Morgan eats snails!

Yes, after five months in France, it was time for an appointment with l’escargot. Although I am a vegetarian, an opportunity like this couldn’t be missed. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but warmed up to the idea once I saw how fun it was to remove the snails from their sturdy shells. The process involved a special snail clamp and a long, skinny fork.

The taste? Not bad. Not particularly pleasing to my American pallette, but they lacked the intense odor I had expected. They reminded me of clams and oysters, but a bit chewier and without the fishy smell.

Chantal and Gerard, my host parents, were very pleased to have their American eat his first plate of snails. I wonder if they will ever cook up some grenouilles (frogs legs)?

Cook and Book

Cook and Book smashed my concept of what a bookstore should be. I love bookstores, and can easily spends hours in a place like Barnes and Noble. At this Belgian bookshop, I could spend days. Never have I been so intrigued and excited be the store itself, for a moment I forgot what I was there for (to buy Christmas presents).

Cook and Book is divided into nine unique sections, each with it’s own cafe, bar, or restaurant. Every time you enter a new room, you are refreshed by a completely different interior design. Imagine all those “wouldn’t it be cool if…” thoughts came true for decorating; this is the place. Not to mention the food (which I never sampled), has an outstanding reputation.

In this section, the sky is filled with flying books! Well, hanging at least…
I took this picture simply by placing the camera at my waist and pointing it up.

Outside, they celebrated Christmas with even more books. I enjoyed the irony in making a tree out of paper.

Most of the photos I took don’t do Cook and Book justice, check out their website here to get a true feel for the atmosphere.

Radio Soulwax!

A few days before Christmas, Brittany took me to one of the biggest highlights of the musical year: Radio Soulwax. In short, it is a nine hour concert involving some of the biggest names in electro, including the world-renowned Justice.

Soulwax is a Belgian electro-rock group that serves as a landmark in a sea of genre-bending dance music. They played along with about twenty other bands and DJs to make an all night mini-festival. Thousands of people came, so much that they had to change venues at the last minute to accommodate everyone.

There were four different rooms inside the expo center, each able to house a large concert in itself. Each artist was given about an hour for it’s set, and at any given time, you could leave one room and choose from three more to rock out in.

This is Soulwax playing their remixes live. They take popular indie rock songs and mix them to danceable electro, producing pure musical ecstasy. My favorite sets of the night were Soulwax, Boys Noize, and Justice.

The lights were awesome, too. I forget the name of this duo, but they had dancing star wars walkers projected behind them at one point in the set. I cannot believe the amount of energy and creativity crammed into that night, it made nine hours feel like two.

We were there from 9pm to 6am, literally the entire night. We took the train home, it was probably rather strange for the conductors to have their trains full of young people at six in the morning. When we got to Brittany’s house, I had never been so exhausted. Regardless, Brittany and I went and got fresh croissants at the bakery, ate breakfast, and passed out hard.

Even after staying up all night, it’s not easy to go to sleep with a mind full of this:

Click here to see more pictures from Radio Soulwax.

Belgium Part Two

Look at all the little hats! I have no idea who has time to crochet a hat for every smoothie in the fridge.

An Asian Santa giving away free hot wine outside a guitar store in Belgium.

These two guys are cutting a huge block of cheese. There was a little crowd gathered in awe.

This is the view from my room. Brittany lives in a really cool neighborhood that looks a little like a movie set.

Brussels Part One

I have been in Brussels, Belgium, spending the holidays with Brittany and her family. We’ve been incredibly busy, and I’ve met more people than I can remember. I am loving it.

This is at Brittany’s school, St. John’s International. We went to an alumni reception, and I met a ton of her high school friends and acquaintences. This sign made me feel nostalgic for high school cheesiness.

Doesn’t this look like a painting? They’re paper light fixtures, at a Christmas market in Brussels.

This is Brittany’s brother Parker, who is really fun to hang out with. We found these telescope glasses at an antique market, which is full of interesting oddities from all over the world.

I took this at Gare Central, it almost looks like modern art. It’s a repair to the wall, done with plaster, and plastic protecting it. I just realized the plaster part on the left kind of looks like a lion. What do you think?

If the subconscious art of graffiti removal sounds interesting, check this out.

Cross Country Skiing

One day I was walking around Lyon helping my roommate Alex do surveys on random French people, for his school project. We were asking all these questions about their perfume habits, since Alex is studying to be a perfumer.

We were almost done and about to go home, when I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was my friend Guy Jacques. I had met him and his wife through Lyon International, and they had me and some other students over to their house for dinner, a couple months ago.

He was in town for business, and after running into him, he spontaneously invited me to go cross country skiing with him and his friends. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this, so I said yes, and the next day there we were…

About an hour and a half out of Lyon, way up in the mountains, towards Switzerland. There were only little stone and wooden houses, sparsely spread out from each other.

A little creek.

Guy Jacques and his friend Marie-Fredrick.

Guy and Me!

This cabin had wooden gutters! That’s pretty old.

This is in a valley, where you can rent out a cabin or a yurt and stay over night. The sign says “No Made Attitude.” I had no idea what they are trying to say there.

A lonely little house.

When we got to the top of this ridge, you could see the Swiss Alps. The clouds were cascading down like Niagara Falls. It was amazing-looking.

A French version of a Jeep, out in the middle of nowhere.

This was my first time skate skiing, and I had to teach myself. After about five hours, I was ready to die. I can’t remember being that tired in a long, long time.

I am really lucky.

School’s closed because…

For the last couple of weeks, my school has been closed and reopened over and over again. This is due to student protests regarding the government’s recent decisions on changing the university system. A group of protesters actually blockaded the school, letting staff in, but no students. Sometimes they open the campus for debates and votes, but normally its blocked off, like this:

Translation: School is blockaded but alive!

The tail end of a rally, just marching around resisting injustice.

Luckily, the students voted to let exchange student into the campus, so I still had school. This was until yesterday, when there was some apparent confrontation and the school was shut down completely.

Did I mention I’ve seen more strikes in the three months I’ve been here than twenty years in the states? The French love to protest and strike, they are very politically active.

Just for Neil: Beaujolais, Japanese Patty Cake

Beaujolais is a beautiful town close to Lyon, famous for wine. I went there with Lyon International, an organization that connects foreigners with Lyonnaise familys for dinners, wine tastings, and other adventures. They organized this excursion, but due to an office mistake, my name didn’t get put on the list. Luckily my friend Tomoko is host student to the president of Lyon International, so she got me in, and I rode with them in the car instead of taking the bus! Anyways, Beaujolais was incredible.

It was absolutely classic countryside, at the perfect time of year.

My friend Japanese friend Meri loves cats.

I don’t think that love goes both ways…

We couldn’t stop laughing for an hour after seeing this photo.

These are my friends Emi and Meri. Apparently this game went global a long time ago.

More photos from Beaujolais

Hot Dog Flavored Ketchup?

Three wonder sauces from the “American” section at the grocery store.

Have you heard of any of these? I haven’t.

Music Friends

Some of my friends and I were passing by this little place, and I looked in the window and saw these guys. I wanted to know what they sounded like, so we doubled back and went in. We sat down on the floor and listened for a little bit, then struck up a conversation. They were very welcoming, and we ended up hanging out for about an hour and a half. We played their instruments with them, sang along, and generally had an awesome time.