2 Years living in Paris: Traveling through France

Irena and I lived in Paris for almost all of 2018-2019 and made a point to travel throughout France, mostly by car or train. It was a beautiful time for us overall for many reasons, but having such a beautiful country to explore and getting to know it in such breadth was a treat. This is what we did.

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Champagne

Took the car at Orly airport. Stayed in Épernay and toured the area. We saw the large cave at Chateau Pomery, but we were most impressed by smaller producers. Our favorite was Jean Seleque, just a few minutes drive south of Épernay.

Loire and Saumur

Took the car at Montparnasse with the family after our very small wedding. We stayed Tuesday-Friday at a Gite near Loches. We then stayed Friday-Sunday at a (standard) Chateau near Saumur. While staying in Saumur we saw a fire at an olive oil factory, which was quite impressive, but otherwise we ate and drank very well. During our stay we saw Chateaux de Chenonceau and d'Azay-le-Rideau, and on the drive back to Paris we saw Chateau Chambord.

Medoc+Saint Emillion+Poudenas
We took the TGV to Bordeaux and then took the car from the train station in Bordeaux. We first went to the Medoc area, tasting some seafood at a very quirky restaurant on the bay and doing a tour of the Mouton-Rothschild winery. We then drove to Saint Emillion where we walked through the town and stumbled upon a very nice small jazz festival on the borders of the town. We still have two bottles of wine that we bought in the town. After that we visited our very good friends Raf and Dany in Poudenas.

Bretagne #1 (via Rennes)

Took a train Paris-Rennes and stayed in Rennes one night. Then we took a car and saw eastern Brittany and Mont Saint-Michel (which is technically in Normandy). Saint-Malo is a beautiful town, and we caught very good weather for that time of year. I still consider it one of the most fantastical and dreamy towns I've seen.

Valencay+Poudenas
We drove on Thursday evening with my aunt and uncle from Paris to Poudenas, stopping to stay near Valencay on the way there. We saw the Chateau de Valencay on Friday morning and then made our way to Poudenas. We celebrated a joint 75th birthday party with around 100 people on Saturday, and then on Sunday evening we took a train from Agen to Bordeaux, and then from Bordeaux back to Paris.

Normandie #1 (via Caen/Bayeux)

Took the car from Montparnasse and drove directly northwest to Normandy. We stayed just north of Bayeux, closer to the coast, but not quite. It was a rather rainy weekend, so we ended up not doing too many things. We visited the American cemetery, which is breathtaking and warrants another more thorough visit, and we made a very brief stop at Omaha beach. Besides that we saw the Bayeux tapestry, which is a very underrated site and for me was a big positive surprise.

Alsace

We flew to Mulhouse and took a rental car from there. The trip was heavily focused on visiting Christmas markets, which we saw in Kayserberg, Ribeauvillé, and Colmar. We bought an already made package of choucroute, which we heated up in our airbnb in Rouffach and was delicious. Trying the poêlée and the flammekueche at different markets was also delicious. Besides gastro-tourism, we saw the Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg on a very cold and windy day. We then flew back to Paris from the small Mulhouse airport on Christmas day.

Lyon

We took the train directly from Paris to Lyon, but because it was a cheaper train the final stop was the Lyon airport rather than a central train station. We stayed in a very nice hotel for the weekend, and basically walked through the town and drank coffee and ate nicely. Lyon is very famous for having the most "true" French gastronomic food, which we enjoyed, but sometimes it can be too heavy for the non-French.

Chamonix
We took a train from Paris to Geneva and then a 1 hr bus from Geneva to Chamonix. In Chamonix we walked around the town, tried the tartiflette, did a small hike, rode the cable car up to Aiguille du Midi, and took the small train up hill to see Mer de glace. We came back to Paris via the reverse route, bus->train.

Bretagne #2 (via Nantes)

Took the train to Nantes early morning and then took a car that afternoon. There was a sailing tour starting that weekend, so we luckily saw the boats parked at the harbor. We drove west and saw the true peninsula of Brittany, stopping to see the Carnac stones on the way. We made brief stops in the towns of Quimper, Douarnenez, and Vannes, saw the beautiful beaches in Morgat, ate a beach-side seafood dinner at Lestrevet, and did a short hike at the mushroom (I forget the name of the hike...). Just so I don't annoy anyone, it is a funny nuance of history that Nantes was for a long time the capitol of Brittany, but is not currently in the administrative region.

Avignon+Arles

We took a super early morning train to Avignon and then took the car in the afternoon. It was a canicule where the hottest temperatures in the history of France were measured near that area, so we turned the A/C up in the car, and hopped from cafe to shade to museum. We stayed near Arles, and toured around the area. In addition to Avignon and Arles we saw Nîmes and the Pont-du-Gard aqueduct, and made brief stops in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (famous for Vincent Van Gogh) and Les Baux-de-Provence (a very cool fortified town on a hilltop). we tried to visit Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but didn't time it right for the train and had to turn around.

Normandie #2 (Pont l’Évêque)

We took a train Paris-Rouen on Saturday. After visiting Rouen for a half-day we took the car for the week and stayed in two places. First we stayed near Pont Audemer for three nights, and then we stayed near Pont l'Eveque for four nights. Along the way we saw Veules-les-Roses, Bec Houllion, Etretat, Le Havre, Cabourg, Houlgate, Deauville, Trouville, and finally walking through Pont l'Eveque. On our last day we visited the E. Graindorge cheese creamery, returned the car in Rouen, and took the train back to Paris.

Charity/NGO donations up to 2019

I realized that I have never kept track of charitable donations of any kind over the years. I don't consider myself especially philanthropic, but I also try to donate at least a few times a year. I generally donate "small" sums to a few organizations that inspire me that given year, but a trend has included carbon offsets.

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Before 2017
I sponsored two children for roughly 3 years (1 in the US, 1 in the Phillippines) via Save the Children

2017
2x 20,000 airline miles CO2 offset at Carbonfund.org ($76 total)
$50 SPLC
$50 ACLU
2 EUR Wikimedia

2018
2x 20,000 airline miles CO2 offset at Carbonfund.org ($76 total)
350 HRK (roughly 50 EUR) SOS Children’s Village Croatia
$50 ICAN (for the 1000 day action fund)

2019
$50 Ploughshares Fund
$50 Union of Concerned Scientists
$50 Arms Control Association
$50 Global Zero
10 EUR Wikimedia
$50 Freedom from Religion Foundation

40,000 airline miles CO2 offset at Carbonfund.org ($80)
$25 OSA Foundation

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Some thoughts:
-based on some examples of the SPLC making outrageous claims (especially against Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz), I don't consider them a good place to donate anymore.
-Some carbon offsets were for me and my wife, hence x2.
-I want to look in to doing carbon offsets with other organizations to try to "diversify".
-In 2019 I went on a bit of a nonproliferation streak, which will probably continue.
-This isn't meant to shame anyone who can't afford to donate, and isn't meant to garner praise. I just think we should be more open about how and where and why we donate, and try to keep track of it.

The ASJP and Afrikaans in Patagonia

I read two amazing articles about language today.

From the first: The Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) can actually assign a single number to the difference between two defined languages. Apparently, there are mostly two dinstinct groupings when comparing all languages/dialects. This means that given the score between two languages/dialects A and B (a number between 0 and 1), it can be deduced with this simple number whether A and B are different languages or simply different dialects of the same language.

The second article I read was about the study of Afrikaans speaking people in Patagonia. To me it is so interesting and mystifying that such communities exist, and the things we can learn from it are numerous. The Afrikaans language is already that of a group of people who left the Netherlands and settled in South Africa, whereby the language slowly changed from Dutch to Afrikaans. And then some of those Afrikaans speaking people ("Boers") left after losing their territory to the British. They settled in Patagonia and continued to speak their language at home, while also learning Spanish to integrate in the local communities. The youth now are mostly speaking Spanish and therefore the Afrikaans spoken there is dwindling.

Now I must ask, how do Afrikaans and Dutch score on the ASJP? And what is the score when comparing the Afrikaans spoken in Patagonia to the Afrikaans spoken in South Africa?

Eggnog Recipe

I took four eggnog recipes I found online and "averaged" them to find something that made sense for me. That means: in metric, with round numbers, and corresponding roughly to the average of the recipes I found. They deviated a lot on some ingredients, so that's why I thought this was necessary to begin with.

"Spencer's eggnog"

For 12 servings:

Eggs: 10
Milk: 1 L
Cream: 500 ml
Sugar: 250 g
Alcohol: 500 ml (1/2 bourbon, 1/2 rum)

Per serving values:

Eggs: 0.8
Milk: 83 ml
Cream: 40 ml
Sugar: 20 g
Alcohol: 40 ml (1/2 bourbon, 1/2 rum)

Directions:

-Separate the egg yolks and egg whites
-beat egg yolks with sugar until smooth
-Add milk, cream, and alcohol
-(let age in fridge for ~3 days if possible)
-beat egg whites with a spoon of sugar until creamy
-spoon in and mix egg whites with other mixture
-serve in small glasses with a dash of nutmeg on top

5 random suggestions for language learning

Beyond being fun and allowing one to speak with more people on our planet, learning languages has been shown to boost economic growth and stave of dementia. But there are so many tricks and tips to learning languages. What actually works?

To put in my two cents I made this list, non-exhaustive, in no particular order:

• Traditional Books actually work. Many people will say that it is beneficial to use alternative methods and to try immersive tactics, etc, etc. Of course, supplementing academic-style language learning books is useful and something I would recommend, but supplementation is not replacement. It may be tempting to avoid the dryer, more potentially boring prospect of picking up a book and doing the exercises and listening to the conversations. But in the end, nothing can replace reading the grammar and slowly learning things in a pedagogical way.
• Consistency is key. I think that language learning is best done in shorter sessions, for example something like 45 minutes at a time might be optimum (for me). But on the other hand, to progress one has to have a lot of sustained contact and use with the language. For this reason, studying every day is recommended, in whatever fashion. And of course if every day isn't possible, then being as consistent as possible is a must.
• Don't postpone learning. I think many people put off learning today because they think they will have more time on the next day, or because they can somehow optimize the learning experience further (or buy another book, or download another podcast, etc, etc). Doing whatever you can today is always better then nothing, and the worst case is that you postpone learning so long that you have to re-learn something.
• You will make mistakes. Imagine anyone you know in your everyday life that is not a native speaker of your language. Store clerk, professor, doctor. Do they make mistakes? The answer is definitely yes. This should put it in perspective: everyone makes mistakes at every level of language learning, so the prospect of making mistakes should not scare you from speaking.
• It never ends. Related to the last point, the language learning journey never ends. Even if you are at the level where you need to be practically, you will still learn new words and new idioms that will push you even further. Combined with the fact that we all need refreshers to recall specific grammar points, we should be in the mindset that learning a foreign language (or more than one) is a continuous lifetime task (and that is a good thing, not bad!).

Light Holiday Reading

I got back at the end of August from a three-week, relaxing holiday in Croatia. But on that holiday I made the choice to read and watch material that was completely devastating and opposite to my idyllic surrounding. Not necessarily a choice I recommend, but I have some thoughts in any case.

I read King Leopold's Ghost, a damning and detailed description of the unspeakable acts committed by agents of Belgium's King Leopold II leading to an estimated decrease in the Congolese population by 10 million. This is a story that “hits home” for me because I have spent a lot of time in Brussels, specifically in the originally Congolese neighborhood of Matonge (named after a neighborhod in Khinshasha, formerly Leopoldville). But also because I met people there still studying the Congolese culture in Belguim and the inability of the Belgians to properly deal with their history. And because I saw many of the monuments that were financed by the prosperous and blood-financed rubber period. There is even a park still holding the King’s name.

I read Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, the epic story of the Joad's journey from Oklahoma to California and the utter powerlessness they had against destitution and the lack of compassion of their fellow Americans. I don’t know how this story escaped me during my school times, but despite the glaring pro-communism argument, the story also hit home. I saw the depictions of the Californians selfish of their stability and afraid of the Okeys moving in to their space, and I saw a similarity to some of us Americans today.

I watched the recent Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary miniseries The Vietnam War, about a war that I always knew made little sense. It has taught me that not only did it make little sense, it was a tragedy motivated only by a misguided and misinformed policy and ultimately the political greed and untrustworthiness of a line of American presidents and cabinet members. This viewing experience did not hit home in contrast to the others; unlike many other people my age I did not have a father, uncle, or family friend that was affected by Vietnam. But this documentary rather challenged my view of all of the people involved. The American leaders, the American soldiers, and also the Vietnamese on all sides. Despite being 17 hours in total I recommend it to anyone, especially lovers of Ken Burns.

What did I learn from this very poorly chosen vacation reading? I guess if I were to say only one thing it would be that nodoby should trust the version of history they were told. The past was a very different place and even those who are held up as heroes, or even just as honourable, could be not so disimilar to those today we would hold in contempt, both personally and as a society. Events are always complex to understand, especially as they unfold, but with the sharp lens of history we can learn something, and we must actively seek this in order to properly assess and deal with the past.

Language and Personality

There is an effect when speaking a foreign language that I think isn't talked about as much as it should be. The fact that, when speaking in another language, one takes on a slightly different personality than when speaking in their native tongue. I've noticed the effect of this in many different contexts.

I'm a native English speaker, and I've studied many languages to varying levels. But with the German language I got to the highest level and I can understand most conversations. I noticed eventually that I acted differently when speaking German, but I also noticed the converse. I worked with mostly German colleagues, but the working language was English. So my colleagues were used to the fact that usually when they were speaking English it was about work and therefore more serious. Conversely, when at work they would sometimes speak German with each other when a non-German speaker wasn't involved. Since I could understand what they were saying, I routinely noticed that they were more casual with each other. This is surely partly because they can just speak more freely in their native tongue, but I also got the sense that it was psychological, meaning in German they could access a larger range of their personality.

Being now in a multi-lingual marriage, I am interested in how multiple languages effect the raising of children. Without citing anything, I have read that children develop fine with up to three languages, but having four or more at a very young age can slow development. An example scenario with three languages is two parents each speaking to the child in their native tongue, and one more being learned and used at school. It also supposedly helps if one parent always speaks a consistent language with the children. I would guess that one of the reasons that this method is preferred is that the child can consistently develop their intelligence and personality in each language without getting them confused.

One last phenomenon I can propose has to do with language learning for adults. If one has a different personality when speaking different languages, then it also must be that they have to develop this separate personality when learning a new language. I have gotten the sense when watching others try to speak a foreign language that they are apprehensive to take on this new personality, and it hurts their ability to speak well. The most simple way to explain this is putting on a thick French accent when trying to speak French, rather than just saying French words as they would be said in American English. Of course as one would learn French more and more the accent would become more natural, but in the beginning stages the accent is more like playing a role, and I think that some people hesitate to take on that role. The extension for an advanced speaker would be using more phrases and colloquialisms in the foreign language. Sometimes they don't make sense when directly translated, and are a result of different cultural forces, but from just a language point of view they are useful for better communication.

In any case, I think some people would not even agree with the basic premise that when speaking a different language we take on a slightly different personality. But I have seen it and experienced it myself, and I think it actually can explain some aspects of language learning and use.