Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all you Jews out there. You can click on this link for some Hebrew Crunk to help celebrate this year's Rosh Hashonah.

When I was visiting France a few years ago, I stayed at Claire's sister Laure's apartment in le banlieu (the suburbs). Since Claire was working most of the day and I was on vacation, I would take these long, epic bike rides following the Marne River. One day, I decided to take the bike path along the Marne all the way into the outskirts of Paris. Without asking anybody, I decided that my destination would be "Villejuif"...a part of the city whose name is translates to "Jewish Village." I thought it would be really cool to see the old Jewish part of town.

After several hours, I arrived in Villejuif. There was nothing particularly Jewish about it at all. I'm sure the name derives from some prior history, but now it is viewed as a not-particularly-exciting town on the outskirts of Paris. Definitely not a tourist destination, and upon recounting my tale to French acquaintances they thought it was funny that I would deliberately seek out a non-descript area such as Villejuif.

There is in fact a more interesting true Jewish part of town which is located within The Marais called the Pletzel. I walked around once and it seemed pretty interesting, perhaps I'll go back again to do more exploring.


Saw a movie last night...."The Wind That Shakes the Barley" (French translation: "Le Vent Se Leve" = The Wind Rises...not exactly the same, but close enough). It's about the British-Irish conflict in the 1920s and the formation of the Republican Army. It was much better than I had expected, depicting the complex conflict that occurs in a civil war-type situation. I would definitely recommend it, though it certainly has its violent parts.