French Blitz

Last night I went to a friend's house along with one Australian and a bunch of French people. We ate snacks, talked a lot, and played two games. The first one was like clationary (Pictionary with clay) except that you had specific little toys to design with and two people had to work together to make the picture, alternating which one placed an item. It was easy enough to play as long as I was one of the people making the picture. The guessing didn't go so hot, although I did get one or two. They gave me credit for comb even though I didn't know the French word for it. I was frantically scrapping my fingers on the side of my head and they got the idea :-)
Then they decide to really stretch our French abilities. We played a game with three parts. The first round is like CatchPhrase. You draw names of people or objects out of a hat and have to describe them so that your team guesses what it is. Oh la la! You think that game is hard in English? Try it in another language!!! In round 2 we had to use just one word to get our teammates to guess the word on the paper (like Password). Fortunately we were reusing the words from round 1, so for the French people it was mainly a matter of remembering the options. For me it was a lot harder since I had only caught a third of the words the first time. Round three was charades. This was a riot, and one of my friends got video of it. Hopefully I can get that from her. My turn wasn't that great, though, because I got two in a row that I didn't know and it used up much of my time :-(.
It was a lot of fun and I think throughout the night I picked up a good deal of vocab. Just as importantly, I was able to build on some good friendships.

oops!

If you just got a Christmas card today, sorry about that! I uploaded that to Microsoft Entourage way back in December and told it to send but apparently didn't leave the program open long enough for it to be sent. So... yeah. That's about all I have to say about that. I wondered why nobody ever responded to my cards!
This also explains why my dad never got his birthday card.

Hearing God, Knowing God

1 Kings 2-- This has always been a very interesting chapter for me. I have to assume that a lot of details are left out of the narrative. Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, decides to attack Ahab, the wicked king of Israel. He lost a similar battle the year before, but because the battle had been fought on a mountain Ben-Hadad assumed that the "gods" of Israel were gods of the mountains and therefore weaker or powerless in the valleys. God tells Ahab, therefore, that He will destroy Ben-Hadad's massive forces in the valley as well to prove His omnipotence. He does exactly that.
Ben-Hadad runs away, hides in a city, and begs for mercy. Ahab, for reasons we can only guess at, makes a treaty with him and lets him go. This decision would prove disastrous for Israel in the future. God sends a prophet to rebuke Ahab for his disobedience. He should have consulted God before granting the treaty and he failed to do so. Similarly, a man disobeys the same prophet when the prophet tells the man to strike him (causing an injury). What person would obey this request under normal circumstances? But in this case, it was the word of God. Because the man refused, he was killed by a lion. I have to wonder how he was supposed to know that the prophet was speaking the word of God. This is the second time in the Bible God used a lion to kill someone who did not respect His word. See 1 Kings 13.
Anyway, after reading all of this I have been praying extra hard that God will help me to discern His voice out of all the other noise and chaos in the world, whether it be His voice directly or through fellow believers. The price of not listening for the voice of God and not seeking His will can be very expensive and also eternal, both for myself and for others. Even small disobedience has long-term effects.
It is also worth noting that part of this whole mess was the result of strife within God's people. Judah had originally paid Ben-Hadad to attack Israel because civil war was going on and Judah needed relief. Ben-Hadad capitalized on the situation some years later and attempted to do serious damage to Israel. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and the family of God is no exception. We need to be very careful how we handle internal problems and not give power to the enemy by attacking each other.
And finally, it struck me that Ben-Hadad's failure was the result of a faulty and limited worldview. A faulty worldview is hazardous, especially for a leader. There are many who think that government and religion do not and should not have an impact on each other. I think this story is a marvelous example of how the two can never be separated. The way a person believes influences every decision they make. If they believe wrong things, they make bad decisions. It is for that reason that I beg God to bring people into the US government who do not have faulty worldviews. Whether I agree with them on every policy or not, I desperately want the assurance that my leaders are making decisions based on an accurate understanding of God, man, truth, beauty, and science rather than on the latest whims of culture, cult, or flawed science.

Language CPR

Today I visited a conference at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. It was on translation and endangered languages, with a focus on the importance of keeping languages alive. It was encouraging. It was also really good for networking.

I had a nifty control panel in front of me with buttons I never used, a microphone, and headphones wired to 6 different translators. I am proud to say that I only used the headphones once since all of the speakers were in either English or French.

A Japanese woman talked about how translation in Japan has undergone a concept shift with the younger generation of translators. Originally, you had to be faithful to the source. Now a lot of Japanese translators feel like they have to be faithful to the client (the audience). One said, "Clients are "gods", I must be compliant with their requirements." Some also feel the need to express their own style in their translation, either for the sake of individuality or to make the audience relate better to the work. One said, "I prioritize equivalence in atmosphere over that of literal meaning."

The speaker seemed heavily opposed to both trends. She pointed out that much of cultural exchange happens through translation. She said "Translators mediate foreign cultures into Japan. They should think seriously about their role as cultural mediators. If they mistranslate, everyone misunderstands." She also said that "translation brings about different values and understandings." She concluded by drawing a diagram. On the bottom were the amateurish translators who felt constrained to serve their audience and were concerned about style. On the top were the experienced translators who understood the importance of their work for bringing about change and therefore being bold enough to translate faithfully.

I think translators need to consider their audience for the sake of clarity, but I think they need to be really hesitant about changing the source to make it more stylistically / socially / culturally palatable. It's not just amateurish, it's dangerous. Like she said, if they do it wrong, everyone understands wrong.

crépes

Thursday night was a crépe fest here at school. I got 3 or 4 to turn out correctly. They are like extremely finicky pancakes. Little did I know the importance of that experience. Duh duh duh!

Tonight was youth group at church. I rode my bike up to Clamart (6 miles- it was nice out) at 5:00 and then wandered around the church for about 10 minutes before I figured out who I was supposed to talk to. After that there were some brief moments of awkwardness, quickly resolved by a technical problem. I love technical problems! They give me an excuse to not sit around and have awkward silences. This particular technical problem was computer related. As is common in these situations (well, at least 25% of the time) I never got it fixed, and neither did anyone else. By the time we had entirely given up hope, most of the youth were there.

I introduced myself extremely briefly. Then we watched a French movie. If you have ever seen a French movie, you will understand why I specify. A movie and a French movie are not the same thing, and it isn't just the language. This was the most normal I have seen so far and one of the cleanest (which doesn't say much). After that, we made CRÉPES! I'm glad the blundering American didn't have to stand there in shock and awe at the goings-on. I actually knew more about crépery than a lot of the youth, so I was able to give pointers! As we were cooking and eating I finally got to talk a little bit with a couple of the youth and also the youth leader. The first guy I talked to said that he plays basketball. I got halfway through the sentence before I realized that I don't know how to say, "I can never hit the basket." Nevertheless, I managed to communicate that I am lousy at basketball but love running and playing hockey. He had never even heard of ultimate frisbee, which made me sad. If I can introduce that delicacy of English-speaking athletics to France, I will have made the world a better place.

One of the young ladies is interested in drama. I mentioned in my testimony on Wednesday that drama is part of my job, so the youth leader asked me if I could maybe create some dramas for the youth group (especially that young lady) to perform. I told her "sure, why not." This could be a really good chance for me to get some practice with drama (especially directing it in a foreign language) and also do something at the church that right now nobody else is doing. The first major hurdle: finding something that works with French culture. Drama is like film, and I am far from understanding French film.

Fantastic Evening!

I had a meeting last night with one of the pastors of my church here. I thought it was going to be with the pastor who speaks quite a bit of English but I discovered shortly before I got there that it wasn't. It was with the one who doesn't speak a word of English and an intern who also doesn't speak English. We had a very good chat in French. I told them about my plans and why I am in France, and I also asked how I could get more involved. They invited me to come to the youth group this Saturday and get plugged in there, and I may start working in the sound booth on Sundays also. The pastor also shared with me some of his experiences from working in Africa. After about 15 minutes the pastor had another meeting, so then I talked for about half an hour with the intern (named Emmanuel) who just recently graduated from a leadership school related to the church.
After all of this, the pastor invited me to the Wednesday evening service that was about to start. As the service was about to get underway, the pastor said something along the lines of "Hey, I think it would be great if you could share your testimony." And I said, "Uh... en français? Je peux essayer." (in French? I can try.)
And so, with a pounding heart, I gave my first church speech in French without any preparation. I'm not sure how much of it the people understood, but there was very enthusiastic affirmation every minute or so, so I know they got the main points. I know for sure they understood everything God wanted them to understand! As I was sitting in my seat waiting to speak I was planning to talk about how God provides for the projects He wants to achieve. But I ended up talking about following God in the day-to-day decisions and how He has used those to bring me into a job where I can use my really diverse training and interests for His glory. I was very blessed to have that opportunity to share.
After I sat back down, my thoughts turned to the bus. I had used a bus to get to the church and a lot of the busses stop running at 9:00 or 9:30. It was already after that time. If I couldn't catch the bus I had a two mile walk ahead of me to get to the train station, and I wasn't even sure which direction to go. But right before dismissing us, the pastor asked if anyone could give me a ride to Massy and a very pleasant man from the church offered to drive me home. I got home in 25 minutes rather than the hour and fifteen minutes it took me to get there, or the 2+ hours it might have taken if the bus wasn't running and I had to blunder around in the dark.
And, to top it all off, when I got home (10:30 at night, having not eaten supper), I tried another of those oranges I bought and it was actually okay. God was smiling upon me!

Cool!

Today I was catching up on prayer requests from my branch. Suddenly, about halfway through the first sentence of one the requests, something seemed odd to me. Then I realized what it was- this prayer request was in French! I understood it anyway.

Divers

A couple of quick tidbits from my life:

1. First of all, I'm really enjoying the Olympics. Last night I was watching the men's nordic combined event (ski jumping, then xc skiing). Two Americans were leading the pack for a long time. I Skyped my parents and told them to turn on the television. Sure enough, it was also being broadcasted live in the US. The Americans held the lead for a while, then one of them got tangled up with another skier and dropped back to sixth or seventh. With one lap to go everybody started shuffling around and trying to make moves. The American who had gotten tripped had spent a lot of energy to move back into third place. A Japanese guy got out front, then couldn't hold it. The Norwegians who had been in the front with the lead American both faded out. Then he dropped back too. The other American kept surging on the hills and slowly moved into the lead! With a quarter mile to go he had a small lead- but could he hold it? The downhills played against him, and he had spent so much energy to regain the lead that the whole pack was gaining on him as they charged down the final straightaway. With just a few meters to go the American was passed by a Frenchman (which my French announcers thought was the greatest thing since the invention of Camembert cheese) and ended up getting second. The other American landed in fourth. Oh, what a race! I'm glad I got to hypothesize, agonize, and cheer along with my parents. It also reminded me a lot of my running days. Which brings me to #2

2. The Xrcise blog is now being updated again. I might not update it every day, but at least once I week I will be posting mileage. I am planning to run a charity 5k in Paris on May 15th. The winning times from the past 3 years have varied between low 16s and mid 17s, with second and third being sometimes half a minute slower or more. In other words, if I can get in shape I have half a chance of getting a medal written in French. I happen to think that would be nifty. I have a LONG way to go. Today I found a track and did just two laps. The first one was easy, the pace I would imagine myself running a 10k. *ahem* 1:40. Yuck. So I sped up to about the speed I could imagine running a mile. 1:24. ew. That's a 17:21, and I was winded after 400 meters. So yeah, training started last Thursday...

3. Some day I hope to be able to give you examples of how to live a perfect Christian life. Until then, please learn from my stories of how not to do it. Today I finally made a trip to the grocery store. I had been putting it off for 2 weeks, as always, both because shopping takes a long time and also because I save more money if I don't buy food. Less selection in the cupboard that way, but I usually hit all of the food groups... Anyway, I was standing in front of the oranges (because they were the cheapest, so of course I was going to buy them rather than apples) and praying that God would help me pick the best ones. I picked some, and put them in my shopping bag. As I was about to move on to the next aisle, one of my classmates suddenly appeared out of nowhere and said "the oranges aren't any good right now." This was the point at which I should have put the oranges back. Looking back on it, God was answering my prayer. The problem was, I hadn't asked Him whether or not to buy oranges, I had asked which ones to get- and they were already in my bag. So when she said that, I considered putting them back and then decided to keep them, since I have often had bags of oranges that contained both good and bad. Just because she had bad oranges last time she went shopping didn't mean these ones would be bad. So I reasoned, and so I reasoned incorrectly. Tonight I choked down the majority of the most arid orange I have ever encountered, hoping it still had some vitamin C in it to justify the effort it took me to peel the useless thing. I really hope the rest aren't that bad. If they are, I can't say I wasn't warned.

4. We had our midterm test today! This is exciting because it means that while everybody else in the school is frantically cramming for their midterm, our class can relax. We have regular homework, of course, but less pressure. However, I decided to make more work for myself and three of my classmates by proposing a weekly conjugation contest. Last Friday we all crammed for the first one, then sat down together and each had to conjugate 9 nasty (irregular) verbs, using all of the verb tenses we have learned so far. The one who makes the most mistakes each week has to make cookies for the four of us. Thank you to my dear friend D for the cookies she will be making for us tomorrow as a result of last week's contest!
um... no... we're not competitive at all :-D
All four of us were all grateful for the extra practice today during our exam. Several of the oddball verbs from our competition were on the test, including the more obscure conjugations.

The DMV makes me happy.

My driver's license is set to expire in June. We have to renew every 4 years, so it was bound to happen sometime during my little adventure over here. I searched the internet and determined that ours is NOT one of the states that allow online renewals. It was looking like I had to chose between spending $1,000+ for a short trip to the US just to renew my license, or losing my right to drive a vehicle in the US and also one of my most important forms of identification. Then I emailed the DMV and got an email back from them last night saying that they will mail me a special packet and I can get it done via snail-mail. Definitely a relief!

Sometimes I love my homework.

In our book we had a letter that, when translated, went something like this:

"Dominique,

The letter you wrote and slid under my door last night was very nice, but I remain firm in my decision to end our relationship. I am sad that our relationship has ended. I am not happy, and I have had enough of unhappiness. The moments we spent together are unforgettable, moments of joy, happiness, and sorrow also. I will never forget them, and I think that you won't either. But we are too different. Our cultures, our fashions of life separate us. And I am not ready for life as a couple.
I prefer to live alone and keep my independence for the moment. Congratulations on your Masters in Fine Arts! I am happy for you, and I wish you good luck with your studies in Rome.
Dominique, please, stop writing to me. It is better for both of us. We are not sweethearts. Turn the page.

Nathalie"

To this delightful note we were told to write a reply from Dominique (despite Nathalie's request). Thanks to our previous lessons, we know that Nathalie is a French lass and Dominique is a Canadian. Hence the difference in cultures. As soon as I was assigned this project, I started snickering. My teacher asked me what was so funny. I told her there is no way she could understand what was going on in my head. And so came into being the following letter. I have taken some liberties in translating my own French. It's obviously much funnier in English because in English I can use nuance.

Je suis vraiment désolé que tu préfères vivre seule, surtout parce que tu étais si enthousiaste pour l'amour avant que je te rencontré. I'm sorry that you are wanting to live single now, especially considering how excited you were about dating before we met. Je comprends qu' après tout ce que j'ai fait pour toi, c'est difficile de supporter les autres hommes. I realize that after all I have done for you and meant to you, it is hard for you to tolerate the company of ordinary men. Ne t'inquiète pas, avec le temps peut-être tu vas m'oublier et ton coeur va glisse dans l'amour. Don't allow yourself to worry too much, with time perhaps your heart will forget me and be able to slide into love with someone.

Tu as laissé entendre que tu as senti une petite douleur. You hinted at some slight discomfort. Je présume que tu penses encore à l'incident avec le "ketchup-fried-mooseburger." I presume that you are still thinking about the incident with the Ketchup-Fried-Mooseburger. Ça aurait été mieux si tu avais bu un peu plus de cidre. As I've said, it would have gone better if you had drunk a bit more cider. Cette cidre n'est pas merveilleuse seulement à cause de son goût (brasser chez mon beau-frère, eh?) mais aussi car elle tue toutes les petites bactéries méchantes. That cider isn't marvelous just because of its flavor (distilled in my brother-in-law's basement, eh?) but also because it kills all those nasty little bacteria on the spot! Alors, je comprends que tu n'as pas envie de boire quelque-chose chaude l'accident avec la crosse de hockey. Well, I guess I can understand that you didn't want to drink anything hot right after the accident with the hockey stick. Ha! Je crois que tu peut devenir une joueuse de hockey formidable, tu as repris connaissance si vite que tu as stupefié les médecins! Ha! I think you could become a fantastic hockey player, you regained consciousness so quickly that you shocked the doctors! And now you've got the teeth for a hockey player too. You're good and tough, my stick may never be the same!
Mais j'ai parlé trop de toi, et tu as dit que je dois t'oublier. But I am talking too much about you, and you told me to forget about you. Alors, je suis très heuruex de partir à Rome bientôt. So anyway, I am really happy to be leaving soon for Rome. Ça me plaît bien. It makes me really happy. Oui, c'est genial. Yup, it's really nice. Alors, um... So... um... Tu es sûre de ne pas m'aimer? You're sure you don't love me?

Dominique.


p.s. I don't intend this as a slam on Canadians. If you view it as such and it makes you feel better, make him a Minnesotan and name him John.

Resto World

Today at Resto du Coeur I was in charge of tea and coffee. I was rather frightened at first. I had never in my life made a cup of coffee. I had only the most foggy of vague ideas how coffee makers worked. Fortunately there was another girl there with me for the first hour and a half or so. She talked fast but I managed to figure out how to make the coffee and also learn a little bit about her. She is fairly young (early 30s?) but has already done a ton of things, including several years in the military. Now she works with adults who have special needs (like psychological special needs, not just mental and physical).

The coffee and cake is in the room where people hang out before going in to get their food for the week. Each person has a specific time that they are supposed to show up, or at least a half-hour window. It is written on the little card that they get when they sign up, but some of them don't know French and apparently can't read "10:30" either. Either that, or they have no clocks and/or concept of time at all. There was one woman who came in at about 8:15. After 15 minutes she wanted to know why she hadn't been called yet. One of the workers looked at her card and said, "Dix heure et demi. deux heures" (10:30. 2 hours) and held up two fingers. I don't think that meant much of anything to her. She had two small kids who were relatively well behaved for the first 20 minutes. After that, the younger one started getting restless.

After his fifth or sixth piece of cake I stopped letting him take it. I mean, maybe he was hungry, but we had to save some for the others... But it was quickly obvious that he was eating cake for something to do, not because he was hungry. About five minutes later he came over while I was doing something else, grabbed a bunch of coffee stir sticks, and then ran off and started playing with them. Once he was tired of those he went for the cups in the garbage... Oh my. I'm pretty sure his mom is used to just letting him run wild. His older brother (who was probably 5) always had an eye on him and would drag him away if he got into too much trouble at any one moment.

There was another guy wandering around too who couldn't understand why he had been there for an hour and others were only there for 10 minutes. He didn't speak English, so I tried to mime for him but he wandered away somewhere between "Look at the clock" and "Do you have a card I could look at?" Ah yes, the language barrier... Even though I now operate in two languages, I am amazingly limited on the global scale.

And finally, I had forgotten to post that last week at Resto was the first time I picked up a French word play in normal conversation. Thanks to the way the French leave out parts of most of their words, they have a lot of homonyms (words that sound alike) and homonym phrases. They love to make jokes out of these. Last week one of the guys asked my coworker, "Qu'est-ce que tu pense de ça?" (what do you think of that?) in reference to some topic I have now forgotten. My coworker replied, "Je vais prendre une mirroir et reflechis." (I'll get a mirror and reflect on it). I laughed. The other guy groaned. Haha! I love corny jokes.

My room

Here is a little tour of my new room. Well, I guess it's not new anymore. I changed rooms back in December. I needed to cut costs, so I went to our administrator and asked if there was any way to do that. A girl was about to move out of this room, which is a special room that isn't normally rented out to students. She said I could move in. And that is how I saved about a thousand dollars this semester. Praise God!

Grandma's got it right

Our college president once said that while many clamor to prove that they have found the secret to solving this problem or the other, Christians can state with confidence that, even if she listens to different music and dresses funny, Grandma has had it right the whole time. When it comes to our basic theology, the Bible is quite clear about the truth. We are wise to look to our experienced elders for a good start, and a continual guide, as we develop our own theology. It is for this reason that I was thrilled to spend an afternoon with a seasoned Christian, even if much of her wisdom had to come to me in a difficult language.
Some of the things she said were really interesting to me. I'll give you the translation and let you decide what you think of it.

1. She had each of us explain how God called us into our work. My friend then asked her how God called her to missions work. She replied, "God never called me to missions. He called me to follow my husband." She then went on to say that there were plenty of times she cried as a result of that calling, but she has no regrets.
And so I wonder, for how many women is that the case? I believe that some are specifically called to a ministry. In that case, if they plan to get married they need to find a man who has the same or a compatible calling. But some women, to the horror of modern western sensibility, really are called to follow their husbands and support his ministry. Maybe a lot more of them than will admit it.

2. Her husband was in a car accident. When the police arrived they saw the car and assumed the driver was dead. If I understood her correctly, he not only survived the accident, he also survived being hit by a passing vehicle after he got out of the wrecked car. One of his friends commented to him later, "God must want you around longer because he has more for you to do." He replied, "God doesn't need me to do anything. He isn't done doing things IN me." I found that to be a really interesting perspective. I fall too easily into a "git r done" attitude and fail to remember that God cares more about developing a man after his own heart than finishing my latest project.

3. She knew her husband for some time before they started a romantic relationship. She had always admired and respected him but had no idea that he liked her and had never entertained the thought. When he told her of his interest, she took some time to pray about it. She wanted to marry a man who had committed all of his life to God. This man fit the description. She felt God telling her that he would bless whichever decision she made about this man, but that she really did have to chose whether or not she would love him, and then stick to her decision. She chose to love him, and as a result God blessed her choice and "je suis tombe d'amour" (I fell in love).
Attraction is an emotion that can seem uncontrollable and irresistible. But it is something that God has given us control over, with His aid, and He expects us to be wise in our relationships. Whether we are on the pursuing or responding end of the relationship, we need to make certain that we present our emotions and cravings (or lack thereof) to God for His guidance before we act on them.

Cool!

Today I got a four course meal when I wasn't planning to eat lunch at all!
Our normal ride to church decided to attend a different one. My friend and I decided, therefore, to take public transportation to church, and go directly into Paris afterwords to make good use of "dimanche gratuit" (free museums the first Sunday of the month!). However, when the service ended my friend started talking to the lady sitting next to him. We talked for a while, and then she invited us to her house. We had a delightful time. She and her husband were in ministry for years. He has died and she is still involved, I think, in a lot of churches in Paris. So we talked a lot about calling and ministry and life- almost entirely in French, I might add- and she fed us very well. It was a wonderful time, and very encouraging.

After that we went to the national museum of modern art at the "Centre Pompidu." That was about what I expected. No, actually it was worse. My friend and I were hoping to find a modest selection of works that were actually good and a few more that were strange enough to be entertaining. We found two or three that were good and about 10 more that were mediocre. We found one that was fantastically strange. And one or two others that were mildly amusing. A lot of it was unimpressive. But a lot of it was also just plain disturbing. Much of it was sexually themed. Not glorifying sex, for the most part. Worshiping it, perhaps, but more out of fear than of adoration. Fortunately, thanks to the highly abstract nature of most of it, there weren't a whole lot of things that were actually pornographic, and I could just avoid paying too much attention.

However, there was a whole temporary section that was devoted to feminism. We glanced in the first room. Um... yeah. Not cool. We made a quick sweep through the safest looking part of the exhibition and then left rather quickly.

And I learned something nifty. Whenever I have financial problems, all I need to do is hang a metal snow shovel from the ceiling and I will be able to pawn it off on a gullible modern arts guru for good cash!

Awww...

I got a package today from my mom with a whole bunch of pictures from home. It made me really miss my family a lot. If I had gotten it on a rainy day it would have been really miserable, actually. But God gave us one of the most beautiful days imaginable today. So as soon as I got done looking at the pictures I pulled the bicycle out of the garage and went for a good long ride. There is nothing like sunshine, a very slight chill, the smell of spring, and a mild physical effort to make me feel fantastic.

On another happy note, I have been singing "Alors, entend nos coeurs" ("Listen to our Hearts," by Steven Curtis Chapman) for a couple of weeks. On Tuesday I found the guitar chords online. They are difficult, but learnable. I also found the chords for "The Great Adventure." Those could keep me busy for quite a while. SCC is a super good guitar player, but fortunately those are two of his easier songs.

And it's the weekend! I am looking forward to getting caught up and relaxing a little. I will NOT be watching the superbowl because it starts at midnight my time. Besides, a far more fascinating television event begins on the 10th. Yay, Olympics! I hope to learn a lot of French watching it this time. Have I ever mentioned that I went to UND at the same time as one of the guys on the US olympic hockey team? I maybe even saw him once in a while. I think that makes me pretty much famous.

And tonight, I am going to attempt tacos. Without taco sauce or salsa. I've got tomato paste and various fun spices from the Asian market that might do in a pinch, and home-made flour tortillas. Mmmmmm!

Comparisons

Okay, here are those old pictures of Paris again, compared to some pictures I have taken.

This is from the Montmartre area.

Here is roughly the same view today, but at night. A wee bit more developed, eh?

This picture was probably taken very close to the same spot, but looking to the West (to the right in the original image)

Here are the old house bridges over the Seine.

The house bridges have since been replaced numerous times with more flood-resistant structures.

The Seine in centreville.

The only pictures I have in this direction are taken at night, and of course at street level. Therefore it is nearly impossible to see anything. But I do have a picture in the opposite direction, taken from the Notre Dame (visible on the horizon in the painting). Unfortunately you can't actually see the river, thanks to all the buildings. It runs roughly in the direction of downtown before hanging a left and curving around the Eiffel Tower (just off the left side of the photo)

The boats are not nearly as plentiful as they used to be. I would assume that the "parking" fee is astronomical. But there are some very pretty boats parked there.

And here is looking towards Notre Dame from the other direction.

I wonder when that massive garden dissapeared.

Little provisions, big provisions

Here is a link to an article about the drop on Thusrday/Friday:
http://www.fxstreet.com/news/forex-news/article.aspx?StoryId=7468e58b-07b2-4089-9a90-67d00376d52a

Thank you to everyone who prayed for the Euro/dollar exchange rate. Last Friday some international politics happened that plunged the Euro to a 7 month low against the dollar. (to translate for normal people, this is a good thing for Americans like me!) It took a couple days for me to get everything taken care of, but when all is said and done I was able to pay for tuition at an exchange rate that hasn't been possible for more than half a year. If I had paid for tuition and housing in December, when the exchange rate was worst, it would have cost me about $500 more. So thank you, God, and thank you to everyone for your prayers.

Oh là là

I almost got myself into a world of trouble on Saturday. I rushed out of my room to go visit a museum before it closed. On the way I grabbed only two train tickets (one for each direction) and my student card. No money.

When I got into Paris, I had to switch from the train to the metro. My train tickets work for both, but when I put my ticket into the turnstyle (everything is electronic) it wouldn't work. I looked at the ticket and realized that I had used the wrong one. It wasn't supposed to take me into Paris at all, and it certainly wasn't going to let me on the metro. And, since I had no money, I couldn't purchase a metro ticket.

To make matters worse, the major downtown stations do not let you out of the station without your ticket. I was trapped inside the train station! Fortunately there are large gates for people with bicycles and I was able to go through behind someone else. I finally got out of the station, only to find myself in the middle of a gigantic mall. You would think the exit would lead to... um... perhaps the outside. But no, it led to a multi-level mall. Welcome to the city! I finally found the stairway leading out of the Matrix and emerged from Plato's cave into the sunlight.

Just like Plato's pour man of limited knowledge, I had no clue where I was. Well, that's not completely true. I had been there with my friend last weekend, but at the time we hadn't known exactly where we were. All I knew is that I was north of the river and approximately due west of where I wanted to be.

It was partly cloudy, but I thought I had a pretty good idea where the sun was. It was about 5:00, so I reasoned that surely the sun would be well to the West by now (and somewhat south, since it's winter, but adding in that angle hurt my head). I turned so the sun was at my back and started walking. 10 minutes later I found a map and realized that I had somehow managed, despite the sun, to go completely the wrong direction. So I turned toward the sun and marched back to where I started. I did some heavy map consultation, didn't find anything useful, and decided to head more southward. I knew that eventually if I did that I would run into Rue de Rivoli (it's huge, so you can't miss it), and once I was there I would know where I was. I did in fact run into Rue de Rivoli, though not quite where I expected to find it. Then I saw some signs that got me REALLY confused. I debated for a while whether to pick my direction based on what I thought the signs were saying, or based on the sun. Well, the sun had gotten me lost once already, so I went with the signs. 15 minutes later I arrived in front of the Louvre. The good thing is, I know all my directions when I am at the Louvre. For the first time, I knew where North was. The bad thing is, the Louvre was about half a mile in the wrong direction. Oh, what I would have done for a compass!

So I turned around, pushed and shoved through the crowds on Rue de Rivoli, and finally got to the museum about an hour later than I had planned. God gave me great grace in having me use the wrong ticket going toward Paris. I had only grabbed 2 tickets, so I could just have easily have used the correct one for the trip in and only realized at the station on my way home that the other one didn't work. In that case I would have been stranded in Paris. My only options would have been to beg for enough money to buy the correct ticket or make the 10 mile walk home!

I think, all in all, the trip was worth it. The museum covered several centuries of the History of the city of Paris. There were a bunch of models of the city, original architectural models for various bridges, LOTS of paintings of old Paris, and the obligatory uninteresting memorabilia from kings and important families in the past. I love the models and paintings; I feel like I am time traveling. I have now seen enough of Paris, too, that I know what those places look like now. Very interesting! Today I will put up pictures from the museum. In the future I will see if I can find pictures of the same areas today.

I love this picture! Take some time to observe all the buffoonery in the boats. The name is "La joute des mariniers" (the game of the mariners). The scene is not far from the Notre Dame. Notice all the houses on the bridges. After multiple destructive floods they decided to stop building houses above the river.

When you have one of those days when you don't feel very good about how you look, remember this man.

I have no clue where there is, but it is beautiful!

I believe the building on the right was a palace. The gardens to the left were quite spacious. You can just barely see Notre Dame on the horizon. Today the entire area is packed with buildings. The museum itself would be on the far right side of the image today.

This is a much more recent picture of Paris. You can see the Louvre on the left. It is looking downriver towards Notre Dame (from the opposite direction as the previous picture).

And here is a painting from what is now the Montmartre area. This is probably not far from where the Moulin Rouge sits today. There is an old windmill just like the one in the picture that sits on the side of the hill not far from the Sacre Coeur, East of the Moulin Rouge. Who knows, maybe it's the same one.

There was a room with some "religous" paintings. Can you figure out which Bible scene this one portrays?

How about this one? It's funny, I actually guessed and got it right before I read the plaque. It's not super obvious.

This was a very old, very poorly lit painting. But can you tell what those folks are doing? That's right, HOCKEY ON THE SEINE RIVER!!! Well, okay, not exactly hockey. Though a couple of guys are carrying sticks, and what else would you use a stick for on the ice?

Yay for 3D! This is a model of the city back when when the heart of Paris was still on the island by Notre Dame. I'm quite certain that entire fortress is gone now, replaced by houses and the Palace of Justice.

Paris must have been on the cutting edge of technology to accommodate its large population. Here is a model of a double-decker street car, something I have never seen. Paris still has double-decker trains on the RER C line.

And a double-decker stage coach! The top has seats under the canopy.