The Croix Rousse -

Its really a big hill! Lots of fun European steps – I’d like to chill here more often.

Doris and I spent some time singing and whining about what a yucky day it is today (it was totally raining like, all day) so we decided hey, museum! We decide upon the Contemporary art museum up by the parc. I totally hated this museum. It was all cliché pictures of downtrodden urban folk, and then the very best part was anime watercolors in graphic sexual scenarios with vulgar captions! I did like the giant room of thread with lots of mirrors, and I didn’t mind the giant anime skyscraper room where all the buildings had faces of anime girls. That was ok. The pee wee’s playhouse esque display that was mocking art’s descent into the banal was sorta cool, but like, duh. It was just old kitchy things all thrown into a room. Pee Wee did it way better. And the rest of the muse, I hated a lot. So Doris and I decide to go to a movie, since it was right next door, and still raining.

We saw scoop, it was a delicious morsel of Woody Allen (someone who, Emilie and I decided, is on the list of “People not allowed to Die”….b/c he’s just too cool). Scarlett Johannsen, I know the Woodster loves her and thinks she’s all sensual and stuff, but I really don’t see the wow factor. She’s pretty, and she seems to fit with the Allen dialogue stuff and is a good straight man for classic Woody neurosis, so ok. Hugh Jackman was smoldering, and I particularly liked how they had like, ghosts and mystery, and the Grim reaper and stuff incorporated in the whole film. It was funny, and it definitely awoke in me my life long dream of being a crime solving sleuth. So I was happy, when I saw that I’d left my hat in the theatre and was locked out, to have the opportunity to sleuth it out. I found it, and I was so proud.

Anyway, then Doris and I decided, since it was no longer raining, to just walk. And walk we did! We walked down the Rhone, and up the croix rousse. Check out these stairs, man. We walked around there, I made some notes about some places I’d like to return, and we eventually ended up at the original Martiniere, which is much more centrally located, and a building that inspired this lovely picture – whose background goes too far into the non-PC side of life (a much more fun side of life) for me to go into detail upon it.
Anyway, this walk inspired Doris and I to discover Lyon on the weekdays and to peace outta there on the weekends. May this blog soon become the guide to Europe it was meant to do. No longer will I feel bogged down by my lack of internet and uncentrally located place of residence! France is as centrally located as is necessary.
I’m excited for upcoming itineraries.

I have to cancel two classes tomorrow b/c I have to go to the French Official doctor to make sure I’m healthy enough to remain in this great country.

I now have to plan a lesson or two.

I leave you with a quote about the France from “What Makes the French so French - 50 Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong” – maybe it will enlighten you as to the origins to my complaints/compliments… and maybe it will enlighten me! It looks like fun cultural studies/ethnography stuff that I really like:

“ Imagine a country where people work 35 hout weeks, take seven weeks of paid holiday a year, take an hour and a half for lunch, have the longest life expectancy in the world, and eat the richest food on the planet. A people who keep alive their local shopkeepers, who love nothing better than going to the public market on Sundays, and who finance the best health-care system in the world. A people whose companies are the least unionized and most productive among modern countries, and whose post-industrial consumer society ranks among the most prosperous in the world.

You are now in France.

Now imagine a country whose citizens have so little civic sense that it never crosses their mind to pick up after their dogs or to give to charity. Where people expect the State to do everything because they pay so much in taxes. Where service is rude. Where the State is among the most centralized and pervasive in the world, and where the civil-servant class amounts to no less than a quarter of the working population. Where citizens tolerate no form of initiative of self-rule, where unions are so pervasive that they virtually dictate the course of government and even run French ministries.

You are still in France.”

It would all seem so much more quaint if I were connected to the internet or had a land line and got to actually speak to my loved-ones more than once a month, though.

In other news, I still get really mad whenever I see BORAT posters. I just really hate him for that whole Throw the Jew in the Well business. It was just wrong on so many levels. I suppose those who like the sortof “omg I am so uncomfortable with these sad people” that produced such US hits like Napoleon Dynamite will really like it. I’m not hating, I’m just hating Borat. If you like him, laugh out loud and clear, but I really just don’t think he’s good for business.
PS everyone over here thinks Borat’s American, and that he’s like and American critiquing his own country. He’s English!

PPS I’m really tired of defending my country to everyone. I won’t tell people I’m Canadian, I will represent, but I really really really am tired of telling RANDOM PEOPLE that I meet on the street that yes, I have friends who vote Republican, and no I will not tell them that they are an asshole as you have requested, French-person-with-no-manners (b/c they’re my grandmother, and other such lovely and civic-minded people). I’m really at the point where I’ll just tell’em I’m a Republican and have them just deal with me being a good person nonetheless. Hey Republican friends, I represent for you. You are good people. Should I just refuse to talk politics? This book I’m reading talks about how France can’t be defined on any terms but it’s own – I think its safe to say that the same goes for the US of A, God bless it.

PPSS I’m going to try to wake up earlier from here on out so look for me on the I-net at around 11pm-12am and later your time, central time zoners.
PPPSS I think I’m going to go to Scotland for my birthday! !!!! yayyyy!