There's no set format for the class, except for that every day one person presents an "exposé" on a certain topic that is relevant to France or La Rochelle in particular. I did my exposé last thursday on the proposed changes to the retirement system in france, which is basically akin to our social security system, except that it covers around 85% of the average workers' retirement, compared to social security, which makes up 36% of US retirements. Sarkozy and company are trying to change the law to delay retirement from 60 to 62 in order to make the system solvent in the long term. one of the problems with it, however, is that it seems to advantage upper level employees (cadres) more than lower level government workers or privately employed workers. these people would have to work two extra years without increasing their retirement, while bosses could earn over 4000 extra euros per year for their retirement by delaying their retirement two years. it's also not likely to help unemployment rates, especially since now young people will have even a harder time than they already have finding work (the unemployment rate is around 10%, like it is in the states). any way, i think i successfully bored the class with that presentation (it was also the morning after Bastille Day, so I'm just gonna assume that's why everyone was falling asleep, haha).
Outside of class, going to the beach is a pretty popular activity, both during the day and at night. Here's a picture from the last time we went to the beach as a group at night:
This particular beach is right near the center of the city and it was actually a good place to listen to music from the francofolies concerts when they took place last week. It was also really cool to be in Europe for the World Cup, or as I got used to calling it, la Coupe du Monde. A few of us went downtown to watch the final game... at first I was going to root for the Netherlands, since I thought they were the underdog, and normally i like to root for the underdog. But then, during the first few minutes of the game, Pierre texted me and told me that he was rooting for Spain because the Netherlands wasn't exactly "fair play." Immediately after that, a dutch player judo-kicked a spanish player in the chest, which solidified my support for Spain. As Pierre put it, "The Netherlands isn't playing soccer, but kung-fu!" Emerald, Joe and I rooted for Spain, while Liz and Aayla, seen pouting in the picture below, cheered unsuccessfully for the Netherlands.
Last weekend we also made a trip to two chateaux of the Loire Valley, which was pretty cool. The trip was a little bit long for my liking, but it was really cool to see two castles from which the French monarchy used to rule the country. The first one that we saw was Amboise, which was 80% destroyed a few hundred years ago, so it was lacking a little bit of splendor if you ask me. It was definitely cool. Here's me in front of Amboise:
I think I preferred Chenonceaux, the second castle. One thing that Amboise had that Chenonceaux didn't? Leonardo da Vinci, who is buried there. Chenonceaux is more of a "fairy-tale castle," as you can see here:
Later last week, we also made a trip to Cognac, which is where--i bet you can't guess-- COGNAC is made. We took a tour of the Hennessy factory, which was really interesting. They showed us the process from the cultivation of the grapes all the way to the bottling. Cognac can only be made in the cognac region, and there are specific geographical regions north and south of the center of Cognac where certain soil nourishes the grapes differently, ultimately leading to different varieties of cognac. I think there are a few members of my family who would've really enjoyed that tour! Then we had a small tasting of the different flavors and they showed us (but did not let us taste) the bottles of cognac which cost over $10,000. Some of them are made from the "eaux de vie" that date from the early 1800s!! They amazingly still have these batches of raw cognac in bottles in the cellars we saw. I've also learned a lot about Pineau, which is a variety of wine (but a little stronger) that is a specialty of the region, and it is made with the same grapes as Cognac. People around here are amazingly proud of their products, it's almost overwhelming. And they also like to talk about how Americans don't really have anything comparable... Which i usually try to argue, but ultimately fail.
On Friday, I went to Phoenix's concert at the Francofolie music festival (picture above), which is in La Rochelle and I can actually hear quite clearly when I open my windows. The Francofolie festival is, I think, the biggest music festival in France and only brings in french speaking artists, but not necessarily people who peform in french....... case in point, the two groups i saw, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Phoenix, while French themselves, sang almost exclusively in English. I tried to imagine a music festival in the states in which an American started singing in French.... especially if the point of the festival was to promote anglophone singers. Oooh, the french. But anyway, back to Phoenix. They pretty much blew my mind and now I own a lot of their music. For a group of four parisians, they come up with some pretty good english lyrics...
On saturday, we went as a group to the Aquarium in La Rochelle. It is (apparently) one of the best aquariums in the world and had a ton of tropical fish (including nemo-fish and dorie-fish) as well as a hermaphrodite fish that Monica loves and some pretty sick sharks that would swim on top of you, basically.
in terms of language comprehension and learning, I've definitely come a long way since arriving in La Rochelle. Every night at dinner with Sylvie (and often her boyfriend Alain as well as various children who come in and out of La Rochelle from time to time) we discuss different aspects of french culture and society that we find interesting. yesterday we talked about overfishing and the environmental consequences of pesticide use, as well as the high costs of being "bio" aka organic. Today we talked about the military in France, and Alain told Victor and I about a few of the differences between our respective armies. For example, when going to war, the French ask their soldiers, "Are you prepared to go to war?" According to Alain, in his regiment of 88 people, only two replied "yes".... and by "yes," i mean "oui." The others said things like, Well I have kids, well I have this and that... I can now see a little more clearly why our army bears the brunt of so many of the conflicts around the world, especially since we don't let our soldiers opt out of their service when it's inconvenient to them. Dinner time discussions aren't always so serious though... Any way, it's time for me to crash so i can get up in the AM and do a short run.
@+!
tim
