And I'm stuck inside doing some Astro homework. (Or, more accurately, procrastinating by writing this post.)
So last week I had a bit of a cold. Being sick sucks in any country, apparently. Go figure. I missed one day of class, but it wasn't a big deal because my professor was still in Chicago (because of the volcanic cloud blah blah blah) so the lecture was being given over Skype. Translation: I didn't really miss out on any learning.
Last week I went to a free jazz concert at l'Hôtel de Ville, Paris' Town Hall. You know, this place:
Très agréable.
This weekend my French class went to l'Opéra! Now, you would assume that since it was a French class trip and since we're in Paris we would watch an opera in French, to keep improving our language skills etc. etc.
Nope.
We saw Billy Budd, by Benjamin Britten. Not only is it an English opera sung entirely in English, it was comically anti-French because it is set on a British warship during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Overall, not my favorite opera. It's an all-male cast, with a very uninteresting plot centering around the young sailor Billy, who is the epitome of good and whose only flaw is that he has a stutter. Lots of blatant religious symbolism and undercurrents of homosexuality.
After the opera, a group of us went out in the neighborhood, La Place de la Bastille:
We had some crêpes for dinner (I hadn't eaten all day) and went to an absinthe bar.
For the record: Absinthe is plenty sweet on its own and does not need to be in a cocktail.
Alright, I should go finish my homework. For our astro lab, all we have to do is recreate Hubble's discovery of the expansion of the Universe. No big deal.
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