Great Brotain

Hey folks. This post technically counts because I am sitting at Charles de Gaulle Int'l waiting to leave for New York. Despite France's best efforts, I made it to my gate on time, as the crack security staff decided today wouldn't be a great day to show up for work. Not to sound morbid, but for all you terrorists out there, the security at CDG is currently being run by "super emergency security personnel", a/k/a the cashiers from the duty free wine store, so now's your chance! This post's another Sauce's Time Machine Experience™, which means you should sit back, relax... and prepare to find yourself in London 3 weeks ago! Being that in France, if they hear a holiday is celebrated in America they make every effort to completely ignore it (see: Halloween, Hannukah) I decided to take my talents up to London for the Thanksgiving weekend. Thus, I dragged my tired butt to the Gare du Nord at 8am on November 23rd to hop on the Eurostar. This trip actually had a dual purpose: not only did I want to enjoy some of London's finest imitation Thanksgiving fare with my aunt and uncle, but I was also visiting some special amis et amies from my high school days, headlined by none other than Brooke "I like to cook" Baldinger! BB quite graciously invited me to stay with her and her 8 (!) girl roommates for the weekend, which I accepted literally instantaneously. What can I say, Sauce loves the ladies. Well, actually, before I got to her place, I spent two nights chez my aunt and uncle, who live in Notting Hill, which is SO COOL! (UPDATE: IN THE USA NOW. I FLEW HOME.). Uma Thurman lives a block away from them, I kid you not. After getting into St. Pancreas train station, the weirdest/most pancreasy train station in Europe, I met up with Uncle Phil, who has the same name as the dude on Fresh Prince but is neither black nor old nor a Beverly Hills resident. With my uncle, I went to the Royal Automobile Cub, which is like a social club for rich old white dudes. It is located on the Pall Mall, which is a real place, and it looks like the kind of place where Sean Connery knocks back a few cold ones before banging Ms. Moneypussy. After setting a new low for the club by walking in with my Orioles hat on, I went to their fitness center, followed by the sauna/steam room, which was AWESOME. It's exactly like the scene in Eastern Promises where Viggo Mortensen gets attacked by the Chechnyans, minus all the blood/Eastern Europeans. Basically, you heat up in the hot rooms, then you can go into the steam rooms, which are so hot it is hard to breathe, and then you shower off in a giant communal room, and then you can go to the plunge pool to cool off. It's basically a massive Jerry Sandusky wet-dream scenario. What's more, afterwards you can shave in the locker room, as they provide razors/lather, and also comb your hair with some crazy English pomade. All that's missing is a little Chinese man to trim your ball hairs. Maybe I missed him. Apparently I wasn't there on a coed day. Since this is 2011, you have to let women come, so 3 days a week women are allowed at the club. And they partake in all the sauna/shower activities. With. No. Clothes. On. I'm moving to London. Enough of the one-percenter shit, though. After Thanksgiving dinner (an admirable effort by a nice English restaurant), I went off to Brooke's to spend the next 3 days. She has an awesome place, right next to Chipotle, and what's more, her and her friends like to pah-tay. I was probably drunk for 75% of that weekend. I literally don't remember the first night. What I do remember is going to this place called "Church" on Sunday (not the God place). It's a club/bar that's open noon-4 on Sundays, intended for heathens to come shitfaced, in costume, and do bad things. Brief list of activities: 10:30am: wake up, get dressed, take 9 shots. 11:30am: meet Australian professional rugby players on the Tube. They are also going to Church. One of them is wearing a full-body elastic suit designed like the Australian flag. 12: get to Church. I am in line behind 4 people dressed like Jesus. For some reason we buy more alcohol. 12:30: accosted by group of gay dudes dressed in down vests, thongs, and glitter. Narrowly escape. 1:00pm: Stripper with literally the biggest tits I have ever seen comes on stage. No idea why. 2:00pm: put on Tutu. Pose with Brooke & friends, who are also in tutus. Finish 4th beer. 3:00pm: I am dead.

I somehow made my train that afternoon, and sobered up at midnight. Folks, if you go to London, go to Church. It will make your trip. Big shout outs to Brooke and friends, who made that trip unreal. Ok, I literally am not in France anymore, but I'll probably post a couple more times. Keep the dream alive and all that. Also solidarity with AI, who is I-don't-know-where, but it definitely isn't here. Ok bye!

P.S. Vinay, hope you've enjoyed the blog! Have a great next semester!

Brosing Remarks? (Brope)

It was a dark and stormy night. ("...The milkman's car drove off the road." Anybody besides my sister remember that 90s Got Milk commercial?)

(No? Really? What were you guys doing in the 90s?)

But seriously folks, it is a blustery black night here in Bordeaux. What's more, God forgot to turn off the faucet, so it is constantly raining. Also, out of nowhere, it is bitterly cold, forcing me to double up on sweaters (increasing the likelihood of friction fires) and socks (I wear two now). On Monday I decided to get a haircut, which is the opposite of buying a hat, something I have been meaning to do since October. On the plus side, though, my host mom saw me afterwards and said, "thank you for finally doing something about that," and she made me a celebratory tarte aux pommes. Also in recognition of my good deed, she finally agreed to throw my "dry" clothes back into the dryer for a second cycle, so that I wouldn't have to keep laying them on all the radiators in the house. This sounds stupid, pedantic, obnoxious, do your own laundry you 20-year-old baby, or rude, but it is often impossible to tell if the machine is indeed a dryer, and not a fish tank.

How is everyone coping with finals? Are you drowning in work? Did you go to the cookie thing that my future roommate hosted? Can you see the Facebook event from that link? Are there too many end-of-semester a cappella concerts for you to handle? Do you secretly wish all those people voted for you instead of Anwar in the WSA elections? Is it easier for you to study a lot throughout the year so that finals aren't difficult or stressful, or wait until the last minute, realize that at this point no matter how much you study you can't conceivably do extremely well or learn an entire syllabus, so you might as well just convince yourself that you'll be fine and throw caution to the wind? Is anyone else having trouble with episodes of the Wire online?

The laptop has seen a lot of action this semester, from that time I dropped it on the stairs outside my linguistics class to that time I watched 12 Angry Men, Network, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Usual Suspects in the span of ...well, you do the math. Yo, it's not like I abstain from real interaction and choose to stay indoors and read Volcano Hands Tone's blog all the time. I may be a lot of things, but I am NOT an accro d'Internet ("nethead"), so ease up on the judgments. Here's something I bet you didn't know: I get a real life New York Times sent to my house everyday, just so I can keep up with the world the way we were meant to, in a language that I understand. And the world is so complicated right now! Not to mention awful. Crazy people are everywhere: throwing grenades in Liege, shooting Senegalese merchants in Florence, imprisoning everyone in Moscow, being named Newt, etc. Just stop all the commotion, for Pierre's sake.

Then again, there's not too much to protest in Bordeaux, other than the usual weekly protest that the entire country goes on. Some of the employees at the campus cafeteria went on strike in September, but that was awkward because nobody goes to that place anyway, so if a tree falls in a (black) forest (ham), etc. etc. I also think there was a situation with a mine not too far away from here, but it blew up ten years ago, but people are still trying to figure out, like, where the gold is. I think. Oh, and I guess students generally complain about paying off loans or some shit like that, and whenever one of those disheveled smelly grad students/corset-wearing Wiccans hands me a flyer railing against tuition hikes, I do the old Mitch Hedberg: here, I throw this away. Because let's be honest: ya'll don't even know. Like really.

You think you know, but you have no idea. You probably don't even think you know. I don't know what you think, but you know what? You thought wrong.

As the above paragraph might suggest, I'm losing most if not all of my marbles over the course of this week. You didn't ask me about finals, but I'll tell you anyway. Actually, I won't tell you. Last fall, I fell off a bike en route to my radio show, and I broke my arm, got contusions that still haven't healed, and may or may not have suffered a concussion (thanks to a text-msg consultation with human WebMD Andy Gradison, this is unlikely...we think). But did I whine about the pain and broadcast my anguish over the air to 1,000,000 listeners across the Connecticut Valley region? No. So I'm not going to play the plaintive game. However, I am going to attach a picture of my Google Calendar for this week. It should give you a picture--literally, it should--if it doesn't, then why would it say it did--(that's Eminem) (not really)--of my recent routine without me having to type out my grievances.

Well, who knows if you can read that? The point is, this guy's got a lot on the agenda. Every few hours I'll get a notification on Facebook that reads "DONE!!!" and hey, that's great! Boy, how fun is that? Taking care of everything you have to do, succeeding in the face of formidable challenges, and not missing a beat to tell the Internet about it while the rest of us toil away! Yo, and who are these people "liking" those statuses? What is going on there? If you're so happy that your friend is done with finals, why don't you guys go hang out instead of playing virtual tag? Morons.

One of the weirdest things about attending a school in a foreign language is that, for many reasons, you end up not talking so much on a day-to-day basis. What I mean is, ...I mean, you understand what I mean. I am about 10% as likely to participate here than I am at uni at home. I have almost gone whole days without talking, unless you count murmuring "pardon" as you pass by the homeless man with the two cats. That sounds mean, but my host mom assures me that every panhandler on the street works secretly for some sort of gypsy mafia ring in Bordeaux; kind of like the Freemasons, but like...really free.

Well, I don't think I should really end my side of La Vie en Bros on this relatively brour note. It's been very cathartic, and I appreciate the readers for allowing Sawse and me to plumb the depths of our souls and pour out our hearts. Enough with the toilet imagery, something I swore never to evoke all the way back in the beginning of this semester. (All I'll say is, if you want a culture shock, go to a bathroom stall in anywhere that isn't a hotel or restaurant in France. The amount of seats will astound you, and I ain't saying they got extras.) Until next time, you can catch me at the Field concert on the iBoat, beating everyone on Words with Friends, or, most likely, trying to get in just one fight with a French person before I leave.

P.S. Everyone should direct their confusion or anger over this "Recipe Exchange" virus/annoyance (not a virus, don't worry) at Zach "Snack Mattress" Attas. He invented it, he wants all of your recipes. Kill him with kindness.

Brome Stretch

Bronjour potes et putes! I hope December arrived at your doorstep with just as much bacchanalian élan as it did chez moi. How did you ring in the new month? Which of those Black Friday sweaters actually fit you? Why do I treat this blog like a family newsletter that you never asked for? Early December is a time for asking questions.

One of the questions/pleas I find myself shouting to nobody in particular these days: HAS ANYONE SEEN MY SEMESTER? I DON'T KNOW WHERE IT WENT. Seriously, folks, can it really be that in just three weeks I will be stepping onto a plane, the memory of study abroad tucked neatly into my back pocket--not disturbing the secret compartment I have sewn into my jeans for the safekeeping of Kinder Bueno Bars? It is hard to believe that day in and day out, for the last three and a half months, I have trekked out to Pessac and tried my darnedest to understand what those dressed-up people in the front of the room are saying. The Université de Bordeaux III's campus, apparently designed by an angry four-year-old, is an image I will never forget--a bastion of scholarly wisdom and reasonably priced cafeteria food. I seem to have developed a sort of Stockholm syndrome with regard to my school here, and although its inability to balance a budget of 500 euros has caused an embarrassing administrative overhaul, I think my colleagues will agree with me when I say, "UB3 is the place to be."*

On one of the other hands, the semester has certainly had its enterprises of great pith and moment, as Guillaume would say. What I mean by that is it hasn't all gone by in a blur; why, just yesterday I said goodbye to my sister, whom we'll call "Sarah", concluding a whopping six-night visit (!) to Borland. She was joined by my mother Mom, who only stayed until Tuesday morning. Despite a 24-hour period (not saying whose!) of evacuation and solitary confinement that may have been an homage to Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, the visit was barrels of fun. And barrels of wine! Literally, we went to a chateau in Saint-Émilion, got the private tour of the property, met the owner, climbed into the presses, played a drinking/"smelling" game, learned how to spell vinification, and other sweet--if you will--activities. Sarah and Mom both walked out of the place with bottles on bottles. We also hit up the Dune du Pyla--study up with this vintage LVEB post--and enjoyed the crazy jungle-forest-ocean-desert view that only this joint affords. My mom doesn't have the world's highest tolerance--not that she ever claimed to--so her wine experience was not as grapey as it could have been, but she still got a chance to get her fair share of the white stuff (that means white wine here*) and swore to my host mother never again to drink chardonnay. (Sorry, Big Sean.)

Sarah and I had a great time traipsing around the city, exploring really weird modern art exhibits, making friends with shopkeepers on my block, watching a guy who looked like Yosemite Sam perform at a jazz bar, Hoovering delicious foods as varied as chicken shwarma with fries and entrecôte ...with fries, and trying to get a patent on a Pineau drip feed. Yo, one word about l'Entrecôte: incroyable. I got in an argument last night with a French waitress (off-duty) about it, and she's all like, "I don't find the meat to be of a good quality and it is too expensive in relation to the morsels that they serve you and the line is of such a length and the women who work there are paid by how many tables they sell so they do not appreciate you and" and at some point I just tuned her out because, really, fuck ça. L'Entrecôte is like God's buffet line. It makes sense that people would want to queue up for that shit. Sorry you can't handle a little deferred gratification.

I was sad to part ways with the family, needless to blog. In fact, the weekend before last I got a little surprise visit from my dad, Dad, who flew in from a three-week business trip to spend limited-quantity but maximum-quality time in the City that Never Wakes Up. I don't want to rehash the laundry list of meals that we managed to pack into 24 hours, but let's just say that if ducks could talk, they would say, "Adam and his dad ate lots of our friends."

The ducks would also decry the abuses of the French Southwest in general, whose singular mission it is to make all parts of the duck edible, and all ducks unhappy or dead.

I would like to point out the bizarre phenomenon that is the average French body type. On the whole, Pierre and Aurélie are shockingly thin considering their relatively decadent lifestyle. This sounds extremely offensive, so let me explain.

1. Exercise. What is that? They don't have that here. The extremely small number of people you see running in the mornings in the public gardens? They are immigrants. As WSJ previously mentioned, why run when you can scoot?

2. Diet. My host mother doesn't believe in drinking water during meals. However, she strongly promotes the liberal consumption of bacon, which here is appetizingly called lardon. Also, the mayor of Bordeaux is a wheel of cheese. (Pictured below.)

3. Alcohol. I have seen a full wine rack laid bare in the span of four days. My host brother is a cross-between whoever taught James Bond how to drink, and the guy who taught that guy.

4. Cigarettes. This is an easy one. Cigs are like girls in that Beyoncé song: they run the world. The school system is organized completely around smoke breaks. You had a two-hour class? Sacré bleu, I hope you got that petite pause! Yesterday I literally saw a baby smoking two cigarettes at the same time.

Do you see what I mean? You gotta wonder how the youth stays so trim. Must be the white stuff.

Then again, they don't have Thanksgiving. Isn't that funny? You would think that the French would jump at every opportunity to stuff a bird with bread and eat foods that are healthy in theory but not in practice/compiled into a mass of indiscernible, belt-loosening sadness. In reality, we Americans don't get a lot of love for this holiday overseas. I spent my Thursday night sitting down for a meal with my old colonizers, the English. Only then did I fully realize the oppression that American Indians felt in those awkward early settlement years. When we gathered at the table for a poker game, the Brits initially didn't accept my money, and I eventually had to stop playing with them for fear that they would tar and feather me. On an occasion dedicated to putting beside cultural differences and accepting diversity, I was hounded with jeers like "bloody Yank" and "Dr. Yankenstein" and "fat". They did, however, show some sign of reconciliation by playing this vid for me. So I guess my Thanksgiving was comme ci, comme ça.

Anyway, the sun is setting on what has turned out to be a very unproductive day for me. Apart from ending my brief observation of No Shave November two days late, I can't say I've used my time effectively today. La Vie en Bros, I've come to find, is a bit of an addiction. Do you agree? The numbers say you do! Last week we hit a milestone, crossing the 300,000 pageview threshold. I know, I know, it's not Kanye Twitter figures. But thanks to our extremely advanced capabilities in social media platform web technology algorithm functions, as well as yet another shout-out from Wesleying--although we were mentioned off-handedly and I kind of fucked up tipping Melody off about a false rumor, so the article was deleted--we now enjoy the kind of visibility I could only dream about on Xanga. So thanks, Melody! And mille mercis to all of the LVEB D-vo-Ts.

Alain Juppé's college days. Bye!