Dialects...

This was fun... I always love dialect differences.



Some other Chicago local flavors:

Jelly Donut = Bismark
The area where you can walk/drive under an elevated section of street/highway = viaduct
The small walkway between two houses = gangway
an Armoir = a Wardrobe
Sneakers = gym shoes

And yes, soda is "pop"

Feminism = Clinton?

OK... so this is a debate that has been going on for the past day on another forum and I had to share it with you all... I'm pretty sure I know what your responses are going to be, but I think this is an important issue.

According to the New York chapter of NOW "Senator Ted Kennedy Betrays Women by Not Standing for Hillary Clinton for President." The secondary headline to the article is "Ultimate Betrayal Felt by Women Everywhere"... really? everywhere? Why? Because ALL women identify with Hillary as representing THEM? I do want to stress that the National chapter of NOW has disagreed with the NY chapter sentiment - publicly. NOW endorsed Clinton, but does not disparage Kennedy for supporting Obama.

A friend of mine, bless her heart, posted this with kind of a "hell yeah" fervor, I think expecting all of us fellow feminists to give a big "huzzah". So far, it's been her against three other women (myself included) and the argument is basically this:

Us: Voting for a woman because she's a woman is no different than NOT voting for a woman because she's a woman. Gender isn't a deciding factor, the issues are. It makes women look bad when they say "well yeah, I'm for Hillary because she's a woman" because that says the issues and political stances aren't as important as the person. One woman brought up that Hillary is far from being a real liberal and that Feminist organizations rarely endorse the most liberal candidates in favor of big-name candidates.

Poster: I'm not voting for her because she's a woman, I'm voting for her because she's not a man. It's about time we had a female president. Gender is always a factor.

OK... to be fair - I do agree that it IS about time that we had a female president and that, like it or not, admit it or not, gender is always going to be a factor used to evaluated candidates (just recall the "crying" incident from a few weeks ago). Now, in the case where all substantive factors were equal - let's just say for arguments' sake that Obama, Clinton, and Edwards all had the EXACT same stance on all issues - well then, I guess in that case the decision could come down to gender or some other non-policy related issue. But, close as they may be to eachother, they are not the same.

That said - I find it shallow, immature, and politically demeaning to select a candidate based on gender. That's no different than choosing someone because they seem like someone you'd like to have a beer with, or because you like their suit. It's totally immaterial. The hidden subtext here is that Hillary is the only feminist candidate because she's the only woman. Discounting the fact that there are a great many feminists who are men. Edwards, with his anti-poverty policies is very feminist in that he argues for better jobs and living wages and social services - all issues that profoundly impact working women. Obama also supports social welfare policies, better wages, and is anti-war. Feminism is about a lot more than just birth control, sexual choice, and abortion - which is, frankly, something the Liberal (in the traditional sense of the word) Feminist groups have yet to grasp. The fact that she voted for the war is enough for me to not vote for her. And I guess that makes me an anti-feminist, woman-hating, pig...

Siddhartha Wozniak

Last night, after fixing some crazy Microsoft based bugs that have been plaguing me for months, I had the best dream.

I dreamed that I was visited by the geeky Dali Lama, who looked like a young Steve Wozniak.

He filled my hard drives with enlightenment, and gave me a 3G iPhone.

I wrote some kick-ass code and won the Nobel Prize for programming.

This was the happiest dream I've had in years.

Psalm 69:

I happened across this online and had to share.

(Ministry fans should get the title of this post)...

80 year old pipes + Cold = Bad

Early this past Tuesday morning, an underground water main near our neighborhood finally succumbed to Chicago's vicious cycle of freeze-thaw winter weather.

From the Tribune:

Winter is the season of water-main breaks, but this one was a doozy. A 3-foot-wide iron pipe that had been carrying water for a century couldn't take it any more and ruptured about 1 a.m. Tuesday, leaving a hole 80 feet across and 15 feet deep in the Ravenswood neighborhood. The flood also collapsed an 80-foot section of the brick sewer.

"It was like a river with a current just flowing down the street," said Debra Fanning, whose cellar was invaded by a couple inches of the brown muddy water. "It was scary." ...

...The water infrastructure of many of the city's outlying neighborhoods was built during a population boom from about 1880 to 1920 and is nearing the end of its life expectancy, said officials with the city's Department of Water Management.

Obsolete cast-iron pipes like the one that broke early Tuesday make up more than 20 percent of the city's 4,300 miles of water mains, officials said. They are slowly being replaced -- this year about 40 miles will be redone -- with pipes made of ductile iron, an alloy that is stronger and less susceptible to damage from sudden fluctuations in temperature.

Thankfully, we're far enough away where it didn't affect us, but I took a detour Wednesday morning and boarded the "L" to work at the Montrose station instead of my normal station, so I could see the carnage for myself...

Looking West from the Montrose Brown-Line (Ravenswood) station

Look closely here... Notice where the doorway to the restaurant ends at about the midline of the photo? See the water and objects floating underneath it? That can't be good for the foundation.

Movie Review: Persepolis

I wouldn't be surprised if most of you haven't yet heard of this film. I only knew about it because of the "Nothing but Trailers" show we get on DirecTv.

Named for the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire, the film is meant to put some depth into the picture of Iran and Iranians in Western eyes as well as tell a personal account of one woman and her family struggling to make sense of what was happening to their country. The name evokes a time when the Persian Empire was a center of philosophical, educational, and scientific discovery. A stark contrast to the Iran we know today. This story reminds us that Iran was once a modernized country, but the Shah's oppressive rule (supported by the US), the religious revolution, and then the Iran-Iraq war made it the country we see today.

Especially when there are tensions between our countries, we must remember - like we would want other countries to remember about us - that just because a government does something does not mean that the people of the country fall lock-step behind it and that there's often more to a story than we realize, if we just dig a little deeper for the personal perspectives of those who lived it.

The film is based on the true story of the author, Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian woman who grew up during the revolution and the Iran/Iraq war. Her family sent her abroad to escape the dangers of life there and it's about her coming of age in the 1980s in Europe struggling to fit in, with her identity, and missing her family. She eventually decides that she doesn't belong in Europe, returns to Iran to find she no longer belongs there either. She eventually moves back to France, and leaves Iran behind forever.

The animation is stunning, like nothing you've ever seen. The music is lovely. The story is engaging, interesting, poignant, at times funny and at others sad. I wasn't surprised to see it was a nominee for a Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Film category (it's in French). It was just announced that Persepolis is an Oscar nominee for Best Animated Feature. I like Ratatouille, but this is far superior in style, voice, and story.

If it's playing near you (it's likely an art house flick) I highly recommend it. (Click on the picture to go to the film's website).

Early voting

I know, I know. The old adage "Vote early, vote often" in reference to corrupt Chicago politics makes the concept of real early voting a bit comical. I even said to the electioneer I passed on the way to the polls who asked me "here to vote early," "yes, but not often" and he laughed.

It's a great concept and the electronic equipment they have to monitor everything makes it possible. They enter your voter registration information into the system and upload it onto a little card that goes into the machine. This card doesn't store your vote information, but merely allows anyone at any location to determine whether or not you have voted already. Then I used the electronic voting machine, one that had a paper receipt (kept in the machine, but that you can view through a window to verify your vote). They've done this for the past few elections now and it seems to work well.

What they wanted to do was ensure that everyone has a chance to vote. What often happens is that people's schedules on election day don't allow them to vote - especially if they are elderly or have a work schedule that makes it nearly impossible to make it to polling places that are sometimes far from home or work. They also want to avoid long lines and crowds at the last minute before polls close. So, similar to absentee voting (though you don't have to have a reason to do early voting) you can cast your vote at any participating location (in or out of your precinct) any day from 9am to 5pm, including Saturdays.

I went today because I have the day off and I figured what better way to honor Martin Luther King Jr. than to exercise my right to vote. Even though MY right to vote wasn't in question during the civil rights movement, I felt it was a good statement.

I firmly believe that election day should be a national holiday so that those who want to vote but whose schedules make it impossible can. Sure, then there'd be people who just get a free day off that they don't observe for it's real purpose... like non-Christians on Christmas perhaps. To that complaint, I say - so the fuck what. We should be doing everything possible to ensure that everyone that can and wants to vote, can vote.

Of course, I also think that there should be more federally mandated election processes to avoid problems in certain states. But that's apparently just the commie in me.

Google has a house party

This video is too fuckin' funny.

Paris, Day 3

New Year's Eve: Boat Cruise, the Louvre, and Fireworks in a Public Square --what the Fuck Were We Thinking?

We woke up intent on using our river cruise ticket from the night before, before it got too crowded. So we hopped in a taxi and went to the pier near the Eiffel Tower - and took more pictures of the tower in daylight. We waited about a half hour, got seated on a boat in the outdoor section in back (where picture taking is best) and had a great time. Below are only a few of the photos we took:

View of the tower from the river below.

I could spend all day taking pictures of the bridges. They're amazing.

Annie enjoyed the cruise too.

This would be a great picture if it weren't for the crane.
John photoshopped the crane out of it, but I couldn't find the file. So use your imagination.

After the cruise, we poked around in the little gift shop, got a few souvenirs and were going to go to the Louvre. John, however, wasn't feeling well, so I left him to nap while I took the Metro to the Louvre and spent about 2 hours in the Ancient Greece & Egypt wings. I should have spent more time there.

One of the main halls in the ancient Greece wing.
This place really was a palace at one time, and it looks it.

I call this "Great Pan's Nutsack, Batman".
I really didn't intend to get a money shot here, I just liked the sculpture.
Good thing for me, my camera captures superb detail...

The Louvre certainly has a great Egyptian collection.
Thanks to Napoleon who raided the goddamned place and stole all their goodies.
This is a bronze statue of Horus. I just loved the shadow effect.

In retrospect (and you'll see why), I should have stayed until closing, stopped at the grocery on the way home to get a bottle of champagne to chill in the bathroom sink (well, where else?), gotten John, gone out for dinner and stayed in our hotel room watching the festivities on the Rue de Rivoli from the comfort of our terrace.

Instead, I went back to the hotel, John and I got some dinner at a place down the street, and we headed over to Trocadero, a plaza overlooking the Eiffel Tower to watch the fireworks.

A little brasserie near our hotel in the Marais. I had a wonderful dish of sauteed shrimp over rice made with some kind of cheese. John had... a burger. The cheese and bread are like nothing in the states.

Now, those of you who know me are probably asking themselves - "You intentionally went to a public place you knew would get crowded to watch fireworks? You won't even do that on July 3rd in Chicago."

Yes. I know. We're dumb. I don't know what we were thinking. I guess I was thinking that I could deal with it for the novelty of the experience (in retrospect - crowds are crowds, and fireworks are fireworks). I mean, how much worse than the fireworks at Taste of Chicago could it possibly be? Right?

We should have taken in the view for a while, and then left.

Well... It was horrific. One of the worst experiences of my life to date.

Not only was it crowded, but the French push, no, shove their way through crowds. You've seen the videos of people getting crushed at Futbol games in Spain right? Well - it was that level of shoving. I'm not joking or exaggerating. To make matters worse, we camped out on the edge of a dry fountain on a building, because it was a place to sit. This also meant that we were effectively cornered. From about 10:30pm to Midnight, all John did was hold back a wall of people from falling on us. Thankfully Western Europeans are a small people.

People sitting on the fountain and statues in Trocadero.
In retrospect, where we should have gone but I was afraid we'd get kicked off... puh.

John's favorite way to sum up the complete disregard of others in favor of individualism that was on display is this:

Imagine a 6' 3" guy holding back a crowd of people who are being pushed from the middle of the crowd, when all the sudden, a tiny Japanese woman emerges from the crowd with a kid no more than 2-3 years old. You might be asking what she was doing there - she probably got trapped up front without realizing how bad it would get - the mass crowd descended almost instantaneously like that scene from The Birds where Tippi Hedren is waiting outside the school while the crows silently pile up on a jungle gym behind her without her realizing until it was too late - only to be forced to make her exit through the mass humanity to prevent herself and her kid from being crushed. Anyway. She's trying to exit the Trocadero plaza and wanted to get up and over the wall of the fountain (about 2-3 ft high - about neck level of her kid) to get away from the pushing. As she tries this, she's hunched over her kid trying to protect him from being crushed up against this wall that likely would have broken his neck or choked him - when John notices this, and loses his cool. He shoves the crowd back, and yells "There's a child here, stop pushing!!" When no one seems to understand, he uses the word "baby" instead of child. One man in the crowd - intent to get where he is going, looks at John dead in the eyes and says "It's not MY baby" and continues on. The woman finally did get over the wall and disappeared. Absolute chaos.

It wasn't all bad. There was a nice older couple who was trying to help calm me down after I started feeling claustrophobic and trapped and was about 2 steps away from a full-blown panic attack.

The aftermath was, however, enjoyable. After people started leaving, we scurried into a corner no one would want to be in, and ended up talking to some people. One man from Germany, another from Paris who spoke very little English, and another couple consisting of a guy from Quebec and his girlfriend from California (the only girl who kissed John (on the cheek) that night except for me - and that was for helping her off the fountain).

The Parisian, drunk off his ass, fished a bottle of what can only be described as the French equivalent of Boone's Farm out of his backpack (he had broken his other bottles in the backpack) and is pantomiming a corkscrew to people to help him open it. John looks at the bottle, looks at me, I giggle. Then John takes it, untwists the screw cap and says "Voila!" The man looks at John bewildered, not believing that the bottle is open, he sticks his finger in the bottle and then pours a little out to make sure it's open - then gives John a huge hug and shares his libations with me. He didn't understand that John doesn't drink - and offered it to John about 50 times as well. He also offered for us to come live in his house while he went to Chicago. He told us that he hated Paris in one sentence, but then praised it as his "coeur" (heart) the next. Awesome fellow.

After this, we wandered through the streets looking for cab, avoiding the broken champagne bottles, puke and occasional reveler who had more than their share. Eventually we found a cab and got back to the hotel room around 2 am. We talked a bit about what happened and cuddled until we fell asleep around 4 am, when finally we crashed from the exhaustion of the day.

We interrupt this broadcast...

A very good friend of mine is trying to get her book published, and has entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award through Amazon.com where the grand prize is a publishing contract. If you enjoy reading and have a few spare moments, please download and read the excerpt (~14 pages) and rate it for her.

About the book:

"Oblivious of the dangers that surround her in World War II Ukraine, sixteen-year-old Nadya sneaks out in the middle of the night to ask a fortuneteller about her lover. She returns to find her house on fire, her family missing, and her boyfriend suspected in their disappearance. The couple flees to escape the invading Russian army, but only Nadya survives, ending up in a Displaced Workers camp in Germany. There she meets Pavlo, and fear and loneliness bind her to him. She chooses to leave the past behind as they begin anew in America. After a lifetime of love and loss, Nadya is forced to confront her ghosts when an envelope arrives from Ukraine. In Nadya's world, myth and magic are a part of daily life-house spirits misplace eyeglasses and sewing needles, a fortuneteller's cards can predict the future, and the dead softly whisper secrets in the night. Nadya must decide how to appease her dead, and in doing so she may finally find a way to start living."
--Valya Dudycz Lupescu Speaks About The Silence of Trees Official ABNA Entrant

Below is a portion of her message regarding how to access the excerpt, etc. You have to be an established Amazon customer to rate anything at Amazon and in the essence of fairness, this is limited to Amazon customers.

Hello friends and family,

My first novel manuscript, THE SILENCE OF TREES, has been selected as a Semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. It is one of 836 excerpts that were chosen out of 5000 entries and announced on January 15th.

The top 100 will be selected based on reviews and feedback. This is the equivalent of American Idol for writers. I am asking everyone to please visit the free website, download & read my excerpt, and give it a review.

Each individual review submitted is the actual vote that is tallied. Your vote does make a difference! (Plus there are incentive prizes. )

Voters must have an Amazon.com account to download, rate and review the excerpt, but there is no charge to become an Amazon customer. The voting ends at 11:59:59 p.m. on February 28, 2008.

For more information, you can also visit my website at www.thesilenceoftrees.com

Thank you very much in advance!

~V

Paris, Day 2

Sunday, Dec 30
Musee D’Orsay, Eiffel Tower dinner, river cruise and Moulin Rouge

View from our hotel window at night. Those blurs are scooters.

We got a later start than we wanted again, just due to sleeping in and then getting our stuff together. We went to a little patisserie down the street and got some pastries for breakfast. I had the best chocolate raspberry croissant in the world. We turned on the TV in the room to see if we could find a local weather report. Instead, we found that French morning cartoons are really fucking strange. The picture below is from a cartoon in which a dog was trying to convince a talking pea to eat his vegetables. We were cracking up.



We planned to go to the Musée D’Orsay on this day because the museum is closed every Monday and also would be closed New Year’s day.

Rue de Rivoli, a.k.a. the Ravioli Road

We made our way there on foot (just under 2 kilometers). We spent about an hour in the plaza of the Louvre just taking pictures of the architecture and the pyramids while every five minutes John would say with fake teary-eyed inflections “this is where Tom Hanks stood.” That experience made us decide to go to the Louvre the next day rather than the Picasso Museum.

This is where Tom Hanks stood when he pondered the greatest conspiracy theory in the history of the world...

Pyramids by I.M. Pei. Equally loved and hated, depending on who you ask.

The building alone is impressive and I started to realize that Eddie Izzard wasn’t kidding when he said “we’re [Europe] up to here in fucking castles...we long for a bungalo.” The Louvre was first built in the 12^th Century and eventually served as a royal palace to Louis the XIV. It was turned into a museum just after the revolution.

On the way, John stopped to rig up his tripod to take pictures of us on the bridge.

That's the Louvre on the left and the Musée D'Orsay on the Right.
We're standing on a little footbridge just West of Pont Royal.
Awwwwwwwwww. Yes, I know.

We eventually made it to the Musée D’Orsay around probably 1 or 2pm, and the lines to get in were massive. Instead of reading signs, we stood in line for probably a good 45 minutes until I decided we were in the wrong line. Sure enough, after investigating further, our Paris Museum Passes should have put us in the shorter line.

We were in the wrong line... c'est la vie.

Ironically, we probably had just as long left to wait in the longer line by the time we got in. We decided to just wander around and skip the Impressionists (which is what a lot of people go there to see) because, well, the Art Institute of Chicago has the second largest collection of impressionist art outside of France. I wanted to see things I haven’t seen before.

The museum was once an old train station, and what used to be the central room of the station is now one huge sculpture gallery.

The main hall of the Musée D'Orsay, where the bulk of the sculpture collection is kept.

We spent a great deal of time in this area, just looking at all the sculptures from various periods and places. One in particular caught John’s eye because we had seen it on a show called Art in the City on Ovation TV (if you get this channel, check it out, it’s awesome). The host of the show pointed out one sculpture that was actually rescued from a Paris trash dump. In fact, much of the sculpture in the Musee D’Orsay was lost or forgotten in storage rooms and never would have seen the light of day otherwise.

This sculpture was rescued from the trash.

The fanciest bathroom set I've ever seen.
Can you imagine crapping in a solid gold chamber pot?

There are many sculptures in the plaza outside the museum as well.
John just had to get a picture of an artist's rendering of a rhino's asshole.

We went back to the hotel, grabbed a snack, and took a brief nap so that we would be ready for our late night. We got all dolled up for our night on the town and took the metro back toward the Louvre to the tour office. I’m not much for tour packages, but this one seemed like one we could handle. It was dinner at Altitude 95 on the first level of the Eiffel Tower, followed by a river cruise, and finally a show at the Moulin Rouge. Well, things didn’t quite work out as planned.

The Eiffel tower elevator lines were massive. The tour guide said he’d never seen it this bad, ever. By the time he got the OK to get us on the lift, we were already 40 minutes late for dinner. It was decided that there would be no time for the cruise that night. The tickets for the cruise, however, were good any time for 2 years. John and I decided we would do the cruise the next day – which ultimately worked out better because it was less crowded and we got better pictures in the daylight.

The dinner was pretty good. I mean, it was a group meal for 25 people, so it couldn’t be the best meal Altitude 95 could provide. Much to our surprise and John’s delight- the meal was chicken. There was a salad, chicken with herbed mashed potatoes, and for dessert a mini chocolate soufflé and ice cream. It was decent – better than I expected for a group meal and I’m thankful that it wasn’t jellied duck balls or something like that either.

We had some time to wander the Eiffel Tower until we had to meet the bus back by the river to go to the Moulin Rouge. These are some of the 8 million pictures of the Eiffel Tower that we took.

Taken from Level 1, looking up.
The tower is so delicate looking despite being made of steel girders.

The show at the Moulin Rouge was good. The seating was cramped...the rear section is crammed with tables meant for six, seating 8 people. Thankfully there were a couple of no-shows in our group so we had a few empty chairs. Otherwise we would not have fit. The show started off like a Vegas Jubilee, then took on equal parts Vaudville, Burlesque, Circ de Soilel, Liberace on Fire, and of course – the Can Can. There was a strong-man and woman team that did all kinds of acrobatics and contorting their bodies in every which way while balancing on one hand and such. They were truly impressive.

I could probably write a whole analysis on why, with rare exception, all the women on stage were bare breasted while the men were almost always fully clothed. I know, I know… very few people in the world want to watch men jumping around stage in banana-hammocks, but still. It seemed extremely heteronormative and heterosexist...but then again, most of the world is.

We got back to the hotel after 2am.
A very busy day.
Posted by Laura & John (but blogger won't let us show it like that)

Paris, Day 1

Day 1: Dec 28-29
Departure & First Day: Travelling, settling in, wandering, Notre Dame & giving up.

We drove with our luggage and Annie over to my parents’ house. Since they were watching Annie while we were gone, we decided it best to just leave our car there and my dad drove us to the airport. We were afraid that flights were going to be delayed because they were predicting snow storms throughout the afternoon, but our flight left on time at 6:15pm.

On a whim, John upgraded us to Business Class so that we could have room to stretch out and sleep. While the food was good—a salad, pork, and selection of cheese or ice cream for dessert; all served on real dishes with real silverware and free wine—I honestly don’t think it was worth the price of admission.

Laura never says no to free champagne. But Annie can't have any.

First off, the flight attendants are actually less accommodating than in Coach. For instance, they would not give John an entire can of coke (yet he had two whole cans on the Coach trip home) because they’re “not supposed to.” We didn’t get any real sleep on the plane despite the help of drugs. Oh, and you can’t stow carry-ons in the seat in front of you so it kind of defeats the purpose of bringing stuff on the plane with you if you have to keep getting up to get it. The lesson here? It must take a special kind of person to enjoy Business Class flights because I felt out of place and didn’t see what all the hubbub was about. Sure the seats reclined, but really, that’s about it.

We landed at about 9:30 am local time – which was now 2:30am Chicago time. Needless to say, we were beat. Customs was kind of a joke at Charles de Gaulle airport. They didn’t even ask us any questions like how long we were staying and if we were carrying any snails or other disease causing agents like the US Customs forms do. At first I wasn’t sure we’d actually been through customs at all.

We grabbed a taxi to the Hotel, which was not what we were expecting. We did grow to like the hotel after we were moved to a different room. The first room we had was tiny. Now, I know European hotel rooms are small, and we were OK with that. But this first room barely had enough room for two people and 2 suitcases. We got upgraded to a “Deluxe Double” which was much better. Still small, but with a full bathroom (the previous one had only a shower stall), and a window that opened out onto the Rue de Rivoli (or as we called it jokingly, the Ravioli Road), a full bath tub, and just had a better vibe to it.

The hotel itself was strange, since it was built into existing apartment buildings in one of the oldest districts is Paris (the Marais). You would hardly even know the hotel was there except for the small single-door awning on the street. The desk clerk held all the keys, and when you came and went, you left your key at the front desk – which was hard to get used to for us at first. In the end though, it was a nice place to stay. I wouldn't recommend this hotel to families or to people who are used to being pampered, but for us and the time we were there, it was fine. When we do eventually return, I would much rather rent a flat or condo. We couldn't do that this time because most of those are rented on a weekly basis and we were there only 4 days.

C'est une très jolie femme, n'est pas?
The Hotel France Louvre from the street.

Our surrogate Annie perched on the terrace.

By the time we settled in, it was between 11am and noon (4-5am Chicago time) and we were tired. So we took a nap and ended up sleeping until about 2pm. We got a later start than we wanted, but it worked out. We wandered around Isle St. Louis, one of the two small islands in the Seine between the right and left banks of the city, and made our way to Notre Dame. I just stood in awe that something that massive and ornate has been standing for over 700 years. We didn’t take the interior tour since the line was long and it was getting late. Next time.

St. Paul Church in the Marais District: The oldest Jesuit church in Paris

Isle St. Louis and Pont de la Tournelle



Notre Dame

We made our way back to the hotel, changed for dinner, and went to a little Italian place up the street called Le Bucheron John had found out about while researching restaurants. It was a tiny little Italian café run by Parisian hipsters. John had lasagna and I had Gorgonzola ravioli in a cream sauce. The waitress looked at me sideways when I ordered a half bottle of wine and John said he wasn’t having any… like it was a crime A) for John not drink wine with dinner and B) for me to drink a half bottle by myself.

After dinner, we decided then to make our way to La Cantada, that punk Absinthe bar I had found online. We took the metro to where (I thought) the closest stop was, and proceeded to get lost (even with the help of John’s GPS) as the neighborhood got progressively worse. John decided he’d had enough (read:pussied out) and we caught a cab back to the hotel. In retrospect, it was probably the right thing to do, but I wasn't happy about it at the the time. No big loss really since I can go to Delilah’s, a punk bar on Lincoln Avenue a couple miles from our apartment in Chicago and get absinthe now that it's legal.

Posted by Laura & John (but blogger won't let us show it like that)

Updates n such

Yes, I promise stories & photos from our trip are forthcoming. John has to add his $0.02 to my draft of Days 1 & 2 and we have to sort through some pictures.

[edit by John: I have "added my $0.02" yesterday :P ]

[edit by Laura: nobody told ME that... ]

In other news...

I bought my books for my last class and the list is equal parts interesting and ultimately depressing. But then again, that's the nature of Political Science.

The course is "Counterterror and Human Rights" and the books are:

Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past

There's Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence

Intelligence and Human Rights in the Era of Global Terrorism

Global Surveillance and Policing: Borders, Security, Identity

Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies

I think I'm going to report the third book the the proper authorities. The editor obviously did not get the memo that books require a strategically placed colon in the title followed by an equally lengthy subtitle. :p

Quite a hefty reading list. I doubt we will be reading each one cover-to-cover as that is rarely the case in these classes. I'm also sure there will be some journal articles peppered throughout the syllabus. But I'll certainly let you all know what I think of each of these to the extent that I can.

Yes, Yes, we're back

It's going to take a while to sort through all the pictures (1,300 photos in 4 days) and write a collaborated post about our trip. Some highlights:

1. You can, indeed, find chicken almost anywhere you go.
2. New Year's Eve in a public square overlooking the fireworks is a bad idea. It made Grant Park on July 3rd look tame.
3. Pictures just do not do architecture and sculpture justice, you have to see it.
4. The Arc de Triomphe in person gives a whole new dimension to the term Napoleon Complex.
5. I finally found a city that has a better Magnificent Mile than Chicago.
6. Pretty much everyone speaks a little English, but they appreciate your effort of trying to speak French.
7. Everyone wears friggin jeans - so let's quash that rumor that if you wear jeans in Europe you'll instantly be spotted as an American.

and.

8. With the exception of the Hooliganism on NYE, no - the French are not "rude" and they don't hate Americans.

Photos and such forthcoming.

Tattoo appointment went well, I'm done. Hannah is back in LA, new episodes premiere this week. I'll post pictures of that once it's healed.

OK... now, back to work for the first time in 2 weeks. Ack.