Shush

I'm sure you are all dying to know why I haven't been writing anything the past couple weeks. Well, the last couple weeks of February have been an awesome time: a seemingly unending string of minor illnesses, cold and rainy weather, and lots of homework. Ugh... it makes me miserable just thinking about it, so I'll spare you the details.

But I'll share with you a bit of my mood from class the past couple weeks.

Europeans never stop talking in class. I feel like I'm in an 8th grade classroom half the time. There's this constant level of background noise from students whispering with each other. Except, apparently Eurostudents aren't capable of whispering... they just talk really quietly (if you know what I mean). Thus, instead of the easy-to-ignore, white-noise, rustling like sound of whispering, you get the noticeable, hard consonant, unintelligible-but-unignorable sounds of very quiet voices. I know this isn't the cool thing to say, and I know the professors are boring, but some of us quit their jobs, packed up their households, moved across an ocean, and are taking out student loans to PAY TUITION WITH THEIR OWN MONEY to actually listen to the teacher. So shush.

High points, part 2

The irony of climbing the Eiffel Tower, is that it disappears from the cityscape and your view of Paris no longer includes that famously iconic image.  But it is still a fun trip, and certainly helps you appreciate just how enormous it really is.  When Gustave Eiffel built the tower (in 1889, to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Revolution and the World's Fair in Paris) he oversaw every single aspect, even building the steel frame pieces and rivets in his own factory.  Every seven years it gets repainted, although it has stayed brown since 1968 (I'd like to vote for a nice shade of forest green).  My favorite fact about the Eiffel Tower is this: it distributes its weight so elegantly that it exerts no more pressure on the ground per centimeter than a man seated in a four-legged chair.        

Beginning the trek

Champs de Mars, with the Tour Montparnasse in the background
(our final frontier in the way of tall things to climb)

See Sacré-Cœur on the hill?

We climbed the 650+ stairs to the second level, then the elevator to the very top (they don't let you take the stairs all the way up) and got there just in time to watch the sun set over the city. Eating our homemade picnic and pointing out all the monuments we could recognize, we avoided the 15€ shot glasses of champagne (yes, people will actually pay for that) and still managed to celebrate our life together with all its wonderful surprises.          

Palais de Chaillot

The Seine

Looking towards home...and La Défense (the business district)

It would be inappropriate not to include a kiss

We stayed up there until it got too cold to handle, and Tom thought he might have a seizure from the strobe lights that flash every hour (video to come).  They look a lot better from far away. 

Look at that handsome guy with his new haircut

What a great photographer...this picture is postcard quality!

High points

The domes of Sacré-Cœur

Usually around this time every year (Feb 17th to be exact) Tom and I hike Mt. Sanitas in a celebratory reenactment of that momentous day when we decided to tie the knot and stick with each other for good (aka- our engagement).  Since there aren't any mountains within 500km of us, we hiked up some other high places instead....to the Sacré-Cœur and the Tour Eiffel!  While the endless staircases and beautiful views reminded us of Sanitas, our excursions had a distinctive Parisian twist: peacoats and dress shoes instead of Gore-tex and boots, saussison sandwiches at the top instead of gorp...yes, we're trying to fit in. :) 

Looking up...

Looking out

A few interesting facts about the Sacré-Cœur:
-The church is devoted to the atonement for the massacre of some 58,000 citizens during the Franco-Prussian War (1871) and has even carried on the tradition of praying for those war crimes 24 hours a day, non-stop, since the church was consecrated more than three quarters of a century ago.  
-The travertine stone forming its structure constantly exudes calcite so it stays white, and gets even whiter when it rains.
-In WWII 13 bombs were dropped on the church but every single one narrowly missed the building and zero casualties occurred, something of a miracle and proof of God's protection, as stated on a plaque right inside the entrance.

Storm rolling in

A view of the Eiffel Tower

Sacré-Cœur from behind

Walking around Montmartre afterwards, we found Paris' one and only vineyard...quite a claim to fame.  They even produce a few hundred bottles per year, which are auctioned off at their yearly harvest festival. 

Clos Montmartre Vineyard

Chocolate

chocolate-lovers heaven

Our grocery store here is far from the mind-boggling mecca of choice that we have in America. (Shout out to King Soopers!)  But there is one food group where "choice" even seems too weak a word: chocolate bars. Look at this! It never fails to excite me.  I'm pretty sure we could try a new kind every other day during our time here, and never eat the same one twice.

Watching the big game

No, not the Super Bowl.  That started after midnight here, and I had a test the next morning.

I'm talking, obviously, about France's big triumph over Ireland on Sunday in the Six Nations tournament.  That's rugby, fyi.

Now, I am not going to become one of those obnoxious American soccer apologists, who go abroad and then come back and proclaim the world-wide glories of 'futbol' (spelled 'football' in English, thank you very much).  I've become mildly more interested in reading about soccer over here, but it's still boring to watch. 

Rugby, on the other hand, is pretty thrilling to watch.  The action never stops, but is constantly varying.  The ball changes possession a lot and they can score in different ways.  They don't wear pads and there are limits on tackling techniques, making it is less violent than the NFL.  Thus you don't feel guilty watching, unlike the NFL, where you know the players are most likely giving each other shortened, mentally-incapacitated lives for the sake of your entertainment. 

That being said, it is pretty complicated to get in to on your own.  There are a lot of rules governing minute details.  Margaret and I went to an Irish pub with my classmate Matthieu to watch the game.  He is from Toulouse, a rugby hotbed in the south of France, grew up with many of the Toulouse players on France's national team, and plays amateur club rugby.  We quizzed him on rules virtually the whole game, but I'm still not exactly sure what happened.  Take the scrum, for example, where the players gather around in a giant circle and push for the ball.  Turns out it is the most technical and strategic part of the game, and not just a shoving match.  The sport has a language all its own, as I'm sure you noticed if you tried to read the story about the France/Ireland match.

You don't have to know all about it to realize that it is thrilling to watch though.  France won because of a clutch goal line stand with the clock winding down.  I didn't need to know the rules to be on the edge of my chair.  We had a great time experiencing that bit of European culture, and hopefully I'll get to go watch more of the 6 Nations tournament in coming weeks.  We also got tickets to go see a professional club match in Stade de France in March, along with Matthieu and a bunch of other classmates. 

The best part is that the 80 minute game (two 40 minute halves) was done in less than two hours, since we didn't have to watch 6000 Coors Light commercials. 

THE Louvre

First Sunday every month is free museum day in Paris.  We went to the Louvre last Sunday.

There was a long line to get in to the pyramid, but it moves really fast.  The building was definitely full of people, but on the other hand, the building is roughly the size of the city of Golden.  So it never felt too crowded.  Unless you wanted to get up close and personal with Mona Lisa.

There were lots of famous pieces of art, lots of Egyptian history stolen by Napoleon, lots of beautiful rooms.  We even found an enormous room with a ceiling painted by a native of Lexington, VA!  Who says Lex isn't cultured!

The ceiling painted by a Lexington native

The building really is amazing.  It's exhausting being in there because of the size, and we only stayed 2 hours.  But I think the courtyards and surrounding area are so nice that it would be easy to make a day out of it when the weather is nice.

So don't fear, prospective visitors.  We will be happy to take you to the Louvre.  It is everything it is reputed to be.  Just make sure you eat a good breakfast beforehand.

Famous stuff.

Some short dead dude.  Bonus points for first person to get the reference.

Education addendum

Another thought I had this morning:
Saying a class was 'difficult' at Mines meant 'hours-spent-staring-at-a-complex-derivative-trying-to-make-sense-of-it' difficult.  The same could even be said about liberal arts classes at W&L, except we were staring at literature.

I haven't had that here.  Even in Reservoir Engineering, the class has been general enough that it's not hard for a science person to comprehend the ideas.  The difficulty comes in trying to understand what others are telling you, trying to get your point across so that others really understand it, and trying to get very different people to work together effectively.  I imagine this is what management courses are all about (actually I have one or two management-type classes here) but the cool thing is we are actually doing it in technical classes.

It's probably not the intended goal of the program, but it's definitely a very useful skill.  Even at TDA, I spent more time worrying about getting people to help me on projects, or phrasing proposals for the intended audience, than I did puzzling over technical issues.

Just trying to figure out how to make lemonade here.