Obama, my Host Family, and Geography

Every Friday night in the summer (ending with a special event on Tuesday), the city of Montpellier hosts a wine-tasting festival on the Esplanade, the large tree-lined promenade off the city center. Tons and tons of people turn out! There were easily 10,000 people there last night at any given time. There were flamenco dancers (nice to see, but not particularly exciting), live music (eurotrash - which is to say it was literally eurotrash; that's not a band name), and three glasses of wine for three euros (and you can keep the glass - or break it, trying to see if your cell phone will fit inside of it, as was the case for me). It was a lot of fun, especially since it was the last night all the Americans were in the dorms together.

Yesterday, one of the Americans, Rachel (who is staying in the dorms for the semester and has already acquired an extra mattress, and thus, couch surfers) and her Colombian-Australian couch surfer Camilo and I went to the zoo. I am a big fan of zoos, and a bigger fan of free zoos. Montpellier's Lunaret Zoo is quite large and is, of course, free. We barely scratched a quarter of it in the course of two hours. We saw ostriches, lemurs, macaws, zebras, leopards (which are called guépards in French), rhesus monkeys, and maribous, which are the evilest looking birds in existence. They have gnarled, prehistoric faces and needle-point beaks that are about a foot long. It didn't help that the sign said they were predatory birds, either, nor the fact that they are about four feet tall and could easily impale me. I look forward to going back sometime. Apparently, it is also a popular place to go running, and it's about ten minutes walk from the University.

A quick word about Camilo and all the other Australians I've met. I am constantly envious of their lifestyle. They seem to come from a carefree land where everyone eventually leaves Australia to go on the first of several year-long voyages to Europe, Southeast Asia, East Asia, or in Camilo's case, all three. He began his voyage in Thailand two years ago, traveled to China, then to South Korea, worked there teaching English for a while, took the Beijing-Ulaanbataar connection to get on the Tran-Siberian Railroad to Moscow, wound up in Moscow, made his way to Denmark, and hitch-hiked to Spain. While not achieving the speed of Phineas Fogg, he certainly has achieved much of the same breadth. And when I asked him, he said he doesn't have a cellphone or laptop, he has a pair of Crocs, a pair of hiking boots, one pair of pants, one pair of shorts, a few shirts, a couple of sweaters, and socks. Probably a few other things, but still.

I was unpacking my things today, and I realized just how much stuff I packed that I probably don't need. I brought three pullovers, about a dozen T-shirts, eight long sleeves, six pairs of jeans, two pairs of cords, four pair long socks, five pair short, three pairs of shoes (having my running shoes sent - along with various school supplies), three pairs of shorts, two pairs nylon shorts, six pairs boxers, a towel (the single most useful article I brought), a scarf, a pair of mittens, my toiletries, five books, a box of photos, my two cameras, my water bottle, my laptop, and of course, a pen. This, after reluctantly agreeing to leave behind a three-piece suit, a matching pair of chaise lounges, six beavers, a set of encyclopedias in Farsi, a Vermeer, a 50-lb bag of sorghum, two cinderblocks and the transmission of a 1991 Honda Civic. And naturally, I've added to my already preposterous load by beginning the European edition of my rock collection. It already fills a shoe.

Of course, this is all prelude to what you've been waiting to read. And that is about my host family! They are quite nice. They are M. and Mme. Luc-Amauré (or just Amauré) and Véronique Mittifiot de Belair. He is very distinguished looking with graying hair and a beard in typical French style, and is rather tan. She is extremely nice and has blond hair and reminds me a bit like Joy Laine, my former philosophy professor. They have two sons at home, Arthur and Timothé, who have so far stayed in their rooms and not engaged me in much conversation. Ce n'est pas grand chose. (Trans. "It's no big deal") They live in a two-story house on a somewhat busy street that my room faces (I hope the traffic noise will not keep me up, as the window is somewhat flimsy in noise-dampening). The first floor is the kitchen, dining room and living room, with a little courtyard where Arthur smokes. They, like most French people whose houses I've been in, have paintings everywhere instead of photographs. The floors are all stone, as the house is quite old (I've yet to ask how old). The upstairs is where all the bedrooms are. All the beds are lofted, even Luc-Amauré and Véronique's. They have tons and tons of books on the walls, although not quite as many as back home, I'd wager. They even have a cute white dog named Tannhauser. And it is rather nice, all things considered. I suppose it could out that they are only hosting me to harvest my organs later on, but apparently they've been hosts for students on the U of M program for a few years now. Haven't met the daughter yet, nor do I know if I will for certain. I was especially happy to finally be in a place that had good-tasting drinking water. Montpellier has crap tap water.

I was going to mention geography, and Obama, but this is turning into more of an autobiography than a post. Nonetheless, I knew that history would judge me poorly if I did not endure, and so I did. I went on to win the Kentucky Derby and save a small Amazonian village from rebel forces. I also admit that the rumors are true: I am the Lindbergh Baby.

Wait, that's not my life...

My last posts were about the silliness of John McCain. I will confess there was once a time when I would have voted for him for President of these United States (Wyoming and Hawaii are not real states, thank you whomever that was), but that was when George W. Bush was the other option, and I was too young to vote in any case. I've been reading any number of articles about how McCain's pick of Sarah Palin to be the vice president indicate a state of desperation and a tremendous gamble on his part. It negates his otherwise-strong argument that Barack Obama was inexperienced (Wasilla has fewer people than many large apartment buildings, and Sarah Palin was elected by the same number of people who live in the... well, I'm trying to think of a comparison to like the population of the Loop or Midtown Manhattan, but they both have more people). Also, it makes me feel bad because John McCain is (or was) much too classy of a man to stoop to the level of the conservative, evangelic wing of his party. It is truly astounding that John McCain picked someone who he has met twice before and could honestly be his daughter as his running mate. I wonder if Tim Pawlenty didn't get offered the job and actually turned it down. I mean, why jump off your own boat to climb on to a sinking one? (Much less a burning one crewed by the damned.)

I also wanted to mention geography because I am slowly but inevitably becoming convinced that I have found the coolest thing to do in the world with my life. In what other field of study can you legitimately play with dirt, tear down structures, redirect traffic, build things at the scale of miles instead of inches or feet, tell people to live there, make sure it all works and at the end of the day make pretty maps of it all? And do it all by yourself?! Only in SimCity, or as a high-ranking party official in China. I'd want to become an architect if it wasn't limited to the admittedly enormous field of designing and building buildings (No disrespect Colby). Sometimes, I just can't wait for what's store for tomorrow.