Category Archives: France

May 30 2009
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France, Observations, UGA Students

To all worried family/friends…

[***I tried to post this the other day after receiving a concerned gmail message from my dad, but my internet connection failed during the posting.***]

I guess I should have clarified better in my previous “French Hospitals” post that it was NOT ME who was in the hospital last week.  I was there with a student — who is also doing fine.  All is good – just want to make sure no one is worrying because everything here is great.

Again, I am a big fan of the French medical system.  The doctors make housecalls, the over-the-counter prescriptions at the pharmacies are to die for (not to mention they cost like 3euros), the prices for hospital visits are a miniscule fraction of what they would cost in the States…..it’s incredible.  I love it.  If this is what everyone refers to as “socialism,” then vive la France because it is daggum wonderful!  A nurse has continued to come to our residence once a day every day since our student returned from the hospital to check up and make sure everything is okay.  We are in great hands!!

That is all.  🙂

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May 25 2009
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France, Reflections, Travel

I booked my hotel in Paris the other day

The only reason I am devoting an entire post to this is because:

 (a) I am spending more money on this 3-night, post-Cannes program hotel stay than I ever have on a hotel visit in my life.  Granted, in my past hotel-booking experience it has often been with the mindset of: “Can I cram fourteen of my other friends into this standard ‘double’ room conspicuously enough after a night of one too many games of beer pong or bar shots in (fill-in-the-blank) college town?”  In those such cases the rate usually ends up being no more than $10/person, so my Parisian booking this time around is certainly a shock to my poor credit card’s system.
(b) The hotel was chosen from a long list of potential venues after some meticulous Google-searching on my part.  I reviewed the list thoroughly and repeatedly, considering factors such as location and decor with price being very low on the list of considerations because, ‘Hey, when in Rome (er, Paris), right?’  Besides, by the time this Parisian getaway takes place I will have been housed in the south of France on UGA’s dime for more than a month…so to justify my frivolity once more, I guess I just feel like I can finally ‘splurge’ a little. 
The hotel is called HOTEL A LA VILLA DES ARTISTES.  The aspect I liked most about this hotel is the uniqueness of each “Arty” room as shown in the website’s pictures and descriptions:
”  The “Arty” Rooms have been entirely renovated and dedicated to 
the modern arts. Each room has its own special atmosphere of different 
artistic periods such as Fauvism, Cubism or Surrealism.  ” 
The location of this place is also ideal because it is situated just south of the gorgeous Luxembourg Gardens directly adjacent to the iconic Latin Quarter, the arrondissement in which I spent most of my time during my 4-month period of studying at the Sorbonne back in college.  Four years have passed since my semester-long stint in Paris and I cannot WAIT to get back to my old stomping grounds.  Paris is, after all, my absolute favorite city in the world.  
It was also my first love.  No really.  I fell in love with that city when I lived there.  Returning to school in Athens, GA after my time abroad in Paris if ever I saw photos of the city on tv or in books my heart and stomach would drop as if I was seeing an ex-boyfriend with a new girl.  Call me creepy or weird, but Paris has this lasting affect on people – it certainly has with me.  Ha – sidenote – a actually read not too long ago about a woman “legally” (in the loosest sense of the word, I’m sure) married the Eiffel Tower, changing her last name to ‘Eiffel’ and all.  I wouldn’t take my obsession with the city that far, but apparently this woman did.  Anyway, that’s neither here nor there…
Now that I have this glorious place booked I am left with the task of trying to figure out who I can show Dan, a European newbie, all that Paris has to offer in a mere three days.  I’m up for the challenge…
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May 23 2009
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Cannes, France, Observations, UGA Students

French Hospitals

I have been absent from my blog, my email, and normal life as we know it for the past few days as I was spending some (unexpected) quality time getting to know the French medical system — particularly the hospitals.  My observations are as follows:

– The exterior of a French hospital may appear to be a rundown “Jefferson’s”-esque apartment complex from the ’70s, but this is misleading because the interior has definitely “moved on up to the Eastside” and is far more in line with our ‘American standards.’
– If you are a visitor accompanying a patient in their room for the night the bed you are issued by the nurses might turn out to be a stretcher…like the one on wheels used in ambulances.  If you enjoy sleeping on a permanent incline and if you don’t mind lying on a surface where a dead body may have preceded you then THIS is the bed for you!

– Your single room will be very nicely accommodated with a patient’s bed, window, desk, chair, and private bathroom with accompanying shower (i.e. a drain in the floor next to the toilet with a handheld shower thing mounted on the wall).  However, be prepared when you ask for the accessories needed to shower -like a towel, some soap, and shampoo- as this hospital is not a hotel and does not have such things.  Instead you will be issued a hospital bedsheet for drying, some gauze dressings to wash your face, and a mystery murky fluid in a dixie cup that may or may not be turpentine and molasses with which to wash yourself.   Use on private parts at your own risk.
– Nurses changing the IV’s of a patient are not concerned with the IV fluid OR the patient’s blood splattering onto the bed, floor, or visitor’s feet below.  Once finished, their concern level does not waiver from the aforementioned when it comes to to cleaning up said splatterings, thus leaving the visitor to clean off the blood from their own feet with a towl…I mean sheet.
– As a guest of a patient, you can occasionally be served food (pending the patient you are
 with is temporarily not allowed to eat per doctor’s orders).  This is good.  You may, however, be given a beet salad for your lunch.  This is bad.  The only halfway decent thing about a beet salad is that for one brief moment it will remind you of Dwight Schrute from “The Office.”  Then the smell and appearance of the beets will once again overtake any remotely entertaining thought you may have had for the remainder of its presence in the room. 
*These are key observations that I have been fortunate enough to note firsthand, so I felt it essential to share with any and all of you who may find themselves one day in a French Hospital.  Now back to my regular updating of this blog…
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May 02 2009
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France, Sports, Travel

Packing Shmacking

Spending the day (eh hemm…weekend) packing for my 5-week stint in France.  Such an arduous task – especially with so many distractions around.  

Speaking of distractions… Is anyone else in awe of the toothless, possibly drunk redneck who just won the Kentucky Derby?!  And apparently the horse’s owner is either Brooks or Dunn – I can’t decide.  I am already fantasizing about what “a cartoon by Robert Smigel” would look like for this.  I love it!
Okay, back to the grind.
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Apr 30 2009
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Cannes Film Festival, France, Juan-Les-Pins, Travel, University of Georgia

T-Minus 5 Days and Counting…

In five days I will soar over the Atlantic venturing back to a tiny town in the south of France called Juan-Les-Pins. Its more popular neighbor, Cannes, is situated just 10 miles east along the bright blue Mediterranean waters and it is the reason for my return to this, my favorite country.

My foot last touched the train platform in JLP about three years ago in June of 2006 and, honestly, I never thought in my wildest dreams I would be back. However, as fate would have it my dream came true and this past Fall I was offered the Program Coordinator position for the Cannes Film Festival Study Abroad Program at the University of Georgia – a program I had attended as a student just three years prior.

The 2009 Festival begins in only two weeks’ time and I am thrilled to see it in person once again. My personal ‘program prep’ in the Riviera begins in less than a week just days before the arrival of our 25 hand-selected UGA students. The reality of it all is only now sinking in and I can’t wait to share all of my new adventures this time around.

I look forward to having you follow me through this year’s sites and sightings in one of the most picturesque cities on the planet during one of the most prestigious film festivals of all time. Cannes Film Festival 2009 — here I come!

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