Of all the gins joints, in all the towns, in all the world...

The weekend before last i went to Lyon on the spur of the moment. A friend said she has a place for me to stay, so off I went. Lyon is half way between Paris and the Mediterranean. That means 400km or two hours on the TGV.
One of the first things we noticed was that in Lyon 'cool' kids tuck their pants into their socks. The night we arrived we went to a dance club on a converted barge that was quite an experience. Small, crowded, and tippy sums things up well i think. Oh, and i think it is also important to mention that two Mexican circus acrobats bought drinks for some of the girls i was with.
The city itself was nice. Old buildings, rivers, French people, you get the idea. I got a rude surprise Monday morning when i found out that my return Paris-Lyon ticket did not leave from the same train station in Lyon into which it had arrived. As the boarding official informed i would have to go to the other station in town, my friend was already headed up the escalator to the platform. I never though I would get the chance to yell, "I will see you in Paris" across a crowded train station, but i did. It was very Casablanca-esque. There was also a Peter Lorre type character in the form of two Mexican circus performers bought drinks for some of the girls i was with on the barge/club.

Anyhow, i made it home safe and sound.

I don't have tuberculosis!

Well, i finally got my residency permit for France. In most other modern countries having a student visa would exempt one from needing a residency permit, but not in the paragon of efficiency that is France.

In September i had started the process to get said permit, and was given an appointment on October 18th. An appointment, you say, what would you need an appointment for? Well, it turns out the French government is very worried about my health. The appointment consisted of a cursory eye exam, height and weight measurements, and a chest x-ray.
These were followed by a five minutes interview with a doctor which went something like this:

Are you sick?

No.

Are you vaccinated?

Yes

We think you should get vaccinated again.

Okay. (Takes vaccination paper, puts in garbage.)

The whole deal took only an hour, though i showed up 30 minutes ahead just to be sure. I think showing up ahead was the key. My friend who went at 9:15 for his 9:15 appointment had to wait a total of two and a half hours.

At least I am pretty much done with the French bureaucracy.

PS. My bank promised me eighty Euros for opening an account. (A bonus for student's of Sciences Po, because the elite need all the help they can get.) Unfortunately, this money has yet to be delivered. I am seriously debating whether it is worth the eighty Euros to have to go talk to those buffoons again.

Scene on a french bus

Prologue

Scene: Friday night, roughly 1:30 AM. Normal bus routes are closed. Search for Paris's night buses.

Ken: Why aren't we just taking a taxi?

Judith: The night buses are great. They run ...

Judith steps in dog doo.

Judith: Scheiße

Tilo: What?

Judith: Hunden scheiße.

Tilo and Ken: Uproarious laughter.

(Bus arrives. End prologue.)


Scene: Bus #21.

(Police car with four officers pulls over crowded night bus.)

Old black French man: Maintenant le merde commence.

(Police enter bus by the back door. Man sitting across from the back door vomits all over the floor. Police discuss vomit, leave the bus. Bus pulls away.)

Ken: What was that all about?

(Shrugs all around.)

Fin

Well, there you have it: photographic evidence that I am, in fact, in Europe. I took the Eurostar from Paris to London Friday evening and spent three lovely days cavorting with Andrew and Laura.

I found London to be rather squat and industrial. In Paris all of the buildings in the central part of town are about six stories tall and rather grand looking. London, by contrast, is a real hodge-podge. Some buildings are old and grey, others are new and grey, and some others are new and glass (the glass, though, simply reflects the gray from the other buildings and the interminably overcast sky). The tube in London seems to have been built for Oompa Loompas. There is no other explanation as to why they have such claustrophobic cars is such psychadelic colours. It is also freakin expensive. Three pounds, over six bucks Canadian, for a one way ticket.

All of the landmarks in London are smaller than they appear in movies and, quite dissapointingly, they don't play that typically British music you always see in movie set-up shots. The one site in London that I truly enjoyed was the Tate Modern. It is right downtown, huge, and absolutely free. I spent four hours on Monday walking its halls and ended up dropping a considerable chunk of change on prints. (Yeah, more paintings of coloured squares on my walls.)

Classes have started and McGill is making grumbling noises about me actually working on my thesis, so i guess my European vacation is over. That being said i have already set up a trip to Amsterdam for the end of the month and am planning to go to Edinburgh before Sean moves away.

favourite?

Paris la nuit

I have more, but they don't want to load. i will post them soon.

Well, I finally got my bank card. I am sure you are all disappointed to hear that this may presage an end to the ongoing chronicles of Ken vs. French banking. But, have faith; I am sure they will find something to screw up before the month is out.

I am heading on my first “exploring Europe” trip this weekend: three days in London visiting Andrew and Laura. My hope is that the exorbitant pricing in London will help put the exorbitant pricing in Paris in proper perspective. Booked far enough in advance a train ticket to London is really quite affordable, so I think it is likely that I will go again some time. This, though, is conditional on me not getting so drunk this weekend that I vomit in Andrew’s roommate’s closet. I make no promises.

Language class is going well. One of my classmates gave me a hard time the other day because I am always asking about certain expressions used in Quebec that inevitably don’t exist in Parisian French. I also suggested in class that the word “all” was an adjective and an adverb. When my prof informed me that it was only an adjective I was able to break out the example, “but he was all crazy.” A better French class example there never was.

I did a little walking around Paris on Sunday night and took some pictures. The better part of them were erased because they resemble little more than abstract paintings of nothingness, but there are a few I really like. I will post some here shortly.