München - juillet 2006
Chicago avec les parents
Jeudi 16 novembre 2006
J-1......month. This is how much time I have left until I get back to Paris for winter break. I'm not counting the days, but as my come back appraoches, I'm longing more and more to come back to the city where I was born, a city of love, a city of desir, a city of vices. It's a normal feeling, I'm sure you all experienced it at one point or another.
I didn't talk a lot of my experience of living in a new country with another culture. Obviously there are several issues there. I wouldn't say that my experience is a bad experience, I absolutely don't regret coming here, it made me think a lot obout myself and about things that I always thought were normal or natural. But I won't say that it changed me completely, actually it hasn't changed me much I just know myself better.
I would say that the main issue of my coming here is the fact that I always lived in Paris, which is a big city, whereas here I am living on a campus that is several miles from a rather small city. The problem is that I miss a point of comparison from the same living environment back in France, which prevent me of really appreciate the differencies between the two culture. Leaving in a big city like New York city, San Fransisco or Los Angeles would permit me to fully appreaciate these differencies. However what I did learn by living here is that I would much rather live in a big city than in a city like Lansing, or smaller. It is for those two reasons that I would like to find a internship in a big city for next summer, I'm so exited by the idea of living in New York during the summer! And of course you will all be invited to come and visit me!
Back to my experience, another problem is that I don't have a car here. The fact that I'm not in a big city increases the fact that everything is so far apart in the US. So if I want to go to a movie, I can only access one movie theater by bus, where they play only 3-4 movies. I can't access the bigger movie theaters where more movies that I would like to see are playing. It's the same with bars and restaurant. However I must admit that the bus network is pretty efficient if you want to move around the campus (you can walk but it takes a lot longer) and to certain specific areas (like the mall and the supermarket).
Another issue is that I may be on a campus of 45,000 students, but I live in the graduate and international students dorm. That means that most of my neighbors are Asian who would not even answer my cheerful but insure "hello!"(pronounce it "Ello!"). Moreover, in my classes, most of the students are in fact internationnal students, it seems like American don't really like graduate studies. I can understand that when I see the price of studies here. An American told me that he hunged his bachelor diploma (it corresponds to 4 years of study after high school) because it was worth 180,000$. You don't need to buy paintings, just buy diplomas!
The fact that we are a group of 10 french coming from the same school doesn't help either to go and try to make new friends. The easy way is too stick together, and althought I tried not to do that in the beginning, it's not easy when you always have to make the first move to know people and call them times and times again to stay in contact. It happened to me with a couple of americans, I don't know if I just fell on the bad persons, or if it's the way americans are, but at a certain point you just give up, and take the easy way.
Well after all that you must feel that I'm having a really bad time here... That's not the case. I'm rather negative here, but as I said, it made me discover more about myself, and I still think that it's a great experience and that everybody should try it at least once in his life. Well I'm still here for at least one year, and I'm glad that I'll have the chance to discover more about myself and americans. Plus I always find ways to entertain myself...
In conclusion, I'm coming back to Paris for three weeks, be ready to partyyyyyyyyyyyy! Here wii go!
I didn't talk a lot of my experience of living in a new country with another culture. Obviously there are several issues there. I wouldn't say that my experience is a bad experience, I absolutely don't regret coming here, it made me think a lot obout myself and about things that I always thought were normal or natural. But I won't say that it changed me completely, actually it hasn't changed me much I just know myself better.
I would say that the main issue of my coming here is the fact that I always lived in Paris, which is a big city, whereas here I am living on a campus that is several miles from a rather small city. The problem is that I miss a point of comparison from the same living environment back in France, which prevent me of really appreciate the differencies between the two culture. Leaving in a big city like New York city, San Fransisco or Los Angeles would permit me to fully appreaciate these differencies. However what I did learn by living here is that I would much rather live in a big city than in a city like Lansing, or smaller. It is for those two reasons that I would like to find a internship in a big city for next summer, I'm so exited by the idea of living in New York during the summer! And of course you will all be invited to come and visit me!
Back to my experience, another problem is that I don't have a car here. The fact that I'm not in a big city increases the fact that everything is so far apart in the US. So if I want to go to a movie, I can only access one movie theater by bus, where they play only 3-4 movies. I can't access the bigger movie theaters where more movies that I would like to see are playing. It's the same with bars and restaurant. However I must admit that the bus network is pretty efficient if you want to move around the campus (you can walk but it takes a lot longer) and to certain specific areas (like the mall and the supermarket).
Another issue is that I may be on a campus of 45,000 students, but I live in the graduate and international students dorm. That means that most of my neighbors are Asian who would not even answer my cheerful but insure "hello!"(pronounce it "Ello!"). Moreover, in my classes, most of the students are in fact internationnal students, it seems like American don't really like graduate studies. I can understand that when I see the price of studies here. An American told me that he hunged his bachelor diploma (it corresponds to 4 years of study after high school) because it was worth 180,000$. You don't need to buy paintings, just buy diplomas!
The fact that we are a group of 10 french coming from the same school doesn't help either to go and try to make new friends. The easy way is too stick together, and althought I tried not to do that in the beginning, it's not easy when you always have to make the first move to know people and call them times and times again to stay in contact. It happened to me with a couple of americans, I don't know if I just fell on the bad persons, or if it's the way americans are, but at a certain point you just give up, and take the easy way.
Well after all that you must feel that I'm having a really bad time here... That's not the case. I'm rather negative here, but as I said, it made me discover more about myself, and I still think that it's a great experience and that everybody should try it at least once in his life. Well I'm still here for at least one year, and I'm glad that I'll have the chance to discover more about myself and americans. Plus I always find ways to entertain myself...
In conclusion, I'm coming back to Paris for three weeks, be ready to partyyyyyyyyyyyy! Here wii go!
But they didn't know that I like to fly, therefore I wasn't scared a bit.
We finally arrived at my aunt's place. Again they tried to dazzle me to death by letting me believe that it was a roman palace, but Kenneth is not easily fooled! I knew it was just a small American house:
After I arrived, they tried to fed me to death in an italien restaurant - "Carpaccio" - and they nearly succeeded as I haven't had good food in a long time. I am living in a dorm in East Lansing after all...
There were dancing Flamenco to death inside. I didn't get close for obvious reasons.
And here was the beach:
Yeah we like to play with straws...
I'm supposed to be a bad cop...
Après un week end splendide pendant lequel il faisait beau et chaud (au moins 25°C, c'était l'été indien, splendide!) on nous annonce qu'il va neiger jeudi. Nous en bon français on rigole doucement en se disant que ce n'est pas possible que la température chute de 25° en trois jours. Eh bien ce matin on a ravalé nos rires et on s'est vetu de nos gros manteaux pour sortir sous une tempête de neige à -2°C, viva el Michigan! 
Après avoir fait le check-in dans un hotel en plein centre ville, on est allé se promener un peu dans la ville :
Puis on est parti manger. Alex et Julie sont partis de leur coté en amoureux et Jim et moi sommes allé au cheesecake factory, j'ai cédé à l'insistance de Jim, n'ayant moi-même aucune envie de manger dans un tel endroit. Il me faut bien avouer que tout les plats n'était pas au fromage, bien au contraire, ce qui m'a permit de diner et plutôt bien. 
Et par :
Et nous sommes allé à la fameuse PureNation, le concert de tech-house pour lequel nous sommes originellement allé à chicago. Démentielle, huge, génial sont quelques maigres descriptifs pour cet évènement. Il y avait encore peu de monde quand nous sommes arrivés, il était 13h, et nous avons découvert la scène et le décor de rêve du concert :
Scène énorme, avec vu sur Chicago. le monde a commencé à arriver, puis notre petit benny a fait son show. Fantastique. Puis c'était au tour de Dave Clark :
Avec en prime un show de danseuse les plus vulgaires que j'ai jamais vu. Après Dave Clark on est parti se reposer les oreilles un peu et bouffer au millenium park, on nous avons vu la salle de concert exterieure :
Et le bean qui est un haricot metalique dans lequel on peut se voir :
Retour à la PureNation au couché de soleil, voila en gros ce que ça donnait :
La classe quoi. Puis Deep Dish est arrivé, et c'était la folie :
Autant vous dire qu'on s'est déchainé comme des malades (enfin moi en tout cas...)
Puis après avoir diner dans un italien ma foi délicieux, on est allé voir la plage de Chicago. Ambiance americaine à 200%, c'était plutôt stylé en fait, avec un bar en forme de bateau devant la plage :
Faut dire qu'elle a les atouts pour.....
Les femelles sont d'humeurs badines, mais pas plus, gare à celui qui franchit le pas! Les mâles sentent fort l'hormones et le muscles, et le Kenneth se sent tout émoustillé! 
Il en vient même à communiquer avec des gestes étranges :
Prochaine étape : le blub. Le blub est ainsi dénommé grâce à sa double qualité de servir de boîte et de bar en même temps. On arrête pas le progrès. Cette expression est tout de même à attribuer à un autochtone tout à fait charmant : Adam. Bien que gay, le Kenneth s'est abstenu d'en faire une proie. Ce blub donc, typiquement américain : the PT 'O Malley, passe avec allégresse de la musique country et du R'n'B.
Autant dire que le Kenneth a mis toute sa volonté pour ne pas fuir en courant, l'étrange boisson aidant. Il aurait même éblouie l'assemblée avec quelques pas de dance, mais cela n'a pas été confirmé. Les femelles par contre ont poussé le badinage a l'extrème :
Et certain s'y sont même pris au piêge :
Rassurez vous cependant, il y eut plus de peur que de mal, le Kenneth étant venu à la rescousse :
Le petit Nicolas sera donc rentré sagement la queue entre les jambes, il n'aura pas perdu sa viriginité americaine.
Je vous rassure, la charmante jeune femme au premier plan n'est pas une sorcière, et n'a pas mangé le Kenneth, malgré l'impressionante taille que peut atteindre sa bouche.
Potins des potes