Bonjour mes chers amis,
I'm packing a lot of punch into the salutations lately (my one other entry), so I'll keep going with that. If you understood the salutation, pat yourself on the back: your junior high and high school French courses/resignation from the "popular group" tryouts (Spanish course takers) were not without value.
I've embarked upon an exciting January of frugalness, due to some quick spending of the December paycheck. Here are some causes of my plight:
1. My rent was bumped up from 225 to 300 euros. I initially lived with three others, whereas now I have just two roommates. (-300)
2. I noticed that a Madrid-Rome flight had only three remaining seats, so I had to book two seats for my friend and I (more on upcoming vacation later on). If the flights arriving in Madrid or departing from Rome sell out, this will go down as a mistake. (-108)
3. I'm sick of eating refrigerated, previously-cooked eggs right after working out. My weight room is equipped with a refrigerator, and I often head straight to work from there. It was time for a change. (-63)
In other news, I am participating in an endeavor that I deem to be quite important. Since early November, I have been tutoring a 46-year old doctor who speaks limited English. I go over to his apartment at least once a week to eat dinner with the doctor, his wife, and their twin 18 year-old daughters. All the while, of course, we speak English and I note any phrases that give them problems. Thus, I benefit from a nice home-cooked meal, the company of a great family, and some euros.
Recently, we have moved on from simple conversations, to the French-English translation of an abstract for a medical article that he will soon submit [this is the aforementioned important endeavor... not the sitting down for free dinners (although that too is important to me, because the quiches are amazing)]. The article is about a potential treatment for patients suffering from allergies to apples, this of course being a leading cause of griping among the wealthy. Should the doctor's abstract be accepted, he would head to Istanbul this summer to present his Elwood-polished English, and I might get a postcard out of it. I should really be working on the translation right now, in fact, but I owe you people an entry. Also, I would really like the counter of visits to the blog to surpass 10,000 by the end of the year. I just picked that number, but it sounds doable.
About the upcoming vacation that I alluded to... It will begin on February 26th. My large football player of an American friend will be coming to Europe, and I will travel with him during my two weeks off. We will see how he does with European portions. The itinerary is as follows: Lisbon, Madrid, definitely Rome (due to Reason 2 above), and Dublin. Stories should arise from this voyage.
I recently went on a tour of a prison in Vaulx-en-Velin. I took pictures of the premises, and would like to share them with you:
Nope, that is actually one of my two schools. I do not know if these pictures capture the dismal atmosphere of the school. I do know that literally the first thought that popped into my head upon arriving was "Face/Off," the 1997 action film with John Travolta and the always-horrible Nicolas Cage, who also got a shout-out in last year's blog. (What if this blog got so big that Nicolas Cage read it? New goal.) In the movie, there is a high security prison in which the convicts' boots are magnetized so as to not allow them to lift their feet off the ground, which would be handy at this school, with the terrors running around and all. The building is essentially one large hall, with two stories of walkways above, hugging the perimeter such as in, well, a prison.
This post lacks a little beef (there's some French rap for you), but I've got important medical documents to work on.
Bonne Annee,
Dan
For nobody in particular, but especially you, Russ.
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