Hello my adoring fans!
It's been a long time since my return to the world of internet blogging. But, its not without lack of trying, trust me. I have such a truckload of pictures to upload that it takes about 3 hours to do so, and I've tried three times thusfar, but in doing so, it renders my computer useless. SO here i am, sitting with tall glass of orange juice, my cabby hat on and a fag in my mouth (correct usage! everywhere else in the world still uses fag for cigarette). Anywho, lets get started.
First, here's some pictures of my trip to the Loire valley. My site director took all of us on a trip to go wine tasting, checking out this old vinyard and played some senses games, trying to tell how old a wine was, smelling different odors and other such tasks. the winner went away with a giant bottle of sparkling wine, which everyone shared at dinner.
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| A veritable catacomb of casks lined the walls. The smell was unbelieveable |
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| so much wine... |
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| head guarding the wine. it shot lasers from its eyes |
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| PETER! |
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| irene by her birthyear |
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| one of the smell tests. |
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| so much wine was drank to determine EXACTLY where it came from. for the first time it was necessary to get hammered. ps, eff spitting it out |
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| more tests |
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| us gathered around eagerly awaiting more wine. Sylve (site director) on the right |
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| Shana with the win. glorious bottle of wine |
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| amazing. simply amazing... |
We stayed at this enormous castle that had a pool and was way out in the middle of nowhere. We stayed up til god awful late, chatting and drinking (we soaked a bunch of fruit in vodka, specially made for soaking fruit). then the next day, we toured 3 more different castles, one that held war prisoners which was absolutely chilling, one that was a big commerce hotspot along the Loire river, and another that had a huge garden (mom would be positively salivating), a hedgemaze and a crazy big kitchen.
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| quelque fruit très chouette, dans un bouteille et demi d'alcool. |
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| me and irene and my beard |
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| hallway made me feel like playing legend of zelda |
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| big cabinets and writing desks everywhere. oh to be royalty |
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| 17th century playboy |
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| most of these the pictures speak for themselves |
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| My friend!! I named him greg |
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| moat. sans alligators. tres triste |
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| genevieve's head barely over the headgemaze |
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| arc in the center of the hedgemaze. it was profoundly easy. we were hoping for The Shining sort of headgemaze, but you'd have to have sever brain damage not to find your way |
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| playground for the kids. (did mgmt just pop in your head?) |
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| another courtyard for the stablehands |
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| AAAANNNNNDDD the garden. The pumpkins put the pathetic, crippled pumpkins we tried to grow look like peanuts |
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| every spice, herb, veggie or legume imagineable |
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| sturdy motherfucking pumpkin |
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| last castle we saw. just so happened to be the war prisoner castle. end on a happy note |
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| the torture room! |
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| he's been there about 9 years now. They used a crude form of waterboarding essentially |
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| this was painted on for...moral? I can't remember what it read though |
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| old school shitter |
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| the last room before the escape room.one window with about 4 square inches of sunlight |
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| prisoners carved this into the wall to pray that their merciful god would grant them the sweet release of death |
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| window to the outside world, reassuring them that the sun is still rising |
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| the very very very bottom. about 4 floors under the surface. |
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| church on the outside |
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| lit a candle for nana here. hope she can see it |
various pictures of those things. got to see a lot of france. it was loverly.
the rest of the pictures are more of the grand and sprawling metropolis of Poitiers
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| notre dame (not THE notre dame. every city has one. it just means our lady) |
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| a popular coffee/beer establishment entitled nardo's |
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| more notre dame |
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| hotel de ville |
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| center of town. currently under construction |
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| super market in town, on the way home to my studio |
and finally, pictures of the results of the grève, or riots. Don't know if you've been following french news, but Sarkozy (frances president) passed a law to change the retirement age from 60-62.
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| they left no possible entrance unblocked |
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| we had to pass this just to go down the hall. its unguarded now, but before there were students making sure no one came through |
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| entrance to the school. completely blocked off. |
The school was shut down for a week. no buses ran, the train was stopped because of people on the tracks and they cut off the oil supply to various parts of the country. This was completely shocking to me, considering we in the states haven't seen this sort of organized upheaval of the government since the 70's.apparently its outrageously common; the french don't take shit from their government. kinda good, kinda bad, cuz after the first day, they let foreign exchange students in (begrudgenly), but since the buses didn't run, we had to get there on our own.
AHHH! well hell, hope you all enjoyed the pics. I have more of my recent trip to paris this last weekend, but I'm tired and I have midterms tomorrow. So, I leave you with my french mot du jour and bid you adieu. Bon nuit!
French Mot du jour:
dead bird: oiseaux mort
ps: kiiiimmm!! i'm excited to see you tomorrow! hopefully your camera will be working?? lets make that happen asap, yeah? and alicia: you still haven't given me your new address, you bad bad person
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