Here are some pics from my most recent voyage up north. I went to visit my host family that I stayed with when I was in high school. It seems like not much has changed, except all the children are approximately five times as tall. Seth and I made the seven hour train ride of a trek up there. On the way, we had a four hour layover in Paris, which is just enough time to walk through everyone's favorite cemetery, Père Lachaise. We saw them all--and by that I mean about ten: Piaf, Montand, Morrison, Bizet, Seurat, Modigliani, Wilde, Chopin, Balzac, etc.

My computer broke last week, which is fun. Rachel and I were just in the middle of watching "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," and my computer told me it needed to be rebooted, and then it just wouldn't start. I suspected that the ghost of Paul Newman was watching it with us, but my computer just couldn't handle the paranormal activity, so it quit. Apparently it needed a new logic board. Thank goodness for Apple Care Protection Plans.

School is going. . . I should probably make it to the library more often. Here, you don't really have to buy text books--you're just supposed to go the the library and read for hours a week. I've been to the library before. It was fun. I'll make a habit out of it soon enough.

I've decided that for winter break I'm going to go back to Brêtagne to visit my host family again for the first week, for the second week I'm going with my friend Celina to Madrid to stay with another friend from IU, and for the last weekend, Celina and I will live it up in Paris. She's found someplace to go swing dancing there! My feet miss swing dancing.

I'm also on the verge of deciding what to do with my second spring break. . . My new friend Katie is putting together quite the trip, thus far comprised of six days in Iceland hiking glaciers and soaking in hot springs followed by another voyage down through Germany.  

This weekend a couple of really nice French girls from my cognitive psych class are taking Elizabeth and I on a day trip to Cassis. Can't wait!

Some pics:

I did not tell them to stand like that.

Erquy.

It was just a little too chilly to dive in.

This is the view that Bizet's ghost has from his resting place. (I've been getting mixed reviews about the Dutch tilt. I like it.)

What a dreary day--perfect for a walk through Père Lachaise!

French word of the day:

mie (mee) = the soft, squishy, white part of bread (why don't the anglophones have a one-syllable word for that?)

Selon moi, la meilleure partie du pain est la croûte, mais Pierre préfère la mie.

Third post of the past ten minutes. . .

It's been a while. Oops! The news:

Last Wednesday, I went to the hospital to have my first EEG of my brain. Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with my brain. I did this because I'm going to start working in Dr. Cheryl Frenck-Mestre's psycholinguistics lab, which does ERP/EEG research. She's been very accommodating with explaining to me the world of psycholinguistics, and I really look forward to my time with her and everyone else in the lab. But before I can get my hands on any subject's head, I had to go through what they are subjected to. It was fun!

We had a halloween party. Here, nobody really celebrates it, so we thought we'd do France a favor by showing everyone how to throw a party for a completely commercialized holiday.

Classes are going. . . I like my linguistics class--learning the phonetic alphabet. My cognitive psych class is a little basic, but I'm doing a group project with some really nice French girls. I benefit from their language skills, and I try to help them out with their psych knowledge, given that they're the equivalent of freshman. I'm taking a fairy tales class--the four longest hours of my week every week. And lastly, my music history of the middle ages class is very interesting. Last week we started learning how to read the music manuscripts with the square notes and funny symbols.

Also, I love the market.

More pics

Halloween party!

Steven was a very convincing roadkill puppy.

Typical meal thanks to Steven. I'm a big fan of the toasted baguette with goat cheese and homemade fig confiture.

Mt. Ste Victoire

More mountain.

Mt. Ste Victoire

This is near the top of Mt. Ste Victoire, the mountain that Cézanne was so fond of painting. My camera lens is acting up a little bit, so there's an odd framing there.

At the very top of Mt. Ste Victoire. There's a church up there as well as a tall cross, whose shadow you can see here.

A lake.

Laura and I after our trek. Mt. Ste Victoire looks very small in the background, not because it is, but because it was far away. Good hike.

Laura and Celina