Roman Amphitheater in Toulouse
Today we visited the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheater. The Roman amphitheater was located in Ancely near Blagnac. We rode our bicycles with our friends Katya and Oliver from the center of Toulouse to the Roman Amphitheater. It was a nice ride but it was hot and there were a few hills. There wasn’t a guide for the Amphitheater so we were left to reading the brochure. I am going to do some more reasearch before writing too much more so for now I leave you with the pictures and a definition. Oh yeah, one of the pictures is a vomitorium, aside from over eating and over drinking and possibly getting sick after watching the death matches, why else would this have been needed? Research commences.
amphitheater |?amf?????t?r|
noun
(esp. in Greek and Roman architecture) a round building, typically unroofed, with a central space for the presentation of dramatic or sporting events. Tiers of seats for spectators surround the central space.
• a sloping, semicircular seating gallery : I was permitted to attend a lecture in the amphitheater of the hospital.
• a large circular hollow in rocks or hills : that vast amphitheater chiseled out of the mountain.
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Bob Spencer: Le Rêve Français
Oops, I forgot to publish this post, sorry Bob. It was part of my series on my own blog readers. Now that he is in France for the summer, I know he is writing in his blog. Check it out. We were out of town when he was in Toulouse so we didn’t get the chance to meet, next time.
Here is a regular reader and commenter Bob Spencer. In his own words . . .
A francophile who occasionally gets to live le Rêve Français. Although like most dreams, sometimes the reality isn’t quite the stuff of which dreams are made.
2 favorite posts: Well he never specified his favorite posts so you will have to read to decide yourself.
RSS feed address: Well with this new Firefox 3 I cannot seem to find RSS feed addresses so easily, help. Other than that, Firefox 3 is really cool!
Balkan Beat Box live in Toulouse
I just realized that I had written about planning to go to the Balkan Beat Box show in Toulouse but I never wrote how it was. I even had pictures in last Sunday’s photo dump from the show but no review. Well we have not gone to see much live music and we love to do this. So this past week with Saturday night and then Tuesday night feels like the Fête de la Musique all over again.
Balkan Beat Box were amazing. I knew what to expect because I had seen videos. They have a trumpet and sax player. A guitarist, bassist, drummer, and the singer presses some buttons on a funny box that makes even funnier noises, including the chicken noises. They were very energetic and had many calls for peace in the middle east, squarely placing the blame on each side evenly, more or less.
The night was warm and a bit humid so Prairie des Filtres was a bit umm smelly, hot day at the zoo, hot day at the meth lab, etc. Still no smell too strong or crowd too drunk could dampen my enthusiasm for seeing my new favorite band. They played a mix of songs from both Balkan Beat Box and Nu Meds. I was hoping they were going to have the female singers live but I guess that was all sampled.
The crowd sang along to all the songs. At the onset of each song, when the distinctive part began, the crowd went wild. They obviously knew each song. As much as I loved them they played a little long. I got a frantic call during the show and had to leave a bit early, after about an hour and a half. The only song I didn’t get to see that I was really wanting to see was Ramallah Tel Aviv. I’m sure it was great but I had to leave. If you like gypsy music, electronic music but with live instrumentation, world music but with an edge, experimental music, with political lyrics, Balkan Beat Box is for you.
I leave you with Ramallah Tel Aviv
Student Final Project Blogs
As many of you know I teach English at an Engineering Graduate School in France called the ENAC, École Nationale de l’Aviation Civile. It is a Grande École which means it is very competitive to get into and the students are very motivated and work hard. I taught a General English class that was an elective so I had more flexibility with my curriculum. They generally have to do a final research project in English. They did it in my class as well but I had them make it in the form of a blog which they presented to the class.
I gave no direction for the topic because the goal was to research and write in English and keep the blogging interface in English. Some chose serious topics and some less serious. Here is a list of their blogs. Visit them to see what they did, comment on them, tell me what you think. They didn’t have a long time to work on them and we didn’t always have access to a computer lab but I think they turned out nicely. Also, since it was an elective I could only expect a certain amount out of them, but I think they are interesting.
Student Blogs
Joe Jackson live at the Bikini in Toulouse
Joe Jackson just performed last night in Toulouse. We went to see the concert. A friend of ours from Philadelphia is his tour manager. He sent us an email to let us know he was going to be nearby and we asked to go. It was a fantastic concert.
Now I really like Joe Jackson’s old songs. For example “Is She Really Going Out With Him?”
Now it looks and sounds like this. It was still great. It was really funny to hear all the French singing along in their best English, which was quite good. Now he performs at the piano with a bassist and a drummer. Even the older songs written on guitar still sound great.
Of course he hit it big with “Steppin Out”, which I liked less at the time, but last night sounded great. The 80’s-ness of it was stripped out and what was left was just a nice driving piano song.
Now it sounds like this
His newer songs I was unfamiliar with. I was afraid they would be too adult contemporary for me. I was wrong. This song is called “Solo”. Live it was heart wrenchingly good. The song oozed with emotion. The audience was dead silent, it was the highlight of the show, even us many of us were waiting to hear “Is She Really Going Out With Him”.
The Bikini was a great place as well. It was rebuilt recently after it burned down. Now it has a large terrace in the back where you can order food and drinks and sit on the terrace. There was a pool as well. When you enter it is beautiful inside and the acoustics are great. The sound was great from anywhere inside. I think there were about 800 people and the show was full.
We got to go backstage after the show. It felt odd because I didn’t really care about meeting him because I thought what would he care? I don’t imagine myself to be so enthralling that everyone must meet me. He doesn’t know me and he looked so awkward walking around before the show. Well we hung out with our friend Mike and then the drummer came by and then a roadie and pretty soon Joe came out and eventually warmed up and we hung out for about 45 minutes. Mostly it was to see our friend Mike but it was nice Joe came out. I didn’t want to seem to much of a fanboy so I didn’t take any pictures while we were with him, but here are some pictures I took at the show. Once again on my crappy camera phone so they aren’t that great in quality.
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The Sales in France begin
I noticed today that some stores had their sales signs up in Toulouse. Some of you may know that in France stores are only allowed to have sales 2 times per year. Once in the winter and once in the summer. I wrote a post about it in the winter that generated quite a response. Read it here.
I didn’t see the signs in all the stores so I guess some have tried to begin again early. There were a few stores that tried this last year and they got fined. Yes you can get fined if you start your sales early. There are pros and cons to this method but after being here for nearly a year I think it probably hurts small businesses more than it helps them, even though the French claim it protects small businesses. I found this interesting opinion on another site:
http://www.discoverfrance.com/france_travel_info/Soldes.htm
No time for the January blues to set in once the end-of-year holiday festivities have drawn to a close. In Paris, the sales season known simply as “les soldes” will be inaugurated on January 10 and you can be sure eager shoppers will be lined up in the Paris drizzle waiting to rush their favorite department store. What makes this French version of the after-Christmas sale so special? For one thing, sale events in France don’t crop up at each holiday occasion, but instead get concentrated into a month in winter (”soldes d’hiver”) and the better part of the month of July (”soldes d’été”). While some stores will run promotions at other times of the year, the word sale is not allowed into the French retail lexicon outside of these two defined periods, under threat of fine from governmental authorities. Most UK and US visitors shake their head in disbelief at the thought that Big Brother is meddling in everyday mercantile exchanges for items that remain in the realm of garments and household appliances. Yet, a State agency, with a name that goes something like General Directorate for Fair Trading, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control, is empowered to monitor that all shopkeepers and retailers strictly abide by these measures and it’s up to the local prefects to decide on which date the sales must cease and how deep the discount can actually be, whether 30, 40 or 50% off. So much for the free market… You may think that all these shopping rules and regulations are in place out of a genuine, although overly-authoritarian, concern to protect the consumer, yet in reality France’s read on consumerism is to make sure that luring customers does not breed disloyal competition to the detriment of smaller boutiques and shops. This governmental protection of the retailer goes hand in hand with legislation designed to safeguard small independent manufacturers and agricultural producers, both of whom provide a tremendous source of France’s economic prestige. So some advice to American visitors is to stop shaking your head, embrace this everlasting French tradition and treat yourselves to the experience of “les grands magasins”…
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