OOPS!

Apparently I made a mistake and posted the same video twice, so don't bother watching both. That's what I get for trying to be a real, up-to-date blogger!

La fierté de Marseille

So I went to Marseille on Sunday. I actually went to the suburb Marseille, which technically isn't in the city of 800,000 - 900,000 people, but the surrounding area of 1,4 million-ish people. While in La Gavotte at my host father Philippe's uncle's house and touring a little bit of Marseille afterwards, I learned a few things about the city.

First of, as I actually already knew, Marseille (and La Gavotte itself) is famous for bringing the amazing retired and the young prodigy soccer players Zinedine Zidane and Samir Nasri, respectively. Marseille is a city that really lives soccer. There are sand lots all over the city where kids and adults play, or they'll just play in the street. Olympique Marseille soccer fans are some of the crazier ones you'll ever meet, and as is said in Marseille "There are 900,000 people that live here, and 900,000 coaches as well." And I have to add that their bitter rivals are Paris Saint-Germain, who are not good at all this season. That might be a result of Marseille being the old capital/port and the idealogical capital of the south of France, whereas Paris is that of the north (and all, technically).

To go along with the fact of Marseille being a sort of capital, I have to add in that it has a very long history. It has been a major trading port for quite some time, even before the setting of Le Comte de Monte Cristo with Gerard Depardieu. It also has quite a long history of being against the government. Throughout all the governments in the history of France, such as the Orléans and Bourbon monarchies, Marseille has often been where lots of trouble was stirred up.


There's Gerard Depardieu emerging from the sea in front of the supposed Chateua d'If, which was the island prison of the future Count of Monte Cristo.

And any true "Marseilleais" can tell you that and more about the history of their city, which goes along with the title of this blog: the pride of Marseille. Philippe's uncle, who has lived in Marseille for 42 years now after fleeing Algeria during the war in 1965, can tell you plenty about the buildings, the history, the next soccer game, etc. I also wanted to add in that Marseille has a very diverse community, as most large cities. There are thousands among thousands of Arabs living there who have moved from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, among other places, and their culture has affected Marseille amazingly. The important thing to note here is that there aren't nearly as many racial problems between whites and Arabs in Marseille as in Paris. It might be the sea, it might be the soccer, or it might be Marseille's famous licorice-flavored pastis liquor that does it, but everyone is a lot more chill in Marseille and the south of France in general. So chill that traffic rules apply even less in Marseille than the rest of France. There was a guy stopped in front of a bakery in the only lane of a fairly busy road at 7:30 as we were leaving La Gavotte!

"Jonah, you know it's still winter?"

That's what my host father Philippe told me after lunch today when he came home from playing golf and found me in shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops. On a side note, flip-flops are called klackettes in French because of the noise them make when you walk. I was clothed like that because it was 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit for a while. So after sitting in the sun reading Le Gloire de Mon Pere by Marcel Pagnol and then eating leftover raclette, I played tennis in the back yard with Caroline.

The weather was also magnificent yesterday so my friend and I Benjamin rode down to Le Grau du Roi on the Mediterranean. We hung out on the beach for a bit, ate mussels and fries and rode back. With that and riding Thursday I'm more motivated to ride now, and my knee hasn't been hurting me like it was before. Maybe I can still get in good enough shape to climb Mont Ventoux before I leave!

Other than that I haven't been up to a ton this vacation. Reading, cooking a little bit, and doing a little bit of housework. I've been spackling, sanding, and painting a little bit in my room as well as putting up some plumbing stuff for the future bathroom. Today I made some donuts which turned out pretty good. Just trying to keep myself occupied. I'm going to Marseille tomorrow and skiing another day later in the week, so I'll post again soon, and hopefully with pictures! Now I'm exhausted, so goodnight.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

I celebrated my Valentine's Day by wearing red... I didn't actually wear red clothes, but I fell into a really prickly bush when I went mountain biking with Benjamin on Thursday afternoon, and I have long scrapes all over my legs. My left thigh looks like I got attacked by a lion. Excuse the gory picture.

After getting "home" from mountain biking and taking my shower to wash off my wounds, Marine and her friend Benedicte came home from school with a rose for me. An English class at our school sold roses to raise money for their trip to the U.S. in the spring, and apparently somebody sent me one. So I got interrogated during dinner on Thursday about who it might be, and now my police officer host father Philippe is threatening to launch an investigation... I honestly don't know who sent it to me though, je le jure!

I also should announce the end of the strike at my school. Well it's not really over, but at least the teachers are agreeing to give us our grades now. After struggling to convince other teacher's unions to join their cause and looking ridiculous as the only school in France withholding grades, they've turned to other methods. Hilariously, they tried to take hostage of the school principal's office on Valentine's day, but found they had been locked out in anticipation. So instead they ate lunch in front of the school administration building! Now that's what I call striking!

That's about all I got right now, except for cooking news. I made corn fritters today, which went alright. I might try to move on to some New Orleans cuisine soon and try to make some jambalaya or po' boy sandwiches. I should have plenty of time, because I'm on a two week vacation after my really easy "entrée" week of school. So maybe I'll have a lot to write about too, we'll see. Chao!

Hot Weather and Hot Food

Well, the weather is pretty nice now here. It's cold in the mornings, then heats up to the point where I can wear just a t-shirt in the afternoon. Well, pants too but you know what I mean.... I've been taking care of the good weather by working on my badminton skills with my host siblings. The other part of the title refers to Saturday night, when I made chili for my host family and another family of friends. I made two batches - a normal batch and a spicy batch - because I knew that the other family (and myself) likes eating a little spicier than my host family here. So of course they all chose to eat the spicy chili, but it didn't turn out exactly as they thought. The mother changed to the regular chili after a few spoonfuls, the father and one of the kids were sweating, and the other kid was drinking milk and looked like he wanted to jump in the pool. Apparently we have different ideas of spicy, because I considered it only an alarm-2 or alarm-3 chili. So it made for an amusing meal, anyways, and not a bad one with the chili, cornbread, and blondies. And a hint for anyone who might want to make cornbread in a foreign country (not that this will apply to many people or anyone at all, so I don't know why I'm writing it) is that fine-grained polenta is the same thing as corn meal if you can find that in a grocery store.

In other news, school is going pretty easy this week. I didn't go to school at all today because none of my teachers were there for whatever reasons. My math teacher isn't there the rest of the week either, so tomorrow I finish classes at one o'clock, and i only have three hours on Friday. I might try to go to the movie theater one of the days and see the film "Into the Wild" that a number of people here have told me is really good. All in all it should be a really nice end of the week and a sort of appetizer to the two week vacation I have starting Saturday.

This past weekend I went with Philippe to hit a bucket of balls at the practice range of his golf club. He tried to give me some tips about relaxing and not trying to force too much strength and all, but I really just wanted to hit the ball. I did my best to stick in a few Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore impressions as well. That's about it for now, I need to go and watch Marseille vs. Moscow. A la prochaine!

Obama for President!

Okay, that's my only plug. I'm done now. But the title does still go along with the subject of this blog: the difference in presidential elections between the United States and France and the perception of those elections. So now some of you might want to stop reading, but don't! I'll try to make it interesting.

I decided I wanted to write about this after the last week or so as the U.S. presidential race has been gaining momentum. In the past I was asked by a few kids who I preferred ( *cough* Obama *cough*), but in the last couple days, as a result of "Super Mardi," I've gotten a lot more questions. Today I was actually asked to explain the United States presidential election process in my class ECJS - Civic, Judicial, and Social Education. Which was kind of difficult for me to do, and although I explained the process pretty well, it still confused the kids in my class. I don't blame them, and here's why:

France hasn't had nearly as stable of a government as the United States. Since 1789 and the first French revolution, there have been five republics, two empires, and one return to monarchy. That means that there have been five different democratic constitutions among the other authoritarian periods, and with all this, lot of change in the election process. And because of all these changes there have never been amazingly powerful political parties, like the Democrat and Republican parties. Instead of being obliged to run under a large party like this with an incredibly long primary election process, presidential hopefuls can run and try to get enough votes in the first election. In the first election, the two candidates with the most votes move onto a second election a month later, which gives voters enough time to decide who they would like to vote for finally. Another large difference in the election processes is the presence of delegates. When the constitution was created and for a long time after, with the enormous size of the United States it of course made sense to have delegates to bring votes to be counted. Electronic voting hasn't existed for a little while....

So hopefully I made some sense of that, but the main point I wanted to make was the perception of these processes. After being asked by numerous kids and plenty of adults as well, I've realized that the U.S. elections are watched much more carefully than the French elections. The only reason I knew who the new French president before I came here was because I knew I was coming here. I've determined that it's both of a result of the very long process and the fact that it's the United States that gathers so much attention. The United States is the most powerful country on the world scale (even if the economy is suffering at the moment), and of course the next president will be a relief to the world no matter who it is...

Alright, that's it. I'm making chili Saturday night, and I'll say it's in honor of the last year, and the best year, of Bush's presidency. I'm celebrating with some Tex-Mex. I'll try to post again before a week is up. Hope everyone is good, and of course go out and vote if you haven't already and have the chance. Chao