Obama in Paris

highlights of the week
1. having no quizzes/tests
2. the organic market at Raspail - Parisians love their markets and always have a great variety of fresh produce, meat, homemade jam (confiture), honey, cheese, jewelry, and more. I wished Americans cared this much about good food.
3. the Marais on Sunday - The Marais is an area of Paris that is considered the Jewish area, and on Sundays it's definitely the "place to be" in Paris. Many stores/restaurants are closed in the city on Sundays, but the Marais is almost completely open. It's full of cute designer stores, falafel restaurants, parks, and Jewish bakeries. I'd love an apartment here!
4. The Bastille Opera - Tonight the people in my program were given a tour of one of the opera houses in Paris. It was completed in 1989, so it's still considered very new. Although I almost fell asleep during the tour of the dozens of backstage areas and the basement, it was interesting to see where the operas take place and how much work/money is put into them. The tour guide said the shows sell out every single night.

Things to look forward to
1. Halloween!! Parisians don't really celebrate it (the most Halloween-related things I've seen in Paris are a few bags of pumpkin-shaped candy in a fancy grocery store and signs for the Halloween party at EuroDisney), but I'm sure we'll see many Americans dressed up and going out on Friday night.
2. Spain - Next week I'll be in Spain for 6 days with people from my program. We'll be going to Madrid, Sevilla, and Barcelona, so I'm excited!

Rennes

This week, my Health Policy took a trip to Rennes. We stayed and studied at EHESP, which is a school of public health and management in France. It is where all managers of public hospital are currently trained. From Wednesday-Friday, we had various lectures concerning public health issues in Europe like long-term care for the elderly, comparative health costs in different EU countries, culture, and inequalities of health. We also visited a hospital in Rennes where we dressed in scrubs and watched parts of a lung cancer surgery and a heart valve replacement surgery. The hospital was really interesting because it's a public hospital (like Ohio State), but the facilities definitely aren't as nice even though they do the same types of operations and procedures. Americans definitely like to be pampered when they're in the hospital!

In Rennes we also:
-Ate at a delicious creperie, paid for by Northwestern
-Ate delicious Moroccan food
-Visited Rue de la Soif, Road of Thirst, which is infamous for all of it's bars and students (the area around Rennes is known for its smart students and schools, but also for the highest amount of alcohol consumption in France)

Overall, it was great to be out of paris for a few days and see more of a "college town" of France. And I'm also really happy about the current exchange rate: 1 Euro = 1.2602 U.S. dollars

This article talks about a lot of the things I've been studying in class: Infant Deaths Drop in U.S., but Rate Is Still High. The US has one of the most expensive health care programs, but unfortunately it's not working in a lot of important areas :(.

le grand journal

So as one of our cultural activities for French class, last night we went to a taping of the french show, Le Grand Journal. You can actually watch it online here. Although I'm not on it that much, a couple girls from my school are sitting right behind the host in almost every shot. In the picture above, you can actually see me: I'm the fourth person from the left in the front row.

As a little background for the people who don't speak French...The older man who speaks in English is the author Salman Rushdie. Also on the show was the president of sports for France and the singer Laam because at a recent soccer game with Tunisie, she was whistled at for singing the French national anthem. It was very controversial due to Tunisie/French relations so they've been talking about the issue in the media this week. Sooo even though I couldn't understand all of the fast French, I can at least say that I've been on french television!

New York Times: 36 Hours in Paris

I actually ate falafel in the Marais today! What a coincidence.

yay for gossip girl actors and obama!

It has been so interesting for me to watch the political situation in the US from abroad. While I will definitely be voting for Obama along with many other Americans come Nov. 4, it seems that no one is more excited for Bush to leave and for Obama to take over than the French. They hate Bush. Actually, they detest Bush and his policies and the Iraq war. There's a movie coming out called "W" about the life of George W. and advertisements were all over the Paris metro for it.

While the French hate Bush, they loveeee Obama. When his lead drastically increased this weekend, I woke up on Monday to pictures of Obama all over the Paris newspapers. I posted a few articles about the issue below. It just seems like politics is so much more intense and "in your face" here than it is in America. You see the French president, Nicholas Sarkozy on TV almost every night. In America, it seems like the media has just ignored Bush for the past few years, instead focusing on much more important topics, like college football and the weather.

-The good American and Monsieur Obama
-Barack Obama, the French American idol

I wish I could be at the big game against Michigan State today, but in Wildcat spirit here's a rap video that was recently created about NU football. Go U!

Conversation overheard on the Metro, French man talking to an English-speaking couple:

French man: Oh, are you British?
The Couple: No, we're Australian
French man: Not American?
The Couple: No.
French man: Oh, you're very, very welcome in Paris then.

And then he kept talking about how Canadians are welcome and all these other people, but not Americans. Although I have met many French people who are happy to welcome Americans to France, as you can see it's definitely not always the case.

Versailles, Nuit Blanche

I'm alive! This week I didn't have much class, so I had some time to explore Paris. On Thursday afternoon, I visited Centre Pompidou, which is a modern art museum. According to Wikipedia, the museum was completed in 1977 and named after the ex-President. On Saturday, I visited Versailles, which is the chateau for the royalty of France. It's a southwest suburb of Paris, and only took about 30 minutes to get there on the train. This venture was one of our "cultural requirements" for French class, but it was actually really fun! There was a La Fête des Saveurs going on, which is a tasting festival. They a lot of small booths set up with farmers offering tastes and explanations of their food. There were mussels, apples and pears grown in the Versailles gardens, homemade apple juice, wine, cheese, sorbet...the French definitely love their food! After our stomachs were full, we walked around the breath-taking Versailles gardens and visited the inside of the castle for the Jeff Koons exhibit. It's been a pretty hot topic in France, and it's easy to see why. I personally enjoyed it because it made me think about the purpose of each room in a different way than I otherwise would. And it was shocking that the pieces that looked like inflatable children toys were actually made out of aluminum!

After Versailles, we went out for Nuit Blanche, which is an all-night arts exhibition in Paris. With events and people all over the city it definitely wasn't a boring night :)

Overall, I'm feeling at lot more adjusted to Paris and just accepting that it's different from the US in many ways. While I'm sure every CVS/Walgreens in America is overflowing with cheap candy and plastic pumpkins at this point, there is not a trace of Halloween in France. There aren't tacky fall decorations or drunk Ohio State football fanatics or Halloween costume stores. But it's all okay, because I know all the American stuff will be waiting for me when I cross back over the ocean. Ohh, and I updated my pictures below, so you can either watch the slide show or click on it to go to my Picasa site.

Paris Gets its Grillzzzz

This is so crazy, I'll definitely be back to Paris to see it!