Wrapping Up Rennes

A few last pictures to share from the Fulbright retreat at Rennes last week. On the immediate right is a scene from the printing press at Ouest France, the country's largest newspaper, which is based just outside of Rennes in a town called Chantpie. We were given a tour of the facility which included the impressive whirring and buzzing of the printing press, a machine which pumps out newspapers at a speed of roughly 18 gazillion pages per second. I tried taking a picture of it but it moves so fast the newspaper pages are just a blur.

I also found out that unlike American newspapers, French newspapers never endorse a particular candidate for a presidential election. The sole exception was during the last set of presidential elections, when it came down to two candidates: the incumbent Jacques Chirac and the noted fascist and xenophobe, Jean-Marie LePen. He's kind of like the French version of Jesse Helms or Strom Thurmond if you will: a really old guy (LePen is 78) with extreme right-wing views. Anyways, the newspaper endorsed Chirac, and fortunately, he won, though most French seem to be pretty embarrassed that LePen made it so far in the first place.

Believe it or not, up until last weekend I had never learned the rules of poker. Here's a pic of me learning the tricks of the trade from Texas Hold 'Em experts Andrew Levine and Lauren Oliver.

French for the Day: the word for "Diet Coke" in French is "Coca-Lite."

The word for "diet" is "au regime"(e.g. Je suis au regime = I'm on a diet.)