New Pictures are Up

New pictures are up from my trip to Vienna and Prague. I will elaborate on these excursions next week. There are also some pictures of Paris Thanksgiving up as well.

Have a good week all, talk to you after Israel.

The Strike is Over

Happy be-lated Thanksgiving to all. As a gift, the Parisians decided to end the strike after 9 days on Thanksgiving.

Also, I saw a homeless man on the metro this morning, and he had designer jeans that were nicer than mine. I know this isn't saying much, but only in Paris will you find a homeless dressed better than Dan Vogel.

This weekend I am in Eastern Europe. Next Friday I leave for Israel. Between now and then I need to write a paper and read many pages. Good times.

-Dan

Soccer match: France vs. Morocco

On Friday night I went to the France Morocco exhibition soccer match. To put it in simple terms, the peope on this side of the Atlantic are crazy about "football". The atmosphere in the stadium is, at the least, energetic. It is where France beat Brazil 3-0 in the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

I had been to a exhibition match back in 2003 to watch the first event ever at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia: Manchester United vs. FC Barcelona. However, as much fun as that game was, it does not compare to this game for 2 reasons.
1. 80,000 French/Moroccan fans have more thrust than 67,000 Philadelphia fans about soccer.
2. As rowdy and obnoxious as Philadelphia fans are (which I am very proud of), their efforts are concentrated in a different manor. I think it has to do with French people having a larger repertoire of emotions and expressions.

Morocco played very well against France and in the end, the score was tied a 2 apiece.

Has anyone seen my shirt?
Welcome the teams will you.

and they are almost ready to start...

Before we got there, Steve, Anass & I were not sure who to root for, since we are living in France, but there are also many Moroccans living in France as well. Also, Anass is French born, but with family in Morocco. You can imagine the situation we were in! Not to worry, once we got to our seats, our minds were quickly made up for us. Since we were surrounded by red (the Moroccan colors), we chanted Arabic the whole time.

So close



Here comes the WAVE!

Strike: Who cares, I'll just walk

Please enjoy my walk to school below...

Look at how crowded the street is with Bikes and people. I wish I had a better shot of the cars.
Here is the MonoPrix (food market) near my place. Look at cool the building.
Here is some cool monument. I have no idea what it is for.
Now we are at the Seine.
After arriving at school. I decided to go to Musee d'Orsay. This is probably the best museum in Paris. It has all the good stuff (pre - post impressionist work such as Manet, Monet, Degas, Rodin, Cezanne, etc) The view when you walk in. It was an old train station.

Here's the view from the other end.
The original Thinking Man.
Cool war painting.
Below is the walk home from school. Cool neon lite building in the back.
Notre Dame at night.

Why I did not go to India

In case you are considering the Temple IMBA program in the future, here are a few points to help you in your decision between Paris and Mumbai.

+ Paris school (ENPC) brings in teachers from all over the world
+ You are in class with your Temple cohort as well as more international students from the ENPC (great Networking opportunity)
+ You gain 2 MBA's (1 from ENPC and 1 from Temple)
- India cohort goes on 15-20 company visits.
- The US$ has a much stronger buying power in India than in France (the euro has become the enemy)
- India is a very different scene, one that most people from Western societies have never
seen. It is no doubt a unique experience.

Lastly - I heard that in India there is some hazing ritual in which new comers must marry a dog. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21768663/
But in all seriousness, I give this guy credit... he has probably cleansed his karma.

Same run different day

So another strike has begun here in Paris. The public transportation Union has decided to stick it to Sarkozy, again. The only problem is that this time (the 2nd time in a month), the people are not behind the union. You may be asking, what does this mean to me...

I went out for my morning run, and because of the strike less people are on the metro and have flooded into the streets by way of foot and car. To say the least, being on the look out for diagonal walkers and doggie dung is too much of an effort.

Last night, AFTER A FULL DAY OF STUDYING, we had a tour de France of wine tasting, hosted by Pascal. It was a good time. Of course my favorite wine was Gamay, no surprise... and I think it was the cheapest at 14 Euro.

Here are some of the bottles.

The classroom of many colours (that's right, I write in Canadian/UK).

Bottles of wine: 10
Participants: 12
Life lessons learned: 1 (never ask how much a good bottle of wine costs... the answer is never beneficial)

I write too much

1. I had an awesome run this morning. I think I ran 6 miles. This was definitely a top 5 run while in Paris. It was nice to run by Notre Dame and through the 4th arrondismont (The Marais). I'm pretty sure my run went so well because of my new dew.
2. Nerd Alert: After watching an episode of The Office in which they mention a game called Second Life, I sought it out and downloaded it (the basic version is free). It is basically a visual chat room. Kinda like 1993 AOL, but you control a virtual person. I ran and flew around a bit, splashed in the pool, took off my shoes, and transported from "room" to "room". All in all, it was a great 10 minutes that I can never get back.
3. Last night I made this chicken masala dish (Indian food). Let's just say that I've moved from a mountain man cook, to a better than mountain man cook.
4. I must go to school now to write a paper on diamonds, while simultaneously studying for an managerial accounting exam. Let the fun begin.

"Hey Thorny, we can call our car Ramrod. You're Ramathorne, and I'm Rod. Get it?
"Car Ramrod. Get it? Car Ramrod?"
Ah, the good ole days.

School

Don't be confused by the title of this post. I actually do go to school while in Paris.

Here are JD and Alex (Alex's IMBA tour) on Saturday studying for the economics exam we had this morning. The exam was good fun and no one came out injured.
For those who are curious, I will now go into detail about school here in Paris.
1. We have classes 9:30 - 5pm every day mon-fri. Not too bad, considering we get a French lunch of 1.5 hours. Each week we have one topic, better known as block scheduling. We have class 2 weeks in a row and during the 3rd week we have a "study week". During this week, we have tests and assignments due. This is one of those weeks, and between today and next Monday, we have 2 tests and 2 projects due. Luckily, I have 1 of each out of the way, so a little travel may be in the cards. If only the new Metro strike would not get in my way.

2. There are only 3 or 4 full time professors here at ENPC. Of these, only one teaches us one of the courses. You may be asking yourself, "Who teaches the other 9 courses?" Well I am glad you asked. ENPC "outsources" their teaching staff. It's quite brilliant. Basically they bring in phenomenal teachers to teach sorry students like me.

I hope this dismisses any crazy theories that you may have about school here in Paris. But, would you rather hear about my studying or my traveling? Or is it neither, but you read my blog anyway because you are bored at work? Answer not required.

Before and...

how come no one ever told me my nose was this big...
I figured My best shot would be at an Indian place because they know English better than the French. However, the Indian Places looked busy, so I went into this place.
I got my hair cut in a North African place, by an Algerian, on a street full on Indian Restaurants and shops, in France.

So, we exchanged some Arabic, he knew I was kosher and...

After...
huh, my nose looks smaller here. (Note to self: always keep short hair.)It's pretty close to what Mark Anthony would have done in the Italian Market. Although he would have thinned out this mop on my head and I could have awkwardly stared at maxim pictures during the deed. But I can't complain, this haircut was cheaper than a beer. 6 Euro was what I paid the man, not too bad.

Randomness

Sorry for the lack of writing, I hope we can still be friends.

Anywho - I want to say a few things that have been on my mind recently.

1. The Paris Metro is an amazing system. There are around 14 different lines and none of them smell of urine. Trains come very often, about every 2 minutes during prime time and no less then every 8 minutes during down time. I think Philadelphia has a lot to learn about this system. The one thing I could complain about is the ventilation/AC system on the unit. I am sweating every time I come out of the train.

2. Paris has an over abundance of doggie dung. For some reason, people hate to clean the stuff up. It's a doggie dung mine field out there and the casualty is one's shoe and dignity. As stated in an earlier post, the 1st time I stepped in dung was in Rheims, not in Paris, and that was a shock.

3. Speaking of Dung, please check out my cousins book. He has done a fine job. See the book (Dr. Stool).

4. Every morning on my run, I have noticed that Paris does some sort of reverse water drain thing. Basically, water shoots out of the drains in the street... probably to clean the dung.

5. A Jewish bakery opened on my street last week... very exciting.

6. Speaking of Jewish...

I went to the Shoah museaum last weekend. I didn't realize that Poland had the highest % of Jews in Europe at 9%. I also didn't realize that the French Vishay Government actively helped the Nazis round up the undesirables. Well, enough of that.

Here's what you see on the outside


The Wall of Names for those killed I found some Vogel'sAfterwards I went to the center of the Marais, the Jewish area of Paris. Had myself a tasty falafelSaw an interesting store
I have listened to the requests...
Upcoming Travel Plans...

11/12-11/13 - Loire Valley

11/23-11/26 - Vienna/Prague

12/1 - 12/5 - Israel