So the budget airlines here in Europe are super cheap but also super pricks when it comes to carry-on luggage. When I flew RyanAir to Dublin I took meticulous care to keep my bag under 10kgs so that I could bring it as a carry on. Unfortunately after the snotty French guy weighed my bag (it was exactly 10 kg) he “wasn’t sure” about the dimensions of my rolly and I wasn’t able to jam the dam thing into the “your bag must fit into this to be carry-on” thingy. He sent me to pay for it to be checked in before I could get my boarding pass. Cost? 25 Euros one way which is incidentally almost the price of the ticket one way. Ouch.
This time, to go to London I flew EasyJet. They too are stingy about the carry-on baggage but sneakier than RyanAir. When I bought my ticket online the option for number of checked bag was defaulted to 1 charging you an extra 20 euros one way. You have to manually change it to 0 to avoid the extra charge. They also call a carry on bag “hand luggage” and have a picture that looks like you can only bring on what looks like a purse and X-ing out what looks like a rolly but if check the allowable size dimension is rolly is fine.
The good thing about EasyJet is you can check in online if you only have a carry-on. That means there’s no snotty French guy to weigh your carry on or check its dimensions. Unfortunately breaking the rules is risky since they make it clear that if you exceed the size or weight limitation they can refuse to let you board the plane.
I considered my options and bought a new rolly that I knew for a fact fit the allotted dimensions and decided to ignore the weight limit since I’ve never seen any kind of weighting device at the gate.
Still two weeks is a lot of outfits and underwear to pack so I actually didn’t have enough space for everything. Clearly I had only one option left. And that was to wear half of my London wardrobe on the plane.
I donned a tank top, t-shirt, sweatshirt , plaid jacket, and massive coat and complimented my outfit with knee high boots and purse stuffed with extra socks and headed to the airport.
Security sucked because I basically had to remove everything and then put it back on whilst avoiding the why do you have three pairs of socks in your purse stares. Still I made it through without any problem.
So I’m sitting there at the gate waiting for the plane and sweating b/c I’m wearing so much freaking clothes when one of the flight attendant approaches me and tells me in French that I’m only allowed one bag on the plane so I must put my purse in my rolly. I pretended not to understand French (it’s a trick I learned in Japan to get away with stuff) but he switched to English so I had to comply.
Having spent a good part of my youth playing Tetris I’m pretty good at packing but wasn’t able to perform any miracles and could only fit half the contents of my purse into my rolly.
Good thing my massive coat also had massive pockets which I stuffed with socks, French biscuits (I couldn’t stay at someone’s place and not bring them something), and a guidebook.
At this point I’m sure I looked some sort of sweaty kleptomaniac stripper that gets paid for each layer of clothing she takes off.
Bare in mind I was in this state for the duration of the flight. But also keep in mind that I saved 20 euros.
…
Next time I think I’ll use that extra 20 euros and take the chunnel.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
oie de noel
So there was a mini JET reunion for New Year’s in London that I decided to go to because it was tres chere to go back home for the holidays. Feeling sorry for me that I would spend Xmas alone, a friend of mine came early to London to spend Christmas with me. I arrived on the 22nd (Monday) and he would arrive on the 24th so the deal was for me to go to the grocery store and buy all the ingredients necessary for xmas dinner and he would do all the cooking.
I arrived on that Monday in the afternoon and immediately took a nap. That night my friend’s roommates had a cheese and wine party where I ate delicious baked camembert infused with rosemary and garlic (washed down with red wine and port), learned of “hamburger pizza” (youtube it – twas the brainchild of a guy that would later put on an elf costume for the night ), and pulled my first poppy yielding hilarious jokes like “What enters a house through the keyhole?” (Answer: key).
Twas a lovely time so as you can see I couldn’t go to the grocery store on Monday but I still had all of Tuesday so it was all good.
I woke up Tuesday around 10am with every intention of going to the grocery store (I even got directions from the roommates). But then I made a fatal flaw. I sat down and started watching t.v. And didn’t stop. For 16 hours. Straight.
Now before you judge me take into consideration the fact that I hadn’t watched t.v. in 3 months. That’s right, 3 MONTHS. Ever since arriving in France and knowing I’m only staying in my apartment for 9 months I’ve become quite the minimalist so there’s no t.v. in my room.
I had no idea how much I missed television until I started watching it again. It was sitcom after sitcom. Frasier, then the Simpsons, then a cooking show about Christmas logs, then Futurama, Friends, The Daily 10 on E, Scrubs, and before I knew it, it was 2am.
Had t.v. been a drug I would’ve O.D.ed. Seriously.
Justin arrived the next day and wasn’t exactly pleased that we had to go grocery shopping and even less pleased at the reason why. I had no idea what the big deal was until I arrived at the English Walmart (called Asda).
That place is a freaking procrastinator’s hell.
Carts ramming up your ass, checkout lines so long they’re going down the aisles, people miserable and scowling grabbing at slim pickings off almost empty shelves made empty by people who had the good sense to avoid grocery shopping on Christmas eve.
All this happening to the tunes of songs like “Have a holly jolly Christmas” and “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” playing on the speakers. I wanted to shot myself. Especially when I realized they were all out of turkey.
After having multiple conversations with people back home about the delicious turkeys they had for thanksgiving and my feeble attempt at thanksgiving dinner with a rotisserie chicken purchased at my local grocery store I was determined to have turkey for xmas. I even emailed my friends making sure there was an oven available at the apartment I would be staying at.
I spoke with the lady to see if they had any more turkeys in the back. She looked at me like the naive fool that I am and told me the last of the turkey went the night before.
The night before. I could’ve totally gotten it before then had it not been for stupid J.D. and his funny internal monologues about brown bear.
I almost cried had I not done this to myself.
I guess the lady saw how disappointed I was, took pity on me and directed me to another grocery store around the corner. She warned me they would probably be out as well.
Leaving Justin to stand in the ridiculously long line to purchase what could be a dinner of stuffing and mash potatoes sans turkey I headed out.
The lady was right, they didn’t have turkey at that grocery store. But they did have goose.
My first Christmas goose. J'étais satisfaisant.
I arrived on that Monday in the afternoon and immediately took a nap. That night my friend’s roommates had a cheese and wine party where I ate delicious baked camembert infused with rosemary and garlic (washed down with red wine and port), learned of “hamburger pizza” (youtube it – twas the brainchild of a guy that would later put on an elf costume for the night ), and pulled my first poppy yielding hilarious jokes like “What enters a house through the keyhole?” (Answer: key).
Twas a lovely time so as you can see I couldn’t go to the grocery store on Monday but I still had all of Tuesday so it was all good.
I woke up Tuesday around 10am with every intention of going to the grocery store (I even got directions from the roommates). But then I made a fatal flaw. I sat down and started watching t.v. And didn’t stop. For 16 hours. Straight.
Now before you judge me take into consideration the fact that I hadn’t watched t.v. in 3 months. That’s right, 3 MONTHS. Ever since arriving in France and knowing I’m only staying in my apartment for 9 months I’ve become quite the minimalist so there’s no t.v. in my room.
I had no idea how much I missed television until I started watching it again. It was sitcom after sitcom. Frasier, then the Simpsons, then a cooking show about Christmas logs, then Futurama, Friends, The Daily 10 on E, Scrubs, and before I knew it, it was 2am.
Had t.v. been a drug I would’ve O.D.ed. Seriously.
Justin arrived the next day and wasn’t exactly pleased that we had to go grocery shopping and even less pleased at the reason why. I had no idea what the big deal was until I arrived at the English Walmart (called Asda).
That place is a freaking procrastinator’s hell.
Carts ramming up your ass, checkout lines so long they’re going down the aisles, people miserable and scowling grabbing at slim pickings off almost empty shelves made empty by people who had the good sense to avoid grocery shopping on Christmas eve.
All this happening to the tunes of songs like “Have a holly jolly Christmas” and “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” playing on the speakers. I wanted to shot myself. Especially when I realized they were all out of turkey.
After having multiple conversations with people back home about the delicious turkeys they had for thanksgiving and my feeble attempt at thanksgiving dinner with a rotisserie chicken purchased at my local grocery store I was determined to have turkey for xmas. I even emailed my friends making sure there was an oven available at the apartment I would be staying at.
I spoke with the lady to see if they had any more turkeys in the back. She looked at me like the naive fool that I am and told me the last of the turkey went the night before.
The night before. I could’ve totally gotten it before then had it not been for stupid J.D. and his funny internal monologues about brown bear.
I almost cried had I not done this to myself.
I guess the lady saw how disappointed I was, took pity on me and directed me to another grocery store around the corner. She warned me they would probably be out as well.
Leaving Justin to stand in the ridiculously long line to purchase what could be a dinner of stuffing and mash potatoes sans turkey I headed out.
The lady was right, they didn’t have turkey at that grocery store. But they did have goose.
My first Christmas goose. J'étais satisfaisant.
Friday, December 12, 2008
evil america
So having managed through Data Communications and Networking I’ve started yet another course which is Web-centric Development. My new professor is from Mexico.
He started the course talking about standards and their importance. As an example he cited a fire in Baltimore in the 1970s that could’ve been contained had the fire hydrants been compatible with the standards of hoses. Apparently the mayor of Baltimore decided to upgrade fire hydrants to a “better” system that unfortunately turned out to be incompatible with hoses of neighboring districts that were called upon to help put out the fire.
He then moved on to the next example. This time of Katrina. Apparently the United States government’s website for Katrina aid could only be used by Internet Explorer 7, preventing a substantial percentage of the victims from using the aid site.
Yes I was indeed starting to see how important standards are. I was also starting to sense a certain bias perhaps?
He began his third example. This time it was of the European Union.
Phew.
Apparently they take video streams of their important meetings and post them online using a format made available through an [wait for it] American company. He then posed the question of why the European Union would allow their video stream to only be viewed through patented technology belonging to an American company[yes he actually said “American company” and not Microsoft]. Despite being free now, what prevents Microsoft from learning about this and starting to charge for the use of their technology?
Right.
So in order to show how important standards are he decides to randomly use the examples of overzealous Americans who’s fascination with more recent technology lead to uncontrollable fire destruction, an government (that happens to be American) that only helps its citizens that are up to date on the latest web browser, and the entire content of the EU’s video streaming held hostage by a greedy company which also happens to be American and stated explicitly so.
I mean these examples do illustrate the importance of standardization. They just also happen to show that America is kind of a bumbling idiot/dick.
Just a coincidence? Je ne sais pas.
He started the course talking about standards and their importance. As an example he cited a fire in Baltimore in the 1970s that could’ve been contained had the fire hydrants been compatible with the standards of hoses. Apparently the mayor of Baltimore decided to upgrade fire hydrants to a “better” system that unfortunately turned out to be incompatible with hoses of neighboring districts that were called upon to help put out the fire.
He then moved on to the next example. This time of Katrina. Apparently the United States government’s website for Katrina aid could only be used by Internet Explorer 7, preventing a substantial percentage of the victims from using the aid site.
Yes I was indeed starting to see how important standards are. I was also starting to sense a certain bias perhaps?
He began his third example. This time it was of the European Union.
Phew.
Apparently they take video streams of their important meetings and post them online using a format made available through an [wait for it] American company. He then posed the question of why the European Union would allow their video stream to only be viewed through patented technology belonging to an American company[yes he actually said “American company” and not Microsoft]. Despite being free now, what prevents Microsoft from learning about this and starting to charge for the use of their technology?
Right.
So in order to show how important standards are he decides to randomly use the examples of overzealous Americans who’s fascination with more recent technology lead to uncontrollable fire destruction, an government (that happens to be American) that only helps its citizens that are up to date on the latest web browser, and the entire content of the EU’s video streaming held hostage by a greedy company which also happens to be American and stated explicitly so.
I mean these examples do illustrate the importance of standardization. They just also happen to show that America is kind of a bumbling idiot/dick.
Just a coincidence? Je ne sais pas.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
memorial de caen
D Day Beach:
Cemetary (over 10,000 Americans were killed):
the graves:
the graves:
last but not least, the view of my future apartment (currently from inside the museum):
Friday, December 5, 2008
drago
So some people have asked me how a French University manages to have a master’s course taught entirely in English. It’s simple really. How does any country get things it doesn’t itself produce? It imports them of course.
Fo serious. Most of my teachers are from other countries (London, the States, India) and they come for about two weeks at a time. During those one or two weeks I am put through what is essentially a subject matter boot camp consisting of lectures, projects, and a do or die final all condensed into about two weeks what would normally span a semester (hence the slowing down of blog updates).
Currently I am in the middle of a data networking and communications boot camp. My professor has been imported from Slovenia and has the kind of accent and mannerisms that, given a different time and place, could easily be found working in a secretive nuclear power plant facility or consuming blood in his castle.
The guy is interesting for sure and knows his shit. The only problem is that he has the affliction I’ve encountered with other highly intelligent, eccentric people and that is that he doesn’t quite operate at the same level as normal people do. This wouldn’t be a problem except he is my professor and I need to understand him.
Par example, at the beginning of his lecture he used the word “frequency” in explaining something. This is normal since he’s an engineer and so is everyone else at my school (it is engineering school after all and not like Virginia Tech is an engineering school – in France grand ecoles are purely one thing or another).
So the engineering teacher is using engineering terms like “frequency” and everyone nods their head like “uh huh right, frequency” and then there’s me, who is in no way shape or form an engineer, wonders what the hell frequency is but I let it slide since nobody else seems to have a problem with the term. So he continues and uses the word “frequency” again. And again. And again. Hmmm… frequency seems rather important since it comes up quite frequently (haha).
Anywho so I raise my hand and shamefully ask the question: What is frequency? He looks at me like I’m on crack because I don’t know what that is. I tell him I don’t have an engineering background. I think this makes him feel better and he then proceeds to explain frequency for 20 minutes.
Graphs are drawn, equations are written, manipulated, and derived and at the end of it all I still have no idea what frequency is but I pretend like I do because he tried so hard to explain it to me and I just wasted 20 minutes of everyone’s time and it’s not their fault I’m too dumb to get it. Or so I thought.
Turns out the guy is an overcommunicater. I found this out because other people started asking questions as well to which they end up regretting. That’s because he throws a lot of information at you and then you have to shift through that information and ascertain the answer yourself.
I’ll use a layman example. Let’s say you ask what’s wine made of? His answer would be something like:
Well back in the early days of mankind they searched for an alternative beverage for merriment and in doing so came across what they later refer to ask the nectar of the gods. The origin of wine starts in mother earth herself as a seedling which over time with the help of a liquid essential to all life with the chemical makeup of one hydrogen atom and two oxygen atoms. This seeding grows into a vine which is of the genus Vitis. From this vine comes a fruit with an average circumference of less than one inch (this can be mathematically proven) and can be different colors depending on the species but is mainly usually red or green. This fruit is referred to as a grape in English speaking countries but is called le raisin here in France which can be confusing as the word raisin in English means a dried grape, which as we all know is different.
Did I answer your question?
If this is your first encounter with the man you will say something like so… grapes? To which he will reply:
Well, like I mentioned earlier back in the early days of mankind…
So yeah it’s best to say instead a definitive “Yes” and it is absolutely critical you follow that with nothing other than a period.
I have a two hour test in this course next Tuesday, open notes which means it will be killer. He told us to email him if we had any questions. I could only imagine what that would be like.
Fo serious. Most of my teachers are from other countries (London, the States, India) and they come for about two weeks at a time. During those one or two weeks I am put through what is essentially a subject matter boot camp consisting of lectures, projects, and a do or die final all condensed into about two weeks what would normally span a semester (hence the slowing down of blog updates).
Currently I am in the middle of a data networking and communications boot camp. My professor has been imported from Slovenia and has the kind of accent and mannerisms that, given a different time and place, could easily be found working in a secretive nuclear power plant facility or consuming blood in his castle.
The guy is interesting for sure and knows his shit. The only problem is that he has the affliction I’ve encountered with other highly intelligent, eccentric people and that is that he doesn’t quite operate at the same level as normal people do. This wouldn’t be a problem except he is my professor and I need to understand him.
Par example, at the beginning of his lecture he used the word “frequency” in explaining something. This is normal since he’s an engineer and so is everyone else at my school (it is engineering school after all and not like Virginia Tech is an engineering school – in France grand ecoles are purely one thing or another).
So the engineering teacher is using engineering terms like “frequency” and everyone nods their head like “uh huh right, frequency” and then there’s me, who is in no way shape or form an engineer, wonders what the hell frequency is but I let it slide since nobody else seems to have a problem with the term. So he continues and uses the word “frequency” again. And again. And again. Hmmm… frequency seems rather important since it comes up quite frequently (haha).
Anywho so I raise my hand and shamefully ask the question: What is frequency? He looks at me like I’m on crack because I don’t know what that is. I tell him I don’t have an engineering background. I think this makes him feel better and he then proceeds to explain frequency for 20 minutes.
Graphs are drawn, equations are written, manipulated, and derived and at the end of it all I still have no idea what frequency is but I pretend like I do because he tried so hard to explain it to me and I just wasted 20 minutes of everyone’s time and it’s not their fault I’m too dumb to get it. Or so I thought.
Turns out the guy is an overcommunicater. I found this out because other people started asking questions as well to which they end up regretting. That’s because he throws a lot of information at you and then you have to shift through that information and ascertain the answer yourself.
I’ll use a layman example. Let’s say you ask what’s wine made of? His answer would be something like:
Well back in the early days of mankind they searched for an alternative beverage for merriment and in doing so came across what they later refer to ask the nectar of the gods. The origin of wine starts in mother earth herself as a seedling which over time with the help of a liquid essential to all life with the chemical makeup of one hydrogen atom and two oxygen atoms. This seeding grows into a vine which is of the genus Vitis. From this vine comes a fruit with an average circumference of less than one inch (this can be mathematically proven) and can be different colors depending on the species but is mainly usually red or green. This fruit is referred to as a grape in English speaking countries but is called le raisin here in France which can be confusing as the word raisin in English means a dried grape, which as we all know is different.
Did I answer your question?
If this is your first encounter with the man you will say something like so… grapes? To which he will reply:
Well, like I mentioned earlier back in the early days of mankind…
So yeah it’s best to say instead a definitive “Yes” and it is absolutely critical you follow that with nothing other than a period.
I have a two hour test in this course next Tuesday, open notes which means it will be killer. He told us to email him if we had any questions. I could only imagine what that would be like.
Monday, December 1, 2008
un petit thanksgiving
So I confess I totally forgot about Thanksgiving.
In France Thanksgiving is not celebrated so there is no commercial reminder of the holiday which is apparently how I keep track of these things.
Alas I have friends and family to remind me I am missing out on a long weekend and good eats so I decided to hold a mini Thanksgiving celebration in my room; a room that includes a kitchen that consists of two stoves (which is really more like a bunson burner) and a microwave. Despite this I presented a Thanksgiving dinner to some of my classmates.
With limitations of an inadequate kitchen and my inability to cook I utilized the two techniques I have learned from living abroad to elevate the subpar into the extraordinary.
The first is translation of words from English into another language (preferably one that is known for what you are presenting):
Boisson: bouteille de vin rouge du bas-côté dix du supermarché
Entrée: baguettes coupées en tranches avec pâté de surplus
Plat principal: le poulet rôti a préparé par le supermarché local
Plats latéraux: maïs (spécialité du chef) et purée de pommes de terre avec la sauce au jus
Dessert: préemballé tart de pomme
The second technique (from Japan) is fancy presentation:
Voila. Bon appetite.
Friday, November 28, 2008
fall backwards
So for Friday and Saturday my friend Nomes offered to take me to the west coast town of Galway. I figured this was a good chance for me to get out of Dave’s hair for a little while after having taken over his living room for the past week so I took her up on her offer.
We arrived back in Dublin at around 6 that night where I sadly bid Nomes farewell and headed back to Dave’s where I found him curled on his couch looking like death after the fancy dress party the night before (He was a pirate and to stay in character he had to drink loads of rum). Despite his massive hangover some 14 hrs after the fact and my early flight the next morning (I had to be there around 6:30am) we headed out to one of his friends’ engagement party at a local swanky bar by the river.
We took the 2pm train there and arrived at around 6pm, set up camp at hostel near the train station and then headed into town where we had a lovely dinner of tapas and then went bar hopping amongst the locals in fancy dresses (it was Halloween). It was then that I learned Nomes actually has already won the around the world race but I disqualified her due to her unfair advantage of being kind of hott with a posh British accent at her disposal.
The next day we decided to explore the town before heading back to Dublin. Having only drank in Galway before (this was a constant theme) Nomes was at a lost for where to actually go as a tourist so we headed to the tourism office where they ignored us for 20 minutes so we just grabbed a tourism map and explored on our own.
There’s not much in terms of things to see in Galway(in some places you go for the view – in Galway you go for the bohemian vibe) but we did walk through a quaint market and took a lovely walk by the river and then the ocean on the non rainy day and chatted catching up on each other’s lives.
We arrived back in Dublin at around 6 that night where I sadly bid Nomes farewell and headed back to Dave’s where I found him curled on his couch looking like death after the fancy dress party the night before (He was a pirate and to stay in character he had to drink loads of rum). Despite his massive hangover some 14 hrs after the fact and my early flight the next morning (I had to be there around 6:30am) we headed out to one of his friends’ engagement party at a local swanky bar by the river.
We got back around 3am and both passed out. At 5:30am the small alarm Dave set for me went off and knocked on Dave’s door to wake him up so he could drive me to the airport. He looked at me with much distain and told me it was only 4:30am.
See, the day after I arrived in Dublin happen to be fall backwards so when I left France I was an hour ahead. Couple that with the fact that Ireland is an hour behind France and it gets a bit confusing to do the math on my only means of time telling which is my French cell phone.
Add to that the fact that some phones automatically switch for daylight savings and some don’t so I wasn’t quite sure if I needed to subtract one or two hours. Once I got the hang of things my phone died because Irish electrical sockets are different than French sockets. So then I had to use the clock at Dave’s place which I was sure at some point in time was not changed (subtract one hour) but maybe Dave or his roommate changed it without my knowledge so then that becomes unreliable.
So yeah during my entire stay in Dublin I suffered from slight time paranoia which wasn’t a big deal when it comes to things like going to dinner but becomes a bit more important with things like catching an early flight.
After Dave spent 10 minutes convincing me it was actually 4:30 and not 5:30 (I become super paranoid when I’m sleepy not to mention super unable to follow reason or logic) so I went back to bed but couldn’t fall back asleep because of already explained paranoia.
At the actual 5:30 Dave took me to the airport where I got on the plane and made my way back to Rouen (2 hour flight + 1 ½ hour bus from Beauvais airport to Paris + 1 hour train ride from Paris to Rouen + 30 minute metro ride back to my apartment from Rouen train station + all the overhead in between) on one hour of sleep. I got home around 4pm and was exhausted.
Oh living in a major airport hub, je tu manque.
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