Bonjour, Kelly!

keeping it short -- a dubbed version of Dismissed just came on!

Ok, I'm not a person to watch a lot of music videos -- LEAST of all, rap videos. In general, I have a lot of issues* with insulting gender roles/expectations which are, often, all is to be found in these videos. Anyway. I happened to see two in the last week. One was entirely of early teen kids break dancing. Why can't they all be like that? The other was called, "Hey Sexy Woah," which I imagine is not popular in America. They have really, really, REA-EE-LEE bad English pop-rap that is basically nonsense -- and it's pretty popular. I guess these kids just don't know any better. So, "Hey Sexy Woah" it is.


*rage.


Hey! The eiffel tower is poking up through my head!








So here's finishing up the pictures from last weekend in Paris. Not much has been happening this week, but it's been really quiet and pleasant. The first three days, after Jim left, I felt kind of aimless, but I've gotten a new un-wintery wind of organization and productivity.
Well, until last night, when I got a cold. Tonight is entirely laying in bed and knitting while watching my Project Runway DVD (thanks Josie and Zac!).





















I haven't mentioned much about my progress with the language, have I? It keeps getting easier, really. In fact, today I had a conversation with another teacher, and I realized it was the first time she spoke normally towards me. Likewise, I chatted really comfortably with her -- I even used the subject-verb inversion to ask a questions, instead of relying on est-ce que! And I didn't even think about it! Yeah!

Off to bed for me. I've got to be in fighting shape for tomorrow -- the Percee du Vin Jaune! Woooooooo! See, there's a wine that's unique the the Jura - even, in this area of the Jura. It's called vin jaune. The grapes have to be grown in specific soil, then aged for 6.5 years in the barrels. Normally, the barrels are topped off as the wine inside evaporates. With vin jaune, the wine isn't replaced, so over the six years, it concentrates. There's a whole other thing with the rotted grapes fermenting and creating a mold on top that preserves the wine, but I'd rather not think about that. New vin jaune has a slightly... well, a slightly off flavor. It tastes kind of dusty. As it ages - like, 20 or 30 years - it becomes something sublime. This is nice, nice stuff. Even a brand-new bottle will set you back 30 euro. Every year after that just adds up more.
So, every year, when it's time to take the 6.5 year-old vin jaune out of the barrels and bottle it up, they have a festival. Tomorrow, I'm going into Lons-le-Saunier, paying 15 euro for a glass, and tasting as much wine as I can before I.... become french.



Thanks for the letter, Kate!

posted by kelly @ 6:53 PM