saying.

Jeremy wouldn’t tell me what they were saying. I think it had something to do with me being a blonde American girl. Just a wild crazy guess though.

Afterwards we headed back, and on the suburbian train I guess I was speaking a little too loud. Honestly, it was a loud train and I think just the fact that it was English (any foreign language is very distracting) these two guys behind Jeremy said in French “those English need to be quiet” and Jeremy snapped around, and started talking in French, saying “for one, she’s not English, second she’s not talking that loud, and third you really could have asked more politely” and they shut up. We got off the train, and I said “well I probably was talking too loud” and Jeremy was like “no you weren’t, fuck them, they were rude and that’s not your fault. I hate people like that.”

Who knows if I was actually talking inappropriately loud or not, but this was the only time I got an attitude, and it really wasn’t a problem at all.

Just another Sunday in Paris

Sunday started at the Musee d’Orsay, the art museum for art nouveau and impressionists.

Toulouse Lautrec, Monet, Van Gogh, and the saintly Renoir.

I could have stared at Monet’s color palette for a month, and Renoir for eternity.

This is all I’m going to say on the matter.

Afterward Jeremy and I went to the Latin quarter and got sandwiches from a bakery. We then headed off to see Notre Dame. The outside was prettier than the inside. Glad I went, but it was just another cathedral.

I owe the next site to the Sunbury’s. They insisted, and highly recommended, I go see St. Chapelle which was right around the corner from Notre Dame. My guidebook said we’d have to pay to get in, and I was really tempted to just blow it off. But we went, and I’m SO glad we did.

To just quickly sum up a book’s worth of history – most of which I don’t know – St. Chapelle is a small medieval church whose chapel is completely incased in enormous stained glass. It wasn’t that crowded, and it really did feel like you were inside a Moroccan lamp. If you tried to focus too much on any individual pane of colored glass your eyes would flicker as your brain tried to sort through the intricate colors. We just sat inside the church for a bit and took it all in.

This church is the prime example of why Notre Dame and St. Peters really didn’t wow me. Churches like St. Chapelle have something special about them. While much smaller and not as grand, they just leave a more powerful impact on the bewildered spectator.

Poor Jeremy. Here is this former-Catholic atheist getting dragged around to all the Catholic churches in Paris. Oh well.

After that we walked over to where the Tour de France was happening, took in some of the buzz, then retreated the mobs. I was there- and that’s enough for me.

We went back, had dinner, and then Jeremy set his cell phone alarm for the light show on the Eiffel Tower. When it was 10 and 11, we went out on his grandmother’s balcony and watched the show. The way the tower glitters really reminded me of a sparkler on the 4th of July.

Just another Monday in Paris

Ever since middle school I’ve been shamelessly obsessed.

My all time favorite soundtrack, EVER, in this world would be the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. I have parts I and II. I love the movie. I love everything about it.

Our next destination is obvious. Montmartre. I listened to Moulin Rouge in front of THE Moulin Rouge and took silly pictures. Jeremy took a video, which I deleted.

We walked around this art district, up the hill, saw one of Van Gogh’s former residences (we later went back and ate our lunch in the “parkish” thing right in front of his former house). We went up to the Basilica Sacre Coeur which really surprised me as a really impressive church. They had really impressive mosaic ceilings and the outside was really something to look at. The site also offered some great vantage points of Paris.

Afterwards we went to get our sandwiches, and I spent 10 minutes in a souvenir shop debating if I wanted to buy a 3 euro Eiffel tower. I decided against it last minute, and Jeremy said he was proud of me. Sex district and EuroDisney Ad. Awesome.

After that we went back into central Paris and got ice cream from Berthillon. For once, since it was so hot, I got sorbet. I had grapefruit and coconut, and OMG. We sat on the Seine and watched tourists.

After that we picked up our bags, headed to the train station, and I started writing my blog.

Strippers need to take their kids to eat too....I guess...

Paris fini….for now.

Trois….deux….un….launch reaction! Redo.

2008-07-24T20:55:00.005+02:00

I’m on the less than two week countdown for my last rites of a quiche tartlets before hopping a trans-Atlantic flight bound for the lone star state.

…and I’m leaving France with a bang. Or at least that’s how my head kind of feels right now: BANG.

Ever since my dad left I’ve been completely engrossed in work. Aside from my escape to the convent Bastille Day weekend, I spend my evenings exhausted and taking care of business. By the time I leave work at 6 (or later) I go grocery shopping, ride my bike home, cook dinner, clean up from dinner, catch up with my parents or Adamo, take care of whatever needs to get done (such as shower, laundry, travel plans) and then hit my very uncomfortable bed. This boring recount of my typical after-work day explains the lack of entries.

Thank God it’s hump day? (or it was when I started writing)

Two weeks left means I need to start preparing to leave, wrap up business, eat as much French cuisine as I can, get in some last minute traveling, and then finish my entire project’s synthesis, make a poster to present at the conference in January, and write my report.

Last week I started what is supposed to be my second to last step of my entire summer of organic chemistry. My whole summer stipend/grant is based on the fact that I complete this project and if it goes well, fortune and fame will befall my career. If it doesn’t, I’m never EVER allowed to do chemistry again. Just kidding. Or am I?

I need these two molecules to bind together in a Suzuki coupling reaction by making some beautiful chemistry love in my 50 mL round flask at 122 degrees Celsius, and create the novel target molecule to send off for physical analysis in Switzerland. Piece of cake.

How it was “supposed” to go

I’ve spent the entire summer synthesizing (making) precursors (ingredients) for this reaction. Based on previous experiments I was supposed to throw some stuff together and BAM! magic would ensue. After this, I’d have time to wrap up everything else, write the report, and go home.

How it’s gone down the past week

There are moments where I think I’m doing the coolest stuff, like ever. Mad scientist chemistry.

There are moments – after standing on my feet all day making calculations and cleaning glassware – where chemistry makes me want to vomit.

There are moments where I feel really awesome about skills I’ve learned in the lab this summer. I can run reactions by myself, I know where most things are, and just in general I’m 110 times more capable than when I started.

Then there are the times were I feel like a bull in a Swarovski crystal store. I mess something up and someone has to come to the rescue to help me reconcile myself to the chemistry Gods. This usually takes over an hour to fix my moment’s fault.

For years people I’ve heard people blab about the nature of theoretical science – full of inductive and deductive tests of logic. As a science student, you never ever actually do any of this. I’ve spent the last week doing nothing but use these theoretical approaches.

I feel like I’m in the middle of actual research: because I am. We’re running test reactions, testing solubility in little vials, and answering questions nobody knows the answers to….other times when nothing seems to work I feel incredibly pessimistic.

I’ve set reactions like MAD the past few days; trying everything short of paying off the molecules to bind. I still don’t know where I stand, but before I left today things looked a bit more optimistic.

Here are a few themes I’ve noticed:

- Chemistry is like one continuous trip to Vegas, and it looks like I’m a high roller. When I dump in all of the molecule I’ve spent two weeks making in the hope that the reaction works (or else I’m SOL) it’s a bit scary/thrilling. I’ve been betting it all the past week.

- I’m driving Jean crazy because I test the progress of the reactions like I open Christmas presents. Instead of barging into the lab and doing it right away, I take care of the other things first before I work on seeing if the reaction is “crap or not.” For the readers who don’t know me well enough, as an only child on Christmas I’d take the entire day to open all of my presents. He keeps coming in asking “have you done it? does it work?! Aren’t you curious?!?!” I get to it when the lab bench feng shui is right.

- Chemistry epitomizes too many cooks in the kitchen; this time too many lab coats in the laboratory. I’ll be working on something and all the PhDs hold a different opinion of how it should be done. This makes my job interesting, but these differences in opinion will ultimately lead me to the right conditions.

- Chemistry makes cooking look like so much fun and SO much easier. When cooking, you can just “fudge” your way through…literally. This will be how I’m spending August in Texas: fudge chemistry.

- If you want to understand colors, such as the difference in blue dye blacks and red dye blacks….go into porphyrin chemistry. Last week I would go from working with green-blacks, to red-blacks, and then BAM! it turned into the most complicated deep red-purple-pinks I’ve ever seen in my life. Kind of thrilling, and I felt like a magician. Also, I discovered I have a pink thumb. After working all day with the porphyrins, I literally had pink colored thumbs.

I think I’m going to add another entry later about the basics of what I actually do all day long. But not now.

Current Plans

For a last hoorah in France I’m taking a three day weekend in Paris. I believe I’ve done my traveling in the opposite order most people do – Paris last. After a rather fortunate (for me at least) series of events, Jeremy in the lab needs to spend the weekend in Paris after moving out of Strasbourg. His grandmother lives there, so he invited me to come and stay with him and said he’d show me around since he never really does any of the touristy things anyway.

We went to the train station Monday night for our tickets and since he obviously can speak French, ended up getting us first class tickets to Paris on the high speed train for cheaper than second class costs!

I’ve found the French hook-up.

We’re also going to be in Paris for the end of the Tour de France, so I’m pretty excited. It’s going to be an awesome weekend. We leave tomorrow and I come back on Monday night.

Go Lance Armstrong!!!.....wait….

Everyday Life

Here are a few random busy nothings regarding daily life in France.

Last week I treated myself to a pair of tartlettes fraise (strawberry tarts). It was wonderful and I don’t do this often. Not only would I end up broke, but I’m convinced living in France takes all the will power in the world. Bakeries on every corner make it really hard to stay thin.

I buy random things at the grocery store and experiment with my limited cooking utensils. I’ve sautéed zucchini, made teriyaki chicken, various pasta dishes, and a lot more.

On Sunday I bought an all day tram pass and went shopping in Strasbourg. I went to Auchan, the huge store in the outskirts. My goal of the day was to find French cooking (such as a crepe pan and spatula) to bring home.

Naively, I thought as an American this would be nothing. I’ve spent my life maturing with 24 hour mega- superstores. Walmart, Target, HEB; they’re all super.

It was arrogant to think Europe couldn’t overwhelm me. Perhaps I’ve been shopping in small boutiques for too long, but Auchan was like WalMart, Target, SAMs, Best Buy, and a full size American grocery store all in one.

I could be exaggerating but not only did it contain everything & everyone in France but this was just the happening place to be on a Saturday afternoon. I figured out this is also where the French make a pilgrimage to for buying things in bulk. The lady in front of me bought 7 cases (yes, cases) of wet cat food, the lady behind me had 5 bars of gourmet chocolate, 10 bars of blankly wrapped generic chocolate, I’m not kidding 15 baguettes, and then she loaded up a stack of “personal feminine napkins.” I stopped asking questions at this point.

There were too many kids, too many random people, and too many people talking to me in French. One lady figured out I spoke English, and while I was standing with my crepe spatulas and fluted tart pan (with a removable bottom) looking at cook books pointed and asked me if this was all because I had a child.

Now picture me in the eyes of this unknowing French woman: flicker of horror on my face, grabbing my tart pan etc, leaving the book on French appetizers open on the shelf, and making a bee line to the checkout.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around Strasbourg in pursuit of the perfect crepe pan and Madeleine mold.

Weather in Strasbourg = wtf face

Like a simple girl psychologically conditioned to PMS, Strasbourg never fails to be moody. It started on Sunday then progressed to very cold, depressing weather all week. There isn’t any heat on anywhere and even the natives walked around in coats. Made me miss Texas.

Random nothings of note

My current obsession: TED talks.

http://www.ted.com/

I’ve been eating these up.

Time to pack for Paris….

Normandy: took me almost as long to write as it did to retake in 1944

2008-07-20T23:39:00.013+02:00

I feel guilty about not being more current on the blog until I remember that my dad left France a mere week and a half ago (lie, it’s now almost two weeks), and I’ve been working since then.

Welcome to the world of blogging, thank you for your thoughtful, concerned patience.

I’ve decided to go about this entry a bit differently. More by category than by chronology. For those who want a big picture, my dad and I took a long weekend to the region of Normandy. We stayed in the beautifully rebuilt city of Caen (pronounced like Ka-on; or if you’re like Adam call it Candy Cane) then took local transportation to the D-Day beaches.

Elaine’s Favorite French Things
Mostly inspired from travels with Daddy, but also just in general.

* Galettes- I am officially in love with galettes. Galettes are a type of “savory” (salty as opposed to sweet) crêpe. Galettes come from a buckwheat batter and are more hearty than sweet crêpes. Our first day in Caen my dad and I stopped off at this adorable Crêperie and ordered galettes for lunch. Mine contained a salad with light vinaigrette and exposed a bottom layer of ham and melted cheese. Daddy’s was flatly folded over tuna, cheese, and tomato sauce. Both of them were wonderful. I am a fan for life. Not only do they taste good, but you can be as creative as you want with the filling. The bonus is you get the textured wheat flavor without a lot of carbs. How galetteful!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galette

* Ice Cream/Gelato – I’m always watching what I eat; seven days a week, twelve months a year. This does not mean I’m on a year-long diet, I just pay very close attention to the nutritional value of my foods and how many calories I eat a day. My guilty pleasure snacks usually include cookies and chocolate or the occasional pie/cake since they keep well in a dorm room etc. Well I’ve re-discovered my love affaire with ice cream. I’ve known gelato sends my taste buds soaring and thank God everyday it’s hard to get in the USA. But good old ice cream dropped off my culinary radar the past few years. Additionally, I’m usually too proper to eat it from the cone (cornet in French) but France is all about it, so I’ve decided I am too.

I'm declaring a new food group....

* Confiture (Jam) – never eat it at home, kinda like it here. We had it at breakfast at our hotel and I really dig it….on baguettes of course. We also had a type of croissant type pastry that’s rolled in a cinnamon bun style, but has a yellowish crème in the center of the role and raisons. Don’t be fooled, they are often referred to as “escargot” but that’s only for the snail shape!

* Blue Skies – Caen had the bluest skies I’ve seen in a long time. After three cloudy months in Strasbourg, a little blue brilliance goes a long way.

* Greek Food – Daddy and I wanted something different after several days of French cuisine consumption. We went out searching for “ethnic food” and stumbled upon this Greek restaurant. Wow. This is now twice Greek food has come to my eating diversity rescue in France, and it was so good. I think I devoured everything on my plate….and then the plate.

WANTED: Good Greek food restaurants in Austin. Leave a comment if you’re knowledgeable.

* Carottes Râpée – Finely shredded carrots in a semi-sweet vinegar/oil dressing. We ate this on one of our picnics in Strasbourg, it comes with a lot of meals as a side, and I buy it at the grocery store to eat at home during the work week. Love it, and I think my dad did too.

* Hydrangeas – they really qualify as ONE of my favorite flowers. Their beautiful, multi-toned colors never cease to unexpectedly halt me on a sidewalk. I remember them from Vienna last summer, and I think they bloom a little later here in France.

http://www.hydrangeaworld.com/

* This flowering tree – They were all over Strasbourg at the end of June/early July and lined the streets of Heidelberg. The tree’s perfume is a combination of sweet, fresh, modern, and clean. I love it, but I have no idea what they’re called. This makes for a very sad Elaine.

* Breathtaking Exteriors – Ironically considering my love for elegant-chic interior design, while traveling I’m usually much more taken by the grandeur of building’s exteriors. The Men’s Abby built by William the Conqueror in Caen stunned me.

* The French word CHAT (meaning cat, pronounced like “shat,” as in I just shat myself) – yeah, I just like the way it sounds.

* Tarte Flambée – see “Tarte Flambée Night”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarte_flambÃ©e

* “It’s my culture” – whenever anyone says something about America to me in the lab, I really enjoy getting a serious look on my face and saying “please show some respect for my culture” because after all, I’m the foreign one. We all laugh, and come up with stupid situations in public, such as the lunch line at the cafeteria, where I should just barge in front of people and say “I’m sorry, this is my culture.”

* Riesling Wine – I’ve decided this is one of my favorites. I also like rosés, and the rest is still to be discovered.

French Picnics x Deux

One of the days I was at work, Daddy and I met up and went to walk around the open air market by the Louis Pasteur Institute. Daddy got to see the Nachtmarkt in Vienna, which is in my opinion the best open air market in all of Europe. Never the less, we walked through and then went to my favorite Supermarche (grocery store), Galleries Gourmande, and picked out our supplies for a picnic. We got two different kinds of cheeses from their HUGE selection of French dairy products, some fresh bread, carottes râpée, Light Orangina, and millefeuille. Millefeuille is a pastry that literally translates to “a thousand sheets” and it consists of many, many, thin layers of pastry with a crème custard in between. This was sooooo good.

On another one of my working days my dad and I got crepes for lunch (this was not a picnic) then that night when I got off work we went to the Orangerie (the huge, storybook park I ride my bike through on my way to work). We packed my backpack then got there and set out our picnic of Alsatian Riesling wine, cheese, bread, and almonds, then got ice cream from a stand in the park. We spent the evening watching the family of swans walk around and got to see all the French people out walking their dogs. Lovely way to spend an evening.

Tarte Flambée Night

The week before my dad arrived, we all got an email invitation in the lab for Tarte Flambée Night. The English translation on the email said we could bring spouses or dads, so the Tuesday night my dad got here he got to go out with all my co-workers to Jean and Jenny’s favorite local restaurant that specializes in Tarte Flambée.

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What is Tarte Flambée?

Tarte Flambée is quintessential Alsatian cuisine. It’s a very, VERY, thin rectangular “pizza” that comes with a light cream sauce and traditionally only chopped bacon and onion on top, though they often come with cheese as well. At the restaurant, they must have brought out the tarte flambées in about 5 rounds because the cream sauce doesn’t stay warm for very long. This enables everyone to take a slice, eat it, then wait for another one. I don’t remember exactly how many they brought out because I had wine and lost count. Sorry.

Honestly, I’m usually not big on cream sauces, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to like it. Turns out, I LOVED it. The cream sauce really had the same texture as a soft cheese would, and the thin crunch you get when you eat it just makes it delightful. There are also usually burned bits around the edges, and if you know the Sedenberg family at all, this is a very good thing for us.

If anyone wants to fund the project, I want to install a brick oven in my future house. You pay for it, and I’ll make you tarte flambée. Maybe even that Italian pizza from Rome….

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We started eating at 7, and didn’t end until around 11. This was a typical long French dinner. Everyone sat around and talked, drank, and we even had dessert. Daddy and I split a Madame Noir (or at least I think that’s what it was called) which was basically like a chocolate sundae.

The lab picked up the bill to celebrate Jenny getting an article accepted in JACS (Journal of American Chemistry). For all the non-chemists, this is a REALLY big deal.

I was so glad Daddy got to see all the people I work with and truly experience a local French dinner.

Vivien and his girlfriend.

THIS POST IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION. Picture posting took over an hour and I have to sleep for work. Chances are by the time most people get to reading this, it will all be fixed and finished. The rest is still in a word document waiting to be added.

Partying up Bastille Day:: my weekend spent at a convent in the mountains

2008-07-15T23:59:00.001+02:00

July 14 is Bastille Day. In other words, the 4th of July for France. Since the passing of the 4th in America, I’ve gotten myself in many arguments with the French (mainly my coworkers) about who copied who on the July Independence Day.

After my adamant assertion that the Americans made our holiday first, and their persistent argument that – just like everything else – the French set the example, wikipedia settled it.

Let’s just say Dr. Conn made sure this American knows her nation’s history, apparently unlike the French students.

The reasoning was simple, even without dates. The French, who are perpetually pissed at the English, helped us in the revolution and are probably a large part of why we won. It was then after our revolution that the French held their own civil revolution. On the recommendation of George Washington, we didn’t help them in return since he thought it unwise to involve ourselves in world politics so early. All’s fair in politics and war and tit for tat does not apply.

Moral of the Story: when I say something with conviction, don’t disagree. Oh, and the Americans had the 4th of July first. Bastille Day on the 14th of July is just a copy with pathetic French fireworks.

Bastille Day Weekend

So Bastille Day. This means I got Monday off of work. Since Daddy just left (time flew by this week!) I really didn’t have time or energy or money to make the weekend extravagant.

Most students – both French and foreign – party all weekend long. Going along with tradition, I spent the weekend at a convent located an hour south of Strasbourg up in the mountains.

I know, I know, I party too hard.

This is a trip I’ve been wanting to take since June, but the only way to reach the convent by public transportation is by a bus that runs in July and August.

The weekend was relaxing, quiet, and probably one of the most unusual ways to spend a three day weekend in France.

Mont St. Odile

The convent is perched on top of a mountain and over looks the small villages of the Alsace region. The convent is literally perched atop a giant rock formation and the local surrounds are steeped in religious history; even before the Catholics became ‘King of that Hill.’

To nutshell the life of St. Odile, she’s the patron saint of the Alsace region. She was born blind in 662 AD and the daughter of a duke in the region. He sent her away because she was a girl, and the legend tells that she recovered her sight upon her baptism at 12.

The rest of the story in blatant terms: brother brought her home, ticked off dad, dad killed son, Odile revived him, Odile ran away, dad chased her, dad didn’t read the road signs sign and got hit by falling rocks, Odile nursed him, he built her a convent. She healed blind people and started a hospital.

She’s the patron saint of ocular infections, and there’s a spring in the mountain Odile discovered (by a miracle) and its waters helped individuals regain their sight.

The convent was pillaged in the 30 years war, and then abandoned after the revolution until the mid 1800s when it was restored.

http://www.mont-sainte-odile.com/index.php?lang=en

Weekend Getaway

To the shock (and often horror) of any die-hard, Catholic-raised individual I casually let my opinion slip to: I hate retreats.

I don’t just dislike them, I detest them.

Retreats are great: for some people. Go to as many as you like, but don’t make me go on them. A cobweb filled room in the middle of nowhere filled, with a large group of mostly insincere people, epitomizes a weekend nightmare. No cell phone or internet adds insult to injury.

My point in bringing this up and risk further opening myself to ridicule was to admit this weekend was my perfect kind of retreat.

The only insincere/fake thoughts were my own and I got to do exactly what I wanted to do. Stretch my own thoughts and blank my mind.

Saturday morning I got up and took the bus -- which comes only twice a day -- into the mountains. On the way I was the only person on the bus minus the driver. I arrived and quickly found I was in the language minority. There were lots of French families and tons of German vacationers. Aside from the broken English at the reception, I heard English in passing only one other time. This was a good thing.

Furthermore, no nasty food people lie about to pass off as edible. Breakfast and dinner came with my room and everything had a local Alsatian blend to it. The wines I sampled at dinner were all of a local variety and most of the breads, meats, and dishes were local cuisines. Dinner was at least three courses, and breakfast was decent considering the French tend to eat a baguette and yogurt only. I can probably thank the Germans for this spread.

Exploring, hiking, napping, eating, walking, being cold & wet sums up my weekend.

The entire mountain is covered in hiking trails, which I did a decent job exploring considering the weather.

Notable Activities

Europe’s creating a habit of making me contemplative. Without boring all of you by frittering away the details of my meandering mind, I’m really serious about me becoming a chic-modern-city girl- hippy.

At the least a health, world conscious, meditative, empowered-guru. This all comes naturally with my desire to rid myself of the plaguing self-administered anxiety I drive my life with. The notion that I’m coming to a time in my life where my decisions will affect me until I die also motivates me.

No pressure, right?

I also fully believe in empowering yourself and one’s potential. So….

Bottom line: I’m getting really interested in meditating, world religions, the nature of being happy, and a whole mess of other things. Perhaps it will blow over, perhaps not. Also really getting into cooking/traveling, but this is completely unrelated.

I spent a lot of my weekend contemplating these things (and listening to podcasts about them on my laptop) and reading “The Feminine Mystique.”

As for the more exciting adventures during the day, I walked all around the convent, the pretty mosaic chapels, St. Odile’s tomb, the flowers, the lookouts, the grottos, the “rock” the convent is perched on, down the mountain to her spring of healing water, back up the mountain…you get the picture.

Sunday morning clouds at the base of the convent.

On Sunday I got up, went to breakfast, followed by church in an old chapel. The entire mass was both in French and German and the guy next to me fell asleep. I’m not sure if there were more nuns or tourists.

After mass I went and changed then trekked off into the wilderness. Europe makes me do things I don’t do at home.

Pagan Wall

I find it really interesting when religions overlap, and when there are spiritual “connections” or “relationships” to the natural world that no culture can explain.

From what I’ve read, this mountain embodies a little of that. Starting in 1000 BC with the Celts, a huge wall (over 10 miles long) of stones was built and included Druid sacrifice stones, grottos, shrines, etc. I’m going to admit my history and knowledge of the difference between Celts and Druids is really fuzzy/nonexistent, so if someone wants to comment about that and explain go right ahead. Most of the wall, now called Pagan Wall, is still intact and they don’t really know what it was for.

The best guesses hypothesize that it was either to protect a temple to a sun goddess on top of the mountain or it served as a prayer wall, or just protected nothing.

Then the Romans came and built some roads and used it religiously as well. Then St. Odile came (who’s association with sight may be linked to the history with a temple for a sun goddess) and the rest is as I said before.

Back to me.

I went hiking and got to the pagan wall. All the rocks were moss covered and the forests were beautiful. You could look out into the distance and see ruins of destroyed castles. It was a grey day, which in my opinion always makes Earth look a million times more vibrantly green.

My optimism was great. I started hiking toward another ruin, and about 30 minutes down the path it started to rain. No big deal, I was under trees and had a raincoat/umbrella.

When it rains in France, it POURS.

By the time I gave up and turned around, I was soaked. The picture doesn’t do it justice. By the time I got back to the Pagan Wall the rain lighted up, so I took the other path toward the Druid sacrifice stones. That was neat, and brought my hike to a whopping 3 hours. This gave me a profound sense of accomplishment.

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This statue really reminded me of one of those "I'm with Stupid" shirts/slogans. I'm a horrible person.

Normandy

2008-07-15T23:50:00.003+02:00

This blog is under construction. I'm exhausted from work and need to sleep. Check back later.

Secret to writing in Europe

2008-07-12T00:36:00.005+02:00

Summing up the discipline to write a “casual” blog entire for a handful of unintentionally scrutinizing eyes -- following a long day -- can be daunting. However, writing in France this summer taught me a few tricks of the trade.

When one pictures famous writers who escaped to Europe for inspiration – or European writers draining taps of creativity from sidewalk cafes – one common thread remains: alcohol. And I’m legal to drink here.

Continue reading before giving into shock and exasperation.

My visit last summer to the Schnapps Museum in Vienna taught me absinthe is absolutely NOT the way to go considering it’s the most vial liquid I’ve ever consumed. I’m also no hard-core drinker, and I only tolerate beer. As for me, I’ll take my kicks from champagne – or settle for a fine white or rose wine.

Tonight I had a local Alsatian Riesling opened last week during a picnic with Dad at the Orangerie. Now I feel like blogging. (Lie: this blog remained half finished for posting until Friday night.)

____________________________________________

I’ve got about as much ground to cover in writing as kilometers transversed by my dad and I in ten days.

In case you’re wondering: that’s a lot.

For the record: I like wine better than French moutarde.

I arrested my last entry right before my dad and I stopped on the Cote d’Or wine road between Beaune and Dijon.

Quick refresher—we were on our way after lunch toward Dijon and then back home to Strasbourg so I could go to work the next morning.

At our hotel we’d seen a rather classy advertisement for Château de Marsannay, a local wine producer.

http://www.chateau-marsannay.com/

Their “warehouse” was a fairly new stucco building that was made to look decently rustic. We walked inside and a tall (unusual!) slender Frenchman who reminded me of a young Tom Hanks (by young I mean in his mid-30’s) greeted us. He hurriedly asked us to wait while he finished up a large tour group buying cases of wine. We went into their side room and sure enough within 10 minutes all the tourists found themselves packaged up like wine bottles and transported on the moving bus.

That left me, my Dad, and Tom Hanks look alike.

Not only did this guy kind of look like Tom Hanks, but he was purposefully comical in his presentation of the wine house. He made a few semi-funny jokes, starting with a statement that he’s all set because he’s had his lunch, wine, and cigarette for the day. All a Frenchman needs for good health. He asked us to wait a few more minutes and then this short, happy women (about 30) comes in rolling a bike. She was wearing a summer top that had a glitter tank top underneath. She asked a question and Daddy responded “I don’t speak English” and she gave him a funny look, then he said, “wait! I mean I don’t speak French” and she said “Oh that’s good, I don’t either!”

She was so bubbly, and just exploded how she’s from Vancouver, just started making her own wine as a hobby, was in Dijon and the tourist office rented her the bike and told her to go here, and she just got married to someone in the military in Paris, they took a huge tour around Europe, and now he’s in Afghanistan and she’s returning to Paris to go home, and somehow managed to throw in “isn’t this cool?”, “where are you from?” and “oh it’s hot out there!”

She was a whirlwind of happiness. Often times people with this kind of exuberance annoy me, but she did it in a way that was just mesmerizing. As usual, I compare people to breeds of dogs. This newlywed from Vancouver was 100% Jack Russell terrier.

Our tour started, and the tour guide began explaining everything. He had my favorite combination of traits: informative, full of factoids that help you to be educated about whatever you’re touring – in this case wine – but he was an interesting individual full jokes and sarcasm that translate only partially.

He’d make comments about “you Americans don’t know about hectares, you have silly acres!” etc.

He sent us down into the cellar to tour walk around while he got a glass of water. It took the women from Vancouver 2 minutes to see the entire damp cellar. Cellar tours in the wine country suck, because the caves (wine cellar in French) they take you to I can tell are in reality only for show. While the champagne region’s houses take you into their functioning, ancient cellars their tastings are a joke. You just get a complementary glass and leave.

In the wine region, you compare many different varieties and levels of quality. You also get the personal commentary from the tour guide which often comes with their opinions. I always find what their honed taste intriguing. They way they describe the variations also fascinates me. They talk about mosaics of flavors, blends of fruit, coupling levels of dryness, aromatic qualities, age, and atrocious seasonal years.

By the time the tour guide re-appeared along with two couples from New Zealand, Jack Russell Canadian had accidentally found herself some wine we weren’t supposed to get into.

Tom Hanks took us into the tasting room, that had 6 different candle lit wine barrels showcasing the best assortment of wines I’ve ever compared.

Of course, we started with the white and then a rose before moving onto the classic reds. He assured us we would not be offended if we spit it out into the buckets on the sides or dumped whatever was remaining in our glass. He said our taste buds may become fatigued and that was normal.

I thought this was silly: until the end of the tour.

He was full of insight, especially for the novice, so expect to see a sidebar of the tips I learned during the tour.

After the tour was over, and I’d consumed more red wine than I’ve ever had in my entire life combined, we departed.

We swung through Dijon, but didn’t have very much time. Headed back to Strasbourg, got Dad all checked into his bed and breakfast, then I got up for work the next day.

Work Week with Daddy

While I ran reactions at work, Daddy ran off to see Haut Koenigsburg (the castle I went to a few weekends ago) in Selestat. I’m assuming he had fun and actually made it out of the bed and breakfast. We’ll just have to take his word.

Spicing up the lab

During the many, accent laden conversations I have with Vivian and Jeremy I’ve discussed the merits of spicy food. As do the majority of the French population, they argue that spice takes away from the flavor and just paralyzes your taste, thus inhibiting the pleasures of eating.

Or as they put it: spicy food is gross.

I’ve explained how much I miss spicy food in my diet and how they probably couldn’t handle it without crying.

Testosterone is universal. They protested.

Well I had my dad bring salsa. My mom found some microwavable queso dip and sent along a bag of Tostitoes to compliment the Texas salsa.

During lunch, I put the bag out on the table and opened the salsa.
Jean, who likes spicy food, dug right in and said now he either needs a beer or a margarita.

Jenny took a bite and thought it was too spicy. She did however love the chips because she said they were light and crisp as opposed to the dense ones you can buy in France.

Mamadou, Dinesh, and Josaphine took a “dip” and were frightened away.

That left the boys. Jeremy took one chip, dipped only the corner in very lightly, and then said “oh, not spicy.”

I said you didn’t eat any.

What’s funny, is Vivian and Mamadou did the same thing. Barely touched the chip in, and said “oh, ok.” I think it scared them.

Jeremy I think actually kind of liked it after awhile, whereas Vivian wanted nothing to do with it. Though he claims it’s not because it’s too spicy – he just doesn’t like it.

Vivian insisted I go ahead and heat up the queso, which I did. You know the French enjoy cheese.

As soon as it was ready, Vivian tried it, got a funny look on his face, and tried it again. Jean came back into try and Vivian commented with a horrified look on his face “C’est bizarre!”

I think it greatly intrigued him yet repulsed him at the same time.

There ends my effort to educate the French on the pleasures of spice.

Le Clou

For our first venture into local Alsatian cuisine, I took Daddy to a Vinstub down by the cathedral. These restaurants specialize in a few local dishes, are usually family owned, and serve only local wine.

The interior was warm, French Country, and cozy. We ordered a small pitcher of wine and Daddy got some type of meat (can’t remember) in a mustard sauce with roasted potatoes while I got a knuckle of ham with sauerkraut. You can see the mixed French-German influence of the region.

Our meals were delightful. His mustard sauce wasn’t too overpowering and my ham was so moist and tender the fat just melted right off to leave perfectly pink morsels.

I think this gave Daddy a very positive experience with French food.

Afterwards we walked around downtown before heading back.

Work in progress

The rest is in the works, calm down.

2/3 Empty or 2/3 Full?

2008-07-08T13:52:00.005+02:00

Four countries….three planes….26 train rides…4 glasses of champagne…..about 6 blocks of cheese….too many baguettes….6 boronic acid synthesis reactions….5 suzuki couplings….two failed aldehyde protections…at least 4 bottles of wine…. 1.22 GB of pictures….and 21 blog entries later….

….I’m 2/3 of the way into my summer in France.

In reality, this is the perfect mark on my timeline. I’m close enough to coming home -- to both those I love and BBQ -- that I don’t feel as if I’ll be lonesome in this romantic country forever. Yet I feel like there’s still a healthy portion of time for a few more grand adventures.

I dove so quickly into this summer (following the cusp of a whirlwind semester) that only recently I’ve even felt like I can breathe again with no air. When granted such an exceptional opportunity you feel pressure not to waste a moment. Every encounter can be absorbed and there are a million + 1 places to explore. At this point I’ve used the hell out of my 12-25 French railcard, and if I go no where else but back to the US I’ll be content with myself.

Do you hear laughing? Because I do.

This is not my style. Not to mention there’s still Paris. ;)

On board a TGV high speed train bound for Strasbourg

All of my blog entries are composed in an agglomerate of places. I started this entry before we caught our train in Caen, got writer’s block, and powered down the laptop. Now it’s 6 p.m. (18h00) and I’m about 35 minutes outside of Paris bound for Strasbourg.

As for the scenery on the train (and I don’t mean out the window):

There’s a group of four middle aged German women at a table of four seats one row up from me. The clacking from a group of semi-tipsy older women – in the prime of their lives, of course – appears to be the same in any language. They have a bottle of red wine, cookies, pretzels, and mineral water open and though each one has a short haircut they each have a different color. There’s the golden blonde, the typical European red-brunette, deep chestnut brown, and then the light blonde with roots: not a natural color present. Each one has earrings and a mom-butt.

Yet another reason I’m jealous of Europeans. These women probably took a ladies’ weekend to Paris and in a matter of mere hours will be home.

Dad went to go sit at a vacant window seat across the aisle, and now my new neighbor is this giant white dog who’s plopped under the seat of a young guy in front of me. The French adore their dogs and not a person complains as they struggle to step over him on their way through the aisle. On the last train someone got their cat out of the carrying case and set it between them and their boyfriend. Right now some of the fellow passengers just picked up the dog’s tug toy and started playing. Awesome.

Yet another reason why I’m jealous of Europeans: they can take their animals anywhere.

I’m guessing it’s also French military who’s scattered throughout the train. They all have military patterned bags but they’re dressed in civilian attire. They also appear to all know each other.

Yet another reason why I’m NOT jealous of Europeans: their military is just nasty, unlike those macho United States Marines. Ok, so I’m just a little bit partial.

The things he brought

My mom may not have come to visit, but she takes her job seriously. My tiny room looks like America threw up in it, and that makes me happy.

Off the top of my head, here are the things my mom sent my dad with:
- individual packets of snack size M&Ms
- two spatulas and two cutting knives for my cooking ventures
- three types of HOTT salsa
- a bag of Tostitos chips, that made it essentially unbroken
- a plate with a big Texas flag on it
- an extra pillow (mine in the room is like a long, flat sausage that I’ve crammed into my pillow case so it resembles something comfortable)
- Clorox wipes for my (excuse my French) but piss covered toilet-seat-less toilets
- Gum
- More deodorant and shaving cream since they don’t make it here (JUST KIDDING, but it’s expensive)
- Ziplock bags
- HEB/Target plastic bags
- Packets of crystal light
- Dry hot peppers for my cooking
- Another sweater
- A webcam and better microphone for skype

I know there’s more but I’m sitting on a train so I can’t remember.

Same time last year

Almost exactly a year ago from when my dad arrived in Strasbourg on June 28 we were gallivanting across Europe in between Vienna and Oxford. I say same time next year…

My dad flew into Frankfurt and took the bus like I did, but I wasn’t exactly sure which bus he’d be able to catch. I told him I’d just ride my bike to the stop by the train station for the earlier one and if he was there, great, if not I’d try again in two hours. So I woke up that morning, just hopped on my bike, and went to try and meet him there.

Sure enough he’d been able to catch the earlier bus so off comes my dad! From there we headed over to the rental car place, got a rental car and then stopped by one of my favorite bakeries on the way back to my room for his first French quiche. We tried two different kinds: one with white asparagus and turkey and the other with prunes, olives, ham?, and something else. The prunes took me by surprise, but it was actually good!

Once we were back to my room we preliminarily dumped his suitcase, re-packed for the weekend, got back into the car, and headed out for adventure number 1.

Would you like mustard with that? How about some wine? How about both.

In order to take full advantage of my free weekend, we took off for the central region of Burgundy (Bourgogne in French). The region is known for the rolling countryside, moutarde, and its wines.

Although the region contains larger and more re-known capital Dijon, we went to the smaller town Beaune (pronounced like ‘bone’).

It was a several hour drive there, but the countryside and conversation made the time pass quickly.

When we arrived we headed straight for the tourist office to get a place to stay. Since we arrived later in the afternoon, finding a hotel room was harder than I had anticipated. With a few calls we got a very nice place to stay that seems like Buckingham Palace compared to my room in Strasbourg.

After unloading our stuff, we headed back into the center of the quaint town. The entire town centers its existence around wine. Tasting, selling, making.

For dinner we selected a patio café serving the local specialties. I got Coq au Vin (cock in wine) and Daddy got boeuf bourguignon (beef burgundy).

Out of all the things to consider while selecting a sidewalk café, “I hope a sucky drum brigade doesn’t start to play in the square” doesn’t cross my mind.

Well it should have.

We ordered and I got a glass of local pinot noir while Daddy avoided the alcohol because of his jet lag. We were in the middle of a conversation when suddenly a drum brigade (at the lack of a better name to call it) just starts BLASTING “music”.

It’s not like they were entertaining. They just played, got louder, and wouldn’t move on. This is THE most obnoxious thing to ever happen to me at a café.

I think it was a part of some sort of really bad music festival, but it lasted the rest of dinner. It took a lot of restraint to keep me from going and hurting someone. I was outraged.

However, the food was good. I also really like ratatouille.

Sunday

Since France virtually shuts down on Sundays, I had double checked to see if the wine tastings would be open.

Apparently on Sunday buying groceries, doing any light shopping, or eating at most restaurants would be inappropriate. Buying wine and/or tasting it is ok.

We went out to try and find something for breakfast.

Apparently ordering food at a café is again inappropriate. Drinking a beer at 9 a.m. is ok.

God love France.

Well we attempted to find something to eat and finally had to just split a sandwich and pastry.

After that we went for our first cellar tour at Reine Pédauque. We were the only people on our tour, so our tour guide just ran through the list of explanations and we tried several white and red wines. The upper region of Burgundy makes some whites, but largely the region is known for the reds. I thought it was funny that after every single one, he asked “do you love this?” instead of saying “do you like this one?” He was very nice and gave a good tour. The cellars aren’t as vast as in the champagne region, but many of the systems hold over. The “cru” ranking of qualities of grapes, sizes of the bottles, and many of the same strategies are the same/similar.

My time in Burgundy also helped me to realize that I prefer white wines and rosés. I can appreciate a good red wine, but when it comes to just causal drinking I’m partial to the lighter, more fruity tastes. I’m also really proud that when they describe the dryer taste, or more complex flavors during a comparison I can actually taste what they’re talking about!

Lookout, wine snob in training.

A the end of this tour we also got to taste an apéritif, which is the small drink the French order at the beginning of meals. It was basically a very sweet, concentrated blackberry current liquor, and I didn’t like it. He said it would taste good drizzled over a dessert and while I can see that, I’ll stick to the wine.

Following the tour we finished up walked around the city and then hit up the Côte d’Or Vineyards. We followed the road that connects Beaune to Dijon that passed through the vineyard covered slopes named appropriately for their “golden hillsides”. Not only was it a really pleasant day weather wise, but the road is scattered with various sleepy towns and local wine makers. We stopped in Nuit St. George for lunch.

Daddy got a tartine, which literally is anything spread over bread, but his was like a pizza. I got kebabs. This time our sidewalk café experience was not interrupted by any band of drummers, but perhaps this is because I know to look for this now.

After lunch we went for a wine tasting just down in the cellar of one of the open wine houses. We tasted two different reds and bought a bottle of their plain summer pinot noir for about 7 euros.

We continued north and went to our next stop.

More later.

The natural way to pad your bra?

2008-07-06T00:12:00.003+02:00

I’m just going to put it right out there.

Today mesdames et messieurs, I got stung by a baby bumble bee…. on the breast.

This was not the worst part.

We were in the middle of a tour of a monastery built by William the Conqueror. Not only were we locked in the middle a large rectory with a group of elderly tourists but the entire tour was in French. As if we were in the glory of the Vatican, that tour guide just kept talking…and talking…and talking…about the most non-descript paintings I’ve ever seen.

I was standing there -- minding my own business -- and just observing the climate of the room and antiquity of the French tourists around us when I felt something fall right down my polo shirt. Not only was I wearing a polo, but a pullover sweater. Next thing I knew I felt this sharp sting which caused me to thrust my sunglasses and camera at my unsuspecting dad.

I then got to look like the freak in the back of the tour frantically tugging at my shirt, looking down it, sticking my hand in, groping myself, trying to figure out what the hell just happened and attempting to get the now dead, tiny bee out of the cup of my bra.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to exclaim profanities more or been in a situation where this reaction would be more inappropriate.

Since our tour guide was inclined to continue, I got to just feel myself up in the back of the tour group until we changed rooms and I could slip out to go and locate a bathroom.

There were a ton of weddings going on at this city hall/ abbey as well, so I’m 99% sure that in at least one person’s wedding pictures I’m in the back just holding myself. Fantastic.

I made my dad go with me to get ice cream after this ordeal to make me feel better. The fresh “cookies” ice cream made it better.

I’m off to bed but don’t fret; I’ll be blogging all the way home to Strasbourg tomorrow. This gives a few of you a day to catch up, and me a day to recover from temporary carpal tunnel.

Thanks for reading and sorry, there are no pictures to accentuate this blog. I’d like to keep my G-rating on Blogger.

Elaine

A French Fourth

2008-07-04T23:20:00.004+02:00

Bon Juillet quatre!

So how does an American spend July 4th in France?

Perhaps the most definitively patriotic July 4ths of my life, I spent the day reflecting on the beaches of Normandy. Since the invasion was so vast across the coast, we stuck to only one portion – Omaha beach – for our travels today.

I’m going to type as much as I can for tonight, and leave the rest for tomorrow.

Blog bored? My long time friend Saloni started a blog reviewing local restaurants in Austin. She’s not only a good writer but a very talented photographer. Bon appetite.

http://saloniii.blogspot.com/

Spontaneous Castle Venture

The morning after Heidelberg and the music festival I decided I’d let myself sleep in a little before deciding what I wanted to do.

Minor detail: I’m too programmed to sleep in anymore.

So I woke up at a decent time, and was like “now what?” One thing I dearly miss about the US is the freedom to do things – anything – on Sunday. Nothing is open. As a lifetime only child, I’m perfectly adept to entertaining myself all day, but there’s only so much one can handle of my dorm room.

Jenny helped me find all the details for an Alsatian castle in the mountains near Sélestat, a small town halfway between Strasbourg and Colmar (see earlier day trip). I decided to ride my bike to the train station. If I could catch a train that would make the 1:30 shuttle connection I’d go; otherwise I decided I’d spend the day eating gelato or something.

The train station was much to do. I thought about 5 times that it wasn’t going to happen. Since my American credit card doesn’t have a microchip in it the card won’t work on the automated ticket machines….then there was a problem knowing which train…then there was a line…then I somehow ended up on a train bound for the sleepy town of Sélestat.

Once there I found where the shuttle was supposed to come, and while I was waiting two other girls (speaking accented English) walked up. They asked to see if this was the right place, I said I hoped so, then we started talking.
Turns out they both are working for the European Conciliate in Strasbourg. One was from Iceland, the other was from Slovenia. I immediately erupted “I’m part Slovenian and went there for a few days last summer and loved it!”

Relief and gratitude poured over her face and she said she was so happy to hear that because nobody she ever talks to has been there. She said they’re working really hard on their tourism industry and she’s always trying to convince people how nice it was. I told her we loved it and then we all just talked about random things until the bus showed up.

Haut Koenigsbourg was a neat castle that had been heavily restored from ruins around 1900. It was large and foreboding, but most of the history had been re-written during what is now a historical, historical renovation. When you’ve been to places such as the Heidelberg castle (the day before) and Neuschwanstein, this doesn’t compare.

What held its own were the views. It looked out over the Alsatian valleys and thus French countryside, was perched on the nearby mountains, and had views of the beginning of the Alps and German Black Forest.

Strasbourg may be a storybook city, but it’s nice to escape the flat congestion of the city.

http://www.haut-koenigsbourg.fr/en/chateau

I poked around the castle for a few hours, walked around, then caught the bus back to down to earth and back to Strasbourg. Made for a lovely way to spend a Sunday.

The bus up to the castle also stopped at a “stork resort” kind of sanctuary, and then no kidding a monkey park where they run around and come right up to you. I skipped Montagne des Singes (Monkey Mountain) without hesitation. Threw up in my mouth a little as we passed.

Who talked Elaine into playing French football?!?!?!?!?

This is one of those activities that happened in France and will stay in France.

Around the time of the world cup, it’s a Louis Pasteur tradition to host a huge soccer tournament between the labs.

This American powderpuff’s never played a game of football (soccer) in her life. I’m pretty sure the last time I kicked a ball was…..oh soccer ball….was in elementary school PE. In high school I took aerobics and Pilates only sometimes involves a balance ball -- which is a lot more fun.

I insisted I shouldn’t play. They insisted Dr. Sessler did during his time in Strasbourg years ago.

I was suckered.

Wednesday morning Vivien picked me and Josephine up by the lab and drove us to the south of Strasbourg for the match. For the second time all summer, I got to wear Capri pants. Exciting, I know.

By the way, we need to make sure I stop buying my pants baggy. Every time I think I bought pants that aren’t going to look baggy, they end up stretching and looking big. Please do not alert the fashion police, because I’m looking frumpy. Fly Boy’s in Texas, so I guess this isn’t going to really matter for another month.

So we showed up and Team Weiss’ uniform mockingly “supported” the new French legislation. As of July 1, it is now mandatory to keep a safety vest in your car at all times and wear it if you need to change a tire at the side of the road, etc. Probably a great safety law, but we showed our support by wearing it as a cheap uniform on the field. I got to keep it, so I’m going to be super cool when I get back to the states.

I kicked a ball around, miss-kicked the ball a little, got hit in the back then the head by a mischievous Vivien, and then when we had the match I lucked out and got to stand on the sidelines.

This was good considering it was a full out contact sport. My personal success was just stepping on the field.
Picture of Merquez from google....

It was another chemistry style BBQ with Merquez (Moroccan) sausage in baguettes served with beer.

The matches before lunch were intense and rather “serious.” After lunch (and consequently beer) there were a few more slips and surprisingly everyone played better. That’s France for you. By the end of the afternoon, a rather large and bubbly guy named Tom Tom ended up on the field yelling profanities at his friend’s opposing team. Next thing you know his pants are down at the goal and he’s displaying a full moon. Then he tried to get on the other side of the fence and fell flat on his back.

The PhDs and grad students just stood around and laughed shaking their heads. Only in France.

McDough/Le M:: How do you say “overpriced American shit?”

In between matches, we were sitting around under a tree to escape the heat. It ended up raining later that day, which is typical France for you. Burning heat, then pouring rain five minutes later.

Anyway, we were sitting around in the shade. Several were playing cards and I was reading over some French.

Then Vivian was like “Elaine, do you want to go to mmm-flah blah blah?”

Me: What?

French Co-workers: MMMflahdooo. [inaudible]

This went on a few more minutes before I realized they were attempting to say “McDonalds.”

Me: OHHHHH! MAC-DONalds!

They all laughed at my accent. I may be American, but apparently I can’t say the name. :)

So I said I’d go.

Vivian making faces at Le M.

This is another picture of the McDonalds “café” in Heidelberg.

I’ve decided European McDonalds are simply mules in race horse harnesses. They can try to serve pastries, they can call themselves a café, they can put New York posters all over their “dining room” to make themselves appear chic, they can exploit the fact they’re the only fast food (or take away) company in most neighborhoods. Do what they like in Europe they’re still the sleazy golden arches.

I’m fascinated.

And the French act like they hate it, but who went on the prompting of a bunch of French chemists? I was the only one who didn’t get anything. Obviously it's an American fetish.....or is it?

Real Time

Fireworks haven’t even started in the US, but my 4th is over. Dad’s asleep next to me, and I’m afraid my keyboard clanking will disturb him. I also have about another 30 minutes of picture loading/placing to endure, so stay tuned…

High speed trains make one sleepy

2008-07-03T23:02:00.010+02:00

Babies fall asleep quickly in moving cars because their cerebellum pathways are not fully established and the rocking movement basically overwhelms the system. These pathways are also closely linked to the neuro pathways involved with inducing sleep.*

I think I’m still a baby.

Cars still make me sleepy, but high speed TGV trains to Paris practically wipe me out. True, it was 7 a.m. in the morning, but I blamed Daddy for making me catch his jet lag.

This is me actually training my cerebellar circuit.

So I suppose Adam really is a cradle robber after all. ;)

As I type, I’m looking over the bobbing heads of Parisians and fellow travelers as we depart the St. Lazare gare bound for Caen in the region of Normandy. I felt it was appropriate to dig out my favorite album of all time as the soundtrack to this leg of the journey: Moulin Rouge. I’ve got Lady Marmalade twinkling in my earphones as we speak. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

Also of significant note, I saw a Chris Noth (Mr. Big from Sex and the City) look alike in the train station. I did a double take and I’m pretty sure my mouth fell open. I successfully pulled a “stop and stare” moment. For the record, from this point on I’m claiming to have seen Chris Noth in a Paris train station.

To Each’s Own…

Speaking of Paris, I’ve been getting quite a few questions regarding why I haven’t been yet. My reasons – and grievances – are as follows:**

1) I’ve had it up to here with people suggesting how I do Paris. Everyone has an idea of who I could go with and unless it’s an imaginary friend, c’est impossible.

Arrêt, s’il vous plaît.

I am a safe traveler. Usually I’m five steps ahead of most tourists by identifying possible problems and avoiding questionable situations altogether.

Right now, I’ve also had it up to here with people telling me stories about people getting innocently hurt while traveling. Yes, bad things happen to good people. However, I’ve traveled enough with young people to know one thing: often times the stories that make it back to parents don’t exactly line up to what happened. I’ve now said enough to get my point across.

This is not in any way related to travel tips on what to see. Please, I value experience from past travelers. This is only a reference specifically to the comments I keep getting about Paris safety.

2) Every single American tourist I’ve EVER talked to who’s been to France went to Paris, and often times just Paris. France holds so many beautiful and diverse regions I’d much rather spend my weekends experiencing these unique villages.

3) In my repertoire of friends and acquaintances, I know several “hardcore” travelers whose opinions I esteem. Most of them say they hated Paris. It’s hot, crowded, expensive, an American tourist cliché…..you get the picture.

All of this being said: I’m desperately trying to coordinate some type of weekend trip to Paris before I leave. Furthermore, if I return to the US from three months in France never having visited Paris I’m going to confuse all these aforementioned tourists. I’m going to save myself the breath in future.

This entry may put to rest the incessant Paris safety precautions and “hints” about travel partners, but now I’m really going to hear it about the perks of Paris. I did it to myself.

So this staunch American city girl is sticking more “French Country” this summer. Grand surprise.

Let the travel accounts begin….

We last left our traveling heroine on the terrace of what was regarded as the 8th wonder of the world in Heidelberg, Germany. Real time in France, she’s on her way for yet another adventure. This is one behind, blogging heroine. That’s life as a working chemist.

Heidelberg: The continuation

As usual, I’m going to admit to my blog readers a flaw to my visit. Just don’t tell other experienced travelers.

I think I missed part of the gardens….

It’s ok, I saw the most impressive part, but I think there might have been more that went up the hillside from a different path. Bummer, yes, and when I figured this out I did not think it was worth climbing back up the mountain in the afternoon heat for. It’s just going to be my excuse to get back to Heidelberg one day.

After the castle I went and found myself some quintessential German cuisine to include sauerkraut. Not the best I’ve ever had, but very good just the same. Considering I’ve has some superb German food in my past I hold high expectations.

At the restaurant I got a table right by the window on the high street, so I got to do a lot of people watching.

Star Café?

While I was doing my research for Heidelberg, I came across a reference to a famous café that sold these special chocolates called “Student’s Kiss.” The story for these chocolates originates from the early 1900’s, when the university boys used to go to this café and see their sweethearts who were accompanied by their governesses. In order to express their affection, they’d send a “student kiss” over to the table.

Well I thought this would make a cute souvenir for Adamo, but I hadn’t been able to find it. So I asked my waitress if she knew where it was. And she said “oh, you want Star Café!”

So I said “ok, where is it?”

She said down the street to the right. Judging from the Starbucks cups I’d just seen, I responded “Oh, no, not Starbucks!”

And then she continued to insist that I wanted to go to Starbucks.

I thanked her and left. Sorry Adamo, no student kiss for you.

I saw this in a store in Heidelberg. Look to the right of Uncle Sam. It took me a minute to realize this was unusual.

Apfel Strudel makes my heart sing

After lunch I did more wandering around town, but at that point nothing could live up to the castle experience. I grabbed a bretzel (pretzel) to go, and made it a point to stop by a bakery to get some apfel strudel (apple strudel) for later, since the Germans make it like the Austrians, who make it like the Slovenians which is the style my grandpa used to make it for every family gathering.

I like apple strudel a lot, but only the right kind. (It's the one covered in powered sugar.)

And yes, the picture sucks, but I wanted to get it over with and eat.

Only the nicest people on my travels

To make a very long story short:

The French gave me a bad connection on Deutsch Bahn. I had already sorted it out that morning when I figured it out and found a different Strasbourg connection.

Well when I changed trains, the next train started flashing something I couldn’t recognize with my limited German exposure. I went over to the late 20-something German conductor with an earring who was smoking a cigarette while the train I just got off of waited to restart. Whew that was hard to explain.

I asked him if he spoke English (in German, thank you Vienna) and he explained the next train was full and you could only get on if you had a reserved seat. So I asked him what I should do, so he said to get back on the train and go to Offenburg since there’s a frequent local train there that I could take.

I thanked him and got back on.

Even when trains connect to France, DB (Deutsch Bahn) always announces things in German (duh) and sometimes half heartedly in English. Well when we got to Offenburg, he announced all the connections in German, then added in English

“for those of you connected to Strasbourg, the next train arrives at ____ on platform ___.”

It was the only thing on that announcement said in English.

Fête de la Musique á Strasbourg

Let’s be honest. I come from the live music capital of the world.

My impression: eh.

I got back from Heidelberg in time to go home, drop off my stuff, and then bike back downtown for the music festival. It happens once a year on the summer solstice and anyone and everyone comes out to either play music or listen.

There was everything from an amateur flute player…

… to DJs….

…to rock bands ( I enjoyed this – not)….

… to jazz musicians (my favorite)…

You get the picture. I parked my bike and walked around to take it all in. I’m not much into the music scene in Austin, let alone France. It’s also really not my type of music either. I did really enjoy seeing all the different vendors.

They had a crêpe stand, random candy stands, and my favorite: the barbapapa stand (cotton candy, but in French it literally translates to Papa’s Beard.)

You can also tell a lot about a music festival from its trash. As you can see, tons of alcohol. This also includes the likes of vodka. The festival also felt like an American suburban mall on a Friday night. Teenagers were everywhere. Only difference: they were legal to drink here.

* If my vertebrate physiology professor does indeed peruse my blog like he claims, he may be calling bullshit on this neuro-factoid. However, I swear I remember him talking about this in class. For all you non-science readers, I totally know everything that I’m talking about and am practically an expert. For my science peers, keep your mouths shut.

**I’m also very sorry to my rhetoric professor who’s an occasional reader. I do not use contractions; I use unnecessarily flowery diction; and my insertion of dashes, semicolons and colons might be more accurate if I wrote drunk. Because of his class, I now realize their importance in effective rhetoric and one day hope to use them correctly 99% of the time. As for now I’m just throwing them in where I get a gut feel; this is probably mostly incorrect. His class may also be to blame for my innate aversion to all things “Le M”.

Real Time

It’s currently 23h00 (11 p.m.) in Caen, France which is in the Normandy region. I continued drafting on the train, and now I'm at our hotel. For my long weekend my dad and I scratched Blois and decided to focus only on Normandy. Probably a good call.

Why aren’t updates more frequent?

Oh yeah, I work 40 hours a week in a lab (this week as the exception). This is the best I can do.

I’m going to do my best to get caught up this weekend, but I’ve got a lot of ground to cover now.

At the end of every night the plan will be for me to just update with as far as I’ve gotten for the day. This may or may not happen.

The plan for tomorrow: wake up, eat breakfast, go to Bayeux, and then from there take a bus to a few of the D-Day beaches, cemeteries, and museums.

Goodnight!
Elaine

Lost in the Moment on top of Schloss Heidelberg

2008-06-28T00:35:00.012+02:00

Currently, it’s an early Friday evening in France. I worked late in the lab (not notably late, just after most everyone else went home) which isn’t a problem considering I’m only working three days next week. It’s also the nature of running column chromatography. At least it appears to have worked! As we speak my dad is on a plane headed over to “le France” and when I wake up tomorrow I’ll be riding my bike to the “La Gare” bus stop to meet him.

The weather feels like a Texas spring today: a light breeze and warm sun. After riding my bike home from work, I popped open a new bottle of wine and it’s turned out to be one of the better ones so far on my trip. I’m sure there is a refined art to picking out wine at the grocery store, but I prefer the method of cheap whim. I usually go for a local wine (which is usually inherently cheaper) and normally I pick out one that’s been spotlighted at the end of the aisles. This method works delightfully sometimes, and ok some others. This week’s selection earns a “bingo.”

What’s to Come

The following is my plan for the next 10 days with my Dad. This of course will probably undergo a few changes, but the rough outline will hopefully remain intact.

- Tomorrow depending on which bus he’s able to catch from Frankfurt, we’ll probably do lunch or brunch in Strasbourg. We’ll then go rent a car and head out into the countryside to Dijon and Boune (pronounced like bone) which are two towns in the Burgundy region of France. The Burgundy region is known for it’s wine (it’s either first or second in the country for production) and its moutarde (mustard!) I’m planning on hitting up the Côte d’Or (Golden Hills) which contains a plethora of local vineyards to peruse and sample. Depending on time, we may visit a local abbey.

- On Monday I go to work, and I’ll probably send my dad off to the local castle I visited last weekend. I’m aiming to visit the Route du Vin (Wine Road) by car that evening to sample the local Alsatian [see my Q & A below] wine and cuisine. I’ve been unable to do this so far because you really need a car to do it well.

- If France’s weather should decide to cooperate –which is honestly doubtful – we’ll have a picnic on my lunch break with food bought from the open air market that’s open on Tuesday mornings. We’ll get wine, cheese, baguettes, pastries, and ok – a few other things – and make a French picnic of it. Get excited Daddy.

- Tuesday night is Tarte Flambée night at the lab! [See Q & A below] Jean sent an email and said that everyone could bring their spouses and then in the English translation said “this includes Dads too” so it looks like Daddy is going to meet everyone I work with! We’ll be meeting that evening at a local restaurant.

________________________________
Q: Ok Elaine, wtf is Tarte Flambée? Speak any English?

A: Tarte Flambée is a traditional Alsatian cuisine. To be honest, I haven’t had it yet. So this is exciting for me. From what I know, it’s a thin crusted pizza that has a type of cream sauce instead of a tomato based sauce. It’s supposed to be par-excellent! The French, like pretty much every other country, have an obsession with pizza. I’m darn close to declaring the pizza a universal human trait, but I’m guessing there are some other continents that would disagree (cough-cough, Asia.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flameukeusche_1.jpg

Q: What the heck is Alsatian and the Alsace region? I thought you were in France. Duh!

A: France is divided into 26 regions. This includes the Burgundy Region, Normandy Region, Champagne Region, etc. Strasbourg (the city I live in, reference the map link on the sidebar) is in the Alsatian Region which is known for its unique blend with German culture since we’re right on the border. We are definitely the most badass region of France.

Aside from wine, German identity confusion, and Jews the region is also known for our storks – as in how babies are born. Apparently the stork population almost went extinct, then after some wildlife preserves the population has reached decent levels. Now the region is obsessed. Either that or they like lying to their children about the biological bondage of torture known as childbirth. Sorry: too much Feminine Mystique reading.

Want to know more?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace

http://www.tourisme-alsace.com/?lg=en

Q: Are you racist? Why are you talking about Jews?

A: Thanks for asking, I’ve been wanting a way to bring this up! Apparently Elaine from Seinfeld (Julia Louise Dreyfus) is of Alsatian Jew origin. One of my favorite areas to ride my bike through is the Parc de Contades not only because it’s quiet and local, but you see men with long beards and kippahs on their heads. It makes me feel like Charlotte York (Sex and the City) when she becomes a Jew and starts shopping at the kosher food markets in New York. This is also the only neighborhood aside from in the tourist area that you can find anything open on a Sunday. Yes, I’m learning the tricks of the trade to living in Europe.

________________________________

-Wednesday night or Thursday morning we’ll be catching a train (fingers crossed) for the Loire Valley and the city of Blois; known as the playground of the kings. The area is filled with huge chateaus and gardens. After a jaunt here, we’ll head north to Normandy so a slightly more somber region. We’ll eat some Camembert cheese, feel like Americans, then head back to Strasbourg. Daddy will leave on Tuesday morning.

- I also told Daddy he might be disappointed because we’re hitting up 2 of the 3 top regions for wine production in France. Looks like wine, cheese, mustard, and castles make the top of our priority list.

I thought this website was cool, and you can go to look up what wine to serve with different meals. Trés chic.

http://www.wines-france.com/

Strasbourg Weather: PMS-y to the Max

If you’re a loyal blog reader, you might be thinking:

“She’s hot, she’s cold, she’s hot, she’s cold…….”

Basically, this is true. Definition of my life in Strasbourg.

So two weeks ago, at the height of my homesickness (and probably a large contributor) the weather was so cold, wet, and miserable Jenny from the lab brought in a sweatshirt and left it on my desk attached to a note which read:

“I thought the Texan might be cold and need this!”

And I did. I wore her brother’s old cross country sweatshirt all last week.

Last week I had to ride my bike in a thunderstorm, and that was no fun either.

Then this past weekend it was so hot, even I – the native Texan – felt fatigued. France has the most fickle weather I’ve ever experienced. It will go from being rather hot and sunny to raining within an hour. One day it’s humid, the next day’s dry. It appears France cannot make up its mind.

I’m slightly convinced this is why people turn off the heaters and don’t have air conditioning: they’d forever be switching between the two so they’re being lazy.

Now for the serious blogging….

Friday
Friday after work we had a small party to celebrate David (pronounced Da-veeeeed) and Pauline’s successful completion of oral exams. Both of them are second year master’s students.

As a refresher, I’m going to run through everyone in the lab so I can just freely use their names. You can match them to pictures if you go back to the lab link in one of my previous entries.

Who’s Who of the Weiss Lab French Chemists

David doesn’t speak very much English and my most significant interaction with him since I got here was when he showed me how to use the espresso machine. We don’t talk very much (obviously) but he’s very nice.

Pauline on the other hand speaks almost perfect English and was the first in the lab to really make me feel welcome and drew out all her favorite restaurants and bars on my map. I’ve really enjoyed being around Pauline and I’m going to miss having her around in the lab.

Jean is my PhD supervisor who is the head of the lab group. He is a colleague of Dr. Sessler, my organic professor back at UT. Jean was born and raised in Strasbourg, did post doctorate work in the US, and likes American rock music. He could not be more friendly and helpful. For instance, today he brought in a type of French cinnamon apple coffee cake for the lab. He’s married to Jenny.

Jenny is an American who came to France to get her PhD and married Jean. She now lives in France and they have two little girls, but she’s still an American citizen. Her daughters speak both English and French and are citizens of both countries. Jenny has been my French mom because she’s always making sure I have everything I need and provided me with all my cooking utensils I use at the dorm.

Vivien is a first year master’s student and works in the hood (fume hood) next to me. He’s young and makes working in the lab a lot of fun. He’s the person I learn most of my French slang from and we talk a lot about interesting cultural differences. Example: he told me girls who dance at clubs in France are just “bitches [pronounced beeei-ches] while his friend told him American girls do this, but aren’t necessarily bitches. This made washing dishes much more entertaining /educational. We kid around a lot, but it’s great because if I have a question he can answer it and never makes me feel stupid.

Jeremy is a French student from the south of France who arrived a few weeks ago to do research. He just finished his 3rd year of college and speaks very good English. I’ve also enjoyed having him around also.

Josephine is another third year French student from Paris. Josephine doesn’t speak very much English, but we talk in mixed French English. Again, very nice, but I have limited interaction with her.

Dinesh is the Indian PhD who most directly supervises my lab work.

Mamadou doesn’t speak a lot of English, but he’s another PhD and is really super friendly. He sings a lot in the lab, and laughs every time I speak French. I think he gets a really big kick out of it. I know you might be thinking I’m just saying everyone here is friendly, but I really like the lab group I’m in.

Anyway, onto our work party. The students and supervisors from our partner lab came, and Jean and Jenny brought in their two little girls after school (they’re about 8 and 12) and then Pauline put together a very French/Alsatian) spread of food. As for drinks, we had Alsatian wine and Alsatian “champagne” called Crêmant. I tried the Crêmant and was proud that I actually could tell the difference between the sparkling white wine and true champagne. Pauline made an assortment of different sandwiches on a type of pretzel bread (German influence here). One had a pâté which I’m actually ok with eating, though will not miss upon returning to the US. Another had thinly cut and cured meat with really flavorful mini pickles, and the other (which was the best) had a type of cream cheese/goat cheese which was seasoned with herbs. We also had cheese cubes, a type of French sausage, and then hard pretzels. It was quite good.

We sat around and talked for a lot time, and when I finally headed home on my bike the weather was so enticing I just threw my stuff in my room and headed back out. I biked all across Strasbourg, timed the ride to the train station for the next morning, and went to finish my quest for Ikea even though I knew it would be closing. I found it off in the distance and decided it wasn’t worth finishing the journey since it would be closing. At least I know the other day when I went looking for it I was – no surprise – very close!

Even the ice cream has flowers in France…

On the way home I stopped off at the Orangerie (the park I ride my bike through on my way to work) and got ice cream at the famous parlor in Chez Franchi. The French like flower flavors, so I coaxed myself out of my favorite tiramisu and got Violette (violet) flavored ice cream! The ice cream was more icy than creamy which I’m just fine with and honestly there isn’t a way to describe the flavor. Maybe it’s the glass of wine I had earlier, but I’m at a loss for a description. The best I can do: picture a very mild, plain vanilla base with a honeysuckle type garnish. Except purple … and violet.

Heidelberg is like Sedenberg, right?

While I may not be a “hardcore” European travel in the sense that I meander town to town with only a backpack and rail pass, I’m hardcore about my “safe and planned” trips. I was up at 5:45 a.m. to get to the train station by bike to catch the morning connection to Heidelberg, Germany last Saturday.

Switching trains in Germany was a cinch after getting to Baden-Baden for Rome. Not to toot my own horn, but I must really be looking like I know what I’m doing anymore because I was approached several times on Saturday by travelers wanting to confirm they were on the right train, or where to go for ____, etc. I used to get only the desperate, last resort travelers asking me questions, but now I’m getting even semi-confident traveler questions. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

I arrived at about 9:30 a.m. in Heidelberg. Went and bought a map at the tourist office and set off. I decided to walk along the river toward the old part of the town which proved to be a good choice.

Headed in, reached the famous bridge, but it was under construction, so it wasn’t really that exciting. First thing on my personal agenda was caffeine, so I hit up a café in the marketplace and enjoyed having cream in my coffee again. (The French like it strong, black, and with sugar.) Germans have also caught the habit of “coffee to go” like the Americans, so you see people walking around everywhere, even in the heat, with “to go” cups. This is something you can’t even find in France unless you go to the train station, and even there it’s iffy.

Following my coffee, I took the hike up to Schloss Heidelberg. It was a climb, and someone had numbered all the steps. I took this picture half way up there…. You get the picture. Literally.

Once to the top, I got tickets for the guided tour around the castle. I’ve been shamelessly flashing my University of Strasbourg Louis Pasteur Institute ID card and getting European student discounts everywhere. This brings me pleasure.

After two summers of tours, I’m also getting picky about tour guides. Our tourguide at the castle was really good! She spoke clear English, and intertwined interesting stories along with the history throughout the tour. My tour was a group of Americans (since this is a popular American tourist spot) and I got several questions about if I was traveling alone. This one mom was there with her teenage daughter, and asked if I was alone, so I told her I was working all summer in Strasbourg at the Louis Pasteur Institute and was taking weekend trips and she got this shocked/amazed look on her face.

The tour also felt like a culmination of my traveling experiences from last summer which was very satisfying. Emperor Charlemagne reminded me of Prague and she made a reference to King Ludwig and his “excessive spending habits” (he’s the one who built Neuschwanstein castle I saw last summer) which were references only a few caught. Blog readers from last summer will remember my fascination with Empress Sisi in Vienna. During the tour the tour guide talked about how famous visitors during the restoration included Mark Twain (everyone knew) and Empress Sisi (nobody but me knew who she was.) The tour guide locked eyes with me, and I said “oh that’s right, Sisi was Bavarian of origin!” and she looked surprised but pleased and said “yes that’s right!”

Not only was Sisi one of my favorite historical figures from last summer, but I was the only American there who knew who she was. I also thought it was neat that basically Sisi and I have the same traveling tastes. The western region of Germany, Hungary, traveling in general….. now let’s just hope I don’t end up stabbed by a crazy lunatic during one of my vacations.

I was really hungry after the tour but didn’t want to leave the castle before seeing the gardens that were known as the 8th wonder of the world before the 30 years war destroyed the majority of it because they were built up on the mountainside. I opted to get some German ice cream in the castle, and oh my, it was good. As opposed to the French flower ice cream, this was incredibly creamy and indulgent. After this I went out to the terrace that overlooked Heidelberg.

It would have been impossible for me to dream up weather any more perfect. The sun was out and kept me warm but a transient breeze to ensure it didn’t get too hot. There were blue skies and white puffy clouds and gorgeous Heidleberg all before me.

1) It is simply hard to impress or excite me. I can fake it very well, but I’m really hard to get a reaction out of.
2) It is even harder to get an emotional reaction of me.

I’m not sure if it was the ice cream in my stomach, the heavenly weather, or if the view from the castle side was really just that blissful; but the view brought me to tears. I stood leaned up against the wall of the castle terrace completely present in the moment.

Not only did I feel like the luckiest person in the world for the opportunity to stand right there, in the climate, at that time, but I’ve figured out that it’s the days when I successfully travel by myself that I feel the most a part of the world. To me traveling moves you from a passive audience member of our globe to one of the actors onstage. It makes one feel alive.

I felt the most alive on top of Schloss Heidelberg than I have in a very long time. The countless amount of time (approximately 40 minutes) I gazed out onto the town made every single euro I spent to get there worth it. Perhaps for this experience alone, Heidelberg is officially one of my favorite towns in all of Europe.

I think I was still slightly drunk from the view because when I left the castle to get to the gardens I went down the low exit instead of the high one where I entered. This meant I had to go half way down the mountain to take the path all the way back up. It’s a mistake a tourist should only make once.

Up on the grand terrace garden, I watched two Asian tourists approach these German bikers (as in bicycle) and ask to take their picture with them. The other German bikers burst out laughing and dug out their cameras to take the same picture – but for a different reason.

Early Finish? (late finish by the French time zone)

I’m going to end here. If I feel motivated in the morning, I’ll finish up my entry. This is hopefully going to be the case because otherwise I’m off with my dad for the weekend to write more adventures in my head. I just know if I don’t stop to post now, by the time the pictures get added it will be absurdly late. And this American needs to be prepaired to see a familiar face in the morning!

Happy Reading!

Elaine

Roma Saga Part III

2008-06-27T00:31:00.008+02:00

Someone remind me where the time flies, s’il vous plait? Because it certainly isn’t to France.

I’m feeling quite ridiculous that Rome still isn’t finished. Let’s get this done, then I’m posting another entry with the past weekend.

___________________

Q: For real, what in the world have you been doing Elaine?

A: Working 40 hours a week on organic chemistry synthesis, cooking edible compounds for my personal consumption, and planning logistics for my dad’s stay in France. Please take a deep breath and compose yourself.

___________________

Blogging Saga of the Year: ROME PART III

We last left our two heroines at St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. They were amusing themselves watching the beginnings of a peculiar wedding by imagining situations which would allow one to get married in the Vatican.

Following St. Peters, Elizabeth and I made a stop at her favorite local bakery. The bakery was located in the basement of a residential building (actually also neighbors to a sex shop) BUT it was a really cute local bakery. The bakery had this modern, yet local chic feel – something only Italy could pull off. The desserts looked like something from a story book while the interior sported a modern stainless steel look. There was even a flat screen TV mounted that silently played the Italian “E!” fashion channel.

We ordered Elizabeth’s favorite biscottis (cookies) which were these mini tartlets filled with a chocolate cream. While we were waiting for someone to take our order, some locals were coming up and down the steps carrying bags and platters of mini Italian sandwiches, finger foods, desserts, and cakes. Basically I wanted to go to this party or have a bakery like this down the street to cater.

After our cookie stop, we hit up the subway, landed in a random northern piazza, and worked our way south. This means we saw A LOT. We walked, we absorbed, we talked, we took in Roma.

Went back down past the Pantheon, but couldn’t go inside because a mass was going on. I hugged a column instead because I’m silly.

From there we started walking toward the Roman Forum and Coliseum. As we walked past the “wedding cake” Palazzo Venezia -- nicknamed because apparently even the Italians find it gaudy, and I’m not sure how this is possible – Elizabeth and I noticed that the roads were being blocked off by police and that there was a lot of noise coming from the base. Once we started guessing what it was we knew it would be good.

Yes, the two prim and proper only children, who last summer took tea and scones regularly on afternoons following discussions of English literature found themselves in the middle of a gay rights rally in Rome.

You may be picturing an organized rally protest or colorfully classy gay pride parade that one would find in the US. But no class and organization in Rome. This rights rally quickly turned into a Eurotrash gay rights/random street party. What started as a protest, ended as a bunch of trailers and trucks blaring techno music. Cross dressers were everywhere, random people were just jumping in, people were dragging bins of beer, there were ghetto signs hanging off the back of pick up trucks, and this party was just getting started.

We had a really fun time laughing at ourselves ending up in the middle of such a European spectacle.

When we finally had decided the show party was over (and we were still trying to make sense of what exactly we had just witnessed) we walked through the Roman forum and headed toward the collussim. We both had kind of realized that we were starting to need to go to the bathroom.

Traveling Tip:
I’m convinced that Europeans are just perpetually dehydrated, because they hate bathrooms. This also might explain why public urination is so widely accepted here – as I see frequently. When you realize that you even MIGHT need a restroom soon, start looking immediately.

Both experienced travels, we started looking. The ONLY thing we seriously could find were a set of portapotties that were just NOT ok. 40 minutes later, no bathroom, and a worrying feeling in my bladder, I decided that I had major penis envy and declared my hatred for all males.

I also was desperate enough to pay 3 dollars for a diet coke so that we could finally relieve ourselves at a restaurant.

At moments like this you miss the United States, land of the public toilettes, quite bitterly.

Here come the Italian Brides?

After our desperate walking, we took our expensive drinks and crashed outside the coliseum. I didn’t even care to go inside at this point, we just wanted to sit. We were sitting facing Constantine’s Arch, and we both noticed a bride and groom getting their wedding pictures. Both of us nonchalantly made a comment and continued talking about whatever.

Then we saw another. That was odd.

Then there were two more.

Was this a photoshoot? And why would people come to a monument that symbolizes such violence?

And the brides kept coming. When we got back to her apartment we tried to look it up, but we think it must be some type of tradition to get your picture by Constantine’s Arch because we saw about 25 brides and grooms traipse through the tourist’s litter to get in place for pictures.

Elizabeth and I enjoyed this because it spurred conversation regarding “oooohhh look at her dress!” or “omg, I’ll never wear anything like that” and general girly fantasy. It was very fun.

We were both exhausted, so we headed back to her apartment. What was supposed to be a 15 minute crazy, bat out of hell, bus ride back turned into about 30 minutes re-routed and stuck in traffic.

Then Elizabeth remembered. George Bush was coming to Italy that night to meet with the Pope. We got stuck in traffic because of it. All the locals were confused on the bus and we were trying to figure out if we were going to make the right stop. After fighting traffic, we crashed in her apartment and had some Frescati Italian wine.

Sunday

My final day in Rome. Sunday for us was more about soaking up the Italian atmosphere. I did some last minute souvenir shopping and we went and saw a final famous Piazza with a famous statue, non of which I can remember the name of. Normally in this case I’d look it up, but I’m tired and have work tomorrow.

So yeah, famous stuff in Italy. We “brunched” at a local popular café. We both ended up getting this specialty bean soup, that came with freshly grated parmesan and fabulous bread. Amazing.

Afterwards I headed back to the airport, and back home to Strasbourg.

Fini. Bet you though I’d never finish this entry?

It’s past my bedtime. Tomorrow look forward to a post about my weekend biking around Strasbourg, exploring Heidelberg, soaking up the music festival, and spontaneously visiting a local castle.

You know you're grocery shopping in France when.... and E & E do as the Romans Do Part II

2008-06-24T12:58:00.008+02:00

First Thing's First: Current update

There’s no doubt you live in France when the top of your weekly grocery list reads the following:
-Baguettes
-Cheese
-Wine

When I pulled out my list this week I smiled inside. There were other things on the list, but that’s how it started. My culinary priorities are clearly straight here. Also, you know you’re a French foodie when you pick grocery stores by the diversity of their cheese selection. In case you're ever in Strasbourg, Gallery Gourmande is my first choice.

I know that if I don’t sit here and tap out another blog it will never get done. I knew I was taking too long on the Rome entry when my postcards to family members made it to the US before the blog got posted. Considering how ridiculous snail mail is, this is embarrassing.

Let’s start with a quick Elaine State of the Union.

I had a fabulous weekend filled with a daytrip to Heidelberg, Germany on Saturday, the Strasbourg summer solstice Fête de la Musique (Music Festival) Saturday night, and a spontaneous day trip to Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg on Sunday (located near the village Sélestat just south of here).

What happened last week you might ask? Well....

The beginning of last week was not so great. I got really homesick. It was not helped by that fact that I felt horrible. No, I wasn’t sick, but either my body did one of those things where I just wear it out and it decides to enforce compusory rest or I had some type of weird allergic reaction to something. I had absolutely NO energy what-so-ever, my appetite disappeared (quite unusual for me), I slept away most evenings, and felt lethargic all the time. I felt like my blood pressure was really low and I think subcontiously whenever my body acts out of whack (especially dealing with cardiovascular anything) I get paranoid considering I've had two young friends literally drop dead from sudden heart complications.

Bottom line: I felt like crap.

This is further complicated by the fact that – pardon my French – I live in a shit house. The co-ed, down the hall bathrooms smell like urine, get trashed by boys who can’t aim, the walls of our rooms are very thin and I can hear people blaring American 90’s rap and rock at all hours of the night, and my room lacks anything beyond primitive comfort.

I’m complaining, yet I’m getting paid to spend the summer in France. Yes I know. But at this point I’ve almost been away from home for two months, and I really don’t have friends here. Though hanging out with my lab co-workers is helping a lot. Sometimes you just get tired of it.

By the end of the week I was back to my high-energy, power-spirited self. Go figure. I indulged myself in a pity party of homesickness: then got over myself.

Special Guest Star

And surprise! I’ll be hosting a visitor this Saturday.

He’ll come bearing gifts of spicy salsa, my coveted Nature’s Valley Granola Bars that I normally eat every morning, zip lock bags, and a few other American luxuries. Couple more hints for the slow:

- It’s a visitor I had in Europe this time last year
- I’ve known him all my life – literally
- I look like a female carbon copy of him

It’s my daddy!

I made my parents promise he wasn’t arranging the trip because I got homesick. After several conversations where I made it quite clear this damsel needs no rescuing and clarified that I "can do it myself" we reached a deal. More skype phone calls later (in a sentence: Skype is the free, international internet phone service) my parents convinced me that this was sincerely an open opportunity to come, which means I’m going to have a travel buddy! I’ve already arranged to have a four day weekend with work and we’ll be setting off to see France the weekend of July 4! He'll be arriving this Saturday morning so I've got lots to do!

If only he could pack a toilet seat and Rudy's BBQ…..

Roma: Part II of the Saga (might be II of III because I have work tomorrow)

Part of me feels really guilty I got so behind on this blog because I feel like it gives the impression that it was not a fabulous weekend, because it was. I could not have asked for a better Rome experience with Elizabeth and it was worth all the arrangements to get there.

I left off on Saturday. Goodness. I am sooooooooo slow!

As a Catholic, it would be remiss for me to skip the Vatican. So we made this Saturday’s first priority. We both woke up in her lovely apartment, got ready, and set off to beat the hoards of tourists. As two true caffeine consumers, we stopped off and got a cappuccino to go before hitting the Vatican Museum line. We got there right as the line opened, and were able to get inside pretty quickly all things considered.

Where we got our coffee. This is NOT the type of pizza I talk about later.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. I must admit I’m no expert Catholic, and I’m sure that I missed some things that other staunch Catholics would have known all about. However, between me the Catholic and Elizabeth the student in Rome we covered our bases pretty well.

______________________________

Random Observation from the Vatican Museum:

Before entering the maze of art and old things, I figured we should hit the bathroom. It was a lucky guess that historic papal governances wouldn’t be taking female bladder concerns into account while designing the Vatican.

We had the same idea as a lot of other women.

Don’t get me started. No male bathroom line and a women’s line that went outside basement entrance to the restrooms. There was a tour group of Japanese and another of Indian women in front of us. Elizabeth and I were enjoying the time to talk, so we weren’t bothered.

Apparently the Japanese women decided to take matters into their own hands. Several slipped out of line and went into the empty men’s restroom unnoticed by the attendance.
They came out, and signaled to a few others. Well the second wave got noticed by the Italian bathroom attendants and they went flying in after them yelling in Italian.

The Japanese women and a few of the Indian women tried a few more times, and I don’t blame them. Helped our line go faster. This was just comical. Also of significant humor was the disturbed look in the men's faces coming out of the bathroom as women were going in.

______________________________

I enjoyed the Vatican museum. It had all of the art collections, but my only bone to pick was that you spend so much time on Roman/Egyptian art in the beginning that by the time you finally make it to the Catholic religious art you feel burnt out.

My travel suggestion: go quickly through this first part.

One of my favorite parts of the museum was the hall of tapestries. (Don't remember the actual name, so sue me.) They would be easy to overlook at first, but when you take the time to examine their complexity you realize how hard it must have been to weave. The nativity scene really struck me because it was the first time through the museum where I felt a connection of “oh yeah! this is art familiar to me on a personal level!”

The tapestries proved to be of further signficance to me, as Adamo pointed out, because of one of my all time favorite religious poems, Plan of the Master Weaver, which my mom gave to me after my car accident. Here's a link to a version on the internet in case you're interested.

http://dalekleiner.mystarband.net/masterweaver.html

Simple, I know, but you take it so much it’s easy to get artistically overwhelmed. I firmly believe that this is what’s so great about art museums. No two people go through and find the same things inspiring. Admittedly, famous pieces usually result in the famous reactions – unless they're famously disappointing. I take great pleasure in leaving museums with impressions from art that I’ve never heard anyone else talk about.
The tapestries did it for me at the Vatican.

There was also a Jesus whose eyes followed you like Uncle Sam. This was just amusing.

Elizabeth did a good job setting me up for the Sistine Chapel. The restorations which went on for years are complete and her class went through last week. She said that they all went in there expecting heaven on earth which can ultimately only lead to a let down. So I took her advice and went in expecting just a pretty painting.

Picture of the Sistine Chapel from the internet because you can't take pictures while you're there. Figured this would make a helpful reference for readers unfamiliar with Italian art.

This allowed me to enter and despite the crowds of tour groups, despite the incessant hushings from the guards, and despite all the anticipation I entered and enjoyed it for what it was: beautiful.

After all this Vatican touring, Elizabeth and I were tired and hungry. We decided the best way to rest was to get lunch and rest on her couches at the apartment since it was so close.

When In Rome….

I couldn’t have left Rome without sampling some pizza. So we went to the place just down her street.

In Italy, you pick out the type of pizza you want (we both got eggplant) and then they slice off how much you want, weigh it, and then slip it into a brick oven. When they get it back out they fold it over like a pizza sandwich and give it to you in a parchment wrap.

OH MY GOD.

Let’s be frank.

I’m not sure which was more holy: the Vatican, or this pizza.

The bottom was just lightly crispy. It was oven hot, yet didn’t burn your tongue. The cheese was some type I’d never tasted before. I’m thinking it might have been a type of goat cheese. Very rich and spongy so there didn't have to be a lot of it. The eggplant was a unique topping for me at least, and the sauce was flavorful without being distracting.

This divine pizza coupled with our tourist appetites forced me to use every single ounce of restrant to not inhale the pizza before the apartment.

I don’t have one of my signature food pictures because I was busy eating. This is probably for the better because I want this pizza just as bad as I wanted the gelato last entry.

It’s a good thing I’m living in France. The food is good and I’m eating plenty of aforementioned cheeses, baguettes, pastries, etc….but not like the Italian food. My scale would be getting a big ol’ souvenir in August if my research was in Italy.

We’re both getting old. I needed to rest my feet. When did this happen? I felt like a 40 year old. Goodness that’s old! ;)

Afterwards, we needed another boost. Gelato time!

Seriously, I hope the food in heaven is like the food I had in Italy.

St. Peter’s

What I’m about to say may get me excommunicated.

In the two weeks it’s taken me to write this blog I’ve thought a lot about this and why I had the reaction I did.

I didn’t think it was all that spectacular.

Gasp. Swoon. Faint. Scream. Shame. Anxiety attack. Excommunication.

I thought and thought about it. Here is the Mother Ship of all churches and I wasn’t impressed. This must make me a Catholic mutant right?

Well I thought about it. In the past two summers, I’ve seen some pretty spectacular churches. Many lesser known. St. Peter’s holds most of the religious significance, but I remembered back to last summer.

The Benedictine Abby in Melk, Austria; complete with its rose interiors stunned me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melk_Abbey

St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, Hungary; a surprising delight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Stephen

And one of my favorite churches of all time in Vienna; Karlskirche.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlskirche

I’ve seen old and humble chapels in Edinburgh’s castle, majestic English cathedrals, and Chagall stained glass in Germany.

Sincerely I’m not trying to make myself sound pompous. This just explains why I had the reaction I did.

Never-the-less, it was very impressive and grand. Elizabeth and I also came across the beginnings of a wedding in one of the side chapels. We had a lot of fun watching them set up for this, and making up circumstances that warrant someone getting married IN St. Peters. Everything from mob connections to related to a nun (who was present) made the list

As much as I’d like to keep typing, I’ve now spent over an hour on this blog and it’s after 1 a.m. This little chemist needs to wake up tomorrow and do an acid/base work up on her boronic acid –again- and run a column on her Suzuki coupling product. I also need to plan my dad’s stay here in France.

Never a dull moment. I’m not taking the time to re-read over this like I usual do, so deal with the writing imperfections.

Elaine

Elaine & Elizabeth do as the Romans do on an evening in Roma: Part I

2008-06-19T23:31:00.012+02:00

The past two days at work I’ve been playing a game of “Where’s Waldo” with my 4-cyanophenylboronic acid I synthesized earlier this week. What should have taken yesterday morning took all of yesterday and today.

A million solvent extractions, drying operations, caramelizing crystals that looked edible (but were absolutely NOT), mousses forming on the rotovap, and many frustrations I learned two things:
1) Boronic Acids are tricky bastards- not to be trusted. Jean endorses my sentiments.
2) Not to doubt my calculations, let’s just say I got a comment about this, which was promptly retracted. No really, the other thing I learned was never to give up isolating pale yellow powders: they’re in there, you just have do the right coaxing to get them out.

With organic chemistry the reason why a reaction doesn’t go to plan could be anything from a degree difference in room temperature to you didn’t wear your hair right that day. We think that there was a leak that developed in my dropping funnel that ruined part of my lithiation, but it’s done.

Back to Rome, apologies for the delay. I felt really listless for the first part of this week, but I’m all rested now. Pas de problem.

Ryan Air: Wal-Mart of the skies

Strasbourg Train Station (Strasbourg La Gare): how you find your trains in France, the clear way.

On Friday I set out by train for Germany to catch my flight. There is an art to traveling Europe by train that I’m still perfecting. My first stop quickly became a minor challenge. I had about 15 minutes to change trains in Applewiser, Germany. I get off the train from Strasbourg, and go to check the boards at the station.

Problem #1: there was no station.

Problem #2: I don’t speak any German.

Handy Skill #1: I remember some words from last summer in Vienna.

Handy Skill #2: Follow other people with luggage

I managed to figure out that they were looking at posted schedules, and figured out which of the 6 platforms the train I needed would pretty much “swing by.” Got on, and headed to Baden-Baden, the German equivalent of Bath, England. I was supposed to spend the day in this small, literally “bath” spa town, but their tourist website was much better than the city (at least by foot.) After some walking, I just headed to the small airport.

Baden-Baden flowers discovered upon brief exploration.

Important lesson from my day in Baden-Baden: Germans, despite their notoriety as “engineering minded” or “practical” people, suck at maps and public transportation. So they had two busses that went from the bahnhof (train station) to the airport, and you buy your tickets at the machine.

Did that.

Well I go to get on the bus, and they want a euro more, because despite the fact that it goes the same place, this bus costs more. Yet another minor problem: all I had were some plastic cards and a 50 euro bill. I scrounged up some change and was about 20 cents short. That’s when this older couple sitting in front asked me what I needed and handed me the money.

I’m indebted to an elderly German couple who jetted off to somewhere in the world last weekend.

Got to the airport, had lunch, and read. It wasn’t bad at all, and I enjoyed the quiet. Honestly. Then I realize that since I’m only taking one backpack as a carry on, none of my toiletries were in the required zip lock bag.

As I passed the single security checkpoint they were tossing people’s toiletries left and right because this small airport had nothing better to do. Clearly if I were a terrorist, this would be the airport I’d choose. And I’d definitely want to fly a RyanAir jet…….not.

Then I just get pissed off.
1) I am dating a United States Marine Officer. I should not be treated like a blonde, terror of a terrorist. This makes logical sense to me: go with it.
2) I’m a chemist. 100 mL bottles don’t stop those who actually understand the components of TNT and work with hazardous chemicals all week long.

So I refused to buy one of their bags, which meant I transferred my granola cereal into the container I ate my salad in, and put my toiletries in there. Can you tell I’m stubborn and resourceful? I also realized my mini saline bottle was 118 mL; too large to go through.

Oh hell no. Bitch please.

I wrapped it up into my Victoria Secret flannel PJ pants, and put it in the middle of my backpack. Then I put my original toiletry bag that still had my deodorant in it, right above it. Decoy…..

I went through, got violated by a German women, because again, I’m a clear terrorist at Baden-Baden airpark. Apparently they saw my bottle going through security and decide to search my bag. They kept looking at the screen, digging in my bag, looking at the screen, looking at my toiletry bag, looking at the screen, looking at my deodorant, looking at the bottom of my bag, and so on.

I just stood there and acted very concerned and confused.

Finally she gave up and I’m still in possession of my travel saline since the Italian airport coming home could care less.

RyanAir = chaos. The fellow customers were very pushy, and it always makes me laugh when unsuspecting foreigners (well I suppose I’m the foreign one here) try to push into me OR cut me in line.

These short German women tried to push me on the way there – that ended in me glaring down at them with a look that said “no…. don’t touch me.”

Then these Italian men, also short, tried to get in front of me during check in on the way back – this scheme ended promptly with a look that said “what the hell do you think you’re doing?” and they backed off.

Sometimes I might appear like a pushover, but looks are deceiving. When traveling I adapt the phrase “move bitch, get out the way.”

Flying RyanAir was like climbing altitude in a Wal-Mart shopping cart. All of the overhead compartments had self-promoting neon ads, the seats had no padding, the ride/landing was very bumpy, there was one bathroom for the whole huge plane, and they are constantly on the intercom trying to sell things which include lottery tickets, alcohol, perfume, magazines, etc.

I’m also certain that they overestimate the time it takes to travel so you always arrive “on time.” We left Germany delayed, and Italy late because people can’t sit down yet arrived to both desinations strangely “on time” and early.

This is me NOT buying this.

I also sat next to the same couple on the way there and back. Apparently others had the same idea about a weekend in Roma. The couple was French, and the “younger” lady I think was either some sort of Euro-trash trophy wife, or they were having an affair. Couldn’t decide, but it kept me entertained on the flight.

This concludes my experiences with RyanAir.

Arriving in Rome

Then I got off the plane to Roma.

I hadn’t seen the sun in a week, and it was gorgeous. I called Elizabeth and we set on meeting at the McDonalds by __forgot the name, my bad_____. Though I may never forgive LeM, Italian McDonalds were OKed by me because of their restroom facilities. They also provide handy meeting points in large cities.

To put it simply into words: seeing Elizabeth was wonderful. I out of the dingy subway and there she was, sitting in bright colors and sunglasses at a table outside McDonalds. We ran up to each other and said “It’s so good to see you…….[paraphrasing for publishing diplomacy: the people on this trip are nothing like Oxford] ….I can’t believe we’re in Rome!” in complete unison. Seriously -- word for word unison. Then we both laughed like two blissfully happy American girls in front of a Roman McDonalds.

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Q: Who is Elizabeth again? Do you call her Liz?

A: No! She goes by Elizabeth, not Liz! We met last summer on the Oxford trip and took several weekend trips to Wales, Edinburgh, etc. and since then met up for Texas lunches, coffees, and a few tea times for nostalgia. Elizabeth just graduated from UT as an English major and is on a Maymester (what I did in Vienna last May) in Rome until the end of June.

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It was also exciting to have someone to take funny photos with… and no questions asked!

After a few moments and some “oh my God we’re in Rome” ‘s we went in search of dinner. Before I left the lab on Thursday, Jean had recommended a small restaurant called “Restaurant Colors” so we decided to go for it our first night. It was down this alley frequented only by the occasional charging motor bike and the occasional pedestrian.

At first we chose to be seated outside, but were then informed in polite, but broken English that the people who lived upstairs watered their window boxes of flowers about this time -- so it would be in our best interest to move. We did. Sitting in the pillow lined candlelit lounge was no concession.

The only thing that surpassed the Modern/Mediterranean Italian cuisine was the conversation. Elizabeth and I wasted no time catching up.

I cannot remember the name of this type of pasta, but I give it two forks up. Novel: at least to me. There’s a souvenir to whoever can tell me what type it was.

Unlike France – who closes up shop at the onset of dusk – Rome livens up. Instead of “Tour Guide Barbie,” I’m going to refer to Elizabeth as “Tour Guide Disney Princess” because of her infamous part time job as a Disney Princess for little girl birthday parties.

Elizabeth whisked me away to start seeing the sites, which were beautiful illuminated at night. In Roma your eyes cannot take in enough of the piazzas, churches, and scenic views. Visually, the experience borderlines on overwhelm. I think we just kept repeating to ourselves, we’re in Rome!!!!

To get somewhat steady night pictures, I use a technique only I can pull off. I put the camera on my head and use my noggen (sp?) as a tripod. That's why night pictures come off a bit random, and I look like a freaky tourist. It works decently.....

Tour guide Disney Princess made the most of my weekend, especially considering that she herself was new to the city. She made sure I saw all the key sites (some of which I’m sure to neglect here, or not remember the name of) so that when someone asked me if I saw _____[insert famous ancient place here]____ I’d be able to exclaim “why yes! I did on my weekend in Roma!”

First stop was the Trevi Fountain to make a wish, and seal the deal on a return trip to Rome.

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Fast Fact: You are supposed to throw in TWO coins. One to make a wish, the other for a return trip to Rome. You are supposed to throw it over your right shoulder with your right hand.

Reader's Secret: We only threw one because we hadn’t read this yet, and then while writing this blog I opened the wikipedia page which says you throw with your right hand over your left shoulder, and if you throw three coins it’s either lucky means you’ll be getting a divorce. By contrast if you throw two coins you get good luck and are soon to be married.

Bottom Line: I threw a coin in with Elizabeth (she gave me the penny, so there’s inherent luck with that I suppose), and we spent the weekend traveling Rome. Lucky enough for me.

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Afterwards we stumbled upon one of the most famous gelato places in all of Rome. I don’t remember the name, my bad, but Elizabeth knew this to be true. We got our gelato, and I got some type of chocolate and a chocolate chip/vanilla meringue upon the recommendation of a very cheerful African server. I’d never had gelato with meringue in it, but it was good. Small bursts of sugar among the cream.

Just typing this makes me want some….NOW. Dangerously serious. I want it real bad.

I’m going to try and not be so hot and bothered….

Not the classy place with our gelato, just a festive visual from our walk.

With indulging in our gelato, we headed off for the Spanish steps.

We walked to the top and enjoyed a view of the Vatican and some drifting music from an on looking balcony restaurant. We talked for awhile here and then went to go window shop at some discount stores….Gucci, Prada, and the likes.

Louis Vuitton wins the prize for window displays with their innovative light show that turned some white stairs into our entertainment for about 10 minutes.

After more walking, we came across the Pantheon at night, which was again, just beautiful. Saw a few more famous piazzas, then headed back to Elizabeth’s apartment. The bus ride was wild. Seriously. They are NOT kidding, hang on. I thought the E-bus on campus got crazy….haha no. That was the fastest, roughest bus ride of my life. It was fun.

Did I forget to mention Elizabeth’s apartment is across the street to one of the guarded entrances to the Vatican? That’s right, her door is physically manned by the police during the day, and it’s about 5 steps from her doorway to the walls of Vatican City. And I thought I was hot stuff in Strasbourg for living 2 minutes away from the European Parliament.

Ok blog readers, I’m exhausted. This is going to be posted as part 1. Je suis desolee.

Thank you for your patience.

Part II to follow, hope you’re still intrigued…. If not, you’ll be sorry.

Bonus:: and there's more!

2008-06-17T12:58:00.000+02:00

Randomly wrote this at some point during the weekend and forgot to put it into the last entry...

Traipsing across Europe can be fickle for the emotions.

One minute feels like isolation, unfamiliarity, and plain loneliness. Simple and pedantic communication morphs into complicated matches of charades which only sometimes end without frustration.

The next moment invigorates tired spirits and elevates your senses into symphony. Could be the local champagne. Sometimes it’s bewitching to transform the most cynical aspects of my personality into youthful optimism matched only by yoga gurus of the East.

Passing encounters with fascinating people, culinary delights, fabulous views…

Cliché alert: it’s the same, but different in France. My favorite candy: M&M’s. I’ll eat fancy versions, but I prefer the boring originals. Only exception being the dark chocolate ones, seeing as how I’m a dark chocolate whore. This brings me to a point -- apparently the French like M&M’s, but only when they contain:
a) Peanuts
b) Rice Crispy whatevers

This leaves me sad and M&M empty. Jenny in the lab (the American PhD who married Jean, the head of the lab, and now lives/works in France with her two daughters) said her parents were coming at the end of July and could bring me something American if I want it. Since they are from the Midwest, salsa requests would be inappropriate. Therefore, I’m requesting plain M&Ms.

A few things I’ve found amusing the past few weeks –
1) The French keep asking me how you say “bon appetite” in English. The French obsess about this. I could be nibbling on a baguette at my desk – they see it and spew out a “bon appetite!” as if it’s life or death for someone other than the victimized baguette. I keep explaining that we just don’t say the equivalent in the US. Americans only say “have a nice lunch” when they’re feeling abnormally friendly.

This is a hard concept to understand, yet heaven forbid we hold doors open for people. Cultures are give and take.

2) The “ethnic” American food section at the grocery store contains peanut butter, brownie box mix, maple syrup, marshmallow “fluff”, Louisiana hot sauce, and a few other random items. This is located to the left the “Mexican section” stocked with tortillas of all types and random cans of beans and maybe a “mild salsa”. On the other side of the American food lies the Asian cuisine, which has some soy sauce, noodles, and random “Asian” things.

Busy Nothings

2008-06-17T00:09:00.004+02:00

“…life is nothing but a quick succession of busy nothings.” – Jane Austen in a letter to her sister Cassandra, regarding everyday occurrences

It’s one of my classically favorite Jane Austen quotes and it eloquently sums up my weekend.

Busy nothings.

I took the weekend off. No traveling, no planning, and no “To Do” lists allowed. It was cold and rainy for most of the weekend, so I stayed cozy and dry --loving every second. I’m fairly certain the last time I was this unproductive was Junior year of high school when I got mono.

Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but not too far from the truth. Saturday I woke up with – get this – no alarm and it wasn’t because I beat the alarm time to ringing.

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Q: Where the hell is the Rome entry? Didn’t you have a good time? Elaine you suck as a blogger.

A: I had a fabulous time, so fabulous that I need to do it proper justice. I’ve been lazy, so here’s my weekend and last week in retrospect. Expect a finished Rome entry tomorrow unless I get lazy again.
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Boring Recount of the Busy Nothings

Recently my appetite resembles one of a pregnant women. Except instead of odd combinations, I crave random foods I eat regularly at home. Friday, I fixated on Chinese food. Leave it to the French to prefer Thai over Chinese, but I’m not too picky. Asian’s Asian. All look like right? JUST KIDDING.

After work I sought out a place recommended by someone in the lab. The food was very good, and my waiter was in his late 20’s, Asian, was born in France but has lived in Boston for 10 years now and is only back visiting family for the summer. Since I was the only patron in the restaurant, we talked for awhile about things we missed, things we liked, random American traits, etc.

It was nice to have someone to talk to and reminded me that part of why I’ve been feeling homesick is that I’m just plain lonely. Aside from the people I work with and loved ones I communicate with via internet, I don’t have a lot of consistent interaction. Gee, the waiter, gave me his card and said if I needed help with my French or wanted to talk to another American I could stop by anytime. He also kept repeating, “From Texas, what a small world!” lol

Saturday I woke up, sans alarm. I hopped on my European bike and went riding through the open air market, browsed, and then did the American thing and went to the grocery store. Yes, I know, I’m crazy, especially since I enjoy the open air markets so much. However, it’s easy to get ripped off and sanitary standards are sometimes questionable.

Off to grocery store, where I did my shopping of the week. This also reminds me that nothing incites the urge to cook like chemistry, homesickness, and the realization that you’re going to fail your MRS degree if you don’t develop a skill.

I figure if I can make highly toxic chemicals all day long, how hard can edible things be? This weekend I made teriyaki chicken, fried rice, BBQ chicken, soup (ok cheated and heated this one up, but I garnished it!) and had a blast.

It’s also nice that if something screws up, the secret is safe between me and France.

After my morning excursion I attempted to seek out Ikea in a far east suburb of Strasbourg. I thought that since I’d be shopping and eating Swedish meatballs in Austin, this would be appropriate for France while I’m homesick. Eventually I gave up on the idea after biking awhile and settled on an asparagus quiche from one of my favorite bakeries.

Have I mentioned that I love quiches?

Afterwards I headed into the lab to do an acid-base workup on a product. The only interesting thing here was that someone put acetone in the distilled water bottle, which meant I distilled my hydrochloric acid in acetone.

Almost ruined my product and my day. I think it turned out ok in the end.

I also discovered you can rent movies on iTunes, and rented 27 dresses for the night. I really enjoyed the movie, especially after a glass of local Gewürztraminer.

Sunday: The day when everything but the park ice cream stand is closed

I went to church in French. That was interesting. French Catholics just like to stand the whole time because we knelt once. If St. Thomas More had wooden benches and kneelers, this would be my preference too.

Was going to go bike across town to see Sex and the City, but it was cold and rainy.

Instead I did nothing. I mean nothing.

I organized my favorite places on the computer. I cooked. That’s it. No laundry, no blog, no nothing.

Simply fabulous.

Monday came around and I procrastinated on this blog entry until right before I went to bed. Oh well.

Last week: Rome Preview

Spending the weekend in Roma was a bit like living a Dean Martin soundtrack. The skeptics thought I couldn’t pull off Rome in a weekend – and I certainly won’t claim to have seen it all – but Elizabeth and I experienced the infamous highlights and took plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere over numerous gelatos, brunches, lunches, and evenings. I can even say Elaine, power walker extraordinaire, wore herself out walking the entire city.

Last Week: Homesickness in Retrospect

Friday we get a visit from Dr. Duran, the University of Florida coordinator for the program. The week came to pass with nothing more exciting than my BBQ discovery. I’ve discovered that chemistry epitomizes “just wait: time will tell.” I waited the entire week for THF (tetrahydrofuran, a solvent) to dry after what will now be referred to as the “THF incident.” It was a list of “opps, someone turned it off in the middle of the night” ‘s; “shit, someone just used the last of it” ‘s; and “just start over” ‘s. Plenty of other reactions to keep me busy, but such is the life in chemistry.

Life in the lab also seems to define the classic novel “If you give a mouse a cookie.”

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Q: What is this book? Why have I not read it?

A: Because your parents hated you as a child. The plotline is tad complex, so I’ll do my best to summarize it.

There’s this mouse. He wants a cookie.

If you give him the cookie, he wants a glass of milk, then something else has to be done afterwards, and if you do that, something else needs to happen, and so on. My family references this book often: this concept defines my life.

Also of note is the lesser known sequel: “If you give a moose a muffin.” I’m serious.

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As previously mentioned, Monday started stirrings of homesickness. I felt it coming on as early as last week. Seeing Elizabeth helped yet made coming back to Strasbourg – where my longest acquaintance doesn’t even predates May 5 – harsh.

Sad-face Salad - Last Monday when I was homesick and back from Rome

Really, this story is rather embarrassing. I’m only allowing it to live longer via blog because I’m hoping all you readers will find it of amusement.

After a weekend of gelato, pizza, pasta and wine I decided that in interest of my waistline a salad would be the best choice for lunch. I’m also convinced that even the air in Italy
contains carbs, but this has yet to be proven.
Everyone in the lab had an opinion on where I should NOT go, and only one suggestion on where I should. Only problem was that I got ambiguous directions. Out of hunger, I went to the wrong place.

The salad was pathetic. Plain lettuce, raw onions (which I’m not a fan of), and they COVERED the whole thing in this thick dill dressing. Those who know me best know that I always get my dressing on the side, or risk not eating the salad.

I was hungry and frustrated. I just went to another place, where I could see the food, and ordered a second salad. I then went to the park, and got really upset and frustrated. The first time for tears in France. What didn’t help was that the French like to openly gawk. I had my moment, got it together Elaine style, and went back into the lab.

On my way home after triumphantly buying the BBQ sauce, a 12 year old ran right into me on her bike. It was a head on collision, and my bike didn’t move because the basket was packed with groceries. I flew off and smashed my pelvic bone.

It hurt so bad, I wanted to sue. She asked me if I was ok in French, and I just grumbled in English “oh my God I’m going to die.” She peddled off and I sat on bench holding/rocking myself.

Men think they know crotch pain. At least I had the foresight to keep the eggs in my backpack and as the pain subsided found the situation humorous considering the timing that day.

Coming Soon:

ROME :: I promise!!!!

Capsaicin Homesick

2008-06-09T23:07:00.002+02:00

You know how they say don't go to the grocery store hungry? Well apparently the same also applies for being homesick.

I got really homesick today, but thanks to the ethnic food section of the larger grocery store in town I found some hot sauce and mild BBQ sauce. I also loaded up on vegetables, chocolate chip cookies, and many other more "American" comfort foods. Cooking dinner tonight made me feel a lot better. I made BBQ hamburger (sort of like a sloppy joe) and listened to country music.

Anyway I had the most fabulous weekend in Rome with Elizabeth -- an old chum from my Oxford days last summer. "Elaine and Elizabeth do as the Romans do on an Evening in Roma" is currently in the drafting stages.

Drinking champagne, feeling no pain

2008-06-04T22:14:00.013+02:00

Oh I was drinking champagne, feeling no pain, all weekend long.

While I may not share the same taste as Jacques Chirac, I spent the weekend developing and refining my champagne taste -- all the way to the second fermentation. Close family and friends in the states will attest that it was only a matter of time: this weekend was it.

Quick Ketchup and Friday afternoon in the lab

Whatever am I doing all week to get behind on blogging?

So last Sunday May 25, the day after Colmar, the weather was gorgeous so I rode my bike to Germany. Thanks to my inherent sense of direction, it took only a glance at a map and the help of a few signs to get me there. I rode my bike across the Rhine, passed boarder control (which was unmanned) and traveled into a small boarder town Kehl. I went into the countryside for a bit before lunch, which turned out to be a bad idea for my allergies, but it all cleared up at lunch.

If this is not evidence (the fact that I rode my bike to a foreign country -- spontaneously) that the European lifestyle rubs off on me I’m not sure what will prove it to you.

I had a slightly disappointing German lunch (most places were closed since it was a Sunday) and then rode back. Riding your bike to a foreign country just makes one feel like a badass.

In lab I’ve been having a lot of trouble the past two weeks separating my protected aldehyde from the starting material. We finally had to resort to this glass oven borrowed from a neighboring lab. So this PhD comes walking in and no kidding has a handlebar mustache. He said some things in French to Jean and didn’t move his head the entire time he talked. The only thing that moved on his face was his mustache.

He left us to it, and the glass oven consisted of this tube-like sliding apparatus that resembled the teller machine capsules they have in the US. Several people crowded around to see it because it isn’t commonly used in our lab. I said it looked like it belong in Star Wars and I’m expecting my product to vanish to another planet. They laughed, so it apparently translated. When I said it really looked like a teller machine they had no clue what I was talking about…..it’s times like these when you feel the farthest from home.
Newer version of what we used...

On Friday I also managed, somehow, to get my spatula stuck inside an Erlenmeyer flask when I was putting in anhydrous sodium sulfate. I staged a picture below. So I’m standing there, saying “putain” and wondering how the hell I managed to get it in if it was too big to get out. Dinesh came over and laughed. So like a moron, I just stood there jiggling it until it came out.
Lesson: keep wide spatulas away from small necked flasks.

Want a small visual of me in the lab? Scroll down and you might find a face you recognize!

http://www-chimie.u-strasbg.fr/~lclac/Members_French_NVU.html

Elaine goes to meet George, the automated NMR machine

Here at the Louis Pasteur Institute they use an automated NMR machine. I knew I had to get trained on it, but hadn’t had the chance to set up my time yet. So on Thursday Dinesh sent me to go pick up his samples, and it was just one of those situations where I didn’t feel like fighting it and having to explain that I wasn’t supposed to etc…when it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. So I go, and the guy flips out.

Emergency Blonde Action: Instead of stop, drop, and roll you immediately stop, look both concerned & confused, then start to smile & nod.

Jean-Daniel epitomizes what you think of when you think older French guy: shorter, small mustache, an almost cliché sounding accent, and tight pants. So I explained I worked for a post doc who doesn’t speak French, and he immediately was just “ugh, I see. I know him.” Then I continued to be very concerned and asked what I needed to do to get trained and we set up a time for Friday.

On Friday I showed up early, which was pleasing to him. We talked in a mix of French vocabulary words and English. Basically, blonde worked like a charm. Jean-Daniel and I are now good friends, and he said I can come talk to him to practice my French and help him improve his English. He introduced me to all the guys working in the NMR lab, showed me the other high resolution machine, and told me the story of how they named the NMR machine George after problems when he first came to the institute many years ago.

I am welcome back anytime, and shouldn’t hesitate to go ask him any questions if I feel the need.

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For the non-science readers: the NMR machine this is basically a huge magnet that exposes your molecule to a magnetic field, takes readings and makes a graph print out of a bunch of lines. From that you can tell where hydrogens are and deduce what your compound is. We use this all the time.

Random picture from the web...
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Dominoes en Français

Yes, they have Dominoes Pizza in France. And there was a sale on! Buy one, get one free. So Jean (the head of the lab) decided to have a pizza party for the lab, and we all got on and picked out different types of pizza to order. I guess I just never order pizza in the US, but there are a lot of flavors! Aside from the exotic flavors, it was pretty much the same except it was served with beer or sparkling water. Also, it came with little packets of “picante sauce” which was this very mildly spicy oil. I was so sad. Dinesh’s wife came and brought an Indian dessert which was very good as well.

http://www.dominos.fr/carte_pizzas.php

Since LeM screwed me over, I’m going to order Dominoes when I start to feel really homesick. That and Hentz makes a BBQ sauce here and sells it at one grocery store, and I plan on using it. Could not find any jalapeños though… I need to spice up my life badly.

Weekend Trip to the Champagne Region

“Brothers, brothers, come quickly! I am drinking stars!” – Dom Pérignon, blind monk

The Champagne Region of France is located about 1.5 hours northwest of Strasbourg by train. It is comprised of two main cities (larger Reims and smaller Eperney) and a collection of very small vineyard villages called “cru” that are distinguished by slight differences in soil quality and produce. By law in France, the term “champagne” may only be applied to wines made from grapes in this region and produced in the traditional manner.

Elizabeth (my organic chemistry TA who did this program while she was an undergrad) recommended visiting the region. I also saw this as the ultimate chance to “develop my high culture.” This will enable me to snuff out false snobbery at future cocktail parties when people try to act haughty with crap. A “well while I was summering in France and toured the champagne region…” should do the trick. I’ll be quite sure to stretch out my neck like Audrey Hepburn and up turn my nose while I say it too. Nobody will ever get away with trying to pass fuzzy grape juice as true champagne in my presence.

Back to my point: champagne region sounded “simply fabulous.” Despite my efforts, nobody else in Strasbourg seemed interested. In typical Elaine fashion, I decided to do it myself.

I found affordable hotels, planned my trip, and set off for adventure.

Reims

The entire weekend I really felt compelled to correct the French pronunciation of this city. Clearly…

Reims = Rhymes
Reims does not equal Rhance (pronounced sorta like France, but with an R, and said very fast)

They made fun of me in the lab all week for trying to say it. I still don’t think I can do it.

So I arrived Friday night after work. Found my hotel no problem. According to my guidebook, it’s owned by the son of a Yorkshireman who stayed after WWII. He spoke no English, and owned a small bar-ish, tavern-ish local crap place underneath. He was nice, and the room was old but had the three C’s. [Clean, Close, and Cheap]

So while I was checking in horrible English/French, I had to say “yes, single” and these two older locals sitting at the bar turned to each other in French and said in French something along the lines of “that blonde shouldn’t need a single”

My comprehension being better than my conversation, I turned around, looked right at them, and said in probably horrid French but got my point across that I knew exactly what they were saying and my boyfriend is very strong and would not be pleased.

They laughed, but shut promptly up.

So I got into my room and it was still daylight out. I went exploring the city just a bit, and stumbled upon a bike race. They were playing American Motown and Hiphop really loud, which cracked me up. I watched for a bit, and I’m going to go with the claim that this was really the Tour de France and I got to see it.

It’s my blog, my travel story, I’ll say what I want.

Even though there’s certain spontaneity to finding places to eat on a whim, it’s an expensive risk. You risk paying a lot, for crap service and ambiance. For quick trips like this, I’ve been using recommendations in my guide book and my first stop was quiet good.

Le Boulingrin was only a block from my hotel, and had this 1920’s French feel. They had this whole art nouveau look going throughout the restaurant, that looked very chic, but I know from studying last summer in Vienna is period inappropriate. Art Nouveau was popular at the turn of the century, not the 1920’s.

Anyway, I ordered a glass of local champagne, and they brought it with a special pâté accompanied by baguette slices. It was lovely.

Epernay

The next morning I went to the train station to head to Epernay, the smaller town. Recalling last summer in Oxford, I think I bring flooding with me wherever I travel. I arrived at the train station and the train to Epernay was delayed (along with many others) because of flooding on the tracks.

So I wait…

Epernay – delayed indefinitely
Epernay – delayed apprx 1 hr
Epernay – delayed 10 min

These updates happed within 5 minutes, so I’m thinking not too shabby. I headed out to the platform with a mass of other people. We wait and the monitor on the platform changes from the 10 minutes back to an hour….everyone grumbles and starts to move around….then they take it off the screen completely.

My French comprehension is good enough to get me around up until we reach this much abnormality. It was time to employ “emergency” protocol.

1) Find someone in charge, and who knows what’s going on
2) If #1 doesn’t speak English, find an English speaker

I looked around and realized I was standing right next to two small bags that had an SNCF logo and thus the two SNCF (the “Amtrak” of France) conductors for the train. One promptly pulled out her cell phone and started to chew out someone. I turned around to a business man and asked if he spoke English. He did, and used to work for Motorola and used to visit Austin on business.

So the conductor got off the phone, whipped out her hat, and suddenly the train pulled up. Once on board, I was sitting across from this young French guy. He asked me where I was from and we started talking about the United States. He said he’d never met an American before, which was a good indication that I was headed somewhere off the beaten tourist path. The whole weekend I only met one other American (from Sugarland, Houston!) and the rest of the English speakers were solely from the UK or Australia.

We had an interested talk on the train, and he asked me about Texas capital punishment and people owning guns. He was very curious about the US and said that he wanted to visit one day. He told me a little about the region and then we split into the cold, wet, Epernay train station.

Moët et Chandon

Established in 1743, and survived the French Revolution when most aristocratic companies were destroyed. All because Monsieur Moët went to school and was friends with Napoleon. Moët et Chandon (et = &, in French) is the infamous maker of Dom Pérignon.

All of my tours (I took three in total) include a short video explanation and history of the company, a tour of their extensive caves (cellars) and a tasting of the champagne. Each of the Champagne Houses had their own “look” and all the guides were dressed up business-elegant. The videos were mostly fluff about the champagne mystique to get you in the mood (like champagne porn….JUST KIDDING).

The tours in the cellars were where they went into detail about the art form that is champagne. The caves are about 30 meters underground and are where the companies store all the champagne at about -10 degrees Celsius. They are ENORMOUS! Miles (or as they say in Europe, kilometers) long!

At the tasting for Moët et Chandon, the guy on the right took my picture for me (since I was alone) and started talking to me. I asked him if he drank a lot of champagne, and he said “taste, mademoiselle, taste!”

We then had a conversation about how he is developing his keen taste for it, and when I asked him if he’d always liked champagne he winked and said “I’m from the south of France, so I had to move to get to it.”

He also told me that if I buy Moët et Chandon in the US expect it to be sweeter than the version they sell in Europe.

http://www.moet.com/

I also met a group of 20-something year olds from Amsterdam, and they told me I absolutely have to go. Everything you hear is apparently true. There was also this cute Australian little girl on the tour who’d been taking pictures, and I asked her to take my picture on this big chair they had in the end. She got kind of nervous, but was excited, and her mom kept saying “isn’t that an honor!” Mom also stood over her shoulder nervously to make sure it came out. But it wasn’t about the picture….but I told the girl it was for my mommy back in Texas.

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Q: How do they make champagne, in a nutshell?

Champagne is made from a signature blend of three grapes: Chardonnay (white grape, white juice), Pinot Noir (black grape, white juice) and Pinot Meunier (black grape, white juice). The quality of the champagne is determined by the crop for that year and by the cru (vineyard) where it was harvested.

Champagne undergoes first fermentation just like wine. Afterwards it is combined with different wines of the different grapes, different crus, and blended to make the signature blend of the company. This is the “art.”

It is bottled and yeast is added (unlike the first time, when it had natural yeast on the grapes) along with sugar. And thus it sits…..for years…..getting dusty…..

To get out the sediment from the yeast, the bottles are turned by riddlers every day on racks to collect on the neck. Le remueurs still do it by hand on the finest champagnes. After this process, the neck is frozen, and then opened, and the sediment ice cube bursts out, and is replaced with sugar and liquors that determine if it is going to be demi-sec, brut, rosé, etc.

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Next stop was lunch to escape the cold rain. The cold cellars weren’t helping anything either. I found this brasserie and went in and ordered my first “croquet monsieur.” When I was in there, this older British couple and younger man came in. They couldn’t understand the waiter so I translated. They talked to me briefly about how they were biking (as in motorcycle) through France and live near Brighton. So I was like “I’ve been there!”

Another passing encounter with fascinating people.

Mercier and Hotel

This company had tourist glitz, and a laser guided train through the cellars, but lacked depth. The champagne also did NOT compare. I drank it anyway….

http://www.champagnemercier.fr/anglais/home.htm

But really, it was still very good. I just wasn’t as impressed with the tour.

I had a long walk down Champagne Avenue to get to my hotel. I got a single room for only 23 euros, and was owned by this nice older women. The room was simple but neat because it was in this house from the early 1900’s. As soon as I got into the room, I was so cold, wet, and tired, (ok, maybe just slightly “glowing” from champagne) that I just collapsed on the bed and took one of the best naps of my life. Pretty sure I was dreaming of home too….

Woke up and wanted food. Warm food.

Being France, everything was closing at 7. I really wanted soup, but apparently it is a seasonal winter item only.

Cheat to the system: ethnic restaurants!

It may not have been hot and sour soup, but it was some type of soup nevertheless!

Sunday

I had a wonderfully quiet night’s sleep. Woke up and the sun was just beginning to appear. I could even see all the vineyards surrounding the city off in the foggy hills, which was neat.

Hardly anything was open and I had noon for my train back to Reims. I went back to the brasserie where I had lunch Saturday. I sat there with a cup of strong coffee and practiced my written French with the book I brought.

Reims Déjà vu

Back to Reims for the day. On the recommendation of the guidebook, I went to the Glue Pot. Picture this: TGI Fridays, Moulin Rouge, Frank Sinatra/Michael Buble, and TexMex.

Yeah, it was awesome. I got a Mexican Salad, which apparently they think comes with a Dijon vinaigrette and tuna as the meat. LOL

But it was good.

Tattinger

A quality tour. I had a lot of time before the next English tour, so they sent me to the neighboring Basillique of St. Remi, 5th century, where St. Remi is buried. Gorgeous. Also cool, this is the district where Esmeralda and Quasimodo lived that inspired Victor Hugo’s story, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

So I spent some time being pensive, and was thinking of how many things changed this past spring starting in December, and how my immediate future was begging to become clear and RIGHT then the entire church lit up for a tour.

God has a healthy sense of humor.

Tattinger’s cellars were really neat because it was built in remains of the abbey that was connected to the Church of St. Remi. The cellars were originally chalk quarries from the Romans that the monks used for their champagne, then the entire abbey/chapel was destroyed in the French Revolution so eventually Tattinger bought it out and uses it for their champagne.

During the tour I started talking to the guide, and told her she was doing a great job and making everything very clear, especially since they have to say many obscure words. She said that there was one word, "quarries" that she has tons of trouble with and just says "mines" instead!

http://www.taittinger.com/intro.html

Raunchy in Reims?

Guys here are 1) desperate 2) I looked really good Sunday or 3) I had extraordinary pheromones.

Walking down the street I got a “Bonjour Madame….” from this young guy walking the opposite direction.

Ignored.

On my way to the cathedral, a group of older, losers, sitting in a park starting calling out. First in French, then English, then German, then French….

Ignored. And I walked faster and stayed behind this old couple.

Then at Tattinger, this Asian tourist came up to me and said he was an artist and that I had the most interesting/beautiful eyes and nose.

I thanked him for the compliment.

Final Moments

Went to the prominent Cathédrale Notre Dame where Joan of Arc coroneted and I think baptized Charles VII. The towers were never finished due to fires in the early century, but it was badly damaged in WWI and mostly rebuilt by JD Rockefeller.

Got to see two 40 year olds make out in front of the church….perfect ending.

Back to Strasbourg.

Fini.

Elaine

PS: Thanks for the comments everyone! Nice to know I have readers, but after this long entry I may not anymore! ;)

Who has more taste: me or Jacques Chirac?

2008-05-30T08:41:00.004+02:00

The starchy, pristine clean lab coat I bought from the stockroom my first day is finally accumulating the battle scars of chemistry. When I picked it up from the rack today I noticed several new chemical stains. Suppose this means I’m finally getting into the fun stuff…

The Winstub I had intended to go to last night was closed because the family was on vacation. Instead, I “settled” for a place just down the road called “Chez Yvonne” because it looked authentic and had reasonably priced menus considering it was for a nice dinner. I ordered an Alsatian wine, stuffed piglet and garnish with seared potatoes and salad. The meal was nice and formal, but honestly doesn’t compare to the local Salon de Thé I stumbled upon in Colmar on Saturday.

At work today Pauline raised an eyebrow and told me that the restaurant is famous because former French president Jacques Chirac’s favorite in Strasbourg.

Jacques Chirac’s favorite; my second choice. I’m either a tasteless American or discerningly honest. I’ll be taking votes.
http://www.chez-yvonne.net/francais/accueil.php

Reminiscing on the weekend

Finally, I know. These blogs take forever to piece together, which is why I love comments because it tells me someone other than my parents, aunts, and Adamo read it. Thanks to everyone who leaves a comment, they keep me motivated to keep putting in time writing.

On Saturday I went Matt to Colmar, a smaller town south of Strasbourg. Colmar is famous for being the home of Frédéric Bartholdi – sculptor of the statue of liberty. I’m sure that Colmar has other attributes, but I’m American so this is clearly all that mattered.

We arrived and with the help of my trusty guidebook, we followed the recommendation for a local Salon de Thé (Teahouse)

I ordered the Munster cheese quiche, and it was the best quiche I’ve ever had in my life. Anytime the famous cheese is made in the town just south of where you’re eating it, I’m sure the food just naturally tastes fabulous. Everything in the place just looked adorable, from the cookies they served with the coffee to the flowers on the table.

After lunch we popped into one of the cathedrals to explore and avoid a bit of the rain. The towering ceilings were dark and only partially illuminated by the stained glass. We took two steps inside. Like the voice of God and tone of Dracula, a pipe organ started to blare above us. It amazes me how organists make such “heavy” instruments flirt with complex melodies. The concert lasted only as long as long as we wandered the church, so another perfect hit.

The rain was beginning to pick up so both of us went to the Unterlinden Museum. The old convent was full of famous art. I enjoyed the upstairs which contained French furniture from the early 1800’s. This would be the era when Jane Austen’s brothers fought in the Napoleonic War…so through my eyes it was like looking into the parlor room of the enemy.

http://www.musee-unterlinden.com/anglais/HOME.html

We went and found one of Voltaire’s temporary residences (French Enlightenment writer) and did the tourist thing to say we’d been there.

Overall: good day. On the train back to Strasbourg, a group of bachelors boarded the train. Apparently it’s a big thing in Europe to make the bride or groom to be play embarrassing pranks, so they made this guy come around and “check tickets’ and try to sell condoms and candy for money. I’m not sure which they were more of: drunk, or loud.

Well I just skimmed this entry and I’m going to go ahead and post it as is. Germany bike ride to come when I get back this weekend after sipping champagne, and feeling no pain.

Elaine

PS: If anyone ruins the ending to this movie for me I'll stop the blog. This is me not kidding.

Caterpillars and more

2008-05-28T23:47:00.002+02:00

“Just when the caterpillar thought its life was over, it became a butterfly.” –Anonymous

Three years ago today, lying on the median of I-10, I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see the helicopters I heard in the distance, let alone the unexplainable beauty of the years to follow. It’s no longer hard for me to believe so much time has passed. Though my memories remain vivid down to the finest detail, it doesn’t feel like yesterday. My family and I have come so far; from the neurosurgeon who indifferently told my dad they were monitoring my brain injury following the initial conference about my extensive injuries to me summering in the northeast of France on a chemistry internship.

It took years to rebuild- from speech to cognitive behavioral therapy. Externally all that remains are a handful of scars on the right side of my body and a pupil that’s slightly bigger than the other one.

Car accidents as severe as mine was tend to end in one of two ways: everyone walks away or people die. We flipped into the grey area.

It was the most perfect Strasbourg morning I’ve seen yet on the trip. I only needed a light sweater to bike to work and the sun’s been out. I stopped in the Orangerie this morning to admire the swans floating in the pond and observe all the French children enjoying their half-school-day mornings. When I got into work I checked the protection reaction I’d left to run overnight. Dinesh came to look at my TLC plate and I started talking about what was wrong first and he said smiled and said, “so what you’re saying is it worked.”

My love-hate relationship with the Dean-Stark apparatus was mostly love today.

As far as I’m concerned, today is a day of celebration. Tonight, I’m going to a Winstub (traditional Alsatian “wine room”) in downtown Strasbourg for regional and classic French cuisine.

No quality celebration is complete without champagne. Therefore, I’m going to the Champagne region of France this weekend where the Benedictine monk, Dom Pierre Pérignon, put a sparkle in his wine. ‘Duh’ statement of the day: I’m rather excited.

Had my life ended that day, I never would have:
- Had an audience with the President and various senators of note
- Spoken at graduation
- Started to bleed burnt orange
- Heard the magic that is Kanye West “Gold Digger” and “Stronger”
- Spent last summer listening to Mozart and walking in the footsteps of Jane Austen
- Gazed at shooting stars in West Texas with the Dean’s Scholars
- Become obsessed with Sex and the City
- Seen two Christmases or two birthdays
- Fallen dangerously in love
- Jim Halpert would cease to exist in my mind
- Discovered that organic chemistry wasn’t so scary
- So much more…

All things I take for granted as a part of my life that never would have been had it ended in 2005.

It’s been a good day. Today kind of felt like a “secret” birthday.

Elaine

PS: This was my dinner last night.... crepes are the best.

The moon coming up on my way home from dinner...which was excellent by the way.

Podcasting Around the World

2008-05-27T23:50:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I discovered something amazing. No it wasn’t in some hidden romantic alley near the cathedral (though I did spy a crêpe place, une crêperie, which I intend to frequent) but this momentous discovery occurred iTunes. Thanks to the unearthing of Oprah & Friends XM series, I’ve been christened into the world of podcasts.

Podcasts are largely free on iTunes and come in either video or audio format. Think of it as either mini radio segments, lectures, or TV segments. I can watch/listen either on my iPod or laptop, and discovered Oprah’s new “soul searching” series, French lessons, and cooking shows.

Note: As a chemist able to synthesize and purify complex molecules, I’m ready to experiment in the edible variety. This will be my primary goal upon returning to the states.

The loss of television went largely unnoticed since I rarely watch it in the US. The loss of my Sex and the City DVDs and ‘Whose Wedding is it Anyway’ on Style= devastating. Podcasts will now fill my void while I eat dinner.

Furthermore I’ve been out of the US too long -- apparently Oprah’s gone granola. Now a vegan and highly interested in mediation, this is going to make an interesting summer study. Deep inside I always knew I’d eventually internally revolt and become a hippy: looks like Oprah just paved the way.

Last night I stopped at the local market to do my weekly grocery shopping. As I walked around examining gastronomical delights, a simple epiphany crossed my mind.

I realized that for one of the first times in my life, I am exactly where I am – standing in a supermarche in Strasbourg, France – because of me. Neither luck or wealth brought me here. My funded summer of traveling came from hard work and relentless pursuit of opportunity alone.

Then when I was watching the first of Oprah’s Soul Searching Series, she talked about how people were watching from all over the world. After a moment of hesitation it dawned on me… “oh, she’s talking about me!”

Moral of the Story: yesterday was self-gratifying. Hard work pays off, and it feels good to appear to have moderate control over your opportunities. It feels like I’m a participant in the universe, not a spectator.

Ketchup Time
[Translation: Catch Up Time]

Friday May 23

After work there was another Chemistry Department BBQ. I showed up with some of the other American students and started talking with French chemistry students. The BBQs take place in one of the student “cafeterias,” that basically only serve barrels of beer and two sandwiches a day.

One of the French guys (actually the son of the PhD who coordinates our living arrangements in Strasbourg) offered to go get us a beer.

Despite the fact that he’s foreign, his personality was apparent from his shirt which read in English “I (heart) You” but the heart contained the words “just want to have sex with.”

This was not a hard judgment call, despite the man purse all the French cool guys wear. [Just guess what Adamo’s getting as a souvenir…]

I had just made the comment that I have 15 days back in the US before I can legally buy alcohol again, so he joked and said we were going to observe “international rules” and I didn’t get a beer.

Me: “Oh, see I thought the rule in Europe was you had to see over the counter”

Cool Guy: “psh, non. We have rules”

Me: “That’s right, because Europeans are all short so that wouldn’t work”

Cool Guy [shocked but smiling]: “Stand up!”

And I stood up and was taller then him. He bought me a beer.

Later he told me he thought I was cocky, and I told him I was an American so I didn’t care. He laughed and said that’s why he likes Americans.

The night progressed with a few more attempts to get me to consume more beer, which proved unsuccessful. Overall I had a really good time mingling with everything, including some of the people from my lab.

Saturday May 24:: Day trip to Colmar

Honestly, I’ve worked on this entry on and off all day. I’m tired and want to go to sleep. Expect another entry tomorrow.

Elaine

Nom c'est bizarre :: A collection of short stories

2008-05-25T22:50:00.006+02:00

Writers block never seems to be my problem when I finally manage the time to sit in front of Word and compose a blog. My problem is that there’s so much to recall, recount, remember that the task of taking this “memory vomit” and carving it down to something concise feels impossible.

This is usually when I pop a bottle of wine and get on Facebook.

I’m beginning to become a bit more independent in the lab. I know where the chemicals are, their French common name equivalents (ex: Acide comes first) and my days are becoming more routine. I go from being constantly busy running reactions, setting up and running columns, working up calculations to sitting at my computer with nothing to do but read papers.

MissElaineous Short Stories

Strasbourg has been dreary and rainy the past few weeks. Sometimes I feel like the gray skies make it feel like what one pictures when they imagine a cozy street side café on an early spring morning.
This image sucks when one:

1) has to ride their bike to/from work

2) is usually cold all the time & all central heating has been turned off.

I’ve been walking around the lab in several layers and exchange my jacket for a labcoat. Well one of the thermometers monitoring the reaction temperature was reading room temp at something an unusually high. This was troubling since it meant it was giving false readings for the reaction temperature. Jean, the PhD head of the lab, announced that we would know that the room temperature had reached 24 degrees Celsius and was working when “Elaine the Texan takes off her sweater!”

___________________________________________

I went down to the stockroom to pick up my own set of glassware to use for reactions and I had to give the lady my name. I was proud that I was able to spell it in French. French Women #2 (sitting next to the one typing) quickly mumbled something and grabbed a sticky note off her computer and scribbled down my name. French Women #1 laughed and said “You would!” causing French Women #2, smiling, to explain to me “Nom c’est bizarre!”

Translation: apparently as a daily amusement, French Women #2 keeps a list of unusual names and mine made the cut. I laughed all the way back to the lab.

___________________________________________

I forgot to mention that the Belgiums prefer wardrobes that include, and are strictly limited to; beige, black, grey, white, off-white, and when feeling quite bold – chocolate brown.

Accustomed to French fou (crazy) fashion, I managed to bring my most brightly colored EVERYTHING on my trip. Kelly green sweater, pink polo, sky blue jacket, azure blue polo, etc. For church on Sunday, I also managed to bring a “loud” patterned skirt.

Talk about a traveling faux pas. Surprisingly, Chris never lost track of me in the crowds of Belgium introverts.

___________________________________________

Jean’s wife, Jenny, a former American and fellow chemist, taught a class this semester in Scientific English. Students would attend a seminar about a scientific paper and hear a talk in English about it before their test. Since the talk was in English, one of the other Americans and I went to go sit in on the class.

The shaming I’ve received all my life as an American student about our lack of discipline and disrespect I know understand the truth to: it’s complete crap.

Despite the fact that this was a small class, and college students, they were some of the most impolite and insincere group of students I’ve ever seen. UT students may not be angels, but I’ve never seen students have to be asked to separate or leave the room since middle school. They talked, they left early, they didn’t take notes…..

The desks in the lecture hall were covered in layers graffiti (some were written in very poor English and were hilarious) which helped me realize the problem. The government pays for almost all of their school, meaning the university doesn’t have very much money to spend on their campus and that kids take little ownership of their education. Tuition and fees here cost about 400 euros per semester.

Yet they complain…

___________________________________________

Travel Tip: for extended stays always take a small sewing kit. Last summer I had to fix a hole in my jeans and a tear in my purse, and this summer I’ve already had to re-sew on the strap to my backpack. In must be a European thing because I never sew in Texas.

___________________________________________

Chris said that after leaving Texas for a year it was obvious: my accent. This is not ok. I need to get out of Texas more often.

___________________________________________

The French have an obsession with putting ID photos on every single ID.

For your picture:
Step 1: Put yourself in a box
Step 2: Make sure your face fits in the oval circle of the box
Step 3: Get of the box with a horrid image of yourself – 5 euros later.

I had to go get liability insurance incase I blow up the lab or hit a slow pedestrian on my bicycle. Imagine my confusion when my insurance came with:
1) Discounts to the local pool
2) Movie ticket reductions
3) Random, worthless discounts labeled “le pack”
4) A set of McDou passes (another alleged cool name for…McDonalds) for a free hamburger or milkshake.

I know = satan. But my first thought was, maybe now I can get my money’s worth! Guess what…they want a PICTURE on your coupon pass.

In my American opinion, this is an odd fetish.

___________________________________________

Early this week I went and grabbed Thai take out to eat for lunch. It came in a plastic bag.

My reaction:: awesome, free bag!

This is both sad and very European.

Plastic bags are rare, and cost 3 cents at the grocery store.

___________________________________________

I realized the sad truth that my room felt much homier when I bought paper towels. Since that purchase, my quality of life improved greatly.

___________________________________________

Today, 25/05/2008 (written as the Europeans do, date first) is Fête des Mères.

Literal Translation = party of the mothers
American Translation = Mother’s Day

That being said, Happy French Mother’s Day Mommy!

You can see me waving in the reflection.

Queer observation: Mother’s Day apparently markets “making your mother sexy” in a way only the French can get away with and avoid Freudian suspicion.

I’m getting up early tomorrow to call a certain Fly Boy in Corpus Christi.

The next entry will include but is not limited to:
- Short French guys, beers, and baguettes (sounds like another chemistry BBQ!)
- Day trip to Colmar yesterday
- An epic recount of my day today when I decided to ride my bike into Germany

Elaine

Quintessential Belgium

2008-05-25T00:58:00.008+02:00

Life comes at you fast.

That’s been my motto all semester, and it appears to have carried over to France. At least for these first couple weeks I really haven’t stopped, and this week my lab work really started to pick up.

My weeks consist of: running reactions, running hundreds of TLCs, doing more TLCs, making dilutions for the TLCs, talking about chemistry, working up reactions, rotovaping, re-rotovaping, purifying, and NMR analysis. Whew! I’m learning so much…

….I know, all rationalizations for why my Belgium blog from last weekend (May 16-18) has remained trapped within my messy train-ride penmanship on the legal pad to my right. Let the unleashing begin.

Quintessential Belgium

This is the only phrase that adequately summed up my weekend experience in Belgique. It was the perfect jaunt into a foreign country filled with signature cuisine, ornate architecture, hilarious cultural observations, and even “quintessential” Belgium rain and drear.

My familiar blog readers know that I tend to be a rather harsh travel critic, so my following statement maintains its clout: Chris’ tour guide abilities receive all four MissElaineous stars and the quaintness of Belgium continually impressed me. He ensured that I experienced essential Belgium in one weekend, so book your tours now before he heads home! This past weekend’s adventure reminded me why I fell in love with traveling in the first place. Addiction refueled.

Journey

I left work at about 4:30 and headed straight to the train station. I grabbed a pastry for dinner (pain au chocolate) and boarded my train. I was feeling rather pensive the whole train ride, and made a lot of observations. These observations will follow in a later blog entry.

It was about a 5.5 hour train ride through the north of France, Luxembourg, and finally the Belgium countryside. The train-track scenery was second only to the ride I took last summer through the Austrian alps. I had planned to read “Feminine Mystique” but spent 5 hours looking out the windows instead.

I arrived into Brussels at about 10, and was really glad Chris had come to meet me there because on the last stretch this incredibly drunk man with a really sweet dog got on the train and successfully creeped me out. Chris and I then hopped onto a 20 minute train into Leuven. From the station we walked to the seminary where he’s been living, and the town was simply gorgeous at night. I can already tell I’m going to run out of pleasant adjectives to describe the trip, so bear with me.

Leuven at night.

Since it was so late we went into the silent seminary and headed straight to my floor. Aside from one nun I was the only one on the floor that night since the seminarians and priests all slept upstairs. My room was very cozy with characteristic, tall European ceilings complete with a large window that looked out over the garden. The interior of the building felt a lot like many of the older Catholic churches in the US – similar smells and wall decor. On my way to use the bathroom that night I went to go glance out the window onto the street when a room of shadowed stained glass caught my eye. I turned around and discovered the balcony to the seminary’s chapel. When I wandered in the chapel was completely silent and was illuminated by a dim glow traced from the stained glass and faintly spelled of incense. This simple moment of calm and solitude epitomized peace.

___________________________________________________________

Q: Who is this Chris guy anyway? Why is he in Europe?
A: This is a long time friend of mine I’ve known since Jr. Historian days at Deerpark Middle School and became good friends with in high school. He spent the year studying abroad at the American College in Leuven and will be going home in a few weeks. He attends Notre Dame and will be entering the Catholic seminary in about a year. [Chris feel free to correct any of this if I messed something up, :) ]

___________________________________________________________

That night I slept with the window cracked open and listened to the rain. I really should do this more often. The town was devoid of obnoxious noise pollution – at least in the rain.

The seminary from the garden

Saturday

Chris and I met up at 8:30 and went downstairs for breakfast. Breakfast consisted of American cereal the seminarians pick up from the military bases (where they conduct ministry) and Belgium milk that apparently does not need to be refrigerated however the Americans do anyway. I got to meet several of the priests there on sabbatical from Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. I’ve learned that a key part of memorable travel experiences occurs when you meet fascinating people or hear their stories, so this definitely qualified.

After breakfast Chris and I set off in the dreary Belgium weather. I chose to think of it as “authentic” rather than just wet & cold. We walked to the Leuven library that was burned to the ground during each world war. Consequently when it was rebuilt following WWII they took books donated from libraries across the world, mostly from clearly selfish Americans. Any library that donated has a plaque on the inside or outside.

Guess what Chris showed me? (Yes, that weird letter is a ‘T’.) Hook ‘em horns.

Oh, and just a small side note for those who care… Notre Dame could not be troubled to contribute.

For such a classy city, the Belgiums have odd taste in art. This was right in front of the grand library. That would be biologist's needle with a bug on it. wtf Belgium.

Afterwards caught a train to Brugge, the “Venice of the North” with cobble stone streets and winding canals. When we were standing on the platform waiting, there was a large “scout” group of elementary age kids all grouped together. Chris explained that this co-ed version of Boy/Girl Scouts includes just about every child in the country, and it was quite noticeable that the group of about 35 was monitored by one adult and two immature looking teenagers.

As we stood on the platform, we gathered that the group was apparently set off for the coast despite the unfavorable weather. Their train came on the opposite track, so as soon as the group vacated that end of the platform Chris and I took part in an anthropologic study of introverted, polite Belgiums.

Not to make it painfully obvious that they were all avoiding the “Scouts,” the natives started to literally drift in our direction. They avoided contact, acted like they were looking at signs, or turned back momentarily, but by the time the train arrived we were evenly distributed once again.

It was hilarious.

The Belgiums reminded me of cats. They can be aloof, private, sometimes shy and proud, but when you talk directly to them they were very friendly.

Brugge

We arrived in the canal city and expert tourguide Chris invented our plan of action. We walked past some enormous swan nests and the town was adorable. There were linen shops and chocolate shops at every corner. After some initial exploring we stopped at a roadside vendor and picked up my first Belgium Waffle.

Little known fact, there are TWO types of Belgium waffles. The Liège waffle, which is what we picked up, that is thicker and made from dough and contains caramelized sugar cube clumps. We ate them, fresh and hot, under our umbrellas in the Belgium rain. Honestly I felt like I was having a Travel Channel Samantha Brown moment – it might be one of the best cultural foods I’ve ever had in my life. Part of me wanted to turn to a camera like she does and just make a lot of “ooohhhs and ahhhs” because it was that fabulous.

Shortly after my waffle encounter, it began to POUR down rain. Chris brilliantly thought of a local bar he discovered on a back street that specialized in serving over 100 types of beers. By the time we arrived our jeans were soaking up to our knees.

As we sat to wait out the aggressive rain, the character of this local place began to soak in. They played American music (very randomly, including old, inappropriate R&B because nobody comprehends the words) and had an out of place, dusty disco ball anchored to the ceiling. We were the only tourists in the small place.

Chris recommended a Belgium Trappist beer (made in a Trappist monastery) called Chimay. This is appropriate because of our mutual good friend, Chinmay.

If you’ve ever been fortunate to have true friends – where it takes no more than 5 minutes to feel like you haven’t actually been apart for the elapsed year – I have no need to elaborate further. We sat engrossed in conversation until the rain subsided.

Afterwards we headed to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a religious relic that dates back to 1149. I’ll admit, my vision and memory may have strangely become muddled at this point. However, Chris expertly explained that the relic is attributed to contain a fragment of coagulated blood collected from Christ after the crucifixion by Joseph of Arimathea. The cloth was brought to Brugge from Jerusalem during the crusades. The relic is processed annually through the streets by the Bishop, and has been ever since its arrival in 1149. Chris got to see this earlier this spring.

(not my picture, from the web)

Well he timed our visit to the Basilica perfectly, because we came in right as they brought the relic down for the once a day adoration. We got to go right up to it’s glass case and touch it while saying a prayer. Again, could not have been better.

We did more exploring, and I got to go to a chocolate shop. Until now, I’ve never had the chocolate wisdom to know that Belgium chocolate really is superior. Now I know. Now I will gain weight. C’est la vie.

We went back to Leuven in search of warm food. Chris listed three choices of “Belgium” food, and I could tell by his tone intonations that Domus was our best choice.

http://www.domusleuven.be/

It was. We both ended up with a warm stew like dinner that came with Belgium frites. Apparently Americans have it wrong: they are Belgium fries, not French. This classy Belgium cuisine comes with any tasteful meal and is consumed by fork with mayonnaise.

That night we did more walking, people watched on the “longest bar in Europe” [imagine a quiet European 6th Street] while eating ice cream in the cold, and walked around a former women’s colony from the time of the crusades. Belgium may be cold, but they have the coziest, most inviting interiors I’ve ever seen. Restaurants have the most inviting window seats, and Chris says he sums up Belgium as a place where you want to curl up in front of a fire with hot chocolate. I concur.

Sunday

I woke up Sunday and went down for mass. It was nice to hear English again. Afterwards everyone gathered for coffee and tea and I got to talk to more interested people.

Chris and I then scampered off and completed my tour of Leuven. We walked around the botanical gardens, and stopped off for lunch at Timory. A really formal looking but laid back local stop. Here Chris and I ate very contrasting Belgium meals. I had coffee and a Brussels Waffle (made from batter, light and crisp, topped with powdered sugar and fresh fruit) and he had some type of Croque Monsieur, frites, and a beer. This made us laugh.

http://www.timory.be/

From there we toured the beautiful Gothic church, St. Peter's, that had a very nice museum. We spent the remainder of the time at Fr. Damien’s grave. Fr. Damien will probably become a saint in the future because of his brave work with leper colonies.

In Summary

I’ve worked on this off and one for the past week, and I’m exhausted! Now I’m left with an addiction to Belgium chocolate, a constant craving for waffles, and the desire to read a Hercule Poirot novel.

What's with all the bikes Europe?

2008-05-16T08:34:00.002+02:00

Tour de France here I come!

Two tires. Shiny blue paint. Stick on a bell & basket and call me a European.

This week I bought a bike. Well, it’s mine until I leave and then I get my deposit back. Up until August, expect to see me blending into the rest of Strasbourg -- traveling around the parks and city centre on my way to the lab. You can also expect to see me cycling around with a baguette sticking out of my wire basket following a visit to the Supermarche.

My dad will be proud: this savvy traveler shopped around and found the best bike deal for the summer. Many of the other students bought bicycles their first day at this “sketch” [note to older readers :: slang for sketchy :) ] place by the university. I traveled out to the train station and hooked myself up.

I went and checked out the first place and the guy tried to charge me €50 for a bike that clearly had seen better days. So I did my asking around and internet searching and found a place that only rents bikes but they’re in very good condition. The guy at the rental spoke very little English and I’m pretty sure had a speech impediment. He was incredibly nice and patient, so we played what felt like a version of charades involving various forms of pointing, expressions, and broken words from both languages.

The 411 on my bike from Velocation (velo = bike in French)
- The bike is really good condition, and came with a bell and basket!
- The lock was included
- If something happens, I pay €4 for a flat tire, or bring in the bike for them to fix it if it breaks
- I put down a €100 deposit that I get back at the end
- €45 euros for the entire time until I leave

Aside from the deposit, this was cheaper and way more reliable than the other bike. Now I don’t have to pay for tram tickets (about €3.50 for a day pass) to get to work. The month passes for the tram we haven’t even found yet, but will cost about €30 per month.

Waffles and chocolate anyone?

After a day of scheming on Skype chat with Chris (a longtime and very dear friend), I also purchased tickets to Belgium for the weekend. I leave today after work and get back Sunday night. Don’t really know a lot of details about the weekend yet, just that it’s a go and he’s meeting me at the train station.

Here again, I saved money because I went and got a 12-25 card earlier this week. You pay €49 euros for this rail pass (for those in the ages of 12-25) and get between 25-75% off your rail tickets in France for a year.

Yet another example of people in Strasbourg being nice. There was a young guy at the teller who helped me find the best deal, spoke very good English, and was very patient. He asked me where I was from, I said Texas, he said “ah, Bush” and then smiled and laughed.

The day before when I went with Matt to buy the rail card the young lady who helped us saw our passports and said “ ah, you are from the US, lucky!” And then told us about her vacation to Ecuador (at least that’s what we think she said) and wished us happy traveling.

I love the people in Strasbourg. Pauline -- a grad student in the lab who’s gone out of her way to help me and tell me about special hangouts in Strasbourg -- said it’s because a lot of France just thinks people here are half German, so they are just “different.”

I buy it. People could not be more friendly.

After getting my bike I cycled all the way home. I thought since the train station was so far out I’d hop on a tram since my card was still valid, but the sun was setting and it was a very warm, summertime evening. A little more of me fell in love with France today. I cycled past two guys standing by their bikes and they smiled and said a colloquial “chiao” and went right by the European Parliament building on my way back. It was simply lovely.

Update
This entry is a day old because I didn’t have internet at home or time in the lab. Well I finally got internet, which means I spent adequate time “catching up” on my facebook addiction. I’m off to Belgium today, so my next entry will be long, both about Belgium and my day yesterday/today. Also I plan to write more about what it’s like to work at ULP Chimie Department.

MissElaineous

2008-05-13T11:53:00.004+02:00

Confession

Dearest Blog Readers,

I have a confession: today I broke one of my primary traveling rules. I will not be admitting this embarrassment to anyone else on this trip and it shall be dropped henceforth…..

Skipping ahead to my afternoon today, Matt and I decided to use the rest of our day off exploring the “downtown” portion of Strasbourg on foot. The weather was beautiful and since most places were closed because of Pentacost, we scouted out future eating places, window shopped, and observed the French.

I’ve probably been dehydrated most of this trip because I’m a cheap traveler and won’t pay 3 euros for water with my meal. Honestly, this has not been a loss for me and I keep bottled water in my room.

After spending the day walking (and carrying my laptop in my backpack since I still don’t have internet in my room had to go to the lab) I was starting to get thirsty. Both of us started looking for somewhere moderately priced, but the majority of shops were just closed.

We continued walking around another 30 minutes before thoughts of a Diet Coke dominated my mind.

Then we saw it.........Le M.

I make it a personal rule not to eat at fast food places in the US, let alone Europe.

But here was my rationalization:
1) I knew they’d have it and it was open
2) I figured it would be cheaper than paying 2 euros for a tiny bottle
3) I wanted Diet Coke, and I wanted it BAD.

So we went in. It was still about 1.5 euros (over 2 US dollars) for a medium but again, I really wanted a Diet Coke. We wait in line, and the people in front of us ordered a freaking ton of food and had to put it in a huge bag. I thought Americans were the ones with the problem…so we wait longer…

The following are my grievances with Le M:
1) That was a small, not a medium size
2) I wasn’t expecting much ice - it didn’t have any – and I didn’t care since Strasbourg isn’t that hot, I DID care that they didn’t fill it up all the way
3) McD’s was neither fast nor cheap. Discuss.

We both stood outside and guzzled our coke in less than a minute. Our attitude: screw you Le M. As an American, I expect my free Supersize Diet Coke when I get home.

Traveler’s Moral Lesson- do not give into satan and go to American fast food chains abroad. Ever. Resort to foreign owned gas stations only.

Day Revisited

To re-begin my day, I met Matt (Tulane) before lunch and we headed downtown. Again, most places were closed, but we were both starving. After passing someone from my lab on the street, we were pointed in the direction of a small Greek restaurant. On national days off, only foreign places owned by Turks or other non-nationals stay open. Our food was delicious, and it was the first big meal I’ve had in Strasbourg. You would have thought I hadn’t eaten in days.

I’ve also realized my energy and personality dependence upon caffeine. I’m starting to re-fuel my VTA/hippocampus/NA addiction cycle. French coffee is basically espresso (really strong, concentrated coffee) served black that you put sugar cubes in. I actually like it! In the US I only like my coffee with cream, but the blend over here has a unique taste that I don’t mind. It may be different but I enjoy it.

After our meal we went into the lab to use the internet and I finished the last of my school requirements. After awhile there, we set back out and did our downtown exploring. We really are learning our way around and also found a freakish open grocery store. I thought it was funny that my mini bottle of Chardonnay wouldn’t ring up, so instead of typing in the number, the cashier had to go find it in the store. I also found Orangina Light, so I was excited by that. (Orangina is a famous French soft drink.)

Stop and Stare

The French like to stare. Unlike Americans, they won’t look away when you notice them. Matt and I realized this today, and it’s weird. Luckily, France and most of Europe basically feels like a big amusement park to Americans. People dress in funny outfits at restaurants, everything is more expensive, there are themes to each city, it’s great. We get to stare right back like it’s a zoo – jokes on you Frenchies.

French fashion: what were you thinking?

In high school, the fashion exhibited in our French books was so bad we thought the pictures had to be over 10 years old. Negative.

You see it all, most of it is hideous. This does make window shopping tres fun.
Pants are seriously tight on people, and most guys seem to have forgotten the other half of their pants. Jeans are not common, and guys tend to wear pants that don’t go down to their ankles (basically like highwaters).

French fashion also makes another question nearly impossible to answer: gay or not? Let me tell you, there is NO way to tell on French guys. Not being funny here, gaydar is off the charts in France. Unless he’s with a girl rather publicly displaying his affection (which you see quite a bit too much of) you really can’t tell most of time. This makes for an interesting version of the game, boxers or briefs.

Seriously showers, get real

I still hate the showers here. You get burned, you freeze, you run out of water -- all in one day. I’m really sorry to tell my family, friends, and Adamo, but when I get back I’m getting in the shower and not coming out. Better yet, can we just lend France a few American plumbers? Seriously. This is not ok with me.

Because of this, I’m not shaving my legs and going native for the rest of the summer. This is ok with me since I’m not trying to attract any of the male species this summer.

What is it like living in the backwards age with no internet?

What ever do I do with my time in the evenings?

Well now that I’m done studying/working for the semester (which essentially ended last night) I kick back with a mini bottle of French wine, nibble on French bread and cheese, write my blog and read.

My first summer book that I’m completely pumped about is Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique,” the book which revolutionized the feminist movement in the early 1960’s. Just in the introduction it discusses the rage of women as a servant class to males and talks about how the norms of society “twist the lives of women into weird and unnatural shapes.”

I’m fully expecting to be empowered.

Tomorrow is my first day of work so I’m off to bed to read more about the feminine mystique and problem without a name. Figures crossed I don’t blow up the Louis Pasteur Institute.

MissElaineous

PS: LOVE the comments, look for my responses to them soon as I catch back up.

Addendum to above-
I wrote this blog last night and now I’m in the lab for my first day of work. When I came in they were setting up a desk for me with all the other grad students and we went down to the stockroom to get a lab coat and notebook. It looks like a grad student, Dinesh (sp?) will be helping me get started. He speaks Hindi and English, and no French. lol He’s very nice and helpful just like everyone in the lab. Two of the other Americans came up to see if I was ready to eat lunch (I wasn’t) and were jealous that I was actually jumping into reactions today! All for now.

2008-05-12T16:02:00.006+02:00

Adjusting to the good life in France

I thought life meant to slow down while abroad, not speed up. On the optimistic side, I’m on the cusp of freedom. Well freedom involving a 40 hour lab work week, but it’s grand! I’m in ze France after all….

The true goal of government subsidized housing I’ve discovered is not to provide economy housing, but rather to encourage you bust your ass working so that you never have to live anywhere like that again. Perhaps I’m being dramatic, but here’s the

Pros
-Safe neighborhood, 5 minutes away from the European Parliament
-Things are, in fact, clean
-We get our own rooms
-Mini fridges
-It’s in France

Cons
-Showers?
Last night I discovered we had no temperature control, and almost burned myself while holding the button for water in the facet like annoyance. Lesson: Why French women are hairy and BO is a common problem
-Co-ed toilets with no seats.
wtf.
-Loud, obnoxious, foreign neighbors who listen to 90’s rap.
-No toilet paper
Let me reiterate, wtf.

In all seriousness, I’ll live….aside from the bathrooms.

Impressions (not impressionists!) of Strasbourg

The city reminds me of something in between an art museum and child’s story book. They have nice above ground trams, with reminders on the big glass doors to validate your ticket with literally a huge smiley face on it. I’ll have to remember to take a picture and post it here later. Inside the city, the trams have grass on the tracks so it doesn’t look so unsightly, and the best part is the stops have sound effects attached to them. Instead of mundane announcements, children read the stops and they play some sort of themed affect (although my French isn’t quite good enough to understand how it’s related yet). Since this is France, the buildings are either antique grand or modern chic. Sometimes it’s classic art, sometimes it’s mod.

People ride their bikes everywhere, and I’m going to look into renting one as my mode of transport later this week. Keep in mind these aren’t mountain bikes, but old fashioned bikes with baskets. The weather, along with the people, has been very welcoming with blue skies and mild weather. It gets a bit chilly in the mornings/evenings, but during the day it feels like the spring days we get 5 times a year in Texas.

I think I’m really going to love the lab here at the Louis Pasteur Institute. When dealing with the renown Pasteur Institute in France I thought the campus would blow my mind.

It did, but only because it’s the ugliest thing in Strasbourg. Maybe that’s harsh… and I’ve always thought UT had a pretty campus, but this just confirms it. I need to get more pictures, but the buildings are mostly from the 60’s and under a lot of remodeling. I suppose these buildings are like organic chemistry books…the more wear and tear the more science getting done…

Also, these weird trees are everywhere. I’m not sure what’s up with them. :) See also below.

Spare moments to explore

There are four other Americans here.

Matt 1- aka Tulane Matt- obviously from Tulane University. He wants to be called Griff apparently. Matt speaks very good French and I can already tell is going to be my first source to learning French this summer. He also knows a lot about art history and other “high culture” so we’re going to have to fun doing the museum thing.

Matt 2- Just graduated from a Tennessee university (small private school) and will be going to University of Florida for grad school when he’s done doing research here in December.

Christy- She’s from UF (University of Florida) so knows all the people we had to apply to to get here. She’s my age and is also staying through next semester doing research (they applied for extended stays)

Karen (spelled differently, but I don’t remember) is from a small private school somewhere in the Midwest. Haven’t seen a lot of her yet… but I will soon!

Bottom line:: everyone’s chill. It’s cool….

So we’ve been exploring the past few days. Yesterday we went into the really old part of Strasbourg called, Petit France. We started the morning at the open air market they have on Saturday mornings. I was a bit disappointed since my standards are impeccably high after last summer in Vienna, but it was neat to walk around and soak it all in. I think in a month or so I’m going to go there to practice my French.

Above: open air market.

Petit France = quaint.
This is Tulane Matt
It was basically adorable, I plan to go back. We went into an old church to look around, and it made me feel like I was back in Vienna. I bit of positive deja-vu there.

In petit France we did some people watching which was fun. Also, we took “wtf face” pictures in front of this weird car that apparently belonged to one of the hundreds of German tourists, then walked two minutes and saw another. Here’s the before/after…
French Food. Yum. It even has a special banana type plate:

I think I’m going to wrap it up for now. Expect more stories later.

Elaine

One more thing….
Putain, s’il vous plaît.
Translation: Bitch please.

Love it. ;)

What's up with these trees? For real. They're everywhere.

2008-05-10T19:15:00.006+02:00

Bienvenue blog readers!

Last summer when I ended the blog after my “Maymester” in Vienna and late summer in Oxford I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity to do it again – but I thought quite a lot of things last August. So much can happen in a year, and so much did.

My goal this summer is to improve readability in the blogs by inserting more pictures, paragraph breaks, etc. These blogs can get rather lengthy and detailed, so I want to make it organized for easy flow so that readers can pick and choose what they want.

If more people than just my parents and aunts are reading the blog, then I am expecting a diverse audience to include:
- Aforementioned parental units and aunties
- Close friends/colleagues of my aunts and parents who have been forced to, and are subject to pop quizzes about my travels
- Adamo (a subject to be covered momentarily)
- Close friends who are dedicated enough to occasionally see what I’m up to, and put in requests for souvenirs (always welcome)
- The random UT professor on their lunch break
- Internet perverts and stalkers
- Ex-boyfriends or bad dates, some of which fall into the last category

And so the blogging begins…

Elaine State of the Union
Last August when I stopped blogging I had about a week to get my life together, recover from jet lag, and get moved back into school. I was a hardcore pre-med, just transferred into the Dean’s Scholars science honors program, still worked with rats in the neuroscience lab, and was about to begin my sophomore level classes. Just as the fall semesters always are, I spent the semester studying either organic chemistry or genetics and going to UT football games to watch adorable QB Colt McCoy.

After a small handful of minor stresses (sarcasm) I made near perfect grades as always. Then there’s the kicker: 4.0’s don’t make you happy. Surprise!

Over winter break I went into this huge quarter life crisis, and decided to drop pre-med for a list of reasons as long as the dictionary. In today’s society, no longer having any direction can be TERRIFYING. Yes, I may be only 20, however decisions to take MCATs must be made right about now or else you pass the point of no return. Over Christmas my whole family went into a conference about what the hell I could do with my life….

Then came Adamo.

[Half my blog readers will love this section, half of you should skip to the next one]

Must have been the mistletoe

My fall had also been full of bad dates. I’m not talking just dull dates, I’m talking about dates that left my friends rolling will laughter and me cringing in the corner. Basically I’d seen and heard it all. The last date of the semester resulted in someone writing “FanFic” about me in a blog, and made me want to give up dating all together.

I “met” Adamo as he was leaving Christmas Eve mass and I arriving early to save seats with my dad for the next one as all good Catholics do. His mom was my middle school principal and his dad was my lector coach for the youth group in high school. His parents introduced us as they were leaving, which was an odd introduction since we both knew exactly who the other one was, except we’d never actually held a full conversation.

Then he Facebooked me.

I played coy.

Then he IMed me.

I didn’t act overly interested. I let him have my phone number just on the chance he was going to be too bored at home over break.

Then he texted me.

He told me he should be allowed to come out with me and my girlfriends since he was an attractive Catholic Marine Officer.

I told him that this Blonde Catholic Co-Ed could hold her own.

We scheduled a date for Wednesday. By that time I wasn’t sure how it was going to go and got myself convinced it was going to be the worst date I’d ever been on…..we stayed up talking (yes, we were seriously JUST talking) until 3 a.m. When I finally got home that night my mom came running into my room half asleep to ask how it went. My only comment: he’s going to be dangerous. And he has been, ever since January.

Adamo is a Marine Officer in flight school. He’s still in the beginning of flight training, so he hasn’t been assigned an aircraft yet. Currently he’s in Corpus Christi.

How/Why I got to France

I threw out my life’s plans in December, and decided to start looking into other career options. To my surprise I loved organic chemistry, despite the fact that it was really challenging. I talked to Dr. Sessler (my organic professor) and my TA Elizabeth and discovered a program through the University of Florida that went to France involving research in chemistry.

I applied to several summer programs since my summer was no longer going to consumed by MCATs. Then I was “partially” accepted into the France program, switched to working in Dr. Sessler’s lab with a crazy Russian grad student named Vlad. The week before spring break I got final word I’d be summering in France.
The program is funded by NSF (National Science Foundation) and the French government. I’ll be doing research at the Louie Pasteur Institute in Strasbourg, France with a colleague of Dr. Sessler. My housing is paid for by the French and I get a small stipend for my work from NSF. The program also paid for a trip to Washington D.C. in April to get our visas and meet the other participates. I’ll also go to Gainsville, Florida to present my work sometime in the fall.

France already?

It may be cliché, but I cannot believe I’m here. Just last week I was studying to take my finals early and now I’m sitting in my room here in France. Expect for this reality to soak in sometime next week. As of now I’m still wrapping up loose ends for my classes via the internet. UT isn’t officially done until about May 20, and I left May 5, so I had to work a lot of details out with my professors.

Things were crazy: I had a professor not show for one of my finals and I literally was packing until 2:30 a.m. the morning I left at 5:30 a.m. I liked to say I was not “Elaine Prepared” for the trip, but my packing team and I made it work.

All throughout the airports getting here I saw military personally, mostly army, and when I finally saw an Air Force guy getting off the plane in Frankfurt I ran up to him like a fool to basically talk about the fact that I’m dating a Marine. Pretty sure I’m annoying all of the US armed forces, but who cares.

I took a bus into Strasbourg where Dr. Weiss was supposed to pick me up. As I got off the bus I kept scanning the crowd for someone looking for an American girl, but my gaze turned up unclaimed. Luckily in my paranoia, I saved his email (with phone number) on my laptop and was able to call him using my emergency only French phone.

He came right over and Jean spent the entire day showing me around and helping me to get all checked into my dorm room. He made sure I knew where the tram was, had tickets, and translated everything for me.

Living Arrangements

I live in the northern part of Strasbourg and a grand total of about 5 minutes from the grandeur of the European Parliament, which consists of several large, modern complexes. I also live close to a really expensive park district surrounding a large park, L’orangerie, which I have not yet had time to explore.

I don’t have a roommate, so yay. To put it nicely, my bathroom is ghetto. It’s co-ed for the floor, the toilets do not have seats (just the bowel) and you have to carry in your own toilet paper and stick it on a small peg. The showers are like the annoying sinks you have in the US where you press down and get water for about 5 seconds before it automatically turns off. The only way I can rationalize this set up is if it’s designed to encourage two people to shower together—one holds on the water while the other bathes. Oh the French….

First few days

It’s been nothing but a blur. There’s no internet in my room yet, so I have to go into the lab for a connection to the rest of the world. I’ve been studying for the remainder of my classes, sleeping at odd times (who am I kidding, it wasn’t jet lag, it was the end of the year crash) waking up in the middle of the night to French kids blaring 90’s rap music and so much more.

This week is basically a holiday for France. Thursday was the end of WWII celebration, and Monday is Pentecost so I haven’t had any work to do yet.
On Wednesday I went to a “BBQ” at the University. They served Merquez (a spicy Moroccan sausage) and instead of using hot dog buns we put them in sliced baguettes. Tres chic.

There are four other Americans here, and we’ve started exploring together.

My walk to the tram...

French Boys

I’m not sure if I’ve changed, or if the French are just that hard up for females – but I get hit on, a lot, here.

Pardon my candor, but it took me a grand total of 48 hours to see a French penis. While we were at the BBQ, one of the other lab group’s grad students were talking to us (the Americans) and the humor got a bit “French.” Apparently this one rather plump grad student showed up to work one day completely naked (not very MSDS lab appropriate) and the other took a picture on her cell phone. Their sense of humor is great and they fulfill all raunchy expectations Americans set for them. Shall I add, c’est petit…pardon moi. ;)

I’ve been using the internet at the lab, so earlier this week while I was on my way into the city the police came on to check everyone’s ticket since the system mostly runs on an honor system. Four men in their late 20s/early 30s got on to check the tram, and I’m thinking “Oh dear, did I do it correctly” so when they got to me they mumbled something in French, and given the situation I just said something in English and he very nicely responded “it’s ok, you’re ok” and walked on.

I continued sitting thinking how again this was a nice example of the general hospitality I’ve been receiving while in France. Next thing I know the guys were finished and one came to sit next to me and said “how do you do” and then said “I don’t really speak English” and smiled. Suddenly I was surrounded by all four French police officers having a conversation in broken French/English/German. They asked me if I was American, how long I’d be here, when I arrived, etc. Then my stop came and we parted with smiles.

Moral of the Story:
Getting around France is easy and welcoming when you:
1) Speak even a little French
2) Are a cute young American blonde

Then comes last Friday night. The other Americans and I had gone out to eat and to explore some of the downtown area, and I decided to go straight back to my room to study, write in the blog, and sleep early. They had given me a hard time, so when the knock came at my door I just opened right up expected it to be them.

Wrong.

There was a Moroccan, French guy named Ryan leaning up against my door with his elbow propped casually up high who greeted me with a “Bon soir” (good evening) and chestier cat smirk. Another conversation proceeded in half French, half English that basically concluded with “if you come down to my room you won’t need to sleep.”

This odd, get to know you situation was made even more amusing by the fact he had B.O. Needless to say he went back down the hall, and I stayed in my room.

Stay Tuned….

This blog is slightly incomplete, but it’s a start. Stay tuned, I’ll probably be back tracking on my last week in France and on more events that happened.

MissElaineous

Picture of the post....French kids are apparently naughty too.

2008-05-07T16:56:00.004+02:00

Bonjour!

Well readers, expect an entry sometime this weekend. I'm playing catch up on everything from school to sleep. I don't have internet in my room currently, so I have to come into the lab to use it. In the next few days as I finish taking my finals abroad, expect to see an update that ...
1) explains what I'm doing
2) a sort of "Elaine State of the Union Address"
3) updates everyone on my trip

So far...sooooo good.

Elaine

2007-08-08T01:07:00.000+02:00

I think it's official....

This blog has died a slow and painful death. My readership is officially nill. Fun while it lasted.

*Elaine

Gulliver's Travels Part IV

2007-08-05T00:00:00.001+02:00

2007-08-03T23:32:00.000+02:00

Hey Everyone,

I figured just posting something on the blog was the easiest way to explain the lack of entries. Now that the floods have cleared, I've been using my BritRail Pass like crazy, going to Scotland, London, and Wales so I can try and get my money's worth out of it.

Secondly, I am in the process of writing my weekly reading responses for my literature class as well as working on a 7 page paper about the use of resorts in 18th century literature. As soon as these things are done, or at least rough drafted, I should be able to post more.

So between the traveling, writing for class, actual class, and talking to people when I get back to Oxford (blame my parents and James for this) there isn't a whole lot of energy and time to write in here after writing class assignments.

Ok, that's it for now. Tomorrow I go into London and Yorkshire on Sunday, so it's going to be such a busy weekend!

Love,
Elaine

2007-07-31T00:33:00.000+02:00

Hello Everyone.

I got back last night from a fabulous trip to Scotland. Updates from the past week are to come, but between the traveling, class, and a few other things I've been pretty occupied. Some of you may have heard, but someone I did Student Council with in high school passed away unexpectedly [from what I understand was a blood clot to the lungs] at the all too young age of 21. She just graduated from UT in May and was getting ready to come over to England for graduate school. I am confident she is in a better place, but my heart could not hurt more for her family as well as all the memories. J-Nail will be so missed and her personality never forgotten.

On top of it all, I've been surrounded by sick people (aka people who put their fingers in their mouth all the time so they just welcome illness) so I think I'm coming down with something. Hopefully it's just a cold.

Goodnight!

Gulliver's Travels Part III

2007-07-24T15:17:00.001+02:00

2007-07-23T14:29:00.000+02:00

Me in London. Can you see why I like it there?

July 22, 2007- July 23, 2007
Unprecedented floods, Trafalgar Lions, Emergencies at the Globe, Texas in London, and much, much more

My misfortune is your blog update. I have been going non stop the past few days and only have a bit below that I already wrote on Thursday before I just had to go to bed. You may be asking why I can’t just put up the updates, well with pictures and proper text updating the blog is about a 2 hour ordeal. So it just isn’t that easy since I don’t half ass it.

Today, I was supposed to be outside of Disley (?) England at the estate where they filmed Pemberley for the A&E/BBC Pride and Prejudice. This morning we were all packed, and ready to go, and arrived at the train station only to find there were absolutely NO trains leaving Oxford because the rails are completely under water to the west and north of here.

This is troubling, because it is blue skies and only a few clouds today. We were assuredly damp in London both Friday and Saturday, but every small bought of ran was followed by sunshine. One would assume this is England and to be expected. Wrong.

So today was a wash. I finished one of my novels for class and just started my next, and have been posting more of my pictures, and now am updating this. I haven’t the slightest desire to go pay 5 pounds to see the top of a tower nor do I feel it necessary to go and exchange personal space with obnoxious tourists. So instead of just sitting in my room, I opened my widows for the breeze but turned on the heater to keep it the right temperature. Wasteful? Yes. But one of my very few free days has been completely wasted. I can be positive about this as long as things clear by Friday when we are scheduled to go to Scotland. If it doesn’t, not only do I not get to go but I will be out a lot of $$$$$$$$$$$ for absolutely nothing.

I am vexed indeed.

Saturday July 14: Brighton
“A whole camp full of officers!”

Brighton is located on the southern coast of England roughly facing France in an area referred to as the downs and channel coast. Historically Brighton has been a resort and vacation town, and has a huge pier amusement park. Well, our lovely program just dropped us off and said “see ya at 4” so we were roughly left to figure out Brighton for ourselves.

You’ll be able to tell by our pictures that it was cool with an enormous breeze. We lucked out again with weather, the day turned out very nicely. So we walked on the Brighton Pier, which had a lot of cheesy amusement rides. We would have ridden on them if each ride weren’t about 3 tokens (that cost a pound each.) So we walked around and amused ourselves. After that we headed to the Royal Pavilion, an “oriental” and gaudy palace built by the future King George IV. A lot of people on the trip completely disregarded it as trashy, but I admit, while it holds nothing to the power of the tradition, it was different and the inside dining room took my breath away with it’s whimsical presence.

A bit of history: When George IV was just 23 and the Prince of Wales, he a falling out with his father and moved to Brighton. He fell in love with Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert, a 29 year old Catholic widow whom he secretly married. Together they built the Pavilion. Well his father, King George III started to go insane, so he had to fill in as reagent before becoming King. Despite being in love, he was forced to officially marry Caroline of Brunswick in 1795, she had a daughter, but he quickly just ordered her to essentially come no where near him, not even to his coronation. This of course ruined his relationship with Mrs. Fitzherbert, so he just had a bunch of mistresses and died old, but he always said his happiest days of his life were with Maria.

Well all throughout the Pavilion, which actually had a good audio tour, I kept craving Chinese food because it reminded me of the inside of a gaudy Chinese food buffet and I haven’t had Chinese since I left Texas. Sad.

Also funny, Queen Victoria found the whole thing disgusting and sold it to the city of Brighton. They politely said she didn’t have room there for all her kids (I didn’t know she had had so many!) but really I can imagine her being just disgusted with it’s lack of taste.

After that, we looked outside and saw we had just beat all the mobs of tourists!

So we moved into what is referred to as the Lanes, which is a bunch of shops and restaurants. I found a really nice pub to eat at and got Steak and Ale pie, with real mashed potatoes and brown gravy which of course reminded me of Grandma. It was one of the best meals.

While we were there, this guy was taking pictures with their promotional magazine for Brighton. Well they were trying to take a picture with these older, very tipsy, Irish men with beer bellies. One of them said “wait a minute, let’s get those girls in our picture!” so they called us over and pulled Ann, who I was with, into one of their laps and another put is arm around me for the picture. It was fun.

We had problems loading the bus to come home, which seems to be a standard for all our group trips.

Monday: Tower of London after Class
I don’t really have a lot to say regarding the Tower of London. After Class, we went into London, through daytime traffic, and had two hours to see all of the Tower. Needless to say this wasn’t enough time. I made sure to see the main white tower and the crown jewels, despite the incredible lines. One way they keep the lines for the jewels moving is they have two slow moving conveyer belts running on either side, so it ushers people past and keeps it moving. What was nice about this, is you can go back and do it as many times as you wanted, (I did it two) but most people don’t bother. The jewels are in these enormous vaults, so if the world is ever ending and you’re in London, I suggest going in there.

I was disappointed in the tower as a whole too, because they made it feel more like an amusement park instead of a historical sight. Things like Anne Boleyn’s apartments were closed to the public, and very little was explained on signs unless you paid the money for an audio guide. Most of the time we were left to wonder and try and piece together everything. The few captions they did have were also misleading: they would say things like Torture Tower (and on the inside say this was an artillery room, the torture took place elsewhere) and this is the block and axe that beheaded Anne Boleyn. Wrong, she was beheaded by a sword. It wasn’t until another caption when they said “this is from around that time, not the exact one like we just said.”

I didn’t go for an amusement park with ice cream cones and popcorn (which they sold there) I went to absorb history. I mean seriously, who am I to expect that? After that we got to on a bus for like 4 hours to get through London rush hour traffic.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Quiet Days with a lot of Homesickness

I’m fairly certain I mentioned this before, but I’ve been pretty bogged down recently with academic stuff from UT and problems with the way this program is being run here. I’ll spare everyone the boring details, but regarding the program here our “planned and paid for trips” are so far being poorly run and not all paid for. Aside from the disappointment and extra financial burden, this is adding to the stress of having to plan even more trips on top of our school work here. We are all frustrated, but making the most of it.

What this has resulted in however, is the worst homesickness I’ve had since that like one day in Vienna when I had a bad day and got sick. Even though I’m pretty good at not letting things interfere with my agenda at hand, I’m getting to the point where I’m sick of dealing with things and just want to go home. This further upsets me because I really do love England, but I’m so limited with transportation and completely free days to travel that I’m bound to the tourist haven called Oxford and I feel like I’m not getting to do it proper justice. The tourists in Oxford win the award for being the stupidest tourists I’ve encountered yet. They walk in front of buses and scream, and generally have moronic behavior.

So all this being said, I’ve kind of been in and out of a funk the past few days because of the drama coming from here and back home all at the same time. And it upsets me because this is England and it’s not England’s fault.

We all know I’m one “tough young lady” so if I hadn’t just told all of you that you’d never know the better by my experiences.

Tuesday our dining hall threw us a James Bond Party. We all got dressed up and they had the dining hall decorated with James Bond things. It was so much fun, especially since I had been depressed most the day. For dessert we had frozen martinis too!

Wednesday I went to have afternoon tea at a local café, out of the normal path of tourists. I really enjoyed that and read for class. I may do that again today in fact!

Thursday: Blenheim Palace (Birthplace and Family Estate of Winston Churchill)

I organized an afternoon trip after class to Blenheim, which is just outside Oxford. It was GORGEOUS! Check out all the pictures on the link to the right of this.

I have officially stood in the room where the baby, who strangely must have looked like Winston Churchill, was birthed. I think my life might be complete.

There was this really corny exhibit there, with these half wax, half animated figures that “acted out scenes from the history of Blenheim” and it was just incredibly hokey even though the technology they used was very new.

Other than that misjudgment on their part, everything was just beautiful. We kept joking with each other because they have these gardens there called the “pleasure gardens.” That made for some fun times. In case you were wondering, pleasure gardens consist of a hedge maze, butterfly garden, and lavender garden.

I split from the group and took the Queen’s Pool Walk around the lake. I walked past an old war monument that I suppose is “guarded” by a flock of sheep.

The gates we had all entered had closed, which was by the bus stop, so I had walked around through the town back to it. Well, when I got there, I saw the rest of our group climbing over the fence in order to get out. It made for a great spectacle.

Friday: London Part I
So we got dropped off at Trafalgar Square in London. When we left in the morning it was pouring down rain, and going into London we had to go through some mild floods [our first exposure to something was wrong]. Once we arrived in London however, the sun came out and everything was wet, but blue skies.

Don’t mess with Texas.
We went over to the Texas Embassy, now a restaurant that was formerly the Embassy when we were truly the Lone Star State.

I must say it: Texas is a badass.

There you go.

Longhorn things everywhere. Damn Right, all the way in London. We ended up eating there Saturday, so I went ahead and included the pictures here.

Trafalgar Square
We found the need to climb up onto the huge stone monument and be one with the lions. Remember how it had just rained….well the huge stone platform was slippery so I definitely slipped on my stomach multiple times getting up to the platform as tall as I am. I have bruises and scabs on my stomach- so I was maimed by lions in London if you will.

Totally worth it. Made my morning.

After that we went into the National Gallery, which was amazing. Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, and many many many more. Not to mention a lot of English lesser known artists that I really enjoyed.

We also went into the National Portrait Gallery, which I highly recommend because you can see the original portraits of the Tudor Royal Family, many famous people, and some modern but very classy contemporary portraits.

From there we walked, yes walked, to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Yet another big church, but while we were there they started Evensong, which had such a heavenly sound and presence resonating throughout the nave of the church that it momentarily took your breath away.

We then walked across the Millennium Bridge and had some gorgeous views of London and really solidified how much I like London as a city. It isn’t dirty, I never feel unsafe, and everyone is very friendly. Another plus is there are so many places to go, the crowds are thinned out a bit.

We were then over by the globe, and in the 20 total minutes I’ve spent outside the Globe from last week and this week I’ve seen about four of the young actors from Merchant of Venice walking around, getting food, talking on their cell phones etc.

What happens is they walk by you, you do a double take, and then they are gone. Something that I think makes the Globe even more special since this has happened so many times.

We had dinner at a gourmet pizza place across from the Globe, then went over for our performance of Othello.

Othello
Othello wasn’t as good as Merchant, but was still quality. I wasn’t a groundling this time and got to sit, which with the threat of rain, I was happy about.

Half way through the performance, my attention was immediately grabbed by a flurry of moving people around someone who passed out in one of the boxes on the other side of theater from us. There was a lot of commotion, the play kept going, and next thing we know we see someone doing compressions and someone run out crying. We were all convinced that the person was dead, and the ushers were moving SO SLOW. Had I only been in that box let me just say that would not have been acceptable. People would have moved. Immediately.

Well we think she either passed out because of a minor stroke or complications from medicine, because they were able to wheel her out conscious.

At intermission we were all talking about it, and one girl in the group made the comment “if we were in America by the time the ushers started to move someone would have already had out the defibrillator saying CLEAR.”

Isn’t that the truth? It made me really 1) Proud to be an American 2) Miss being in America. All they had at the Globe was a first aid kit, because that’s going to help a lot in one of these situations.

This situation also made me fantasize what it would be like to be a doctor and be able to run over and say “I’m a doctor what can I do” and get the situation under control.

The End
I’m out of steam for the day. I have other things to do, but check out the picture links and Gulliver’s Travels Part II. Now I’m only one day behind! Yay.

Affectionately Yours,
Elaine

This is the memorial to animals in war: on one said they are scared and tired and on the other they come out these big strong horses and dogs looking back. It was touching, but kind of hard to see in this photo.

Gulliver's Travels Part II

2007-07-23T00:11:00.001+02:00

2007-07-17T14:48:00.000+02:00

Gulliver's Travels Part I
Rat does Vienna

As many of you know, I've had a travel companion this summer. Ever since I started working in the Jones Lab, rats have been a part of my life. My mom gave me Gulliver, an Ikea bred rat, for Valentine's Day, and he has been along with my on my journeys.

Without further ado, I present the first installment of Gulliver's Travels.

PS: I've already seen one typo. My bad, everyone deal. It's too hard to change.

2007-07-17T14:47:00.001+02:00

2007-07-17T01:01:00.001+02:00

Life of an Oxford Student
July 15, 2007

I feel like I’m living an entire lifetime this summer alone. Whenever I start to look at all of my pictures and think of the places I’ve been I’m taken over by amazement. The people that I’ve met, the oddities I’ve seen, historical places I’ve passed through, I’m still not sure I can grasp what’s happening.

Speaking of pictures, the links are to the right. Just click on the titles and you can see a lot of my pictures. If you have problems let me know.

Typical Day in Oxford

We have breakfast in the hall every morning at 8 (we sleep in a whooping 30 minutes on the weekend!) For breakfast it is a self service style, except our servers bring us our choice of coffee or tea and fresh toast in a toast tray. For breakfast we have cereal, fruit, hard boiled eggs, ham, cheese, or yogurt.

After breakfast I have two hours before my 18th Century English Literature class at 11. Usually I go up to my room and then head off for a walk. I’ve explored many different avenues around Oxford which is just filled with parks, paths, gardens, streets, and shops. In the morning it is nice because it’s before the poky tourists crawl out of the floorboards to swarm and get in your way. Yes, I have come to despise tourists with a great passion. Only because they are about as oblivious as headless chickens.

I’ve been known to stop on my morning walk to go into Sainsbury’s, a local grocery chain. I am so glad to have everything in English again, and have similar food choices (like granola bars and diet drinks) and they have Hobnobs, which are about 34 p. so it’s a fabulous deal.

Usually sometime during the morning Magda, our maid or scout as they call them here, come by and cleans my bathroom, makes my bed, gives me fresh towels, and takes out my trash. Magda is from Poland and so we’ve had some nice chats and she said she likes it when the Americans come to Oxford because she can understand our English better! She also has given me suggestions on paths to walk, which has been nice.

Today I came back and noticed they changed my curtains in my room. Weird.

Class consists of a lot of discussion about our novels, which is exciting. After that I usually have a granola bar for lunch (cheap) and then find things to do all afternoon. I’ve gone to free museums around Oxford, gone to the tourist information office to plan day trips, walked more, email, and nap. A few times I’ve gone out expecting that it will rain because everything is grey for miles and overcast, and I’ve sat down to read in a park, and the sun just comes out and the next thing I know it’s a bright blue sky and sunshine. English weather is rather fickle. I’ve been scouting out affordable places to go have tea and scones, and last week I went for a scone that was so hot the raisins burned my mouth!

At 7 p.m. we are served our 3 course dinner, which starts with either a soup or appetizer and bread, followed by a main course, then dessert. And the food quality is very good.

Me after Champane on the quad lawn.

Right now they are filming a movie called “The Brideshead Revisited” around Oxford, and last Wednesday another girl and I went to Christ Church’s prayer service and when we walked outside we realized that the whole college (Christ Church College) was closed to all visitors/tourists because they were filming and all these guys dressed in sweater vests and tan suits were milling around! We walked right through the courtyard and a few of the extras were taking pictures of themselves, and one guy said “we look really good” and then they realized we heard them say that and we all burst out laughing.

The prayer service was really small, but very neat. The vicar couldn’t have been more friendly. As we were leaving, we looked down and I was definitely standing on John Locke’s grave, the famous English philosopher that influenced the principles behind the US Declaration of Independence.

In addition to the movie, sometimes I’m walking home and there is a random model outside Brasenose by Radcliff Camera getting a photo shoot done. It’s weird.

Other things that I’ve been doing in Oxford: I’ve been to the Eagle and Child Pub, which is the pub where C.S. Lewis met R.R. Tolkien and their later hangout. I had a tasty blush wine there and also was introduced to Pimms, an Oxford drink that I really like. While we were there I ran into the American girl who gave me and my dad directions from the street when we arrived in Oxford. So I said hi and told her I found it! Surprise!

I’ve also been to this great hole in the wall pub that is like tucked into an ally so there were no tourists! We ran into, like literally ran into, this American professor who was rather tipsy who engaged us in a “conversation” and almost spilled his cider.

Now down to business.

Friday: Globe Theater to see Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice

We had groundling tickets, meaning we stood in the middle of everything, which turned out to be the best thing. Coming from Vienna, I’ve seen some world class performances. Shakespeare has a built in advantage that it’s in English, but seriously, the quality and entertainment value of the performance can’t even compare to anything I saw in Vienna, including things like Mozart’s “humorous” Magic Flute. I know some people may be groaning, but it was THAT good considering I still was impressed by what I saw in Vienna.

The performance starts with the actors coming out from all sides. They are on the balconies, coming up the steps from the back of the theater, coming out on stage, playing music, burning incense, passing baskets and things to the front, hanging off of balconies, and just completely involving the audience with 360 degrees of action and occupying all of your senses. The acting was the best I’ve seen in ages in their facial expressions, voices, actions, aura, EVERYTHING. It helped that we were so close we could see the spit fly out of the actors mouths. It also helped that some of the guys were um, how do say in Shakespearean language, hunky? They were adorable.

The play, for the most part, was laugh out loud hysterical. The actors acted out the innuendos hidden in the play and were so perfectly expressive. I swear every scene had at least one pelvic thrust if not more.

The whole thing left me wowed. When we left for London that morning we were also convinced that it was going to be Shakespeare in the rain, but once we arrived the weather turned beautiful, again! Also, while we were watching the show, a helicopter kept flying over head, and one of the actors was in the middle of a speech, and then just chewed it out Shakespearean style, and went on! And as we were heading back toward the bus, we all did a double take and realized we had just passed one of the actors strolling eating an ice cream cone. He must have slipped out the back and gone for ice cream. We all looked at each other bewildered, then burst out laughing. It was fantastic.

Ok, I’m out of energy and need to go to bed. I’ll update on Brighton and Wallingford tomorrow! Tomorrow night we are having a 007 James Bond themed dinner where we are all dressing up and having cocktails! How quaintly British!

Elaine