Danny's life in France

today - french history class, home, read, nap, eat spaghetti, internet and more reading. interesting, eh? that's about it for today. except for tonight's rain. it hasn't rained in months. sorry for not being longer - today was pretty uneventful. maybe there'll be something more interesting tomorrow...but don't hold your breath.

today - first of all, if you're not walking around with bricks chained to your ankles, the wind will more than likely blow you away. fortunately i've got my heavy backpack to keep me safe. anywayz...'dun dun dun...another one bites the dust.' yeup...another tuesday completed. 8 hours! each time i think about it about makes me nautious. oh well. classes all day. i almost skipped the 2nd half of my first class this afternoon, but i thought i'd better not. and then i had my damned arabic world class. that class sucks! but my book arrived that i have to write a paper on for that class. it looks pretty interesting. sexuality in the arabic world. so we'll see. now that i'm back, it's more homework time - i have 2 and a half weeks before i leave for break and TONS to do! again, like january (or maybe it was december) but if i disappear for a while, think nothing of it. i've simply gone into hiding. but i've still got my cell, though... bisous a tout le monde.

ok, so where do i start?...friday night isabelle and i went out to eat. then 15 minutes after i fell alseep i had to get up to take the train to paris. at the train station i saw liza, a girl on our program. apparently a TON of students from my program were in paris this weekend. i saw one of them randomly on saturday afternoon. anyway, on the tgv, i thought that this young couple were terrorists because they had their hand pda's and were sending messages back and forth and giving each other wierd looks. i went to liza's car and started flipping out. but we made it to paris okay. upon arriving in paris, samuel, a guy who came to all of the iu french events last year until february 2003 when he left, was there to meet me. we went back to his place, watched 'urban legends', went to meet my host brother, thibault, from 4 years ago for a drink, went samuel's boss' place to watch the world final rugby ternament (france won, of course). then it was off to the hard rock cafe at midnight for a private party with an open bar. samuel had gotten me a ticket. so we stayed until 5am. then we sat at a cafe drinking coffee waiting on 540am to roll around so we could take the first metro. there was a taxi line utterly a mile and a half long. so we just decided to save our money, not be like those schmuks standing out in the cold waiting for a taxi that would never arrive for the next 40 minutes. the sun was coming up and the birds were cherping and we're drinking coffee to be able to stay awake. i slept for like an hour then had to be at the train station to get linda at 9am. her train was 2 hours late - 2 more hours i could have stayed in bed!!!!! she finally arrived. we hung out a bit in the train station and then she left telling me that we'd get together today because she just wanted to go back to her friend's house and take a shower (she was on a train all night coming from germany). i then went to pizza hut with joe and erin (americans). after that i called samuel and met him back at his place (he had gone to play soccer). we watched a movie, left to go to la defense, area where he works, back to his area of town to eat and then watched 'l'auberge espagnole.' it's a good move. zzzzzzzzzzzz. after sleeping better last night, i got up, left, went to la defense to give samuel his key (he left at 8 this morning) and called linda, my friend who came in from germany yesterday. she wasn't going to be able to come into paris until around the time my train left. i told her that i was going to go ahead and go back to aix. to change my train ticket would have cost me like 51 euros and a plane ticket was 49. so i took air france. i bought the ticket like an hour and a half before the plane left. you should have seen me running through the metro system in paris trying to get to the airport in time!! it was crazy! but this time around, no flipping out on the plane on the descent. now that i'm back, i'm going to shower and take a nap. and do some homework somewhere along time line...

yesterday, i got up and went to my french history class, as i do every wednesday. the wind here has been something awful!! it's this cold arctic wind that comes down from the alps and blows at like 50+mph. so walking anywhere is a bitch. then i went to snacksomos to get something to eat and then to monoprix to get something to drink. guess what i found at monoprix. V8!!!! needless to say i bought a bottle. so i then went to the bureau to eat and drink and then headed off to post office to mail off my absentee ballot for the indiana primaries. my lease for sterling university was sent off yesterday, too. then it was off to go grocery shopping. after that, i took a nap, read some and then went to bed. today - not as much wind and kinda sunny. however tonight i see a lot of clouds coming in. but who cares - i'm in paris this weekend. oh, that's another thing. they found yet another bomb on a train track somewhere here in france and here i am taking the tgv bullet train to paris this weekend. guess i won't have any fingernails left by the time my tgv pulls into paris gare de lyon. back to today, i went to my 9:30 after not sleeping hardly any at all last night. i contemplated going but i decided it was for the best. then it was frieda's course, french african fem. lit. i can't stand frieda anymore. well, that's a story for another day. remind me to tell you all why in person. then it was back home for laundry. good times. now that my laundry is hanging up in my room to dry, i'm going to go take a shower since i didn't have time to take one this morning and...perhaps read some, perhaps take a nap. either way, at 9:30 i'm going to have a drink with melissa. lata...

today - i got up and left the place only to walk to class in the blustering arctic cold wind. but at least i can say i survived yet another tuesday. it seems like every time i turn around i'm saying, man, tomorrow i've got 8 hours of class. during my lunch break i went and got pictures the pictures from a roll of film that i had dropped off yesterday. and then...i went to the office to print off some travel documents that i had saved onto a disc. then it was back to class, then to yet another class, the ever-dreaded arabic world one. that class BLOWS!! and we have a dissertation over a book to do before break. and all of the books that interest me - they're either out of print or over $200!!! it's insane! i'm so pissed. but marion who had ridden her bike to class, gave me a lift half-way home on the back of her bike. it was so funny - the two of us riding through town screaming each time we'd hit a hump because we were basically sharing a seat. but it was fun. now i'm home and...gonna go to bed. GOODNITE

saturday - we went on an excursion with the program. the program paid for it. well, we paid for it, but indirectly. it was just a bit much. we're rushed rushed around and don't really have time to sit back and enjoy anything. and besides, we just went and visited a bunch of old buildings and an old church and stuff. nothing interesting. i was still way too tired to think from the trip to nice. sunday - i got up, ran, talked to my family in indiana, gave my room a thorough cleaning and then tried to figure out this new program that iu is using for registering for classes. i might have already said this, but the new software is called 'peoplesoft.' and since we, the university, has got a software deal with microsoft (ex: windowsXP for $5 instead of $200), microsoft probably told iu that if we want to keep our agreement with them that we had to switch over to their version of what we were using before. and i've had nothing but problems accessing it here in france. so i worked with it a bit and still nothing came up. and i started a bit on some homework, too. today - got up, ran some errands, got a haircut and went to class. now that i'm back - eat and homework!

where to begin? lots to tell... so wednesday, st. patrick's day, i got up, put on something green and left for my history class. no coke machine spitting out free cokes this week. then, i don't remember what i did but i got a call from stevie wanting to know if i wanted to go out to an irish pub since it was st. patty's day. and we did. so i got to their place at like 9, had some beers and then set out for some pubs. but this one pub wouldn't let us in because some of us were already drunk. the bouncer said no. anyway, we all just wondered around town for a bit before heading back home. but we had a good time at stevie's, though. then yesterday, i got up and went to my 9:30 history class, skipping out after only half of it (at the break - 3 hour class) because the 2nd part of the class is students giving presentations. blah blah blah. nothing interesting and they go so fast. so why waste my time if i'm jsut going to sit there counting the strands of hair on the person's head in front of me? so i went to grab a bite to eat, went to the travel agency to reserve the rental car for when my family comes in april. then i went to my african fem. lit. class. i saw kristin afterwards who was heading off to nice (nice and sunny nice - ha ha) to see one of their friends off who had came in from indiana for spring break. see, his dad is a pilot for delta so he gets free flights whenever he wants...and almost always first class!! he's so lucky! but since he was flying out at 10am this morning and couldn't get to nice from aix early enough today, they were going to go to nice and stay the night (marcus, their friend, doesn't speak french). so it was literally a LAST MINUTE thing. i found out like an hour and a half before leaving (and i had an hour's travel time between their place and mine and back). so i RAN home, showered since i hadn't showered in two days, threw pj's, tooth brush, tooth paste and deoderant into my backpack and headed out the door for nice. the bus ride was cool - a double-decker. we got to nice last night, checked into the hotel, went to grab a bite to eat and then went walking on the beach. it was sooooooooooo nice out! we also sat in this garden in the middle of town and just chatted. lots of cool multi-colored flowers and stuff, too. the weather was like summertime! then we went back to the hotel, chatted some more and then went to bed. stevie took marcus to the airport this morning while kristin and i slept in. stevie came back and then we checked out of the hotel, went to get breakfast and then went shopping. hang on - THEY, the girls, went shopping. i just sat outside on a bench. and we just walked around town for a bit just seeing the sites. sat on the beach a lot, too. the water there was gorgeous!! and the town is really clean...and rich! lots of rich people live there. anyway, now that we're back, i'm going to shower and go to bed since our program is taking us on an excursion tomorrow. gonna run. later.

walking to class this morning at 9:30 i was already hot. coming back home at noon, i showered and put on shorts. i decided to skip the 2nd half of the class (it meets twice per day for two hours each time) to clean my room. and i did a pretty thorough cleaning! then it was time to head into town for my arab world class. after that, i got a text from isabelle while i was in class wanting to know if i wanted to go out for a drink. so we did. and then we went out to eat. then sylvie wanted to meet up with some of her friends for tea at 'the chez toi' (tea at your place). now i'm back and needing to pee like you wouldn't believe.

allow me to share with you a little theory that i share with my european counterparts. so, if you'll notice, saddam hussein was found nearly 1 year before the presidential elections. well, if you've been following the news lately, us forces are getting closer to finding bin laden. mind you the us military issued a statement right after the first of the year saying that they 'are confident they'll find bin laden in 2004.' the elections are in november. so that gives them plenty of time to yank him out before that day in november. i'll bet you pounds to pennies that they're gonna yank him out before the elections. and mind you i was just on one of indy's news websites. there was a poll - do you think we'll ever find bin laden? and the majority seems to have their heads in the right place - yes, but not until closer to the presidential elections. maybe the american people isn't as dumb as i thought... anyway, moving on. so i got up on friday, did laundry and walked out the door for miramas. no wait - laundry was thursday night. never mind. i got up, packed and then headed out the door. got to miramas and just hung out with christian until elyane got home. elyane came home and then left to go to a meeting. chris and i just sat around the house. when she got back we ate and then watched a bit of tv. bed. saturday i got up and hung around the house a bit with the two. then we went to see this retarded fish exposition (fish made out of wood with a worded description of the fish filled with punns - absolutely to die for - really. utterly retarded.) but seeing as how elyane deals with the town's culture, she thought it was hilarious and is going to go an exposition for the guy. then that night we were invited to someone's house for dinner. and it was one of those dinners that starts at 7 and ends at 1am. they were some really cool people. sunday - hung around the house except for when we went to the movies to see 'lost in translation.' it was an okay movie - nothing i'd pay $7.50 to see again. then yohann and mickael came over to eat last night. they left and then bed. today - i got up to a BRIGHT sun! mind you the weather was overcast all weekend long - not too warm, either. i ate breakfast and then chris drove me to the train station. i hate taking the train now because of what happened in madrid on thursday. but oh well. getting back to aix i went for a run. it got up to 21 today! that's like...72/73!!! it was soooooooooooo nice! it was almost to the point where you start to feel hot and start to sweat. mmmmmm...summer days are a comin'. after the run, it was shower and then class. what a retarded class that one is. written expression, as usual on mondays. but just a few more weeks of it and then i'll take that folder and throw it just as far as humanly possibly. we (stevie, kristen, caitlin and i) all skipped class early to go see this new movie - nowhere in africa. it was ok, i guess. 'bout a jewish family who migrates to kenya to escape the holocaust. we ended up meeting up with one of their friends, marcus, who just flew in from indiana. he's on spring break and seeing as how his dad is a pilot at delta, he gets free and unlimited flights. lucky bastard! anyway, i'm going to go upstairs and go to bed now. that's it for tonight.

today: alarm went off at 7:30 and snoozed until 9. for some reason i thought to myself at 8:50 that i had another hour and ten minutes before my class started. at 9am, i jumped out of bed and started my day because i realized that it started at 9:30. so for 2 hours i listened to the evolution of school, litteracy rates, etc in france in the 15 and 1600s france. then we had a 15 minute break then there was going to be an oral presentation by a classmate. well, kirstin and i had our wits about us. we packed our shit up and left. haha. anyway, i got back, saw jessie, and decided we'd go for a run. but that's when i found out about this morning's bombings in madrid, spain. i'm really upset about that. if you've seen pictures of the trains that were bombed, you'd know what i'm talking about. over 200 dead and 1200 wounded! can you imagine! walking back from our run, we all realized that we can't escape terrorism ANYWHERE in the world. well, maybe if we hid underneath a rock in some river somewhere in BFE. and i'm taking the train tomorrow to miramas. granted, the trains this morning were spanish suburban commuter trains. i'm not taking that. the terrorists are interested in the 'big lines' such as the tgv and stuff. speaking of which, last week they had to shut down france's rail system and walk 20000 miles of track by foot because sncf (railroad company) found out that some terrorist group had put bombs on the tracks. they found only one that wasn't wired to detonate. oh well. anyway, after the run i showered, ate, did laundry, went out to eat and have a drink with isabelle. we just talked as usual (politics, mainly). she's such an interesting person. i can't wait for her to come visit bloomington. anyway, i'm going to go to bed now...

i got up today to go to my french history class. while waiting, someone came in and said that if you pushed a button on the coke machine down the hall, it'd just spit out drinks for free. unfortunately, all it would spit out were diet cokes. so we all sat there waiting on the prof with diet cokes. well, he never showed up. so i went to the train station to get my train tickets for this weekend (miramas) and for the weekend of march 27th (paris). a girl that i worked with this summer in minnesota is in europe visiting people. so i'm going up there to see nicolette. and...then patrick came over to get his stuff (he left a bag of stuff in my room while he was galivanting around europe). he's leaving to go back to australia next wednesday. it's sad! we all are sad to see him go. then i took a nap, checked my email, cleaned my room and now i'm getting ready to go to bed. tomorrow's my early day - first class at 9:30.

i surprised myself today. i actually got out of bed at 9am for my 10am class. it was, of course, the renaissance lit class...nothing too interesting. then at noon i came back to my place and fixed a nice salad and checked my email. then i was in class from 3-5. upon coming home at 5, i decided to take a nap. and i did! until just now - 9:30! but dont worry...i've got PLENTY to keep me busy (readings, etc).

well, saturday and sunday, you guessed it - nothing. i spent basically the entire weekend in bed sleeping away. and today, monday, i went into town with lauren so she could get some new things - her backpack was stolen while she was in london. and...jordan called me this afternoon from the states. that was cool because i hadn't talked to him in a while. and...what else...i had the dumb written expression class tonight. that class just blows. oh, as for the apartment for next year (well, august). evidently the 650/mo apt was in a ghetto part of town. palmer's parents didn't like it and basically told him that he had to choose otherwise. i'm glad that they found that out. now we've all given our thumbs up to live at sterling university. it's reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally nice!!! www.sterlinghousing.com if you'd like to check it out. and finally, sylvie came over with her computer just a bit ago so i could go over her resume and cover letter that she's going to be sending off to england. that's about it for today. oh! i bought the 'big fish' soundtrack. lots of good music!! later.

yesterday, thursday, i skipped my classes. just for shits and giggles. well, i had the intention of cleaning my room, but didn't. last night i went to stevie's and justin's. we watched 'the big lebowski' while drinking white russians. good times, lemme tell ya. marion came over, too (the french girl that we did our presentation with). today i got up and went to help ranya with a huge package she received. but when i got to the office she was already gone. she had called me to tell me not to bother but i didn't hear the phone and was within minutes of the office. when she called me she asked what i was doing. i told her that i was naked and eating my breakfast. which was the truth! then i went to the travel agency to rent the car for when my family comes in april only to find out that i can't rent for another 10 days or so. the high tour season prices haven't been published yet. and...then i went to the grocery store and came back with only 30 minutes to clean my room. and i did it! spick and span! i went to isabelle's to eat supper and then we went to see 'big fish.' such a good movie!! now that i'm back i'm going to go to bed (not before eating a snack 'cause i can 'cause i went to the grocery today...) OH! we found a place to live in bloomington for next year. $650 divided 3 ways - that's definitely doable!!!!! don't you think? and the news keeps getting better and better - i got an email from CNN breaking news - they're going to can martha stewart!!!

yesterday, tuesday, patrick called me. he was back from his european extravaganza. he's going back to australia on the 17th. since he was in aix, we went to get something to eat. i had to leave a bit early to go get together with stevie to go over our notes and stuff. then the big moment came - THE PRESENTATION. i don't think i had ever been so scared shitless in my entire life. but marion stevie and i did it. i told myself i wasn't going to read word for word what i had written but thats basically what i did. well, more than i had wanted. i still made good eye contact and made it would like i wasn't reading. but at times i got going too fast and people had to tell me to slow down. see the thing is i would have died without stevie and marion. they're political science majors and i'm not. and even though i did my own research, i would have flopped the presentation because i didn't know anything! even after doing research! but it was on a topic that i don't care about - human rights in the maghreb (arabic states - tunisia, morocco, algeria). i mean, it's not that i don't care, but the subject (maghreb in general) is so deep that it's just mind-boggling and i don't know where to begin. also, this is a 'workshop,' i guess you can call it. the idea of that here in france is you have to have taken the course before you can take the workshop because you apply what you learned in the course in the workshop. well, needless to say, they failed to tell us that when we were registering for courses at the beginning of the year and voila. we're stuck in it. it's basically people who come from these countries and VERY educated students in this area who dominate the class discussions. that leaves those who have absolutely no background whatsoever in the dark. oh well...i don't care. we did fine and the class is almost over (in a month or so). after that, the 3 of us went out for a drink to celebrate. then isabelle and i went out for pizza and some drinks. we just talked and talked about whatever in general. she's such a good person - i love her to death! and...then today, i did absolutely nothing (besides watching more episodes of the simpsons on matt's laptop that he let me borrow). then i showered and went to see a movie called 'big fish.' YOU HAVE TO SEE IT!!!!!!! it's an american film and it just came out here in france. it may already be out in the states or already have been out for quite sometime. but this movie is a MUST SEE!!!!! i think i'm going to go back friday night with isabelle so she can see it. there are no words to describe it. i didn't cry, but almost all of the girls were in tears after the lights came back on in the theater. ok...that's enough for tonight. later, all...

hey guys. sorry for not posting. but as you know, i was in london gone to london from 3am thursday morning to 11pm saturday night. then i got up at 9am both sunday and monday and worked until wee hours of the morning on this blasted oral presentation that we've got tonight at 6. for example, i worked from 9am until 4am on it yesterday, monday. how insane is that? and since i've got nothing but classes on tuesdays, i'm skipping them all to rest up and regroup before the exposé tonight. i slept until 1!! boy didn't that feel good! but i'll be back either later on tonight or sometime tomorrow with how the presentation went. now, to dive into london details. our flight left at 7am and 2 hours later we landed at 8am (1 hour time difference). i'm not going to go into details in chronological order, but i'll say all that we went to do and see. we went to the london dongeon (where they talked about torture, death, etc in middle ages london - it was good because they did their best to recreate it but they put a humor twist on it by talking to the spectators as we went through...yeah, there were actors in there). we went to the tower of london which is basically a fortified city, walled city of old london. we got to see all of the royalty's jewelry. wow!!!!!!! i couldn't take pictures or film any of it, but i did buy a couple of postcards with the royal crowns on it. YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT MONEY!!! it's insane!!!! all of the royal china (gold), jewelery, etc that i saw stretches into the BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of dollars!! it's insane!! and we went to see the broadway production "stomp." it was really good. they just take brooms, trash cans, match boxes, whatever and make rhythmic music with it. it's all percussion. it was really good. ummm...what else...i went to the imperial war museum where there was exhibitions on crimes against humanity (genocide) and an exhibition on the holocaust. both were very moving. ummm...isabelle and i went pretty often to have a drink just to sit down and rest. so we spent quite a lot of time in pubs. oh, of course we went to westminster abbey (church who basically worships england's dead kings and queens) and big ben, the big clock tower that london's so known for. ummm...what else...i think that's about it. but just imagine this - you're in london and you look at the prices of things. they're what things would cost in the US (a meal for 6.95, a t shirt for 8, etc - everything costs the same as it would in the US, or as it appears). so you take the amount on the price tag...AND DOUBLE IT!!!! that's how much it is in US dollars!!! so i am completely broke now. but i'll survive. just be careful if you are ever in london not to spend too much money. oh well...at least i can say that i've been to london. now, i'm going upstairs to clean a bit, shower, and go over my notes for te presentation tonight. wish me luck...