Journal entry

Hey all,

So I was on the five-hour train ride to Brest this weekend when I decided to write a little bit in my Moleskine, something I hadn't done in a while. You'll notice that my recent reading of Twain has had a marked effect on my writing...



Brest is a city on the western extremity of France and it was bombarded during WWII, leaving it just short of entirely demolished. So the architecture is mostly 50s-era apartment buildings, which are not quite as aesthetically pleasing as 17th-century architecture might be.

In Brest I tried couch surfing for the first time, which turned out really well. The way it works is: one signs up for an account on couchsurfing.org, completes a profile with personal information and searches for lodging in the destination of their travels. One contacts a host, who has also created a profile on the page, and once both parties agree that the stay will work out, they coordinate a time and location to meet and go from there.

It has the potential to be a great medium for cultural exchange - perfect strangers meet and coalesce/collide for the embetterment of each. Unfortunately, I only stayed one night and spent most of my time with a friend who is working in town. I look forward to my next encounter with couch surfing, perhaps in a week or so on a trip to Strasbourg!

This friend of mine showed me around what is just outside of Brest - a small town named Quimper, which was perfectly charming in the way smaller French towns are: cobbled streets, beautiful cathedrals, wandering locals, and cafes a-plenty. We also visited Morgat, which had a great view of the ocean and a cool old fort. All the while we ate plenty of crepes and drank cider by the pitcher, both of which are specialties of Bretagne - fun stuff!

A teacher at the high school was kind enough to lend me a bike! This might be my ticket to taking classes at the public university here, which is about an hour's walk away. I'm thinking Spanish, Chinese, French Lit or even a class in botany... who knows.

Still working on uploading 4 video compilations. I should be able to get them up this weekend. I'm currently knee-deep in grad school applications, and feeling a remarkable pressure to work on just that: fortunately, France takes the next two weeks off as a holiday, which will be perfect for finishing up applications. For those of you who remember my posts last year will recall that I went to Sweden to visit my friend Kim for the same break a year ago! Ahh time does fly.

Ciao!
Ben

PS: I left my fountain pen somewhere in Brest. I'm hoping it's in my friend's car and he can simply send it to me... Writing with a ballpoint certainly doesn't bide well for my handwriting, as far as legibility goes... and I sure am a sucker for the fountain pen look!