Lyon - November 1, 2004

Well, my Art/Architecture class was better this week. Along with the usual less interesting stuff, we went to an old chateau that had been restored. It had a moat. And a hedge maze. Hidden doors. A spit. Very cool.

We also went to the ex-abbey at Cluny: it had been mostly destroyed after the Revolution so that they could use the stones for other purposes, but some portions were still standing. After looking at those, and some fragments of columns and statues in the museum, we put on our 3-D glasses, and watched a video fly-though of what the church would have looked like, if it was still standing, and had been designed by a computer graphics workshop with a limited budget. It was interesting though.

My presentations this week went well.

On Saturday, I went to the Park of the Tete D'Or with my family, where we saw a play about the life cycle of a butterfly. It opened with a young caterpillar who couldn't stop eating and was confused about what was happening to the other caterpillars. A butterfly arrived, and he gently explained the facts of life to her. After he left, she entered a chrysalis, and emerged as a beautiful butterfly. Then she went off to look for a lover to make eggs with. Then a giant carnivorous plant arrived and tried to eat her. Then it coughed up the glasses of the kindly butterfly who had spoken to her earlier; she screamed, and the play was over. Typical.

After that, we looked at the animals in the zoo. They had a oustiti. ("Ouistiti!" is what the French say to a camera instead of "Cheese!" I guess "Fromage!" doesn't move the mouth in the right way). I was surprised how close you can get to the animals in the zoo, and how low the fences are. When I was there, one kid had climbed over the fence at the lion enclosure, and was leaning over the ledge to get a better view. I take it there's less fear of lawsuits here.

Sunday night, we went to a performance by the Youth Orchestra: they were very good. It was just like listening to a movie. When we got back, after dinner, I served the brownies I'd made for Halloween (my parents had brought me the mix). It was a bit of a disaster. I'd substituted apple sauce for eggs, which I think might have worked, except they have more water in them, so they made the fork come out moist long after the brownies were done. By the time they'd cooled, they had roughly the consistency of a brick. Still, Lulu and I had fun grating off chocolate dust to eat. It still tasted like brownies, though it was a bit more work. I think that's the first time I've burned calories eating chocolate. I suspect Roxanna has now lost all respect for me ("he can't even make BOXED brownies!"). Sigh. I'll have to make something else now to prove I'm not a complete moron (so keep your fingers crossed).

One group of trick-or-treaters came to our door. Christian said that interest in Halloween, and other bits of American culture had actually been declining in Europe over the last few years (since about the time Bush entered office, actually).

Tomorrow night, there's an election night pary sponsored by the France-USA organization. There should be a lot of people there, both Americans and French. We're going to have a mock election, which I expect will have rather different results from the real one. The real numbers should start coming, at least for the east coast, by the end (2 AM) So, depending on the results, there'll either be much drunken revelry, or masses of sobbing French people. Either way, it should be interesting. Then, on Wednesday, I leave for Berlin! I'll keep you posted.

Ciao!