La Basilique de Fourviere.

A nineteeth century basilica that sits atop the "hill that prays" - lame nickname - the largest bluff overlooking the Saone and the city as a whole. This is one of the main focal points of the cityscape. Since I've been a little down on France, I figured I ought to post something positive ... also one of the only five pictures I currently have access to. This isn't such a bad argument for liking Lyon though. It looks so mediterranean ...

And now for something completely different...

A post having nothing at all to do with France!

I have a pretty (un)healthy affection for Agatha Christie-penned books. It is probably not one of my better features. Usually they leave me feeling warm and fuzzy about the quaintness of England, and even murder. They are also an insane ego boost to charge through as they are written essentially for slightly slow fifth graders, and I make no qualms about small victories. Anyway. The only exception to this rule is, in fact, And Then There Were None, a book I read when I actually was, rather approximately, a slightly slow fifth grader*.

It scared the proverbial bejeezus out of me, as books about mulitple suicides will tend to do, mid-family-vacation-slash-camping trip. We wandered around Yosemite, which was very lovely, and ate Dinty Moore beef stew cooked over a campfire, which was also lovely, though probably only for me as it was my favorite camping food, but not actually good. Less lovely was when I noticed all the bear signage. Usually this wouldn't bother me, but post-mystery scare, I couldn't sleep. I became convinced I heard bear noises outside the tent. Just exactly what constitutes a bear noise, I could not tell you.

Within a few minutes, my paranoia had built and I became pretty well convinced that the bear had made it into our permanent tent platform thingy, and was, in fact, engaged in eating my little brother on the bunk below me.

I'm not sure exactly what the point to this story is other than that I was totally unconcerned by Chris' demise. Not that I don't love him, but I'm fairly certain all of my energy went into playing dead for my imaginary attacker for the rest of the night. Perhaps the moral of the story is that I am self-centered and not all that awesome of a person. Perhaps the moral of the story is that bears really are a threat. No wonder Stephen Colbert has them at number one.

EDIT: This picture is acutally an old Smokey the Bear anti-forest fire ad. How entirely terrifying! Smokey is much more cuddly.



*I was actually so slow I was put in a special remedial pencil holding class. I failed. But at that point in time it was just too depressing to let me down further, so they gave me stickers anyway and doomed me to illegibility forever.

L'éléction 2008, Part One: Bias

In 1939, the first edition of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Niggers was published. It would go on to become the best selling mystery ever - just not under that name. When the book was published in the States shortly afterwards, the title was changed to the litigation-friendly, controversy-free, and all around spookier And Then There Were None.

Fast-forward to something at least mildly relevant/interesting. One of the larger playhouses in Lyon is currently staging the theatrical adaptation ... which they are calling Dix petit negres, a backwards step I'm fairly certain you don't have to speak French to appreciate. Using our handy-dandy outdateness subtraction meter (which has previously been useful in brand new scandals in the priesthood (-5 or 6 yrs)) we can see that this theater company is, by now, 78ish odd years behind the times. And thats not even the half of it.

The French essentialization of the US Presidential race goes a little something like this:
Well, its either Clinton or the negre.
(actually what my seatmate said on my flight from London to Lyon this past weekend)

Hillary Clinton is lucky, at least in this respect, whatever you may think of every other respect, to be married to Bill. With a famous last name, she at least gets more specific credit that her own essentialization - that of being a woman. Though I can't say with any authority what the American discussion on this barrier breaking race is like at this stage in the game, I would rather think that it is not approached with such the - erm - shock and awe of the French who still have very rigidly defined gender roles at least to a certain, rather recent generation. One host parent here laughed at the notion that an American father would help with the housework. My host father refused to answer my request to cook, as the kitchen was not his domain, and another host mother refused to look at library registration information because forms were her husband's business.

This is all, of course, anecdotal. I have performed no great social survey, but the French view of the election, at least in my experience has been one more focused on prejudice than politicking?

And now, for the million dollar question: who do the French prefer?
In a national poll put out by one of the big daily papers, the French populace selected Barack Obama as their preferred pretender to the presidency. Vive la chauvinism, I suppose.

The Bitch is Back

If only I could post a little Elton John for you right now. Was gone fishing to Scotland and London, and now I'm back. I really will have to follow up on promises of trip updates I suppose. But here's what you neet to know for now:
a. Glasgow > Edinburgh like woah.
b. British food isn't half bad. But it is all fat.
c. I have been to London twice and still failed to see: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, or the inside of Saint Paul's. What exactly have I done?

The Look of Love

I went wandering on the presqu'ile (peninsula that is the city center) today and was struck by a few savory scenes:
°Two young guys, faces flushed and veins popping from their necks, being pulled apart by the drivers at a taxi stand on the very fashionable street they were trying to mash each others faces into
°Just around the corner, a couple somewhere between 18 and 22 strolling in front of the fine arts museum. When the girl reached out for his hand, her companion actually twisted away with very apparent disgust. She took it and they kept walking.
°A few blocks later, after an inadvertent turn on to the one short street that apparently makes up this very Catholic town's red light district, a thoroughly and typically seedy looking bunch of passer by. Save a rather clean cut young family. The - I assume - parents checking out the information posted at the nicest looking of the dumps while their tenish year old daughter waited across the street.

Happy February Thirteenth.
Better luck tomorrow.
I love you
I miss you

Rain Check

Just got back from Paris. Traditional study abroady updates promised soon.

It was delicious.

Open Letters To Europe 1

Dear French Critics,

Shove it.

Love Kate

Asterix et les Jeux Olympiques had Jamel Debbouze and his only arm and Zizou in all of his stereotyped Maghrebian glory. What more could a girl ask for?

French Fries

Registering both for classes and Sciences Po (the university) was semi-adventuresome to say the least - description potentially to follow depending on my bitterness and desire to bore you - and I coped as any good possessor of matched chromosomes would. With food.

France is pretty well stuffed with comfort food, actually. Chocolate, bread, cream sauces, etc. run rampant. Literally so, in fact when my host mother chases me from the dining room to my bedroom with breton butter cookies, insisting that I eat more. I would like to report that I had the class to partake. But no. Cos I don't conform like that, yo.

I went for:
1. the orbit gum
2. the cliff bars
that were left over from my trip here.Its just a shame that eating my homesickness couldnt have been slightly more gourmet.

I've been thinking a lot about what American cuisine is since I got here; both when trying to put my finger on just what it is that I'm missing (since it couldn't possibly be anything as meaningful as people or places) and as a function of cultural give-and-take conversations with Europeans, etc.

A Belgian abroad might miss the specific kind of sausage that she just can't find in neighborhood charcuteries. I miss rogan josh, and vietnamese crepes, and burritos and about a hundred other things. These are pretty broad generalizations of course, and it goes without saying that American Chinese food is hardly always what it would be in Shanghai, but the way that cuisine and social structure in the US are intertwined makes for some tough explanations. That the ensemble of immigrant food is American food, is not self evident to populations still dealing rather more actively with xenophobia even in well-educated milieus. Or as two Italian friends - perfectly open and amiable themselves - put it rather more succinctly last night, their compatriots "think they're not racist, but they are."

This occasionally false sense of social acceptance is constructed in opposition to what is seen as an often more bigoted American model ... the French fascination with the Civil War (at least two popular comics detail the mishaps of Confederates and Yanks) suggests that their conception of US social structure is out of sync with most all of the reality save perhaps the deepest south.

End pontification.

This is all a little serious, and more than likely an imperfect assessment on my part, but is to q degree representative of some other misnomers in visions of America from across the pond. McDonald's is wildly popular, relatively expensive, and has noooo clue how to make a milkshake. And it has beer(?!) on the menu. Almost all, save the 1664, is true of Starbucks. These are the finest imports, much the same way a Washingtonian might treat Cafe Bonaparte et al.

I would like to think that the big mac and the frappucino aren't the only things that American cuisine has to offer, but when I think of what we were advised to bring as gifts to our host families -
°reeses pieces
°red hots
°fluff
- or what I have envisioned for an All-American feast I've been fantasizing about making -
°pbj
°macaroni and cheese
- I suppose we aren't necessarily much above that.

Anyhow, advise me. How do I go about eating America?

EDIT: Some clarifications have hopefully been made. Also, the most homey meal yet? Ikea cafeteria food/Swedish candy. Case closed.