79: Europe Day 0: West Lafayette

Posted: 6-25-07

I guess we'll start with day zero to set up the background a bit for this trip. In fact, I wrote most of this entry in Europe, but I had to edit it quite a bit afterwards because the keyboards in France were all funny.

Okay, so I'm going to France and Italy for three weeks as part of a Maymester class. It's through Purdue's agriculture department, so that pretty much means I'm hanging out with a bunch of farm dorks. Okay, just kidding. They're all right. Agriculture is actually much more than farms and stuff. Nowadays it's fairly integrated with science and engineering, and there are a lot of new technologies and innovations being implemented. It's really quite complex when you start peeling apart the layers. Our class is focused on comparing methods of conventional and organic agriculture. It's a rapidly growing field, and organics are a much bigger thing in Europe than in the United States.

Over the course of the spring semester, we had a few class sessions to cover the classroom instruction requirements and to leave more time for exploration in Europe. We took a test over the technical aspects of organic agriculture the day before we left for Europe. I think I did all right for being a biochem major. I missed a question about cows since didn't know much about them besides the fact they are tasty and can be cooked in many ways.

I cleaned up my room and finally finished packing that night. I guess most travellers tend to overpack, but I'm kind of the opposite. Clothes confuse me sometimes. Sometimes I think we should just do without them. When I went to Ecuador over spring break, I actually underpacked. I borrowed Axe spray from a friend to get by. At least now I know what my lower limit is in terms of clothing. This time I did pack a few extra items for Europe just in case, and I brought nicer clothes as well. I know that Europeans tend to dress a little more nicely than most Americans, and most Americans tend to dress a little more nicely than me.

This trip will be my first foray into European society. Ever since high school, I've wanted to study abroad in France. I took 3.5 years of French in high school (I used that remaining 0.5 year to take AP biology instead). I took French at Purdue only during my freshman year, so my French has gotten très rusty these past few years. I wish I had remembered to bring a French dictionary up to Purdue to brush up, but I'm pretty sure a couple people are bringing phrase books. At least I still remember how to say "Where is the restroom?" and I vaguely recall a few lines of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. It was written during the French Revolution and subsequently banned a few times. Here are some juicy bits from it, translated to English:

Let's go, the children of the fatherland.
The day of glory is here.
Against us is tyrrany.
The bloody flag is raised.
The bloody flag is raised.

Let's go! Let's go!
May impure blood
water our fields.

Pretty catchy, huh? Speaking of which, I do believe blood counts as organic fertilizer, as long as it's handled properly. I think those revolutionaries were on to something.