A real update

I realized that the only things I've been posting about lately are food items. I'm in France, of course, so that's probably what most of you want to hear about, but hey, I'm also living in a beautiful city (with, you know, a few interesting things other than restaurants and bakeries) and going to school, so I should chronicle the rest of it too.

School first. I'm still unimpressed by the program. (That's the short version. Feel free to skip the long version in the rest of this paragraph.) The courses we have been taking here have just not been good. Granted, for some profs it is their first time teaching, and for others the first time in English. But when you repeatedly call the whole class stupid and marvel at how we can be having trouble with something so easy, there may in fact be something wrong with what/the way you are teaching. It's also a bad idea to take a group of students with hugely varied backgrounds, split them up for the first semester (during which they take completely different classes), and then force them to take classes together during the second semester. Many of us are also upset that in the program guide, which convinced us to apply, there were long lists of courses we could take at each university. It wasn't until we were in the program that we found out that that had changed and those lists didn't apply to us--we would instead all be taking certain predefined courses the whole time. There goes the ability to tailor your Master's to your interests. I have spent this whole program taking courses in areas I have no intention of ever using in my own work. And, particularly in France, the material has been pretty basic, but presented in an unnecessarily complex way. Le sigh. One course I have really enjoyed though, is Hot Topics in Ecology and Evolution. It is a discussion class, and each time there are a few leaders who have read a bunch of papers on a topic (the rest of the class has read a few).  The topics have been a lot of fun, ranging from Life on other Planets to Why all the Mammoths died (I did that one and loved it) to much more hard core boring sciencey things. It has been fun to read about these crazy and different topics. And classes are almost over. In April, I get to start my research project, which I am really excited about. I'll be looking at global human disease epidemics and any potentially correlated social and climatic variables.

Alright! No more school. On to the good stuff. Oh wait, one more thing. We took a French placement test so that we could join language classes with other study abroad students. I aced the freaking thing and am now in way over my head in a class with a bunch of people who are completely fluent. D'oh :)

But ah, the city. It was cold, windy, and POURING for a week (I clearly did not fully comprehend what she meant when someone who had spent some time here said that when it rains, it really rains) and then suddenly the clouds cleared, the temperature soared, and it's spring! Blooms everywhere. It is gorgeous. This city was made for warm, sunny days with wispy clouds. It still gets pretty cool as soon as the sun goes down, so I'll be curious to see whether that's a spring thing or whether evenings will always be cool. I'm totally new to the Mediterranean climate.

I love the Saturday morning market at Arceaux (it's under the aqueduct, which has many arceaux (arches)). It is a great one. Lots of fruits, vegetables, bread, cheese, meat, flowers, and other reasonably standard market stuff. It's the stands with 15 different kinds of honey, the vineyard tables, and the local olive oils and soaps that are really fun to check out. I got a strawberry-peach jam a few weeks ago that I am completely in love with.

I am also making a serious effort to learn my favorite types of cheese and wine. I am not usually a wine drinker, but while I'm in France I have to take advantage and learn! No real progress made on finding wine favorites yet. I tend to like reds and so am focusing on those for now. Suggestions welcome! As for cheese, I'm progressing slowly there too.  I usually like chevre (goat cheese), but I've gotten several I haven't liked and don't know what the differences are in terms of the names or how they're made! I have also tried a Camembert and just don't think the taste is worth the smell. I've never been a blue cheese fan, and the one I got here was no different. I'll give Roquefort (one that looks like blue but isn't for some reason) a go soon. I did, however, break down and go for Brie, an old favorite, when I saw it in the grocery store a few days ago.

How did I get back to food? Seriously. I was trying to talk about other things! Ok. Really, food is important here.

I took a walking tour of the historic city center this weekend. It was interesting to hear the stories of a bunch of cool buildings I had never paid much attention to, but the best part was definitely that we got to go to the top of the Arc du Peyrou (which is called L'arc du Triomphe pretty regularly, even though it has nothing to do with Triumphe. Paris just does that). Haha traffic goes under this Arc and so to get in we had to stand in traffic and go through this crazy door in the wall. But the view was great!

 Alright. I realize this post was completely all over the place. I thought I should give you a bigger update than I had been and this is what happened! I will strive for more balance in future posts.