Tharoiseau, Bourgogne

I'm sorry to all my thousands of loyal followers that I've been so bad about posting recently, it's just that with less than a month left (!!!) classes have started to heat up and I'm trying to do as much stuff as I can. Anyway, here's an overdue post:

Two weekends ago I went with my host family to their house in a tiny little village in Bourgogne (Burgundy). I spent most of my time walking around Tharoiseau, which looks a lot like a town out of Beauty and the Beast, and Vézèlay, a larger more well-known town with a big, beautiful—in a kind of creepy Catholic way—cathedral. I also got to see a play-version of a book by little-known German writer named Gertrude von le Fort that my host dad translated from German into French that a small group of weirdo actors performed while we were there. I also got to know my host frère Cyrille better, which was cool.

Overall, it was a great trip and I'm really glad I got to see provincial France. Some photos are below:

(my home away from home away from home)

(interior with host bro Cyrille)

(oddly placed phone booth)

(old church with awesome, old lavoir once used by residents to wash clothes)

(famous cathedral of Vézelay, which holds Mary Magdalene's bones. or at least someone's bones.)

Atlas Sound

On a lighter note than below, I went to see musician Bradford Cox play under the pseudonym Atlas Sound this past Monday at a very cool Parisian venue overlooking the Canal St. Martin called Le Point Ephèmere. The set was a total trip fest, with Cox playing guitar and drums and using a pretty intense grid of pedals to loop and distort the music.

CSI:Paris

When I awoke this morning, I walked over to my window and, as usual, opened my blinds to gaze upon beautiful Paris. Much to my surprise, the area of street below had been sectioned off and was surrounded by a bunch of police officers. After talking to my host family, I learned that there had been a shooting earlier that morning. It seems that a pedestrian walked up to a car and shot all three people in the car. (I had not been woken because apparently a silencer had been used.) I heard that one person had been killed and that the other two were in critical condition. Hopefully they have the French version of Gil Grissom working the case. Above are a couple of photos I snapped.

Stockholm

Now that it's been a week since I got back from Stockholm, I figured it was time for a blog post. Between the work that I should be doing and continuing to discover Paris, it's been hard to find time to blog.

But anyway, Stockholm was pretty marvelous. It's an incredibly beautiful city made up of a bunch of islands connected by a ton of bridges. Chris, my travel partner, and I were able to mooch off of a friend-of-a-friend and stayed for free in an apartment just outside the city. We would take the subway, called the Tunnelbana, each morning into the city proper where we would spend most of our time walking around Gamla Stan (the old town island) and Sodermalm, the young, artsy area. We made frequent stops to Fika, a word that a Swede told us meant "coffee with a little more." When we asked what "a little more" meant, she said that it included "eating pastries and socializing with friends." Chris and I were quite impressed that the Swedes have a four letter word that expresses so much, and thus spent a good portion of our trip honoring this Swedish past time.

We also visited several museums, including the modern art museum and the national gallery, both of which I liked a lot. Another highlight included going to a bar one night and being pleasantly surprised to find a post-party for a Swedish hip-hop festival. (This was strange because apparently the festival had taken place several months ago.) Anyway, some of the rappers were pretty good. (The Swede's speak English so well they can even rap in it.) I wasn't as impressed, however, by the guy who put on a ski-mask and started screaming "Mosh." But to each his own, I suppose.

But perhaps the best part was just listening to people speak Swedish—very entertaining. In conclusion, I was very taken with Stockholm and definitely recommend it to anyone traveling through Europe.

(pictures below)

(I think this was at 4. Night comes early in Sweden in the winter.)

(Sodermalm)

(Pretty park right next to a big, beautiful library.)