Sunday, September 24, 2006

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.

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