“There were days
and there were days
and there were days between
Summer flies and August dies
the world grows dark and mean
Comes the shimmer of the moon
on black infested trees
the singing man is at his song
the holy on their knees
the reckless are out wrecking
the timid plead their pleas
No one knows much more of this
than anyone can see anyone can see”
-Robert Hunter

Sorry, I have been away for a bit my blogger friends. There was Thanksgiving and then our friend Kate came over for the weekend, so I have been rather busy and unable to sit at the computer and blog.

Our second Thanksgiving was quite wonderful. We had Thanksgiving proper with the American missionaries, Daniel and Tammy, and various folks from the Church. We had it at Fabienne’s apartment. It was quite an adventure getting there. Amy and I first took the tram to Ann and Mohamed’s flat. Then we all took another tram to a bus stop. We weren’t sure what bus to take so we just jumped on one we thought might go the right way, then looked at the map to see where it went. We quickly decided that the bus was the wrong one so we took it to another stop and got out. After some confusion which was cleared up by asking a random bus driver, we found the correct bus stop and hopped on that bus. This bus took us to Daniel and Tammy’s house where we awaited Daniel to drive us to Fabienne’s. All of this was with me lugging our big cart around stuffed with food and Mohamed carrying a big heavy box!

We arrived at Fabienne’s with me realizing that the turkey breast I had been carrying in Daniel’s van had dripped juices all over me. It soaked my coat and my sweater, so I spend the rest of the evening smelling like turkey! The food was lovely and the company pleasant. We did another round of hand turkeys. Jill even brought feathers in various bright colors which added to the festive turkeys.

Kate is our friend from Indiana who is doing an exchange in a little town south of France. We had a lovely weekend with her visiting. Friday and Saturday we spend wandering around the city taking in all of the Marche Noel. Strasbourg has many Christmas markets throughout the city. They have lots of ornaments and your basic assortment of Christmas stuff on sale. Plus they have a very nice variety of foods and drinks as well. They sell a malt wine that is wine heated on a stove (so that the alcohol is pretty much burned out) and mixed with lemon, orange, and various spices. It is quite tasty. We also had a waffle covered in Nutella and a hot orange drink.

Sunday we had our third Thanksgiving dinner. Amy and Kate cooked a full chicken and made yummy dressing with sweet potatoes, and gravy. I tell you I have eaten so much delicious food the last few days I’ll have to diet for months to get back into shape!

Well, that’s my story of not writing for a bit. I’m still working on my list of favorite movie actors and some other things to blog. So, I should be back tomorrow with more blogging.

Turkey Day is here tomorrow. It doesn’t seem possible because a) it just can’t be the end of November, can it? and b) it’s France and they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so there aren’t any markings of the holiday anywhere. And of course no day after sales.

I wish the half dozen who read this a very Happy Thanksgiving though.

We went to the library today and I got some more books. I updated my little homepage with this (Editors Note: I used to keep a list of the books I was reading in the sidebar). I never did finish the Kesey book. It was very large and difficult to get into and my check-out time was running out so I just gave up. This is something I often do with books. Usually, it is a mood thing. Where I just can’t get in the mood for that particular book and put it aside, hoping I’ll come back to it.

I’ve once again picked up a Chandler. I’m quickly going through all the classic detective books. I looked for some Agathe Christie, but I could not find anything. The Shipping News is a book I picked up a few years ago, read 50 pages or so, and then had to turn it back in to the library. I liked what I read and I can’t remember now why I didn’t finish it. I’m often a very slow reader and I suspect I just didn’t have time to get through it with library deadlines. I know I know you get three weeks on the first check out and then you can recheck, but still…I often get distracted by other books, tv, movies, and life.

I’ve read good things about The Corrections, and frankly, my choices of books that both interest me and seem like something I would actually sit down and read is getting much smaller at the language library I’ve been going to. Luckily I have another big library at the university and a big public library to still go to.

I’m working on another list like the Cover Songs list just posted. This time it is the greatest film actors. Start making your own lists now.

We had our first party last night. We invited all the AIMers over for snacks and fun. Amy has been wanting to hold a party for ages but we have neglected to actually do one until now. Mainly because Amy gets the idea in her head and wants to make it absolutely perfect which means a lot of preparation. We’re both slackers so the preparation never actually materializes into reality so we never have the party. Finally, I said let’s just do the inviting and then we’ll prepare whatever we can and still have fun. So it was pretty tame. We had snacks and drinks and sat around chatting until Balderdash was brought. Unfortunately, the tram line to our place was down this week and the last bus left at 10:30 so everyone had to split pretty early. All in all it was fun, and nice to actually have people over to our cave.

Tonight we go to Elizabeth’s for her turkey party. Well, I should say chicken party since you can’t really find turkey here until December. Being in France they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving so the turkeys don’t come out until Christmas time. But the chicken should be grand. Next week on Thanksgiving proper we are having a turkey party at Fabiennes. And then on Friday Kate is coming over for the weekend so we’ll have to do a little meal for her. That’s a lot of good Thanksgiving eating!

We went to Kehl, Germany last Thursday with Elizabeth.  This time the bus actually made it the whole way. No crazy German protesters in the way. Elizabeth needed a few odds and ends for her Thanksgiving party, and we just went to kill some time (but of course left with loads of goods). Both of us broke down and finally bought a caddy (they are kind of like carpet bags, except everyone uses them to carry groceries…I’ll try to get a picture up shortly). It is amazing how annoying and difficult it is to go shopping when you don’t have a car. Until now we have been bringing our backpacks and I always had to go with Amy. Even then we could only carry a few items and never get everything we needed. This caddy allows us to carry more goods and even heavier things that normally we would not be able to manage. Yea!

Oh, the point of the German story was to tell about our Lidl experience. Lidl is very similar to Aldis if anyone has ever been to one of those. They sell typically generic goods very, very cheap. While standing in line Amy accidentally dropped a spice jar and broke it on the floor. No one seemed to notice or at least care.

We didn’t know how to tell anyone what had happened so we just kind of swept it under the table and went on our merry way. After the clerk had run our items Amy tried to pay with her French bank card. Apparently, they don’t take French cards at this German store, from what we gathered anyway. At first, we thought it was a minimum price problem and tried to get the cashier to ring up Elizabeth’s items. Both Elizabeth and Amy are taking German classes, but are not far enough along to get out more than a few words. So the cashier is talking in fast German while Amy and Elizabeth stumble over their limited vocabulary.

Eventually, we figured out there was an ATM outside and Amy ran to it as I sat in the corner with our goods. Many minutes passed and there was no Amy, so I went looking. The cashier pointed like the ATM was just outside, but I couldn’t see it or Amy. I start wandering around the streets of Germany at night looking for either a cash machine or my wife. I looked for probably ten minutes until panic started overcoming me. Dear God, please let her be ok kind of panicking. Holy crap there is no ATM anywhere, and WHERE IS MY WIFE!

Luckily I peeked back inside and saw the wife standing in line. She had to ask a hotel clerk where the ATM was in broken German. What a mess. A lot of Germans actually do speak English, but apparently not at Lidl.

Sorry, I seem to be using a lot of Paul Simon for my titles of late.

Amy and I went to the Archeological Museum today. It had all kinds of cool artifacts dating all the way back to like 50 BC! That’s absolutely astounding to me. I don’t think I have ever seen something that old that was built by man. Some of the oldest people to have lived in this area and left behind something were buried in little coffins inside larger structures that housed various other items.

The men would be buried in full armor and then in a side chamber would be other weapons, jewelry, and food. I couldn’t quite understand the French explanation but it would seem that they thought they would rise up again and would need food and weapons then. The coolest stuff to me was dated several hundred years later during the Roman Empire. They had these great old statues of Mercury and Venus and other gods. Plus big tablets of stone with letters written in what everybody knows as the old Roman style. Very interesting to see real. A lot of this section of the museum was very dark.

The museum itself is in the basement of the Palais Rohan, which is itself a beautiful and amazing structure. (and I now have to add an apology for the odd linking I do on my blog. I always mean to link a lot of things, but in the end, I forget half of it). There isn’t a lot of natural light, and for whatever reason the museum has decided to paint the walls in this section black and to only have small spotlights on each artifact. The effect is quite creepy. As I was crossing past some monument, or skeleton I stepped on some type of trap door on the floor which caused this loud bang. Scared the bejesus out of me! A little later Amy did the exact same thing!

One thing I noticed there and the fine art museum just above it was that the security guards were visibly bored. Security guards must be bored everywhere, but at least in America, they have to act like they are scrutinizing everyone and are alert. Here they sat slumped over, reading a book, staring out the window, or had their head in their hands looking stupified.

I have very little news to report. I’ve mainly been reading for the last several days. I finished my Chandler and am nearly done with Foxfire. I hope to have some reviews of them soon. I actually did sit down a write a review of a CD the other day. I spend a nice chunk of time writing it and I think it was quite good, but the internet screwed up and I lost everything. Argh!

I’ve been thinking about the term culture shock lately. Before I left for France I had expected to experience a lot of it. I somehow thought I would wind up sitting in my apartment for weeks staring out the window wishing I was somewhere else. That is a far cry from reality.

I’ve really had a great time here from the start. Sure there have been a few moments that were a little unnerving, times that I felt a little sad. But these were no more than I might feel if I was still in Indiana. Technically, culture shock is defined as the emotional response a person has to being in a different culture. So, yeah, I’ve had emotional responses.

Maybe I expected more because of the term. I mean it says “shock” so I suspected a real shock or jolt. I’m sure it would be a different experience if we had not lived with Daniel and Tammy for two weeks to start out. Or if there weren’t other Americans/English speakers with which we could spend time. They make all the difference I suspect.

I have spent several hours trying to get my DVD player to work with French-coded DVDs. That’s not exactly right. My DVD player will play French DVDs but only so often. Like many players, there is only a certain number of times it will switch from Region 1 to Region 2 or whatever before it gets stuck on whatever the last region was forever. There is software out there that will either override the system or simply reset the counter. However, I’ve failed to find the proper stuff for my particular brand. Does anybody have any experience with this stuff? Use the commenter or e-mail me with suggestions, please.

My pictures were finally viewed by the French class in Alabama. I’m told they were a great big hit. I don’t know why, but that gives me great joy. Even though I’ve had no direct contact with them it’s like there is a little connection between us now. All these kids have had a direct link to my life, and been taught, and learned from my little experiences. How cool is that?

Have I mentioned the French are very affectionate? Besides having to personally greet them when you enter a room and then say goodbye to each person when you leave AND that crazy cheek kiss thing you have to do to everyone, they are constantly touching each other, and if they are a couple doing even more! It is nothing to see a couple give a kiss on the tram or the side of the road. And we’re not talking a quick peck here, it’s usually a good full-mouth romantic kiss. Yesterday while waiting at the tram stop a couple across the tracks was making out! I just want to carry a sign around saying “Get a room!”

I took my first French test on Friday. I bombed it madly! Unfortunately, I had left most of my books at the boy’s house on Wednesday and therefore was unable to really study for it. I looked over what notes I had a little, but they were pretty useless. The exam was about 8 pages long. One page I could actually answer fairly well. Meaning I knew what it was asking and thought I knew the answers. On another page, I knew what they were asking, but was unsure of the answers, or rather unsure of the sex of the nouns and thus unsure of the answers. All the other pages I just stared at blankly remembering that we had studied it, but not having a clue as to what to do. Talk about a humbling experience. Ann felt so sorry for me that she came over Saturday for free and went over it with me.

Pamela came over for dinner last night. She was our first real dinner guest in this tiny apartment. Amy cooked quesadillas and guacamole salad. It was quite delicious. Then we had strawberries for dessert! Quite lovely. It was good to see we could actually have a small dinner party in this place as well.

I have been making myself lists each day of things to accomplish. I had become so lazy and complacent that I really need a list of activities to accomplish. This has actually helped out a lot. I’ve managed to write a number of pages on my book. I have made some cds for friends, blogged, and done a lot of reading. Here’s to hoping I keep it up.

I am kind of fibbing on the books I am reading section of the front page. I am also reading a book by Mary Higgins Clark that Tammy gave me. It is so horribly written I was embarrassed by it. Let’s just say it involves kidnapping and multiple personality disorders! How much more cliched could it get?! Why do people buy this kind of trash? Why do I keep reading it?

That one is easy enough. Tammy gave it to me and I’d hate to tell her I didn’t read it. Even though she admitted it was awful. Plus it is super fast and easy to read and gives me something to do while I’m in the bathroom. I understand why people don’t read. They are very busy with maintaining a social life, working, keeping up a romance, taking care of children and there is the almighty TV that keeps us all entertained.

But of the people who read, why would you purchase such dumb books? And obviously, they do because she, and many others like her, are on the best seller’s list all the time. I understand the need to read something light that doesn’t make you think too much. I understand reading as escapism. But there are so many other books out there that aren’t too demanding, that create wonderful, frightening, mysterious, hilarious worlds to escape into. I don’t mean to sound like a book snob. I was that for many years, and have since overcome my ‘you shouldn’t read anything but the classics’ phase. It just makes my head spin that this tv movie of the week kind of book is actually sold by the truckload. For the record, the title of this one is All Around the Town.

And now as I look at that Amazon link, I realize the average reader rating is 4.5 out of 5 stars! Here is one of their reviews.

“Laurie Kenyon was kidnapped at the age of four, and was returned to her family two years later. Now, her parents have died, and she’s suspected of killing her English professor. This book has it all – short chapters, excellent plotting, psychology, and even an Australian character in this American book. Go on – read it! (A+)”

Short chapters! Psychology! An Australian! These are the reasons I should read this book. Sweet lord, I’ll shut up now before I go insane.

I’ve been slowly updating the site. I finally figured out how to get my picture back into the main page. I’ve also added a list of the current books I am reading to the sidebar. I’ve always wanted to write real reviews of the books I read, movies I see, and music I listen to. The writer in me always wants to do it for writing practice, plus those pipe dreams I have of being a writer usually clash with the reality of practicality of 1) I’m not a good writer and 2) the only money I might ever see in writing would be in my reviews. The critic in me is perpetually writing reviews in my head, so I might as well write them for real right? I’d also like to have reviews of mine for future reference. A nice handy guide of the things I liked and panned and the reasons why. So maybe, I’ll use my free time in France (and there is plenty of it) to start writing reviews. I suspect I will place them on a separate blogged.

Potential problems with this idea are that I rarely read a new book, my taste in music tends to live in the 60s and 70s, and it’s a rare thing to see a movie here in France. Does anyone want to read reviews of old things?

I have been trying to write something original of late. I have a number of ideas for short stories and novels, but I find I don’t have the patience to write them. Everything I write I cringe at. I’ve had better luck with telling some of my own stories. I’ve always enjoyed telling stories about my life, and think I have become pretty good at it, so I am trying to get them into a written form. Perhaps I will blog about them sometime…