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!

Brotpourri/Brolture wars

Hey bro-natics, Uncle Sauce here again. Apologies for another week without posting; the host parents confiscated my laptop after I messed up saying Grace. This here's another catch-up post, and boy have I got some crazy shit for y'all to suce on. Well actually, there aren't any events in particular I'm going to talk about, this one's sort of dedicated to the bizarre cultural differences I've seen thus far, with some brominiscing mixed in. First of all, razor scooters. Yeah. What the fuck, France. Sixth-grade Sauce just called from 2002, and he wants his ride to school back (every day, bitches). This is the only place where I've seen full grown adults pushing around on two wheels like some sort of Never-Never Land scenario brought to life. They're everywhere- sidewalks, buses, metro- and they even fold them up to carry when they're not using them. It's seriously hilarious. I saw a woman on the metro who looked every inch the businesswoman on her way home from work, and then I saw the scooter under her arm. If it had been the U.S., I would have said to myself "oh, it's her kid's and he's over there sitting down and she's carrying his scooter for him because he's tired". No kid here though. She scootered off as soon as the doors opened, because here it's normal to scooter on the metro platform. So strange. The scooters here even have bigger wheels, because they're made for adults. As if Americans needed another reason to believe that French people are massive pussies. Although I've been told that this is becoming a trend in NYC as well, in which case I may have to dust off the ol' Laser for one last spin (the parents were too cheap to get me the real thing). Another vestige of my early adolescence which has come back and smacked me in the mouth like a Jean-Claude van Damme roundhouse kick is- wait for it- orange slices. As in, what Billy's mom used to bring to soccer games when you were 6 so the whole team could chow down during halftime and wish it would've been Kyle's mom's turn so they could have Chewy bars. For reasons I have yet to divine, our replenishment during our grueling, dirty, super-manly rugby matches is orange slices. The coach just pops them out during the huddle like it's nothing. I literally burst out laughing when I first saw it. I feel as if French society is slowly regressing back into childhood, like a mass Benjamin Button outbreak. Not that they're not delicious, but in the states you're more likely to get a Natty Light on the sidelines- none of that fruit bullshit. Enough apt cultural observations for now, though. Actually, one more. Halloween! C'mon, France! How can you not love this holiday? 1) You love candy. 2) You love literally everything else from America, including but not limited to Razor scooters, CSI, Lady Gaga, and McDonalds. 3) It's not like you don't enjoy dressing bizarrely- I see plenty of bright yellow pants and purple hair on a daily basis. So basically, what I'm saying is I was absolutely shocked on Halloween night when me and Christian "Odysseus" Lalonde left my apartment building only to realize that this country could not care less. So there was the sadness and disappointment, but also the acute embarrassment of riding on the metro for 20 minutes while dressed up as the Albanian kidnappers from Taken (we are sick people), surrounded by mostly normally-dressed Parisians. Fortunately, when I ("Nico") and Christian ("Marko") arrived at Kalei ("Jackson Pollock Painting") Talwar's apartment, we were in luck. We had somehow scrounged up enough of the ol' Halloween spirit to create the most understated, subdued Halloween party ever held. Knocking back vodka-orange-cavas with Tintin, a Real Housewife from New Jersey, a cat, Baby Spice, Salvador Dali, and a witch, while speaking in hushed tones and not daring to put on music, has to be the saddest memory I have of this semester. Despite the rape-y vibe of me and Christian's costumes, which we evidently had not considered when deciding to go to a Halloween party that was 95% girls, some people actually thought it was funny. Ok, like one person. It might have been a little over the line when we started "taking" other party guests (ransom: 1 shot). All I can say is, good thing Liam Neeson wasn't there!

Nico and Marko

Actually, to continue the bizarre U.S. vs. France motif that I've set here, we went to a literal U.S. vs. France soccer match a couple weeks back. AI even made the trip up, swelling our numbers to a whopping 12 people, which was easily 1/3rd of the entire U.S. fan population there. Nevertheless, we were at our ugly finest, chanting U-S-A at every opportunity and yelling witty barbs like "You're welcome for D-Day!" and "Your country fucking sucks!". Despite our best efforts, the good guys lost, 1-nil, which was especially painful because of the jeering 4-year-old in front of me with the French flag painted on his face. I'm serious- that little asshole got to me. No doubt he'll grow up thinking that wave he was doing all game was invented in la France. Not so, petit ecolier- not fucking so. You'd better think next time you hop on that little scooter, too. That, and when you chant the tune from "Seven Nation Army" after you score, like that's French too. Get your own song! Gahhhhhh. Alright, that's enough for now. Time for Sauce to get his beauty rest. A bientot. More bropdates later.

P.S. Meanwhile, it's almost fucking December here- the semester's coming to a close. How time flies. Hope y'all that are still reading have enjoyed keeping abreast of your favorite freres' adventures so far. A.I.'s gonna tell y'all about his malade weekend in Paris. Also, just learned how to say "dick-slap" in French- bifler (bee-flay). It's a combination of the verb gifler, "to slap", and bite, "dick". I knew I liked it here.

Brocelona

Hey kids. Uncle Sauce here. Yeah, I'm still here! Feverishly thinking of ways to entertain you! Experiencing everything there is to see and do in Paris! Forgetting that this blog exists! Just kidding, I've just been very lazy. Lot's of fun to catch everyone up on. Few weeks ago, went to Barcelona for Toussaint break. As in, "I am going Toussaint Tropez for a week in the middle of the semester, even though in France school is a joke and we have class once a week". Barcelona, for those who aren't initiated, is on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, not to far from their border with France. It's in a region called Catalonia (or Catalunya), which, disappointingly, does not mean that it is run by a council of all-powerful cats (Many of whom would, ostensibly, have been educated at the Veterinary School where I have rugby practice). That I know of. Also, Barcelona, it turns out, is siiiiiiiick! We had an awesome time. I was there with Koko "doesn't need a nickname" Fisch, Elaine "Schmelly" Cheung (sorry), Christian "My hair is gorgeous" Lalonde, Ivy "Icy" Johnson, Hannah "Grace" Eidman, and Peter "Michael" Rothe. We stayed with Koko's friend from highschool, named Ki, who is awesome, and who lives in a giant old warehouse which is now a space for artists to live. It was, I can truthfully say, the coolest living situation I have ever observed, and probably will ever see, unless they figure out a way to replace the walls with glass and put it underwater (or white sauce). It's basically become 13 little apartments on 2 floors, with these massive common areas on both floors, one of which was basically designed for large smokeouts / photography shoots, and the other being a large communal kitchen. Not that we spent a ton of time there (we spent a ton of time there.).

Temple of Sin/Our house for a week

But, we also saw and experienced a lot of Barcelona. La Sagrada Familia, designed by Antoni Gaudi, who probably was drinking a lot of pineau, was truly magnificent. It has yet to be finished, because its design is truly unique/time-consuming, and also probably because Gaudi himself died during its construction because he stepped out into the street to admire it, and was promptly flattened by a truck whose driver was doing the same thing. Seriously. The building looks like a normal cathedral which God saw and decided to build a dripcastle on top of, because he had just been at the awesome beach a mile away. Parts of it are gothic, other parts look like something out of Dr. Seuss. On the inside, which also isn't finished, the columns look like they turn into trees midway up, and the branches become the supports for the ceiling. Seriously, seriously cool. We also went to the Picasso Museum, because there aren't enough museums in Paris, and definitely not one devoted to Picasso, but this one was also pretty interesting. Picasso evidently forgot what things looked like about halfway into his career, but before that he was pas mal. Also, he had this hilarious phase where he painted pottery, and the stuff looks exactly like crap I used to make at Made By You as Christmas presents for my parents. Someone probably told them they needed more art at the museum so they got their kids to throw some glaze at the china collection. At least, that's how it looks to my trained eye. We also went on La Rambla, which is very beautiful, as well as Parc Guell, another Gaudi masterpiece/pineau-induced vision. If Sagrada Familia is the church of Whoville, then Parc Guell is their little town square/mountain/performance space. It also has an insane view of the entire city.

WHOOOOOOAAAAAAAAA

But probably the highlight of the trip was going to see FC FREAKING BARCELONA play on one of our last nights there. We got the tickets like, a day before, and it turns out they were ENORME. Me and Christian were sitting probably 20 rows back, and we were facing goal for 3 Barca goals, all of which were scored by Messi (game ended 5-nil. Suck it, Mallorca!). If you're reading this, Lio, nicely done.

This is where we were sitting.....

Of course, the beach was also nice- yes, it was still beach weather there, if anyone saw my previous post- although I'm still trying to forget the image of 70 year old bare breasts which has been seared into my retinas. We also went out clubbing/barring most nights, which was great- especially the Razzmatazz club, the largest in Barcelona, where we danced until literally 6 in the morning. The highlight of Razzmatazz was definitely seeing our 20-something housemate, Caesar, boogie down on the dance floor. Previous to this episode, we had thought for sure he was like a super-hetero Australian brah, because he never wore a shirt and would do pullups on this rope outside his room in front of everyone. But the way he got down on the dance floor was, may I say, flamboyant. He was completely ignoring this gorgeous Australian girl who had come to visit him, and who we had assumed was his girlfriend, because he couldn't get enough Ke$ha. Pretty drole, if you ask me. Overall, Barcelona definitely gets approval from the Sauce. Don't forget to try their cava, or the paella. A bientot! Also, AI, we should look into getting a Tumblr. Gotta give the people visual aides.

Brorgiveness / Broflections

Sauce, you don't need to apologize to anyone for not updating the blog. Our schedules are chock full and we don't always have the time or energy to share every miniscule detail of our lives with our needy fans. They need to recognize. That being said, I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank Zach Schonfeld for boosting our hits; we seem to be still riding on the coattails of the October 6 Wesleying post that brought LVEB to national attention. Since then we have counted over 25,000 unique hits*! That's more viewers than Tom Anderson has on his Myspace page, yo! (This is probably true.)

So as I was walking home from Paris yesterday, I realized something: my tastes in music have barely changed in the last dozen years. I mean, sure, I've become slightly more discerning, and I got the Pitchfork logo branded on my left buttock, and I know how many people are in Bon Iver--one, right???--but, honestly, what did I listen to before that I would dislike now? Maybe I'm asking the wrong question--literally someone please tell me how many people are in Bon Iver--but it seems like I should be accumulating some kind of sophistication as I age and get exposed to more and more music, shedding embarrassing phases à la Christian Lalonde shedding weight grâce à his miserly host parents. The truth is, there will always be a place in my heart for Bro Strings Attached.

But also Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park's 2000 chef d'œuvre. For real, people, definition of a classic. Something about a guy named Chester belting out melodrama just gets to me. And I'm not even thinking about "In the End," (although I am thinking about it right now,) which, by the way, is the eighth track on the album! Can you believe that? What current band would have the cojones to stash their single in the back like that? Really, every song brings that angsty heat I still love; sometimes I catch myself chanting: "Forfeit the game/before somebody else takes you out of the frame/and puts your name to shame." It might be an oblique reference to World of Warcraft, but hell if I care; that's the word of God right there.

Anyway, the nostalgia for prepubescence passes and I am sitting on my bed trying to kill a mosquito. It is the middle of November and there is a mosquito all up in my shit. Now, I'm not a scientist (although this guy is), but how much more evidence do we need to prove that global warming is going to kill us all--or worse, let mosquitoes survive past early fall? It's pretty easy to see why the French aren't leading the race to combat the problem; they have like a billion different terms for it: réchauffement du monde, réchauffement climatique, réchauffement planétaire, réchauffement de la planète, etc. etc. etc. Really though, France, pick an adjective and admit that the crisis exists. Just because you people drive motorized rickshaws doesn't mean you are helping the world out. The cigarettes your country smokes daily are probably as bad for the environment as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also known as the World's Worst 4/20 Ever). Also, your dogs shit everywhere, indiscriminately and en masse. Clean that up. Christ, I feel like Marie Antoinette Poppins.

Par contre, I will be honest and say that the weather this weekend was divine, the perfect occasion for me and Swag to hit the City of Lights and remind our fellow collegians how to really party. This largely resulted in waking up in the afternoon, walking for a couple of hours, collapsing into food, and drinking ourselves into an extended hypnagogic state. For the record, I managed to take care of lotsa activities in my 50 hours: I hit the Jardin/Palais du Luxembourg, the Marais, the Canal St. Martin, the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Sacré Cœur, the Bastille, the Champ de Mars, Saint Germain, a Tibetan restaurant, and a desolate street corner off the Rue Oberkampf. Damn! And I didn't even mention Friday night, when a bunch of us diehard soccer fans went to see Uncle Sam vs. Le Coq Sportif at Stade de France, an event marked less by both teams' disappointing performances than by running into Sciences-Po-Nerd-In-Residence Faye "Chauncey Billups" Phillips, who regaled me with stories of Scandinavia, an affair she is having with the President of the Louvre, and some other equally banal things that I don't remember. We had an amazing pregame dinner--literally--at our friend Koko's mom's friend's apartment. I'm pretty sure she made those madeleines. Some other people chopped tomatoes or whatever, but all credit goes to Koko and her mother for the delicious spread, and également for putting up with our "well I would hate for this bottle of Jack Daniel's to go to waste!" and other antics.

I would like to stress that, though Paris has a reputation for being expensive as all get-up, I found love in a hopeless place some pretty good deals in the Bastille neighborhood, next to where my host for the weekend Jesse "Rick" Ross-Silverman lives. Ya'll know Jules? If not, get wise. I'm talking boots that neither confine my wardrobe to "longshoreman" nor cast me as a young Nancy Sinatra, 'bout 60 euro for them joints. Additionally, I copped a sharp oxford for 15 Eazy €s. Believe when I say that when I hit the club later that weekend, I left the other mecs in the dust. Except for that one guy who shoved me. He shoved me really far.

Actually, I got pretty lucky in terms of paying for food (although I made sure, conscientious tourist that I am, to compensate with libation) both nights. Saturday, the Sauce's parents, typically referred to as MomDad, treated me, ledit Sauce, and Christian "Don't Starve Me Bro" Lalonde to an exquis dinner near the Eiffel Tower, at a restaurant appropriately named FL. (Say it out loud, idiot.) The ambience was nice, the wine was great, and even though Jamie's dad called me "Jew Boy" (only once!) it was a lot of fun to hang out with the original Sauces. Papa Sauce is literally French and put me on some good words to repérer for the future: perdrix, for example, means "partridge." Thanks.

So, yeah. Other than this painful blister I received from hours of dancing in my new Jules, this weekend was nothing but awesome time after awesome time. I'm hoping to hit up P-town once more before the end of the semester, but I don't want to raise everyone's expectations, only to have them crushed by the weight of finals and the depressing prospect of spending another pair of three-hour train rides wedged in between fellow tardy passengers, stepped on by small children and battle-rapped at by obnoxious SNCF attendants.

Morocco might be in my future? Not before a torrent of papers and oral exams! Who will prevail in the battle between lazy and grade-conscious? Find out soon...in the mean time, let's just appreciate the awkwardly nice weather. Jew Boy out; take it away, Sawse.

Bropologies

New post coming soon... I promise! (bromise?)

Things on the docket:

Brocelona

Brolloween

Broccer

Brozor scooters

Brorange slices

-Sauce

Here's a picture of some bronzin'!

Brovember

Happy belated halloween, escrocs! I hope everyone had a fantastic time out and about Monday, reveling in the only night of the year (with the possible exception of Passover) that people can pretend to be on the margins of society--whores, zombies, etc.--and yell at strangers until they are given desserts. When I think back, my all-time favorite Halloween has got to be 10/31/1998, the year I dressed up like Bill Clinton and, due to an understandable administrative mix-up, was called in to break things off permanently with Monica Lewinsky on the President's behalf. Trick got a treat all right.

Ever since then, Halloween has just not seemed real enough for me. I've been doing bigger and more intricate costumes, like in 2006 when I commemorated the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake by dressing up as one hundred earthquakes, but it always feels like I'm missing something. That's why this year I was SO excited when I figured out a totally amazing new way to celebrate Halloween: get sick! That's right, sick. While you guys were out parading your adorable, taking-Disney-to-a-whole-new-level-of-inappropriate getups, I was in bed, sweating and yet also freezing my balls off, fighting off delirium, sucking hot water through a tube, shaking violently as I tried to take one of those trusty French medications (this one I believe was called Feral Alien), only conscious enough to listen to Seinfeld episodes--which, I've realized, does not compromise the quality of the show in any way.

Soon enough, however, my body realized that everything would be fine if it just chilled out for a minute and let me go to sleep; and that is exactly what I did. TWELVE HOURS LATER, I woke up, no fever, no chills, no pain in the glavin, feeling like roughly 724,000 euros. The day after Halloween in France is a federal holiday, an unbelievably brilliant idea which America should adopt immediately if She wants to be taken seriously in this world. This jour férié, French for "Shabbat", is crucial for those of us who need to catch up on sleep, The Wire, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Up All Night, the original Office, crossword puzzles, the AFI Top 100, the IMDB Top 250, Wesleying, La Blogothèque, the Paul Rudd discography, reading, and other essentials.

Also, professional sports. What does that mean anymore? I've completely lost touch. Trying to get a football game on at a bar here is like asking Jesse Ross-Silverman who won the World Series: you feel stupid for even posing the question.

Jesse's cool with me saying that.* We caught up a lot when I tagged along with him, Ari "A-Fish Twin" Fishman, and Molly "My Dad Makes Lots of Things Have Sex with Each Other" Hanessian at Pitchfork last weekend. The festival capped off an outrageously fun five days I spent in Paris. I really did it all, you know, from climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower, to stealing a stuffed elk from the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, to seeing Justin Vernon French kiss Lykke Li at the Grande Halle de la Villette, to shooting a mime off the Pont Alexandre III, to briefly curating the unbelievable Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Centre Pompidou, to finding a parking ticket that belonged to Jean-Paul Sartre at the Café Flor, to having a glass bottle broken on me so it could be used as a weapon against a homeless man on the ligne 8, to translating the new Clooney/Gosling movie The Ides of March to an entirely French audience, to looting a construction site with Jens Lekman off the Rue du Rivoli, to getting a 24-hour hallucination from a falafel/opium I got in the Marais, to delivering the 7,000,000,000th child at the Hôpital Saint-Vincent de Paul, to wearing the same pair of jeans every day of my entire vacation except Friday.**

Ah, memories. Well, it's time for me to face the music and give a presentation on the influence of William Shakespeare in The Portrait of Dorian Gray, which could either last 45 minutes or none at all because the professor said that she might also just not pick us to present so it's like, okay, great, I guess I will just do all this work for your class even though it is only worth 25% of the total comp lit course, but it's cool that I stayed up until 4am two weeks ago and did the fucking paper while you were "sick" in bed and didn't tell us we wouldn't have class until we were already at school, so that's

[Edited Thursday, 19h00: The presentation lasted two hours. That is not a typo.]

*This remains to be seen.

**Many of these things actually happened to me.*

BROBETROTTING

Mesdames et messieurs, I'm writing you from a café in Paris, where I've just landed after a whirlwind trip to Europe's favorite estranged cousin: the United Kingdom. Sitting here, sipping my Stella Artois, which I've recently learned is the Rolling Rock of this continent, I have nothing but the fondest memories of the nights I (literally just) spent in Oxford and a suburb of London named Egham (founded in the 1800s by a certain Croque Monsieur). First and foremost, I would like to recognize the generosity of my friends Laura Rothkopf and Audrey Kiely, Britain's Leading Ladies in the hospitality department. Thank you, girls, for assuring I wouldn't go to bed fearing for my life on the cold, mean streets of suburban England. Without you, I would have become just another Billy Elliott.

Oxford was a blast, if only a short-lived one, especially because I once spent a whole summer there while my father (the original Bro) was on sabbatical. It was great to walk the streets I used to frequent, passing Oxford University Press, the beautiful Magdalen College, and a restaurant named Jude the Obscure which, back in 2002, was a dragqueen-themed bar named Bojangles and was the source of many a weird late-night encounter as my family hurried home. I watched in awe as students bustled in and out of university buildings 400 years older than the District 9-style shanties Bordeaux calls a campus, and felt a similar shock at the bargain basement deals we were getting at Laura's college bar. Something seemed wrong here; it was the architectural beauty of Yale (just to give you something to refer to, even though obviously OU predates YU) and the affordability of Bridgeport. A winning combination, every time.

London, it turns out, is enormous (click here for a really confusing, not at all helpful perspective on the city). When I arrived by the British equivalent of MegaBus (no comment), I sauntered around Hyde Park and then caught the tail end of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. By that, I mean I saw the beefeater firmly fixing his stance, which could mean he was finishing the Electric Slide or trying to deal with a wedgie. Honestly, talk about a job with visibility; how much pressure do you think those dudes feel on the reg? And what if they don't even like meat?

I navigated the London Underground over to the East End, where our good friend Neo "Ne-Bro Bro-ra" Sora works at this pizza shop that resembles Neo to a tee: reserved yet friendly, tasteful yet not self-indulgent, Japanese yet seemingly a child of all cultures. For legal purposes, it would be unwise to divulge the name of the restaurant that has hired him as somewhat of an undocumented citizen, but mostly I don't want to share it because it might cease to lose its cloistered hipster appeal. Suffice it to say that the chorizo, pumpkin, and telaggio pizza Neo made me will be etched in my memory, as well as on my shirt and jeans, for years to come. Keep it up, bro!

Egham is a quaint town around forty minutes outside of London, and despite its calm, provincial façade, it is home to perhaps some of the rowdiest Britons in all of Albion. Audrey and I spent the first night playing the ukulele and trying to sleep while her hallmates engaged in what sounded like a cross between rugby and strip poker. (To quote dear friend Ivan Broitsev, it got weird.) Individually, these kids, who are almost all freshmen at Royal Holloway - University of London, are cool and interesting and have those killer accents, but something changes when they got John Barleycorn in 'em. (The accent does not change.) Freshmen.

So there's not tons of stuff to do in Egham, but there is a pub that does curry nights on Monday and Tuesday, and a produce market on campus that would probably rival Fruit and Veggie Co-op at Wes, if I knew what that was. The school has a castle, though, and a late-night stroll around the buildings was a good way to take in the sights and avoid strip rugby. However, above all, the defining moment of my time in Egham was making dinner Sunday night. Audrey and I revived an ancient Chinese recipe and whipped up scallion pancakes, replete with salad and fried haloumi. This delicious creation was the envy of the entire town, with freshmen heard to be salivating from kilometres away. Some classy gin and tonics helped us tune out the groveling.

I popped back into London yesterday to hit up two landmarks: the Tate Modern and my friend Alex Kramer. AK-47, as Audrey will now be called, and I saw some very interesting exhibits, including a Diane Arbus room with photos of Jorge Luis Borges, Russian midgets, a Jewish giant, and this adorable yet terrifying boy, among others. Kramer met up with us at the Tate and led us on a circuitous, serpentine route through the city that would make him second only to Moses in terms of worst guides in history. We're talking literally four miles to the nearest Thai restaurant. Fortunately, the joint we landed at, the Three Compasses, had these amazing leather chairs that made us all feel like rich Chinese businessmen at the Delta Airways Executive Lounge. (Just me?) After a surprisingly good chicken panang, AK-Moses had to leave us to make it to the Old Vic, where he was being honored by Kevin Spacey for taking over as the new artistic director. Congratulations once again, Kramer.

Anyway, as I reflect on my excursion, and as I hear Adam Levine tell me about his Jaggeresque moves, I realize that there's been one thing missing: live music. The Tate was great (great Tate!) and AK-47 has a voice that would make Prince's doves cry, but I am seriously craving a real concert. I mean, the last time I saw someone onstage, apart from the jazz quartet at the wine bar with that awkward-ass guitarist, was the Great Steve Aoki Boat Incident on September 10th. FORTUNATELY, PITCHFORK MUSIC FESTIVAL IS ALMOST HERE. I think I'll end on that note. What better way to cap off a bro-tastic (literally not bro-tastic, it has been almost exclusively me and girls) vacation than Bron Iver, Brour Tet, Washed Brout, etc.?

P.S. That new Coldplay is now playing on the radio here, fuck ça. There is a couple exchanging glances and--I can read lips, guys--commenting silently on how I'm chewing my jambon de Paris with my mouth open. Firstly, no I'm not, up yours. Secondly, you probably smoke with your mouth open. Thirdly, I just finished watching Into the Wild, so let me be myself.

P.P.S. I never chronicled the Parisian invasion that was India, Dés, and Stéph (you earned an accent!) leading me around Bordeaux as if they were the ones who lived there. I will paraphrase and just say that we all had a fucking bomb time. The highlight was the Saturday night meal at l'Entrecôte, and eating there was like walking in Nobu with no shoes. Okay, that about wraps things up here; tune in next time, when WSJ tells all about getting frisked by some unfriendly RyanAir security guards!

Broncerts, Brontmartre*, etc.

Sup everyone. Just ate an entire poulet fermier so I might pass out soon. But not before I incept this insane remembrance into your head. Last week me n' the gang went to the literal Moulin (C)Rouge to see a concert... as in, that place in the movie where Ewan McGregor gets on stage and sings a bunch of show tunes. Except, it was a face-kicking mix of techno/house/electro, so more like E-in' McDrugger! (Get it? ...sorry.) The lineup, partially, was BeatauCue, The Twelves, Is Tropical, and half of Hot Chip. Basically, imagine INOX (or relive it!)**. Now, subtract everyone you've heard of, put it in a little room, and add a bunch of dudes that look like Moby. Yeah. The night basically went like this:

10pm: Meet in front of the Moulin Rouge. Begin drinking.

10:30pm: Get more vodka.

11:30pm: Finish drinking. Get in line.

12am: Girl immediately rejected for being too drunk. Cries.

1:30am: Concert actually starts. No one knows who is playing. Lots of dancing. Girls make out. Nice!

2:00am: Turns out, it's Is Tropical! They're playing this song.

2:30am: The Twelves. Also, more drinking.

3:00am: Where's BeatauCue?

3:30am: No, seriously....

3:45am: Bathroom break. I see some guy pulling out his own tooth.

4:00am: Everyone leaves.

Pretty fun concert, actually. I busted out some dance moves, the ladies loved it, and even better, I managed not to expose myself, attempt to de-shirt a girl, and scream expletives get as crazy as I did the previous night (note: sorry again, everyone. Like, so sorry). The Twelves are really good, check out this track. Although I left with bite marks on my neck. Not all that sure what that's about.

*Montmartre, which is where the Moulin Rouge is located, is like the gathering spot for everyone in Paris who's just had too much pineau, to borrow terminology from A.I.. Also, hookers. Like thousands of them. It is literally possible, while walking, to accidentally have sex with a hooker. Thank Broseidon, I had my wits about me this night, and I did not succumb to temptation with any man/woman/whatever. Naturally, the 'hood is also full of wasted ass creepy dudes, which made for really fun pregaming on the sidewalk. Some guys literally walked by us, all of seven girls and two dudes, and said "how much?". Seriously uncool move, man, they were clearly with me. Montmartre is also home to a seriously malade amount of kebab places. Nowhere have I felt so surrounded by delicious, delicious whitesauce. Literally, I would do this, but with whitesauce. The combo of good bars, kebab joints, and dangerous liaisons with Paris' famed ladies of the night has me already anticipatin' the next night out in the 'martre. Except that last part. Seriously, fuck that.

**If you watched the video, yes we have the boat now. Pretty sure at 1:38 we're scampering away with it.

...Saw Drive yesterday afternoon. Who knew Ryan Gosling was a goon? Awesome, awesome flick. Not enough driving, though. Or of that blonde girl, if you know what I mean.

Alright, everyone. I'm gonna make my mouth do a gainer into a caraffe du vin before I say my prayers do my best Houdini impression in bed. A bientot.

Bromework

"When my father died, I said, 'fuck school.'" - Barack Obama

Hello again toutes et tous, can you believe it's already the weekend? Well, almost. (Except in Australia, where it's probably already Halloween. Am I right, Nick?!) It seems like the school week goes by in a flash here. I have chalked it up to three potential reasons:

1. The metric system

2. Deceptively long lunch breaks in between classes

3. Pineau

My art history teacher has been trying since the beginning of the year to push our class back an hour so we can have 120 minutes of lunch time. What is this, nursery school? At Wesleyan, I'm lucky if I have 50, which roughly translates into 10 minutes of standing in line, 10 minutes of finding a table, 10 minutes of eating, and 20 minutes of throwing up in the bathroom. (If you're reading this, Mert, I got no problem with you. You can fix me up a pie any old time.)

I should mention here that from an economic standpoint, the Université Bordeaux 3 cafeterias are putting Westaurants to shame. I mean I'm getting a panini for something like $4.50 all day, every day. (...Not all day, just every day.) I could be wrong, though; it's possible that a hot meal, boy it feels weird saying that phrase, would end up being the same price as in Amurica, adjusted for exchange rate/metric system. Either way, the people at Le Veracruz (yes, one word) are very nice and have even spotted me a couple centimes when I couldn't foot the jambon fromage bill. The other joint on campus is this place called Le Sirtaki, but I haven't been there because, honestly, I don't know what the fuck Sirtaki means, and I'm afraid to find out.

How was today different from all other days foodwise? In two ways was it different. Whereas I usually snag a 'nini before the 12:30 lunch crush (which is incidentally one of Snorlax's deadliest moves), today I did not queue up because I was deep in a 2006-era Friday crossword puzzle from the NYT archive courtesy of Across Lite, it has truly become an addiction and I need help homework. I'll return to this topic later, as it is the title of the brost, but I wanted first to share with you the second novel food-related thing about today. (Was that a sentence?) From about 7:15 AM to 8:45 PM, the only things I had ingested were bread products with chocolate inside them. That means for breakfast I ate some cereal called Trésor that would put the Cookie Monster (or Snorlax) in cardiac arrest, as well as a slice of bread with a layer of Nutella arguably thicker than the bread itself; lunch was a gastronomic reenactment of the movie "Gone in 60 Seconds," starring Three Pains au Chocolat; after classes, I needed some re-fueling to get me through my evening basketball game, so I manically stuffed month-old pralines into a baguette on my way to the tram.

On an unrelated note, I have several cavities.

Which reminds me, back to homework. Right. Today was an absolute blague of a workday. In my 8:30 AM literature class I was charged with the simple task of writing a dissertation on a concept my professor invented: "marcher, penser, écrire." I originally put dissertation in italics to signify that it is a French word, but then I kept it in italics to emphasize how fucking ridiculous it was that we were writing a dissertation on the phrase "walk, think, write." More specifically, we had to channel Thoreau and discuss the importance of walking, thinking, and writing in Walden. Luckily, the chocolate-smuggling carb puffs I inhaled for petit déjeuner gave me the brainpower I needed to adequately baratiner the paper. Then I spent three hours scouring Wikipedia the library for info on Cardinal Richelieu and also every other important French figure between 1500 and 1661. Did you know Henry IV changed religions three times before the age of nine? YEAH I KNOW! Yo this is cool about Richelieu, though: while the Holy Roman Empire was engaging in a stupid Thirty Years War with itself, Richelieu literally financed the Swedish army which intervened and ended errything, and the ensuing treaty made France the most powerful nation in the world.

Alright, this post is dragging longer than a French teacher on a cig break. Basically, the world of academia put the hurt on me today, but I've emerged stronger and with less homework, so MDR to Thoreau, Oscar Wilde, Sweden, that sweater my professor was wearing, environmentalism, dentists, that skirt my other professor was wearing, Nero, the Medicis, you're cool, fuck you, I'm out.

P.S. American Friends India, Désíréé, and Steph are visiting this weekend; can't wait to show them why we call Bordeaux "Paris on PCP"!!!!!

P.P.S. If you made it this far, felicitations, you are rewarded with this unbelievably hilarious video of Bill Gates leaping over a chair.

Brost Family, other things

First off, just gonna reiterate what A.I. said before: you, Zach, are a champ, and thanks again for the shout-out. Since A.I.'s kicking my ass in the non-brevity department, this one's gonna be kinda longue, which is good because I don't want to go to sleep in my tiny French bed. Which by the way reminds me- what the f, France? Just make a normal sized bed. It would be okay but apparently heaters haven't made their way over either, so my toes look like I dipped them in red wine, which in fact feels great but in this case means they are purple and cold. But that is neither here nor there. In fact, besides the weird chair that I have apparently been given in lieu of a bed, host family life is nothing to complain about. My host mom, Benedicte, and my host dad, Dominique, who are in fact, collectively, the Pope, are pretty chill, unless you ask them about Jews or black people (true story: Benedicte thinks DSK got off because of some sort of Jew-conspiracy, whereby the prosecutor half-assed it because he's a Jew, DSK's a Jew, all lawyers are Jews. Really.). Actually, to extend that parentheses, I told them that one of my professors was from Benin, West Africa, to which they responded "he must be completely black!". To which I sort of frowned, so they changed to "he must be very black". My host parents.

Not cool. But, actually, due to the fact that I am not black, and that I have hidden my partially Jewish heritage from them thus far, I am treated great. The house has about 23034 rooms, give or take, and I am allowed in almost all of them (no living room for me- too much breakable stuff.) My room has a fireplace with a marble mantelpiece, giant windows, and 20 pictures of my host sister, who looks exactly like Marine Le Pen. Also, they took me to their country house last weekend, an invitation which in France signifies that they are sick of my having parties in their apartment when they go without me. They also invited my friend, Christian "Christian" Lalonde, who due to his super-French, super-God-friendly name, probably seems like the son they never had (although they have 4 already). They love God.
I am not allowed in this room.


Anyways, in non-host family life, and speaking of Christian, it is with him that I went to Versailles the other week, which is where Louis XIV did his broin' back in the day. Although there was a conspicuous lack of free trains going there, we somehow managed to make it (we jumped the turnstile). Along with our friend Koko "Loko" Fisch, we rented a row-boat (bro-boat) and commenced to tear that lake a new one! Which is to say, I rowed a little bit, Christian led us into a boat full of small children, sparking a Titanic-like panic, and when we got tired we made Koko row us around (sarcastic French man's quote: "you are really good guys!"). After that, we conked out on the first patch of grass we could find, because in Paris it is literally illegal to step on the grass in the parks. They have little fake police who come yell at you if you do. Actually. I know about the fake police because one day not too long ago, having found the rare park with grass-sitting privileges, I ecstatically pulled out a bottle of wine to drink. Unfortunately, sans corkscrew, I had to resort to putting the bottom of the bottle in my shoe and smacking it against a lamp-post (look it up), which caused an enraged Eurotrip robot-doppelganger to come over, yell at me, take my wine, open it with his corkscrew, give it back, and kick me out. One of those "only in France" scenarios. In any case, we were safe in Versailles, and I was so happy I made like 8 grass-angels. After that, we took the RER back home (stands for Running Extremely 'Ratically) and face-planted into some wine. Actually, speaking of grass, and Christian-related activities....

Christian and I, being extremely sportif and beauf, decided to play on our University's rugby team, which by the looks of the poster is populated by the 12-year-old sons of professors. After spending 2 hours looking for the practice field, we found it on the campus of the French National Veterinary School. I'm pretty sure in France, "veterinarian" means "animal that is a doctor", because this campus was literally fucking full of animals. Dogs, horses, cats, just everywhere. The practice was almost over, so we just watched. Not twelve-year-olds, just weak French people. I think me and Christian might be the biggest guys on the team. It's like they have never seen a weight. True story: Christian went to the gym yesterday, and was bench-pressing the same weight as the "trainer" there was, which led to all sorts of ooh-ing and aah-ing among the onlookers. I can't wait to play....

Ok, gotta go curl up in Napoleon's bed. Hopefully my friend Chloe "Broe" Boxer isn't in bed yet because she is waiting with bated breath for me to post. Up next, I tell you about the weird concert I went to, and A.I. gives a breakdown of the French electoral process!

Brognac

Before I get to the viande of this post, I just want to thank the good people over at Wesleying for their shout-out last week, hailing LVEB as "one of the most entertaining blogs, period." That's no small compliment, seeing as how, according to this potentially trustworthy website, there are probably more than a billion blogs in existence. Chew on that for a second. We're basically the McDonald's of the Internet, serving up tasty morsels of Francophilia to you and yours.

Did anyone else get a really carnivorous vibe from that last paragraph? What can I say, ya'll, I got meat on the mind after a weekend of what can only be called décadence. (That's French for "decadence.") I accompanied fellow expatriate Savannah "I Invented Swag" Whiting and her host family to a village called Siecq, a few kilometers from world-famous Cognac, home of distilled wine and trous noirs. The patriarch of the family, Jean-Marie, was born in this town, also in the very house we stayed in, which has been in his family's possession for literally thousands of generations. We pulled up at the maison de campagne at around 19h30 Friday night, just in time for us to think it wasn't going to be all that cold after all. Anyway, after we got settled--which is to say, after I put my backpack on a chair--we congregated in the living room for a little apéritif before dinner. At this point it was just Savannah, Jean-Marie, his wife Toinette (short for Yo What Up I'm Marie Antoinette), Plume, and I. Plume is the cat. More on her later.

The apéritif was an amazing beverage called Pineau, and drinking it makes you wonder why Curtis Jackson hasn't come out with a Formula 50 brand; it's literally grape juice and cognac, are you kidding? This shit is legal? If I said I'm not still fiending for some right now, I'd be lying--call me Pineaucchio. After a few rounds, the second half of the party arrived: JM and 'Toinette's daughter and son-in-law, and their two kids, Alice (4) and Baptiste (1.33). We headed to the table and then embarked on a seriously delicious journey through space and duck, replete with red wine, baguette, and more duck. We finished dinner by forming a huddle and chanting, "Quack! Quack! Quack!" Thanks to a food coma and more pineau, I literally do not remember what I did afterwards.

Saturday rolled around, and I followed by rolling out of bed shortly before noon. Savannah and I had a lot of reading to do, so we hit the books for about an hour before we realized: "Pineau." Post-sauce we started to play ping pong, but she is so bad at it that I had to stop after two rallies. Then we went for a little jaunt en vélo around the village, cruising the mean streets of Siecq for somewhere to relax, have an espresso, play dice, literally do anything that didn't involve crying infants. Instead, we ended up on a surprisingly busy autoroute and almost got run over by dozens of trucks. Grâce à Dieu we made it back safe and sound, though Savannah would like the world to know that the bike seat made her butt hurt a lot.

Two pineaux later, I found myself staring down a lamb shank while Alice recounted some anecdote about a person or inanimate object called Nana. (Recounted is a generous way to describe her storytelling capabilities.) Jean-Marie engaged me in a spirited conversation about why it was good that Jews were outcasts in the Middle Ages--Baptiste was visibly uncomfortable with the topic but, alas, could not speak--and then showed me all of his cool iPhone features. (Side note: Jean-Marie frequently referred to Apple as an orphelin. Cute stuff, JM.) After clearing the table by smashing all the plates against the wall, I finally worked up the courage to ask JM for some cognac. He instantly shushed me, looked in the direction of his wife, and loudly announced that we were going to go play billiards in the shed/shanty/house next door. Savannah, JM and I quietly tiptoed across the backyard to his opium den carrying cameras, cups, and a bottle of 100-year-old cognac. You'll just have to guess what happened next. (Either that or wait until Swag uploads the photos to Facebook.)

Both nights I had really weird dreams that involved basketball, large-scale fraud, and escaping from prison.

Today we did remarkably less than yesterday, but on this day I read more and ate more bread. I also observed my own personal Yom Kippur. In my mind.

On the ride back to Bordeaux this evening, Plume decided to get carsick and literally vomit everywhere. Fortunately (for her (him?)), Plume was not in a cage, but instead free to move about the aircraft and throw up wherever desired. We had to pull over at a gas station so 'Toinette could air out that removable thing that you put your feet on, while JM held a death grip on Plume, whispering (in French), "you are old and sick, soon we will cut you up and eat you." Nothing eventful after that. Oh, earlier, when we pulled out from Siecq, I saw a horse on the side of the road that looked like Pete Wentz.

So voilà, mesdames et messieurs. Cognac in a nutshell. Very relaxing with a subtle almond flavor. Best enjoyed room temperature in a cold, cold room. Avoid operating small machinery, such as a dartboard. Please guzzle responsibly. À la prochaine !

Blog sans Blague

Careful, A.I.... the French aren't too down with the Juifs... dunno if I'd broadcast it that much. I've been reading over the blog and I just realized I've written literally nothing about what I'm actually doing on a day-to-day basis here. After all, there is life between wine breaks, short as it might be. Right now I'm taking four classes a week- two at Universite Paris 7 (Denis Diderot), and two at Reid Hall, the building where our program is headquartered along with those of Columbia, UPenn, Hamilton, SMU, Delaware, and Rollins (yeah, I dunno either).

At Diderot I have two biology courses, and at Reid Hall I'm taking a course about monsters from a guy who looks like a mix between Dracula and Bill Hader and a course about globalization in Africa. As of right now I have class and class-related stuff only three days a week, which gives me ample time to stroll, relax, visit sites, and continue my search for the perfect bottle of wine. I just recently made my first French Friend, whose name is Theo, at an Irish bar the other week. I think he likes me because we are already doing the cheek-kissy thing with each other, which is totally normal and cool here, I'm pretty sure. Last week I went to Versailles with a cool dude and a cool dudette.. stay tuned for more stories! Wait til you hear the one about my racist host parents!

Brosh Hashanah

WARNING: I just ate some Petits Écoliers that have been sitting out for a few days (weeks?), so I may die before I finish this post. If I don't, now you know what I eat on days that start with S.

I'm writing to wish everyone--everyone--a happy Rosh Hashanah! It is now the year 5772. Finally! I know we've all been eagerly awaiting the big 5-7-7-2. Now that it is upon us, how should we celebrate? Spend $57.72 on wine for the weekend? Lose a game of basketball by a margin of fifteen? Count to 5772?

Maybe I should get a tattoo on the back of my neck--the nuque--that reads 5772 in some cool French font. Which brings me to my next point: the curious phenomenon that is the tattoo that tons of French girls have on their nuque, which I will now call the nape-tat. Usually, the nape-tat is hidden behind flowing locks of cheveux or just barely visible above a jean jacket. (Is that French?, you ask. Prepare to get your mind rocked by Nîmes.) But in these last two weeks of unseasonable heat, Bordeaux's co-eds, boy it feels weird using that word, can't help but show the world their nape-tats. A common thing to get nape-tatted is a circle that looks as much like the Zia sun symbol as a huge target that practically screams "AIM FOR MY NAPE-TAT!" The question is, why? Whence this urge for a nape-tat, mademoiselles? You are all so beautiful, even without the endless cosmetics products that have weird pseudo-scientific names like Bio-Face. Why would you want so banal an engraving on your perfect porcelain peau?

Anyway, I'm seeing a lot of these nape-tats. (I just said "nape-tat" out loud to see if it was as fun to speak as to write. It was.) They're making it hard to pay attention while my linguistics professor repeats the phrase "en genre et en nombre" ad nauseam. Another note about this prof: he has worn the same shirt for the last two weeks. What is he hiding? Probably a nape-tat.

I have to go arm-wrestle a corkscrew. Shana Tovah!

Brodeshead Revisited

I need to just say something. Contrary to how my last post sounded, I did not spend that evening in my room, on one knee, guzzling Smirnoff Ice. What I did do was go to a store with many people who were not imaginary and purchase an economy-sized bottle of the stuff. Also, my self-Icing was not nearly as notable as the "fight" we watched between two French teenage boys. It consisted of both garçons whining and pleading that the other stop escalating things. In a way, they were fighting about fighting. Just your average pseudo-intellectual French activity. Voilà.

Sunday night was trivia night at this British pub that seems to speak neither English nor French; it is called "Le Frog and Rosbif" and despite the fucking weird name it is a pretty cool joint. The place used to be a prison for women back in the days of yore, and now it's a prison for alcoholics. I was on a team of mostly Northern Irish people, but there were a couple Londoners, and also there was a Danish man whose name may have been Yogurt. At the behest of one particularly immature N. Irishman, our team called itself "Shit Sandwich" and we tried like hell to understand the quizmaster (did I just say that?) as he yelled out thirty questions in French. The questions were equal parts inane and arcane: "How heavy is the heaviest radish in the world?" "What happened to the Brazilian woman last week who ordered a hit on her husband's mistress but then the hitman fell in love with her?" "How many cockroaches are there in the hockey stadium?" (I don't think we heard that last one correctly.) All told, we ended up getting 15/30 right. That's right: Shit Sandwich broke even.

This weekend I may travel down to Biarritz just for kicksies. But I also might read Walden and The Portrait of Dorian Gray, in French, as I'm supposed to. It's really a toss-up...I'm so torn.

Today I think I did the impossible (for my demographic): a crossover. I mean I did work on the court today. Here is an amateur reenactment of another feat I pulled off, this one against a much taller mec I was defending: I'm the black guy.

To all of our readers living in a 50 km radius (I have no idea how far that actually is): we're having a party on Saturday night in Pessac. If you don't know, Pessac is a sad excuse for a town just outside Bordeaux. It comes from the Latin phrase for "I'm pissed I actually live here." Seriously though, all who are of legal drinking age in at least one country in the world are more than welcome. Also seriously though, there might actually be people reading this who aren't in Paris or Boston right now. We've got statistics on our audience. (Looking at you, Argentina. WHO ARE YOU? REVEAL THYSELF!)

The party is going to make both travel and study complicated during the weekend. Well, as the French say, "To read is to mock the blind; to drink is to thank the gods." -- Voltaire

(P.S. For those who are curious about the actual answers to those quiz questions, tough luck. It was too noisy to hear most of them. We did manage to get that one about the cockroaches right, though. Turns out there are three of them. Shit Sandwich rides again!)

The Brogeuoise Lifestyle

Oh, man.. look below readers, and behold the good life... for me to poop on! Seriously A.I., I feel for you dude. Get up to Paris where you won't have to depress us with your tales of "class" and "pregaming dinner parties by yourself". You know how many other students live with me? None! That's right, I'm ballin' outrageous with no sibs and two old-ass host parents who are in bed as of 9:20pm. Anyshways, Paris is pretty fun. We've been keeping busy by going to museums, going to Giverny, which is where Napoleon grew up I think, and holding illicit parties with our underage host siblings. Check it out, it's us in Steve Aoki's boat!!

Up next, more Paris info... (sorry A.I.)

Ming

Had a busy week. Finally figured out my schedule.

Got someone living with us for the next month. Name's Ming. From Taiwan. Female. 40.

On vacation. Doesn't speak a word of French.

Lives above me now.

Watched Raging Bull this week.

I did, not Ming.

Glad Jake La Motta isn't living above me.

Iced myself last night. Proud. Met more Irish chicks, couldn't understand a word so I left.

Gotta go. Dinner party isn't going to pre-game itself.

Brorientation

This post is dedicated to James A. Garfield, America's twentieth president (and first presidential southpaw; I see you James), who died 130 years ago today after some idiot shot him over the summer. (I started this post when it was still the 19th. Time flies when you're reminiscing.)

Today was the beginning of classes at Université de Bordeaux 3. What more can I say? (Lots, it turns out.) After a night of fitful sleep and an early-morning contest with myself to see who can shove the most pains au chocolat into my mouth, I put my earbuds in and let Avicii guide me to the tram stop. It was 8:30 AM: the devil's time. By the way, the school is thirteen stops away from me, and thirteen is an unlucky number, so I should probably drop out.

My history class was at 9:30, but I had a rendezvous with my tutor at 9 to ensure that I can locate the classroom in time. It took probably six seconds. So after pretending to smoke cigarettes with all the French kids for 29:54, I head to class, where I am talked to for two hours about the difference between a king and a monarch. This will be the most engaging class of the day.

I ran into a British guy I met the week before who was even more dis-broriented than I am, so we got ham sandwiches and tried to sort out our schedules, but we just ended up talking about French lesbians instead. After lunch, I made what would turn out to be a calamitous error in judgment: tagging along with another American student and going to a sociology seminar. I couldn't tell you the name of the course or its subject if you gave me a dozen Desperados. Imagine the most pretentious conversation you've ever heard, and then remove one half of it and translate the rest into scholarly French. What you are imagining is only slightly more confusing than the seminar, which lasted two long, gruelingly French hours.

Fortunately, I had to leave a few minutes early in order to make it in time for my next class, in the music department. This course, whose name is not translatable in English, would prove to extinguish any interest I had in studying music theory and history while abroad. I sat in a room for four hours while the professor shared with us his love and knowledge of all the different types of chants from the fourth to the ninth century AD. This was some next-level shit.

So there you have it. Needless to say, I will not be attending the seminar or the music class/detention ever again. Tomorrow morning I will continue my desperate search for stimulation. Maybe there will be room in the Rochambeau class.

Next up, Jaymes will give you his opinion on Dominique Strauss-Kahn's interview. Right now, I have a date with a Côte du Rhône. A +.

On the Broad

This post is inaccurately titled, but it was the first thing that came to me, so we'll go with it. Anyway, some of you readers--which, at this point, really only means WhiteSauce's sister--have probably been wondering: what have I been up to since the departure of the group, particularly my one and bronly WSJ? I will answer that question the only way I know how: with a mixture of disbelief and testosterony pride.

What, you think I've just been sitting around waiting for America to come back to me? Like I can't fend for myself? Like I can't get my own kebabs or watch movies about grapes without the feeling that I'm incomplete or, worse yet, sober? Whatever, man (ecogurl19). Fuck ça. I'm a grown-ass twenty-year-old. I don't need you looking after me; take your au pair shit back to the States.

So...pretty convincing, right? Okay, listen, it's been an interesting couple weeks in between hanging out with my fellow Americans and having to awkwardly insert myself into new, bizarre social settings. There is one thing that remains constant, though.

Basketball. Yeah, I said it. Basketball. Turns out, I've made more friends playing basketball in a week than there are seasons of Louie. Me and my crew, we take the tram across the Garonne to Stalingrad (which is kind of a misnomer; it should really be named "the neighborhood in Baltimore where The Wire was filmed") and hit the court like Kobe Bryant...get it? Court?

Basically what I'm trying to say is I make it rain here, which is actually the real reason I need to get an umbrella for the semester. (Groan.) Besides playing ball, I also had my first excursion last weekend, blowing up Paris for my birthday. I hit that city harder than Rick Salomon! (Someone give me props for that.) As WSJ explained, we spent my birthday stealing boats and doing the fist pump at the INOX Festival featuring Avicii, Skrillex, Steve Aoki, TIËSTO, Axwell, and plenty more. But before that happened, I had this mortel brunch at a place called Cafe Le Bal near the Place de Clichy. Check it out, knuckle-têtes:

(Courtesy of Phyllis Flick but mine looked pareil)

So it was really a day to remember...or not remember, if you catch my drift. What did I learn from my birthday weekend? Answer: the City of Lights is exhausting and, much like doing shots of rosé through your eyes, it's fun until it blinds you.

That's all for now. By the time you get this post, I'll be nose down in a carafe of sangria. The Musee Aquitaine thing was a joke; good one, Jamie. Bro, remind me to tell you about my host family's sauce magique.

L.V.E.B. takes on Paris

Quoi de neuf, putes?? As you may have heard, the major contingent of La Vie en Bros recently made the move to Paris, the home of the Eiffel Tower, Daft Punk, DSK, and the menage a trois. Things here have been great, despite the absence of A.I., as our predisposition towards doing stupid drunk shit actually seems to fit in with the Parisian lifestyle. What stupid drunk shit, you might ask? Well, a friend of mine who shall remain nameless recently spent the night on a filthy sidewalk after considering the trip home and saying "fuck that". He woke up at 5 the next morning with no wallet and head lice (speculation). Later that week, a select few members of our posse spent 12 hours at the INOX electronic music festival doing absolutely irresponsible things... and came home with Steve Aoki's inflatable boat as evidence. Sorry, Steve!

Also, syphilis. Shenanigans aside, Paris has been great. We went on a boat tour of the Seine, visited the Louvre, and have gone to Luxembourg Gardens. Also, some of us started classes this week at what I've been told is the community college of Paris. So it's not all just fun and games- just mostly fun and games. Stay tuned- A.I.'s next up with a quick recap of L.V.E.B.'s visit to the fine Musee d'Aquitaine!