-Maurice Chevalier

I am tempted to take this logic and apply it inductively to prove that all ages of men are in the same equivalence class. But then, I’d hate to be taken for a math geek.

-c

What is wrong with this picture?

-c

Hello.

My name is Chad.

I have a problem.

I am addicted to books.

-c

ps- back in DC, and yes, with all of the books. Lets just say that I pushed weight limits for my suitcase, and my two carry on bags. Now I’m off to see what the limits are for the flight back to Salt Lake….

Greetings from Geneva! As y´all might have noticed, I´ve slowed down on the posting front. Things got super busy back in Tours, and then I kinda entered this supremely self-reflective phase, blah, blah, blah. I’ve been travelling around a bit on my own for a bit- I spent a couple of days in Annecy, France, and I´ve been in Geneva for a day or two, traipsing around, seeing what I can see. Tomorrow I head back to the states, and I think it is about time too; last night I was chilling in a bar catching the Euro2008 finals, when this woman walked in and I thought to myself, “Wow, that dress looks really good on her, especially with earrings, but the handbag is just too big- she could do better with a smaller number with a different color.”

Embarrassing to admit, but there you have it.

Time to get back to the good ´ol red-blooded USA. I´ll have to relearn how to type again- I´m now using a Swiss keyboard, which aint French and aint US either, and am having a hard time typing. Plus the access here is expensive! Dinner last night, a small panini with a side salad and an iced tea was $22. Cokes are $4.50, stamps to the USA were 2x what they were in France. But hey, at least the toilet paper comes in rolls, like God intended.

Anyway, I´ll be in DC shortly, and will hopefully upload a slew of pictures and movies then.

Peace out yo,

-c

Music: Stones, Ryan Adams, Radiohead, Michael Brecker, Ray LaMontagne, Yes, and the now-constantly-heard Tristan Prettyman

-c

In the meantime, here’s a quick quote of the day from FDR, talking about his economic advisors. Gotta love it!

When asked about the economic advisors to the campaign, he pointed to his suit coat and said, before replying, “Do you see these buttons on my sleeve? They don’t do a damn thing, but fashion says I’ve got to have them, so I do.”

– Franklin Delano Roosevelt

-c

While I have beaucoup words that I’ve looked up in the dictionary that are interesting, this one was too cool to pass up sharing with the blahgosphere. I didn’t look it up per sé, but just noticed it while flipping through, and it just jumped out as being a bit ridiculous for a French-English translation:

brouhaha: hubbub

Good thing I have a dictionary to tell me that “brouhaha” in French means “hubbub” in English. Jeez.

-c

Anyway, my running shoes are calling….gotta run (literally)!!

-c

ps- music of the day: Rage Against The Machine and Tristan Prettyman.

But before Stevie, before the sun graced us with its appearance, I managed to take in a game of spades with my Arabic friends. Now, this is a game I have played a bunch, but not quite like this. First off, the cards weren’t American, with each of the face cards having a name along the side as well as having different letters associated with them- the kings were ‘R’ for ‘Roi’, I assume, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of what the others meant. Plus the rules were different; it was basically boiled down to be as simple as possible, as each country had its own variations. And when I say ‘boiled down to be as simple as possible’ I really mean that the weird variations of whoever was dealing were kept in. I managed to lose quite spectacularly, but many laughs were had, while I struggled to get a sense of the rules through the broken French.

After that, I wondered home in the breaking sunshine to find the aforementioned iPod waiting on me, and given the good weather I headed out for my first run along the Loire. The interesting thing about running here is that while nobody will look at you on the street (you know they’re aware of your existance only because they will move out of the way so as not to run into you), every single jogger I passed looked directly at me and said a quick ‘bonjour’ as we went by each other. I also passed a sign that mentioned the local Centre Municipal des Sports and climbing facilities! I have their phone number now, so my weekend project is to figure out if there indeed is a climbing gym in town. Of course, I have to fit that in alongside the trip to see Château Chenonceau tomorrow, studying, and my homework which involves checking out one of the local galleries and answering some questions about what I find there. Who knew I’d be so dang busy here?

OH! And I have a few more photos copied up and available- just click on the photo here to go over to the gallery. So, I’m off to pick up to see if I can find some good chocolate before hooking up with my group; there is a veritable ton of chocolate around here, but mostly in the form of expensive chocolates or Nestlé. I have to say the Nestlé chocolate here is way better than the crap we get back in the states, but it isn’t my frou-frou Bonnat or Pralus that I’m looking for. You’d think that since they’re just a hundred kilometers away or so the streets would be overflowing with the latest from either of these places. Hmmm, I will definitely try to get over to Lyon to visit one of those artisans choclatiers. It might be difficult, as to take the TGV I’d have to go up to Paris and back down to Lyon. Ah, la vie c’est difficil!

Over and out y’all. ‘Til next time,

-c

OK, I’m running a bit late for class, so no time for useless ramblings. First photos are online. Yay!

-c