Ode to Toads

We've been having a bit of trouble with our toadlets this summer. My dad, a fan of toads and all they do for a healthy garden (such as eating mosquitoes and slugs), frequently captures toads, brings them into the house so Mom and I can take a quick gander, then re-releases them into the wild of our front yard.

Did you know that toads like to come out and bask in the rain because they do not drink water but soak it in, absorbing moisture through their skin? Our problem is this: we've had some rainy weeks, so the toads like to come out on our front walk. And then we step on them.

This is especially the case with the little ones: they're easy to miss, and they can't withstand the pressure of human weight. So I've had to peel a few baby toadlets off the sidewalk, and consequently, we don't have very many adult toads this summer.




I guess we'll have to endure the mosquitoes this year. Or maybe my next post will have to be "Hats Off to Bats."

A Quote, a Memory, a Fact

"Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company." -Author Unknown

I recently organized the tea table at my parents' house. We've got lots of tea here: black tea, green tea, white tea, tisanes. My mother, an avid fan of Earl Grey, is the proud owner of no less than 13 boxes and canisters of Earl Grey teas, of varying qualities. I love tea, so this overstock is not a problem.

Last Sunday afternoon, I was cutting up T-shirts at the Unitarian Universalist Church. We were drinking tea to keep hydrated. Upon inspection of the tea selection, I chose chai. The scent brought forth unbidden a memory of two winters ago, when I would be snowed in at my house and I would drink cups of chai tea with my roommate Dylan and our friend Astrid. I drank a lot of chai tea last winter too, but somehow the aforementioned scent didn't provoke images of me downing caffeine before I would walk out to the bus stop in the pre-dawn darkness to go teach English to a bunch of mostly ungrateful little snots. I'm sorry, I didn't really mean that.




In France, I read a book about British culture that informed me of the hearty antioxidant powers of tea. These antioxidants do a lot of the same good work as fruits and veggies: "All teas from the camellia tea plant are rich in polyphenols, which are a type of antioxidant. These wonder nutrients scavenge for cell-damaging free radicals in the body and detoxify them, says Weisburger. "Astounding" aptly describes tea's antioxidant power, he tells WebMD. "Whether it's green or black, tea has about eight to 10 times the polyphenols found in fruits and vegetables."

Tea has power. It is good for the body and good for the soul. Tea, in my mind, is a wonderful thing.

New Jersey Venturin'

I had a busy weekend. I just took the GRE last Tuesday, and before I had the chance to commence the job search, my mom commandeered me to take a trip with her up to the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey. The objective was to check out a retrospective art exhibit on the work of Kurt Schwitters, a German collage artist who did most of his work in the 1920s and 1930s. Of course, it is only after the fact that I know all of these things about Mr. Schwitters. On the way up to New Jersey, we were having lunch at Chili's when Mom asked me, "So, how much do you know about Kurt Schwitters?" to which I replied, "Who's that? Is he the anchorman on TV right now?" She just smiled knowingly, and eventually I figured out it was the artist whose canon we were going to explore in New Jersey.

This was before the tire blowout. That happened on the interstate, while I was napping. Hardy girls that we are, we managed to change the tire ourselves, unscrewing the rusted-on lugnuts and all. I also accumulated two tick bites, which I am watching carefully for signs of Lyme disease and babeiosis.



Note: This is not my leg. I didn't take a picture of the ticks; I just got 'em the heck out, so this image is from Wikimedia Commons.

We rode on a spare tire the remaining 200 miles to New Jersey, which made me paranoid as all heck. At first, we thought we'd take lesser highways so that we could keep it slow, but then we took a wrong turn and journeyed 20 miles out of our way, demonstrating just how complicated navigating the network of minor highways would prove. We got back on the interstate and vowed to take it slow. Just in time to drive through narrow roads with lots of construction. Drum roll, please... just in time for a torrential downpour.




You know how most torrential downpours last for, say, 10 to 20 minutes? Well, our downpour did just that. Then, it took a 5-minute break, and immediately recommenced to downpour, for another 20 minutes. Rinse and repeat for two hours. I was clutching my seatbelt for dear life, while Mom sat bolt upright in her seat and gripped the wheel, keeping her EYES ON THE ROAD. During the short breaks between the driving rains, I could feel all the adrenaline signals quieting and collecting at the base of my skull, clouding up, accumulating to form a nice tension headache at the back of my neck.

After we'd passed through the storm and the rain finally stopped, I noticed all the fireflies. There were so many! The brush outside looked like Christmas trees, all lit up and twinkling. In open spots, the fireflies looked like those enormous fireworks that you see every 4th of July - the noisy ones that look like sparklers flickering in and out before fading, rather than the colorful ones that look like blooms. I kept my mind on those fireflies. They calmed me after all the adrenaline and stress of the previous hours.




I'm happy to say that our trip was much less eventful after that. We made it to Princeton by 1:30 in the morning, 13 hours after starting out. The voyage had been meant to last only 9 and a half hours, but at least we made it safely. During the rest of the trip, I got to admire the work of Schwitters, Monet, and Russell, I attended the bridal shower of one of my good friends, and reconnected with a former co-worker. Despite the adversity that the beginning of the trip threw our way, I can say with confidence that it turned out to be time well spent.

Note: All of these photos came from Wikimedia Commons.

5 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Berlin

The Untimely Post strikes again! I've had this as a draft on my dashboard for nigh on five months. Procrastination: 1, Ambition: 0. So let's begin at the beginning. Starting with #1:

1. Berlin Architecture.

History is thoughtfully told through the architecture and memorials of Berlin. Planners and designers always consider the question of Who is telling the story, and why? Subsequently, the memorials to the victims of World War II and the Berlin Wall have a prominent place and role within the city. By contrast, the perpetrators of these events get almost no voice at all. For example, you might wonder: Where is Hitler's last bunker? The answer is that it is unmarked, covered by a parking lot. Additionally, Hitler's ashes were scattered into an undisclosed location, possibly a body of water, so that he would have no final resting place.



Berlin's Holocaust Memorial


2. Berlin's finances.

Berlin is bankrupt. The city's financials are in a constant state of massive debt. Therefore, the city doesn't have the funds to buy up its many abandoned lots and buildings in order to develop them. On the flip side, this means that real estate is cheap, and Berlin is one of the cheapest international cities you can live in, although it is currently gentrifying.



Abandoned factory in Berlin

3. Berlin graffiti.

Due to the aforementioned debt, Berlin is a city that is hugely popular with artists and other folks who have little money, generally speaking. Consequently, there is a HUGE underground art scene. Graffiti is in fact illegal in Berlin, but you'd never know it by looking.




4. Berlin baumhaus.

Berlin is host to many interesting residents. One of them, a conscientious objector, a Turkish man now in his 80s, has been living in a "tree house" which he built himself since before the Berlin wall came down in 1989. When he built it, the land belonged to East Berlin. However, due to a construction anomaly in the wall, the Eastern forces couldn't claim it. It sat on the Western side but didn't belong to West Berlin. Thus it was a sort of no-man's land.



(If you look towards the right of the frame, you will see the tree growing up and out through the house.)

Fast-forwarding, a few years after Berlin reunified, city planners wanted to build a highway through the property. The neighboring Christian church came to the rescue, producing a dusty deed proving that the land was, in fact, theirs. Once the matter was settled, the church left this Muslim man to live there in peace, and he's been residing in this home ever since.



Old Berlin Wall

5. The Berlin Wall.

The history lesson isn't over yet, kiddos. One of the reasons the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 was due to a simple PR mistake on the part of Günter Schabowski, an East Berlin official. Schabowski was a man who enjoyed drinking and cavorting, and was infamous within his party for not showing up to meetings on time. Thus, on the day that Schabowski spoke at a media conference to discuss how East Berlin would react to immigration changes in the USSR, he improvised. He hadn't read the official briefings, and said that changes were "As far as I know effective immediately, without delay." This change included allowing border crossings into West Berlin, which up until that point, had been forbidden on a "shoot-to-kill" basis. Once he'd said it, the government couldn't backpedal, and East Germans began to gather at the wall, demanding to be let through. The guards had no choice but to acquiesce, and the wall began to come down rapidly. If not for the remarks of Mr. Schabowski, the East Germans might have had to endure the wall for years to come. For a longer version of the Wall's demise, check out Wikipedia's entry on the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall today

Note: The source of these facts varies. Most of these stories I learned from two Berlin tours: Alternative Berlin and Sandeman's, with a little help from Wikipedia. If you're ever in town, check out both these tours - they're free and they're awesome! Also, all the photos, with the exception of the graffiti photo, came from Wikimedia Commons.

5 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Paris

First, a little background. I am finishing up my year in Europe with a jaunt through some of its major cities. One of my new favorite ways to see a city is to take a walking tour, and in doing so, I find that I learn tons more about the place than I would have ever known just by wandering around on my own. So, to apprise yourself of all the things you never knew about Paris...

1. The Latin Quarter, which is over by Notre Dame and generally has tons of restaurants and nightlife, is thusly called because people used to speak Latin in the neighborhood instead of French. This occurred because the Sorbonne University is situated in the area, and back in its glory days all the students and professors spoke Latin, so as you walked around you would mostly hear Latin being spoken instead of French.

2. The Eiffel Tower was only meant to be a part of the Parisian landscape for 20 years. However, shortly after it was built in 1889, Gustave Eiffel had radio antennae installed on the tower (with an eye towards its preservation) and it soon became indispensable for communications - and it still is.

3. If you've ever been to the Parisian catacombs to see the bones, you've only been inside a small section of the catacomb network. The known Parisian catacombs range over 400km and this underground maze plays host to many restaurants and clubs - although it's also illegal to go to them.

4. Paris was originally settled around 250 B.C. by a Celtic tribe known as the Parisii. However, the Romans took over the city in 52 B.C. and renamed it Lutetia. That is why you'll find lots of cafés and shops in Paris called Le Lutetia or a similar name. When the Romans left around 400 A.D., the city was re-dubbed Paris.

5. The Notre Dame of Paris is just one of hundreds of Gothic churches that used to pepper Paris. The French had had it up-to-here with Gothic architecture and were in the process of tearing down many Gothic cathedrals when Victor Hugo stepped in. He thought it was a crying shame that the Parisians would willingly deprive themselves of such a cultural gem, so he wrote the Hunchback of Notre Dame to inspire Parisians to fall in love again with the cathedral. It worked, and if you've ever visited Notre Dame, you have Monsieur Hugo to thank for it.

I learned all of these things thanks to our tour guide Sam, through Sandeman's tours. If you are thinking about a trip to Paris, you should consider taking one of these tours yourself. All the guides are fantastic. Check out Sandeman's website here.

Peace out, Chambon Feugerolles

This is my last week of teaching in France - I have spent the past 6 months teaching English to elementary school students in Le Chambon-Feugerolles, a little town of 13,000 outside of St. Etienne, where I currently live. You can read more about St. E here.

The town is by turns picturesque, conveying a vaguely quaint, cozy feeling. My experience, however, has been far more complex than that.

(I see this house on the walk from my Monday morning school to my Monday afternoon school. I see its topsy-turvyness as a fitting metaphor for the absurdity I experience on a daily basis.)

Teaching has not been at all what I expected, and far more of a challenge than I ever realized it would be. I've been set adrift by many of my experiences, but I don't have the time to tell all the stories here. I am sad to say that my experience with teaching has been a negative one overall, although it hasn't been without its pleasant surprises, either. I am so very grateful to the teachers who have taken the time to get to know me and who made the effort to help me when I needed it.

French culture, and by extension, the children of France, remain enigmatic. France is a beast I still don't understand, and fully comprehending it is a feat I may never accomplish. On the other hand, I've certainly learned a lot trying.

In any case, that's all I've got to say on that. Peace out, Chambon-Feugerolles!

Andrenne

St. Victor's Abbey

My friend Jessie and I took a recent jaunt up to Marseille to see the city for ourselves, in all its glory. We only had 36 hours there, so we had to be picky about how to spend our time. At the end of our second afternoon however, we found ourselves with two hours to spare before we had to trek to the train station, so we referred to our handy-dandy 36-hour travel guide and decided to see the Abbaye St. Victor.

The article upon which we'd been relying asserted that the structure had been built in 4BC, describing it as a "dark austere church that is a good comparison to the more modern churches and cathedrals. It also revealed... the amazing advances that were made in engineering knowledge to make the more modern churches seem light and airy."

Well, we thought, that sounds like an interesting thing to see - let's go check it out!




Hmm, I thought to myself, this looks remarkably like a Christian church. I started to question the author's assertion that this structure was built in 4 BC. Because if you think about it, it would be mighty challenging to build a Christian structure before Christ.




I turned to Jessie and asked, "4 BC, you say?" We discussed the possibility that the abbey had been built in the name of a different religion. But in that case, it would make the most sense for the Romans to have built a Roman temple in the south of France in the late BC years. And then, given that assumption, shouldn't a Roman temple look like, well, a Roman temple?

I snapped a few more photos and resolved to look this up when I arrived home. Wikipedia set our travel author straight: "In about 415, John Cassian founded two monasteries of St. Victor at Marseille, one for men (the later Abbey of St. Victor), the other for women."

And that's not all - the structure from 415 doesn't even remain: "In the eighth or ninth centuries both monasteries were destroyed by the Saracens, either in 731 or in 838, when the then abbess, Saint Eusebia, was martyred with 39 nuns. The nunnery was never re-established.

No rebuilding took place until the first half of the eleventh century when through the efforts of the then abbot, Saint Wiffred, the men's monastery was at last rebuilt.

All that now remains of the abbey is the church of St. Victor, dedicated by Pope Benedict IX in 1040 and rebuilt in 1200. It was made into a minor basilica in 1934 by Pope Pius XI."

I feel better now that that's been cleared up. And to the travel writer, I say it pays to do your research before you publish. Even if it is just an online travel article.

Andrenne