What a Journey...

It's hard to believe that almost five months ago I stepped into France not knowing how to ask for a pain au chocolat.

What's even harder to comprehend is that I'm going to be leaving Paris after perhaps the most meaningful trip of my life. Never have I experienced such a mix of emotions when returning home. Usually I can't be more excited to be back in the 80-degree standard of Los Angeles, and admittedly, until last night, I thought I was "ready" to go back home.

I am ready. After five months of being in a place where the primary language is not one I'm so familiar with, and after being away from my friends and family in America for so long, I can't wait to be back in the U.S. But at the same time, leaving my friends last night at the Pont des Arts, it hit me that I won't see most of my friends here for a very long time. I created the illusion that we'll all be together at some point in the future, but who knows?

Looking back, it's really difficult for me to say what I've learned and pinpoint my favorite parts of studying abroad, but what I do know is that this trip was one that probably won't be repeated ever again. I went to Ireland, England, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and all over France.

To me though, it wasn't about where I could go and the necessity to travel. My favorite part of studying abroad was becoming a part of Paris. Yeah, my French sucks, but it's good enough for Parisiens to realize I'm not a tourist, and the people at our grocery store and bakery know us. Just as I had hoped.

I began my trip just thinking Paris was cool. Big, beautiful buildings everywhere and incredible food and wine. But since I returned from spring break, I can safely say that I love this city. I will be back here many, many times over the years, and I can't wait for my first trip back.

Unfortunately I got a little caught up in what was going on here and wasn't able to finish up my spring break post about Italy, or my last trips to Versailles and Amsterdam. Needless to say, they were amazing, just like everything else.

If there's one thing I learned while studying abroad, is that if you can do it, you must. My art history course was rather difficult, and my French class was incredibly easy, but I learned so much is both classes. In fact, I would say the art history class was one of the best I've taken in college. As for French, all you have to do is hear me speak to understand just how far I've come along over the past semester.

But despite the "Study" in Study Abroad, studying was the least of my worries during this trip. I found myself personally, discovering more about myself than I could ever imagine. To think it's coming to an end is really hard for me to do, but as the cliché goes, with the end of one thing is the start of another (or something like that). Hopefully what comes along next will be as worthwhile as the past semester has been. Seriously though, this is going to be hard to top.

À Bientot, Paris! I'll see you soon.

P.S.

This will be the end of my study abroad blog. Thank you so much to everyone who followed it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing. It really enhanced my trip, allowing me to share my thoughts and pictures with my friends and family, so really, THANKS! If you're still interested in my life, please follow my other blog, jonahbraun.blogspot.com.

Spring Break, Part I

So had an unexpected bump in the road en route to writing this blog entry. In other words, I contracted some sort of illness that made it nearly impossible to leave my bed for three days straight, but now I finally feel good enough to go to class (woohoo), and to write a bit about my two week vacation in southern France and Italy. I've decided that, since this was a long trip, I'm going to write this entry in two segments, the first being southern France, and the second Italy.

I figured the way I would do this is by including excerpts from the journal I kept while adding some side notes before each section. I'll separate it by city, and if you want to see more pictures (believe me, I have them), just ask me and I'll gladly show you my collection.

So, here we go..

Marseille

I've been on quite a few trips in my life. Israel seven times, Poland twice, Ecuador/Galapagos, Hawaii, Alaska, and I won't even count the places I've been while studying abroad. So, forgive me if going to Marseille, a somewhat urban city in southern France, didn't interest me much at first. I knew we were going to the "Calanques" — a word I didn't understand — but it wasn't quite enough to get me so excited for the second biggest city in France.

Luckily, Marseille proved me wrong...


While these pictures are beautiful, they don't do the site justice one bit. After being in relatively cold weather in Paris for, well, a long time, the 75 degree heat and a dip in the Mediterranean was just what I was hoping for. That, coupled with the breathtaking views and a near tourist-free environment made me so happy to be out of Paris and seemingly in a different country.

But then again, southern France basically is a different country. The people look different, the food is very different, and they have a more relaxed feel. Hey, if the weather were this nice in Paris, who knows what that place would be like. (as a side note, it's currently 52 degrees in the French capital). Here's my journal entry from Marseille:

4/19/2010
I sometimes forget that I'm in France right now. I can't believe I was at the Louvre yesterday and that I'm now basking in sunny, 70 degree heat. If it weren't for the French written all over the place, I would assume I'd be in, well, somewhere else. Southern France is completely different from Paris in too many ways to explain. Right now, I'm completely wiped. Going to Aix-en-Provence tomorrow, then Nice.

Aix en Provence
Our limited time in Aix was some of my favorite during spring break. It's a very, very small Provencal town (hence the name), but it offers beauty that doesn't exist in Paris and in the rest of France. The food was fantastic, the people were super laid back, and when you think of a French town, this is probably the idea you get.

We had a great lunch that consisted of a baguette tradition — the best I've had in France — a sandwich, cookie, and of course, Orangina. We sat down for a beer on one of the squares, where we saw an accordion player and a hippie dancer. Très français.

Nice/Èze/Cap d'Ail
I'm combining these three because not only are they all within a 20 minute drive of Nice, but we really didn't stay in any of these cities except for Nice, which was our plan. Nice is a pretty big town that sits on the French Riviera, and is also, unfortunately, a top destination to many English-speaking tourists. It wasn't so terrible, but it would have been nice to get some more French in before going to Italy, where we would be full-on American tourists.

Lavander at the Flower Market

Nice itself was, in my opinion, nothing special. It was pretty and had a nice flower market, but the beaches were all big rocks and when your most popular dish is Salade Niçoise, the cuisine can't be THAT great. I mean, it was good, but we live in Paris, so it wasn't that special. Our day trips were what made this stay special.

Èze Village is a medieval fortress located on the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, so we took a bus up there to tour the city for a bit, and then we hiked down to the water, where we thought we would lie on the sand and go for a swim. Didn't turn out that way, but the sights were still pretty awesome. It was tough to get a picture of the fortress itself, so here's one of the view of the Mediterranean from the top.

View from Èze

As for Cap d'Ail, it was finally a beach worth staying at. The water was a bit too cold to go swimming in, but we were still able to soak in some sun before going on a nice walk along the water and catching a bus back to Nice. Unlike some (most) other places in Europe, it seemed like the only thing to do in the French Riviera was to relax.

Cap d'Ail

Believe it or not, that's not even half of my spring break. An Italy post will come as soon as I can. Or whenever I feel like it.

Also, aside from it being my birthday tomorrow, we're going to Giverny and Monet's gardens on our last Abroadco day trip. I'll be sure to post pictures and write about that if time permits. Can you believe I'm coming home in three weeks? Wow.

Well, that was fun...

After our long, two week epic vacation, Jon and I are finally back at our apartment in Paris. We got on an overnight train in Venice at about 8:00 p.m. yesterday and arrived at about 9:20 a.m. today, about an hour later than the scheduled arrival time.

It's tough to put it in words, but the past two weeks have been truly amazing. I saw things I could only dream of seeing before, and got the chance to visit the French Riviera and some amazing parts of Italy. After getting through some scheduling conflicts and train issues, our final trip turned out like this:

• Marseille
• Aix en Provence
• Nice
• Èze
• Cap d'Ail
• Genova
• Cinque Terre
• Rome
• Florence
• Venice

I managed to keep a pretty nifty journal throughout the trip, so I'll include excerpts from it on my next post. For now, I need some coffee, baguette, and about two days to recover. Totally worth it.

All set for spring break. Finally.

After annoying an SNCF employee for about 45 minutes yesterday at Gare Montparnasse, Jon and I finally have our spring break plans finalized. But that stressful process came with some unfortunate sacrifices and left us with some important choices to make.

We planned to take a train from Paris to Marseille on Sunday, but alas that is not the case. The SNCF decided to extend their strike through the weekend, so there aren't any trains going to southern France until the weekend is over. Also, since Monday is a French holiday that I'm unfamiliar with, the trains are either ridiculously expensive or even worse, full.

So that leaves us with a couple options: First, we could just go with our current plans and take a train to Nice on Tuesday. Or, we could rent a car, and make the trek down to Marseille on the highway...

12:20 a.m.
So it looks like we're driving to Marseille at about 8:30 on Sunday morning, and we'll be doing our trip as planned. Just to give you an idea of what's ahead for our trip, here's our long list of cities for the two-week epic adventure:

• Marseille
• Aix-en-Provence
• Nice
• Antibes
• Cannes
• Villefranche
• Eze (Google it)
• Genoa
• Cinque Terre (Google that too)
• Rome
• Florence
• Venice
• Zurich, for about 2 hours

And that doesn't include our ridiculous roundabout trip from Venice to Paris. For that trip alone, we're stopping in four cities in three countries before arriving home after midnight. Milan, Zurich, Basel, Strasbourg, and finally Paris. Good thing I bought The Little Prince in French, should keep me pretty busy..

Really though, I can't remember a time I've been more excited in my life. This will be a trip I'll always remember, and can't wait to get it started. It should be quite an adventure, and I look forward to writing about it in a couple weeks. By then, I'll have to sift through thousands of pictures, but for now, I'll leave you with one of my favorites from the top of Arc de Triomphe. À Bientot!

Finally, some sun!

About a week ago, when I was in the midst of writing my 10-page term paper for my art history class, something very troubling occurred to me. It's now April. Normally I would be happy - the weather is getting nicer, trees are starting to bloom, and Parisians seem less snobby than usual. But then again, it's April 6, and that means that my program ends in less than two months. Not good.

So after calming down, I put things into perspective. Over the next seven weeks, I'm going to Chartres, Aix-en-Provence, Marseilles, Nice (and surrounding towns), Cannes, Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, Rome, Giverny, and hopefully Amsterdam. Three countries, 11 cities, then back home.

Really though, this nonstop traveling started this past weekend with our trip to Barcelona, which was by far my favorite trip so far. First off, we were able to stay at my friend Annie Miller's apartment (palace) in an incredible location in the city. That, coupled with her encyclopedia-like knowledge of the city and its landmarks made it an unforgettable trip.

Barcelona is the first city I've been to in Europe whose architecture rivals that of Paris. Clearly influenced by the famous architect Antonio Gaudi, who built incredible sights all around the city. Most notable are the Sagrada Familia cathedral and Parc Guell. They are straight out of fairy tale books and were a great contrast to the gothic architecture I'm used to in France.

Sagrada Familia

Parc Guell

View from Parc Guell

The pictures don't really do it justice, but these were without doubt my favorite parts of Barcelona. That's a pretty ridiculous statement to make considering the amount of amazing sights we were able to take in in the three-plus days we were there.

The weather in Barcelona was pretty much perfect throughout our entire visit. It hovered around 70 degrees with sunshine throughout, and I was outside for most of the time in a t-shirt. Unfortunately, our return to Paris brought us back to reality, with temperatures in the 40s and 50s once again...but not for long.
----
So at this point, I got really busy (lazy) and haven't really had a lot of time to finish this entry, so please forgive me.

This week completely flew by. First, not having class on Monday threw me off a bit, and the fact that my sleep schedule has been on Barcelona time all week didn't help my cause. With that said, I will say I had a really fun week. We got closer with our awesome Parisian neighbor who took us to a great club, and on Friday we went to Montmartre again, which was lovely.

And since the weather got a bit nicer (high 50s and sunny), we were able to spend some time outside, and we even got to explore a new park/garden called Lac de Buttes Chaumont, a true gem in the far northeast district of the city.

Lac de Buttes Chaumont

Aside from that, not too much is going on at the moment. My friend Annie from Wisconsin is visiting us for a couple of days, and in one week Jon and I are going on our epic spring break. Before I finish though, I thought it would be fun to show some pictures from the Luxembourg Gardens that really illustrate the change in seasons.

Winter

Still not quite there...

About freakin' time!

Alright, that's it. Hope you enjoyed, and I'll try to get another post in before I go on spring break.

Busy Busy

It's hard to believe I've been here for nearly 11 weeks. My friend Annie was asking me about Dublin, and I almost forgot that I even did that, considering it's been about eight weeks since I visited the Irish capital. I guess that's what happens when you visit six cities in eight weeks.

That trend hasn't changed, and it won't until my return flight on June 6th. June...6th. Interesting, considering that this past weekend we visited the Normandy region and the D-Day landing beaches. Coincidental? Completely.

I had been looking forward to this one for a long time. After our first (mediocre) outing with Abroadco, I was hoping they wouldn't screw up what could be a great excursion. Luckily, Tawna pulled it together and it turned out to be a great day in Normandy. We went to the D-Day museum, the D-Day sites, and notably, the American Cemetery on Omaha Beach, where about 5,000 Americans died during the landing. Pretty amazing place to be.

Omaha Beach

American Cemetery

It wasn't as emotional as I expected, but it was nonetheless a very meaningful trip. Our tour guide was fantastic, letting us roam the beach and the cemetery while acting as a walking D-Day encyclopedia.

So I just realized I forgot to mention that we were staying in Caen, a city near the beaches, overnight. We figured that, since Abroadco didn't plan an overnight trip, we should plan one for ourselves — so we did. And it was great.

Turns out there's a huge open air market every Sunday in Caen, and we took full advantage. For lunch, we roamed around and found some delicious treats for a ridiculously small amount of money.

Fresh baguettes, mango and peach chutney, goat cheese, strawberries and seasoned frites. We ate it on the river, and aside from the random dude peeing in the water, we had a fairly peaceful meal.

But then again, there's really nothing like coming back to Paris. Caen is a cute town (albeit brand new — it was completely destroyed in WWII), but the consistent beauty Paris has to offer is unparalleled by any other city I've ever been to (except for Jerusalem). Luckily, the weather was as nice when we got back as when we left, and it has yet to decline.

In other news, things are getting pretty exciting around here. Tomorrow, Emily Eckhous and Kelly Maslow come, and on Friday Curren and John arrive, then Voj on Sunday. Prettay prettay exciting.

Jon and I also booked tickets to Barcelona for next weekend. We're staying with ANNIE, and I cannot wait for that trip. Hopefully I'll get some updates in before I leave for Espagne.

Oh and by the way, as promised, our picture with the Cordon Bleu chef:

Printemps et Londres

Forgive me for not writing sooner, but it's been over 60 degrees the past three days. Growing up in Los Angeles, where changing seasons are more of an indication for a changing fashion trend than actual weather patterns, I never really got the pure joy out of leaving the cold season.

But Paris is a completely different story. It's not hot like LA, and it's not freezing cold like Madison. Apparently I was lucky to be able to get some snow this year - it doesn't happen a lot in Paris. So yesterday, with a high of 67 in the afternoon, Jon and I head to Montmartre, a hillside region that I went to around two months ago. Only then, it was 35 degrees and pouring rain - one of my most uncomfortable days in Paris.

Thirty-two degrees warmer and sunshine definitely beats the pouring rain (even if I got a couple great pictures..) And while last time I was looking down on to a foggy Paris, yesterday was the clearest day of the year.

Paris doesn't have the same type of skyline as a New York, Chicago, etc. There's one (ugly) tower, the Eiffel Tower, The Panthéon, and Invalides. And it's hard to see most of them. For me, it was a relief to be able to walk around in Paris without a coat and to see the city in a completely different way. A day earlier, we zig-zagged along the Seine River, which was also among the best things I've done so far. Tragically, I left my camera at home. I did get some great shots of Sacre Coeur and Paris, so I'll post those instead.

This shouldn't overshadow our trip to London last week, but it's hard not to be excited during such an exciting time.

I had already been to London, so I was pretty much only going because a) one of our best friends, Zac, studies there, and b) it's nice to see other cultures after living in France for quite a while. Our first night out, we went to pubs in the Picadilly Circus, and to our surprise, a pint of good beer cost only 2.21 pounds (about $3.50). Last night I paid 4.50 euro (about $6) for a 25cl cup of Heineken. Oh well.

The weather was surprisingly great in London. The forecast said it was going to be pouring rain on Friday, and instead we got sunshine through the weekend. It was great to see Zac, and we even got see his favorite place, Golders Green (is that not the most typical Jewish name..), where he spends a lot of time.

We did all the touristy stuff: Big Ben, London Eye (though we didn't go in, line was too long), Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Camdentown, Trafalgar Square, and the National Gallery. Going to the art museum worked out really well for me, considering I had an art history test two days later. We saw some amazing art by (notably) Velazquez, Caravaggio, Caracci, Rubens, Raphael, and Van Dyck. Great collection, but nothing like the Louvre.

London Eye and some other building

Anyway, it's been a really tiring week. I had a tough midterm, a lot of traveling, and it's not even close to over. Tomorrow, my study abroad program is taking us to Caen, Normandy and the D-Day beaches. Should be another great weekend, and hopefully I won't get too caught up in this weather. Just don't blame me if I do.

London!

It's about 9:30 a.m. in Paris, and I'm still not completely packed for our long weekend in London. You see, Jon had the idea of going on Friday and not coming back until early Monday morning so we could have three full nights with our friend Zac.

I've actually been to London before, but I think this time will be a little more fun. I'm staying with one of my best friends, and I'll be in a much more comfortable situation than I was last time in my sketchy hostel. I'm looking for warm lagers, some tall guy named Ben and some fish and chips. Full updates next week.

Fontainebleau/Hide N' Seek

How did we choose our best day in France? Like this:

Jon's message:

YO

Let's pick a place to go tomorrow. Here are three options:

Fontainebleu. This place has a chateau and nice woods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontainebleau

Chantilly. Home of whipped cream... also has a chateau.http://wikitravel.org/en/Chantilly

Provins. A "cute" medieval town. http://www.provins.net/

I believe that the first two places are accessible by RER, and Provins is a 10 euro train ride each way.

Someone please pick a place and time and we'll do it.

Rachel's response:

i vote chantilly

...

Obviously, we didn't listen to Rachel, and we decided to go to Fontainebleau, home of one of the most famous chateaus in France. A week after going to Tours and Chenonceau, we weren't sure what could top our last chateau visit, but this one turned out to be a great place just outside Paris.

The most enticing part about going to Fontainebleau is pretty simple: it's easy. If you have a Navigo (an unlimited metro pass), you can pay an extra 8 euros roundtrip to visit a city 40 minutes outside Paris. The chateau itself is right off a bus stop, and it's free for students. Our lone expenses for the day were lunch, a beer, and the one euro for an audio guide. Totally worth it.

Another interesting part of Fontainebleau — something we only discovered when we got there — is that unlike Chenonceau, there is a town built around the chateau, and its center lies right across from the castle's grounds.

Fontainebleau isn't as architecturally impressive as Chenonceau, but there's something about it that makes it more attractive. It is much bigger, is very well preserved, and best of all, there was almost nobody else there.

The chateau courtyard

Inside, the building was very well preserved, with furniture in its original positioning, and the same tapestries and paintings that Napoleon bought himself. French monarchs had been using this castle since the late 12th century, when Louis VII had a chapel consecrated on the site.

I hadn't been impressed by anything this much since my first week in Paris. The hallways in this building compared to those of the Louvre, and it was amazing to think that people actually lived in this sort of wealth. It made me feel grateful that our politicians generally don't centralize our country's wealth within a few dozen people.

My two favorite parts of the chateau were actually the hallways. I mean, when it's adorned with Renaissance paintings on each side, and the ceiling is lined with gold, it's pretty difficult not to be impressed. Louis XV had this hallway built so he could have a walkway to his private chamber and have a room to show off the guests.

Just on the other side of the room lies the library. Rebuilt by Napoleon, it looked like the best room in the house, but we weren't able to get a great view of it because it was closed to visitors. Regardless, it was a really beautifully symmetrical room with an arched ceiling and bookcases on either side.

I have well over 100 pictures of the Chateau, so I'll spare you (and me) the hours it could take to post and read about every room in the castle. But just know that it's really really big. And outside is even bigger.

Kinda artsy? Meh. I was just trying to show that aside from there being an enormous courtyard/lake/fountain/park/horse trail, there's also a forest in the background. We walked around this area, played like little children, and took way too many set-up and self-timer pictures (my new favorite hobby). Here's our best one from the day:

As for my favorite picture of the day, I had to go with this one. Meant to be on a postcard.

OK. 1:45 a.m. Big French test tomorrow. Didn't study that much. London in five days. Blogging off..

It's been a while...

Since my last post, the following has happened:

• Dodgers start spring training
• We met our French neighbor, Sam
  
• 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile
• Bradley Smith posts Holocaust denial ad on BH website
• Four consecutive sunny days in Paris (sorry dad)
  
• Two French exams
• Alex Vojdany created a blog that already has more followers than mine
  

Yeah, like my title says, "It's been a while." The past 10 days or so have been awesome, hectic, and down right tiring. It's hard to say if I've been doing more during this period than any other during my stay here, but it sure has felt like a lot.

Believe it or not, today marks the two month (eight weeks) point in my study abroad. When I got here on January 8, I knew about nine words in French, didn't know a single conjugation, and I was unable to order a croissant in a bakery. Over the past two months, I've even impressed myself with the amount I've been able to absorb, and with almost three full months of French classes to go, I'm sure I'll come home being able to speak butchered French with anybody I choose.

OK, now to the play-by-play:

On Tuesday, Feb. 23 (yeah, THAT long ago), my parents arrived in Paris. It was great to finally see them after six weeks on my own in France. Then again, I feel like they used my study abroad trip as an excuse for them to come to Paris again. Don't feel bad — if I were in their situation, I would probably do the same.

I didn't do a lot of new things with them, other than go out to eat a lot. Since it's a pretty expensive thing to do if you're a student, my parents spoiled me for eight days, and I must say it's pretty damn amazing. We had some lovely meals, but none could match up to our lunch at Jules Verne, a 5-star restaurant at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Now I say it's 5-star, but it really only has one Michelin star. Regardless, if you know what that means, it's a pretty big deal. The meal was truly exquisite. I started off with a raw marinated sea bass with caviar. For my main dish, I had another sea bass that was amazing; its sauce had a hint of coffee, and it was on a bed of leeks and shallots.

Seabass

Turbot

Dessert was my favorite. Not only was everything great, but there was so much I couldn't finish. I got some strawberry tart with a mango citrus sauce, my dad got a souffle, and my mom gave me and my dad her incredibly rich, chocolate tart/cake thing. But that's not all. They gave us marshmallows, chocolate truffles, cookies, macarons (not as good as La Durée), and more chocolate cakes in a minty syrup. Yum.

Yum

Our view from Jules Verne

I don't want to give you the impression that eating is all we did. Really, it was a great opportunity for my parents to see Paris during the day and see me in the afternoon and evening. Since I'm now a "full time" student, I sometimes have class all day. But as a result of taking a great art history class, I was able to show my parents some cool parts of the Louvre that most people would ignore otherwise.

During my parents' stay, Abroadco had a trip planned to Tours and the nearby Château de Chenonceau. My parents went to Champagne. Fair trade-off, I think.

Tours was just OK, aside from the great food prices compared to Paris. The chateau, on the other hand, was unlike anything I've ever seen. The pre-11th century castle was used by dozens of monarchs, and still has a feel from every era in between. I don't really know how to describe it without selling it short, but I took plenty of pictures. My favorite part was the kitchen, where our audio guide told us to "imagine it bustling with dozens of people." I didn't really have to imagine it, considering there were dozens of people actually down there. Here are some highlights:

Le Château de Chenonceau

The BIG Hall

La cuisine

Aside from that, not too much has been going on. Many of you probably know that the Badger Herald is keeping up an advertisement from a well-known Holocaust denier. It has given the paper a lot of (good, bad?) publicity, and I actually wrote a letter to the editor on the subject. I won't talk about it too much, simply because I haven't written about anything else for the past week, but here's the link to the story. Let me know what you think, I'd love to get your input.

That's pretty much it. French class is pretty fun and pretty easy for me. That's not to say there haven't been challenges, but I'm definitely doing better than most of the people in my class. That, and the fact that you only need a 50% on an exam to pass is making this pretty easy. I got a 17/20 on the last one, which at 85%, is an A? I think?

Jon and I go to London to visit Zac Miller on March 12, and then we have to figure out some other stuff to do during our free weekends before spring break. Tomorrow, we'll be going to either another chateau or something else cool. While Paris is a wonderful city, two months in one place is a pretty long time. I'm ready for a change, even if it's only for a day.

Tonight should be fun...

Finally, after being in Paris for six weeks, we finally have a friend coming to stay with us for a few days.

Noah "Biddy K" Kraft will be joining us from Montpellier with a friend, and he couldn't have come at a better time. The weather is finally starting to get a little bit better, and tonight brings yet another dinner party at the home of the "LA Boys." We're expecting anywhere between 22-24 people. How we will fit them all in without getting a noise complaint, and getting them out of here with full stomachs will be a task in itself.

But then again, if anyone can do it, it's us. I wouldn't trust anybody else. And, making things (hopefully) easier for us will be the presence of Grace during the setup process. If anything, it will make it more fun. I'll post (appropriate) pictures tomorrow.

Nostalgia hits, then gets conquered by Cordon Bleu

This past week has really been a blast. After starting French last Thursday, we really started getting in the swing of things, learning conjugations, vocabulary, possessives, etc. It's been pretty difficult, but I'm doing very well relative to the other foreigners in my class. Then again, we have a test on Monday, so we'll see how that goes.

In other news, this past Wednesday we went on our second class trip to the Louvre. The first was spent looking at some Caravaggio paintings and a bit of some early Spanish Baroque paintings, but I think this trip was better.

We spent most of our time looking at paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, who my professor says was the most successful painter of the 17th century. Many of his works were commissioned by Marie de Medici, including an entire set of 24 paintings that describe her life from start to finish. They are no doubt a lie, but nonetheless beautiful works of art.

The class trip made me feel even better about my choice to take Baroque and Rococo art this semester. I was originally signed up to take a Renaissance art course, but this professor is fantastic, and every museum visit is essentially a guided tour by an art expert. Unlike some of my classes at Wisconsin, I actually look forward to going to this one, and even though we do have to sit through hour-long lectures, I actually enjoy learning about something completely new for a change.

But the best news came near the end of our Louvre visit, when Jon — who had tagged along for the tour — reminded me that we had our demonstration and tasting at the Cordon Bleu (ever hear of Julia Childs?). Whoopee.

Aside from being a very entertaining two-hour presentation, we got to eat a lot of the desserts the chef made himself. He made coconut crème brûlée, pistachio crème brûlée, passion fruit sorbet, chocolate sorbet and tea lace tuile cookies, all of which were obviously delicious. Don't worry, I got the recipes and wrote down detailed instructions on how to make the dishes, so hopefully we'll be making them soon. The only unfortunate part about my Wednesday was that I forgot my camera. I didn't get any pictures at the Cordon Bleu, but our friend Emanuelle got a shot of me, Jon and the chef, so I'll post that when it's available.

As for the nostalgia, I talked to Benjy on Facebook for about 10 minutes, and he told me to look at his blog (benjysfoodanddrink.blogspot.com), where I saw his most recent post on Wisconsin food and drink. The Old Fashioned, Brocach, The Blue Marlin. While French food is really great, sometimes all you want is some good ol' Wisconsin comfort food. It's pretty tough to get mac n' cheese in Paris.

No worries though. Mom and Dad come on Tuesday, and they should provide ample amounts of restaurant dinners and bottles of wine (fingers crossed). I promise to show them my few secrets of Paris in return.

Start French classes, learn how to say "Invalides"

Last Thursday I began my intensive French courses. After being in France for over a month, I can finally say, "Je suis americain."

Since I've only learned one foreign language in my life, it's been pretty difficult to gauge if this is how things are done at the collegiate level. I'm even majoring in Hebrew at Wisconsin, but before I went to college I had already taken the language for about 12 years. Starting French at age 20 is a bit different.

I'm taking my class at La Sorbonne, which, for those of you who aren't familiar with the French education hierarchy, is the top school in France. I, however, am taking my class with all foreign students, making it quite a diverse group. In my class alone, there are students from Saudi Arabia, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, China, Korea, Japan, Russia, and I'm sure many more places that I have forgotten. So, obviously, not everyone speaks English, and our professor is forced to speak strictly in French.

Now, for someone like me, who has been around the language for more than a month, it isn't terribly difficult. I'm also proficient in a very difficult language that differentiates between gender, which many other languages do not. For the Swedes in my class, they have been having some difficulties getting used to it, but I'm sure they'll pick it up soon. Already, we've learned how to conjugate some verbs, and while I don't get everything my professor is saying during class, I get enough to be able to do the homework with relative ease. For a two hour class, however, it's pretty amazing how much Madame Lizska can get through. Today, for example, we went through conjugating verbs ending in "er," negation sentences (i.e. I do not like ballet = je n'aime pas le ballet), and we started learning prepositions. Yes, all of that on the third day of class. I think I'll pick this up pretty quickly. I hope.

Here's the rundown:

• Je m'appelle Jonah Braun
• Je suis étudiant et journaliste
• Je suis americain
• J'habite à Los Angeles, aux Etats-Unis
• Je suis célibataire
• J'ai vingt ans

In other news, Jon and I went to Chabad on Friday. It is really different from any other Chabad I've been to, simply because of the type of people that were there. Like my French class, seemingly everybody was from a different part of the world. Even the rabbi is from Rio de Janeiro. The food was excellent, and it was nice to finally meet some other Jews and get a little Shabbat in this otherwise secular city.

On Saturday, we went to Invalides, which is a huge, gold-domed building that houses Napolean's tomb as well as the military museum. We got there a little late, so we were only able to see the tomb, and like everything else in Paris, it didn't disappoint.

For such a short guy, Napolean has by far the biggest casket I've ever seen. Here's a picture of it, although it was very difficult to get a picture that really shows how big the thing really is. I don't really know much about the building other than what I just told you, but it's one of the French national landmarks, and it is definitely worth seeing. Especially if you're a student — it's free.

On Sunday, we once again went to the Marais (it never gets old). This time, I brought my camera, and we went to Place de Vosges, a sort of hidden park right next to the Jewish quarter. Victory Hugo lived there, and so did Louis XIII. It's a beautiful, perfectly symmetrical square with a big statue of Louis in the middle. It is surrounded by art galleries and cafés (where we were refused service because we didn't want to get food, only coffee).
That's about it. It was a long and fun weekend, and we ended it with our new tradition of going to La Taverne de Cluny, a little jazz bar near the Luxembourg Gardens. There, a guitarist named Christophe Brunard and his band play for free all night, and it's one of the most relaxing and entertaining venues we've been to thus far.
OH, almost forgot: Pitchers and catchers report in six days. Woohoo

Ye-Brugge-Alayim

It's been a pretty ridiculous week to say the least. Since last Friday, I haven't had much free time, but that's not to say I haven't been enjoying myself. On Sunday morning, I and a few friends hopped on a train to Brugge, Belgium for a early-week trip before Sorbonne classes start. I'm going to be a bit brief because I actually have class tomorrow, so here we go.

Brugge is a city of about 20,000 and is very small in actual size. It's less than 140 square kilometers, making it a great little town to walk around and see on foot. It was great to be able to see the city without riding the metro everywhere, and it also gave us some exercise after eating a disgusting amount of disgustingly expensive food.
Apparently, it's known as "The Little Venice of the North," probably because of the small canals that run through the city. But after looking at some photos of Venice, the two cities have pretty much nothing else in common. Brugge is a very well preserved Medieval city, and while the canals are definitely an aspect of the town, you can easily get around without stepping into a boat. That said, we went on a canal tour just for kicks, and it was totally worth it. We got some a amazing views of the architecture and got a bit of the city's history from our Flemish tour guide.
That Sunday night happened to be the Super Bowl, and while we found multiple pubs broadcasting the game (we had to make a throwing motion to see if they understood what we were talking about), we weren't about to stay awake until 4:30 a.m. to catch the whole thing. So we did what only terrible Americans do, and we missed the Super Bowl. I think it's the first time I can remember missing the game. Even on a flight home from Hawaii we were able to listen to it on the radio. Shame on me.

But life goes on. The next day, it was snowing in Brugge, and we trooped out of our hostel at about 10:30 a.m. to start touring. We went to the big bell tower in the marketplace, the chocolate museum, had Belgian waffles, and while Rachel and Vanessa went to the diamond museum, Jon and I skipped ahead to the "De Halve Maan" Brewery. There, they brew the most popular beer in Brugge, Bruges Zot. Really delicious. We had plenty of them during our stay, and unlike Paris where a beer runs between four and seven euros, we were able to get brews at our hostel between one and $2.60. Not too shabby.
The brewery was very different from the Guiness storehouse in Dublin. They showed us all around the fermentation chambers, which smelled great. We also got to go on the roof and saw a great view of the city, much better than the bell tower view that we saw earlier in the day.
That's pretty much it. Doesn't sound like much, but it was an awesome trip. We had a fun time roaming around the city, but once again it was so nice to be back in our apartment in Paris. Considering I have class tomorrow, I'm glad I was able to get back and relax for a few days before a French lady yells at me for not understanding what she's saying. It won't be anything new.

I don't know when I'm traveling next, but this is what I do know: Emily Eckhous and friends are coming in late March, and Zac and Annie Miller are coming in April. Somehow, we'll work an Amsterdam trip in there, and during our spring break, we're going all over the place. For now, I have a cover letter to work on for the NPR internship, and I really need to learn how to form a sentence in this strange language. I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow, and I'll make sure to write about my first few French classes.