Paris just didn't know what hit it when David arrived...

Hello Readers,

I am officially half-way through my program! Holy smokes, the time has gone quickly eh? Let me start with last weekend when David came for two days. Well, I woke up Saturday morning at 7:30am, it took me about 45 minutes to leave my room, and then I took the metro followed by the RER train out to the airport to pick up our friend David. David was actually supposed to arrive at 8:30am and I didn't get there until 9:30am so I was hoping that he just wouldn't be too mad at me or have gotten lost or anything since communication was proving difficult. However, as soon as I get to the gate and call him, I soon learn that he's still a few hundred kilometres away in London!!! Yes, David missed his flight! Oh Davie.... but luckily there was one going out a few hours later. So, that gave me some time to kill in Charles de Gaulle airport so I decided to sit in the little cafe there, order an espresso, and read some French poetry (lol). I'm not exaggerating when I say that either. We're reading "les Fleurs du Mal" by Baudelaire, it's some pretty deep stuff, I dunno if you guys would get it..... don't worry about it. Hahah anyway, David finally arrived with his little backpack on and tennis racquet under his arm. We arrived at his hotel about an hour later (the airport is way outside the city) but I can't judge David's taste in hotel's. Wow, somehow he managed to get a room on the 22nd floor of this 3-star hotel (there's only 4 stars in France) in a great area. The bed was the most comfortable bed I've ever felt.. seriously. Our first outing was to the Eiffel Tower but unfortunately there were waaayyyy to many tourists there and it would've been silly to wait for two hours to go up it. So, instead we bought tickets for the tour buses that go all across the best sites in Paris. A perfect idea for someone like David, who then got a chance to see pretty much everything one would want to see in the span of two hours on top of a double-decker bus. Later that evening we found a nice spot for dinner where David could experience some true French cuisine. We then met up with some other Whitties here in Paris and went to a club called Showcase which is under a bridge on the Seine river--a really sweet location. However, we were flat-out rejected! Hahahh yeah looking back on it, it was quite funny because the two bouncers and one hostess all looked us up and down then said, "Ce n'est pas possible" and showed us the way out. That literally means "It is not possible for you to enter", but they were thinking, "Don't even think about entering our club, you American filth." I think we were just wearing too many colours (wink nudge David jk jk) since colours don't exist here in Paris. I'm serious, the only colour that stores sell here is black; the only colour you EVER see on the metro, on the streets, in restaurants is black. So, if you're not wearing black, you're rather stuck. Hahah there's a little Fawlty Towers reference for ET and Jake. The next day was one of the most memorable days of my life. How is that possible you say? Only one answer - Roland Garros! David and I (very luckily) happened to get to the site just as a tour in English was starting. So, 12 euros later we started the tour, not really expecting much. We started with the outer courts, saw the academy that they have there, saw the numerous underground courts too! Since Roland Garros is the smallest site of all the grand slams by far, they've had to put a lot of things underground. Anyway, we then entered the stadium Philippe Chatrier to see the press room, interview room, players lounge, and even the MEN'S LOCKER ROOM! YAAAA..... which was lined with gold and rich mahogany wood everywhere, not to mention huge leather chairs. Plus, we all touched and smelled Nadal's famous locker (#159), but unfortunately not Roger's.... Then we went even further and we were taken out onto Centre Court of Roland Garros! How amazing is that?! So, naturally, David and I touched the clay, pretended to slide, pretended to be serving, sat in the umpire's chair, etc. etc. After that, David went back to the airport and flew back to London. Well, he actually missed his flight again because there was an accident on the train so it wasn't the smoothest travel weekend for David! But hey, now he's in Italy. 

As for me, I've decided to change my life around and start getting normal patterns of sleep. Hahah, yes too little sleep makes Jasper a dull boy. So now, with infinite reading to do, I will purely choose the most important passages to read so that I can get a good night's sleep and give my brain a chance to translate and speak more French during the day. I must say, the level of french has slipped a little here over the past two weeks for all of us so that really should change. My parents are coming on Monday though and staying for a week so that will be really nice to see them, not to mention the fact that I won't have to spend any money for the next week! Yes. Hope y'all's is doin' real good! 

An Eventful Past Few Weeks...

Hello everyone, I am so sorry that it has been so long since I last posted a blog. I have actually been much busier the last few weeks than I was during the first month of my time here both with work and play. As I was telling of the lack of school in my previous blog, I now have a surprisingly large amount of classtime, in particular at the Sorbonne. The building itself is a classic, old, Parisien building, but inside it's very clean and modern and teeming with students. Both of my literature classes there are five hours a week and consist of two different "cours magistrals" which are just lectures in "le grand amphitheatre" as well as one looonnnggg three-hour session of "travaux-dirigés" which is supposed to be the class analysis of the books but really is just another, longer lecture which is good and bad.... I mean, the students don't really get to discuss the books amongst themselves so the prof. just goes over everything herself but that's pretty nice for foreign students like me since she/he usually talks much more slowly and clearly than any of the students. In fact, there's more foreigners here than you think because it's really weird to suddenly hear a British accent in a sea of French. It's very strange when you assume someone is French (or whatever) sitting next to you, and three hours later, when class breaks, you hear them mutter "Ave never 'ad such a fuhckin' long class in me life". Ok, ok, I'm exaggerating but you get my point. Anyway, I've got seven hours of class on monday and thursday but only about two hours on every other day. This may seem like a lot (or a little if you're Christoph) but I'd much rather endure hearing excellent French while discussing literary masterpieces than suffer the very slow, and often idiotic discussions at IES. Let's just say that some girls here simply came to shop and go clubbing without speaking any French which makes for very difficult discussions in class. So anyway, enough about school..... two weekends ago the entire city was awake and walking the streets of Paris for La Nuit Blanche from Saturday evening right until dawn on Sunday. The night itself was fantastic and just ridiculous in general. I saw an organ concert in Notre Dame, a photo exhibit in a train station, an amazing beam of light that literallly pierced the atmosphere into space (you'll see some weird pics) while playing alien music, several art installations, Mcdonald's twice, and a crazy old guy. Oh, and we (don't include me in the we) went swimming at 3am in a public pool! The next day, I attended the most amazing horse races one could ever imagine for free! Straight out of "Seabiscuit", there was a huge 'hippodrome' with grandstand, women wearing big fancy hats, and men in suits everwhere. My friend and I found seats in the front row of the balcony and let me just say.... BETTING ON HORSES IS AN INCREDIBLE FEELING! With the large sum of two euro in our hands for each race (that was minimum bet lol), we watched six consecutive races and finally, on the last and most pretigious race, we hit some luck. By the way, this last race had a total prize money value of 4,000,000 euro (note that the owners are pretty much all from Dubai) so this was a really big deal. I picked second place and my friend picked third so we both ended up about equal after losing 8 euro on the first five.... big spenders, I know. Skip forward seven days to this past weekend when I went on an IES excursion to Normandy which starts with a classic, classic "jasper" story. Alright, I saw a long play the night before we left (thursday) and so I was up until about one or two packing and making sure I would be ready to leave the next morning. We had to be at the buses around 6:45am so as to leave at 7:10am just so you know. Oh and I live 30 minutes by metro from where the bus was leaving. Well........ I set my alarm for 5:30am.... yup, I was going to wake up, shower and have a nice leisurely breakfast. So, I woke up and it was 5:30am, my mobile was ringing (it's my alarm clock) and in the process of re-setting it for 15 minutes later (you know me) I somehow drifted back to sleep and did not wake up until 6:40AM!!! Looking back on this, it was actually a miracle that I woke up because there was no reason for me to wake up then. Well, thank God that I had packed everything the night before because I jumped into my clothes, grabbed my bag, and took off through the streets of Paris. Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with weaving through pedestrians because that would've been awful. Anyway, on the run, I got a call from a friend who was already there with everyone-- so I told him (truthfully) that I would be there on the dot of 7:10am because I still had a chance. I made the metro, and sat there praying that they would wait. Well... exactly 30 minutes later... at 7:10am I arrived at the bus and the best part of all is that I wasn't the last one! Haha, yeah there was one guy who just slept in and somehow showed up seven hours later in Normandy--no clue how he got there. Anyway, we pulled away a few minutes later while I crumpled into a seat. Normandy was fantastic! We visited the D-Day museum at Caen, the museum of Mulberry harbour (the temporary harbour made by the British around those beaches), and the famous American cemetary (*Saving Private Ryan). We even got to walk down and around on THE Omaha beach where the June 6th battle took place. It's really hard to believe that it actually happened there. Anyway, our hotel/hostel was shaped like a castle and right on the beach, which was great. We (you can include me on this one) swam in the Channel (it was very cold, but definitely worth it), played soccer on the beach, played golf on the beach with a staff member (just a little bunker practice), and even got taught some martial-arts moves by our inebriated-triple-blackbelt-but-now-overweight bus-driver. Awesome! Unfortunately, on the bus ride home, I came down with a really bad cold, and if you know me, when I get sick, I get really sick! Yah, I spent all Sunday in bed, and have been taking antibiotics for the past four or five days. I am better now, and am excited for the arrival of David this weekend. Yes, David is flying in from London Saturday morning to experience Paris in a wild one day and a half visit. I hope I can show him a good time.... no doubt since we'll be starting with Roland Garros and the Tenniseum!

I'm Jasper Follows

You stay classy Walla Walla/Vancouver

School?

Well, I'm back in the land of the living (ie - I have internet again). I've been meaning to write this post for a few days now but, for some reason, my internet refused to work for the past three days. It's really a miracle that it's working now because I haven't done too much to fix it and I was sure that I'd have to find someone to help me with it. Anyway, I don't think that I mentioned it before, but I'm (going) to be taking two of my five courses at the Sorbonne, which is really cool for the simple fact that it's the Sorbonne and hopefully I'll be able to meet some nice French people (ie - girls). So, this past Monday, after my first class at IES, I journeyed to the Sorbonne (which is surprisingly close to my house) and made my way to the big entrance hall along with dozens of other students. Just to let you know, University here is completely different from anything in the US. There is absolutely no orientation, no advisors, no living in dorms to meet other people, and I believe the application process takes about ten minutes -- "Hhmmm, you got an A in literature, you've got nice posture, plus you look like you'd fit in, alright you start in two months". So, that being said, I'm sure that many students standing in the entrance hall there had never even seen the place before. Anyway, there was a man sitting behind a welcome desk so I went up to this guy and just asked him where my literature classes would be taking place. He gave me a funny look which doesn't always mean he doesn't understand, he just thinks there's something wrong with you. Then he simply told me that all literature classes start next week, on October 6th! I didn't even know what to say..... but I can say that that is the perfect example of the French university system. How the hell would anyone have known that? They wouldn't and so everyone would just show up and be told to come next week. Oh well.... I can't really complain since that just shortened my semester to two and half months and gave me another week of "vacation". However, in reality, I have a lot more work from IES than I thought and not being used to work, I always start at 10pm and end up sleeping at 1am, which isn't that good if I'm waking up at 7:30am which is my start time each day. Oh and good news on the tennis front -- I can subscribe to this club that I played at a week or two ago for less than half the yearly price which is very pleasing indeed. By the way, every court except for one is red clay! I might make a grinder yet. Ha, I doubt it but it's certainly good for defense and consistency in general. Now it's just a matter of finding good guys to hit with and maybe finding a pair of clay-court shoes. Mine are so slick I can barely serve without falling over afterwards. This weekend should be very exciting because on Saturday night, there's an event called "La Nuit Blanche" which is a saying for an all-nighter and it's taking place across the entire city. It's not really a party, but more a celebration with tons of performances of all kinds--pretty sweet. Plus, on Sunday I have two free tickets to the "Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe" which is a huge horse-racing event taking place at the biggest "hippodrome" in Paris. So, in a few days I shall tell you how it all goes. I miss you guys and I wish you all the best at the ITA's this weekend. I hope the weather is accomodating!