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This morning when I arrived at work, there was a message on the phone from the Lausanne police informing me that my wallet had been turned in and that I could go pick it up from the Lost and Found office at my leisure. Not a bad way to start a day. At lunchtime, I took the metro downtown and swung by the office. The clerk there had no idea how or by whom the wallet had been found or turned in, but was happy to give it to me when I presented my passport and a 5 CHF fee. From the looks of it, the wallet had suffered during its time away from me (it had clearly spent some time in the dirt), but was otherwise ok. The police apparently had separated the contents from the wallet, so I received a small rubberbanded stack of cards as well. A quick check through the cards revealed the following. Items left in wallet: My CFF 1/2-price railway pass Pretty much everyone in Switzerland already owns one of these, so I imagine it's not particularly valuable, although it does cost 150 CHF a y...

Having been raised on the mean streets of Kearny Mesa, I pretty much assumed that I would not have too much trouble with the wannabe gangstas and street punks of peaceful Lausanne. Certainly, I've run into some rowdy drunks and been accosted by the occasional obnoxious transient, but nothing I couldn't handle. In fact, until last night, I can't think of a single time that I was even slightly worried about my person or my belongings. That was the night everything changed ... First, the official police report of the incident (unfortunately in French). It is quite thorough. Fig. 1: Just the facts, mainly. I note that there are a lot of facts that I was asked for that did not make the report, I have no idea what happened to those. Fig. 2: The majority of the testimony. Although it is written in first person, I assure you that these are not my exact words. Still, it is quite illustrative. For those of you that don't speak French, I offer my humble translation of the t...

Things that I have in common with the hottest Slameur in France: We are both quite tall (he's roughly an inch taller than I am) We both ooze charisma. We both have spinal injuries that make us walk with a limp (I have sciatica right now, which sucks. Hopefully, it'll go away soon -- see note below) Grand Corps Malade is huge in France (and Switzerland). After a freak injury diving into a municipal pool in 1997, doctors told him he would never walk again. After two years of rehab, he was able to walk, but with a noticeable limp. To pass the time during his recovery, he worked on his slam -- spoken word poetry heavily influenced by hip hop -- and eventually began performing under the name Grand Corps Malade, "Big Sick Body." Currently, he has two albums out, both of which were major hits in France upon their release. We listened to some of his poetry in my French class last semester, and for the most part, it is very entertaining. Although he mixes in a fair am...

I have decided to upload pretty much every photo I've taken here in Switzerland to my Picasa account. I have roughly sorted them into albums, and I am right now going through them and giving them captions, as best I can. There is still a lot of uploading to be done, so it probably won't be all online for a little while. http://picasaweb.google.com/paul.sangiorgio Enjoy!

Lots of old news to cover, what with me not writing an actual update in like a month, so away we go. Way, way back -- before Christmas break -- I took the train to beautiful Grenoble to visit my friend Loren, who works there as a lab monkey, like me. Although Loren has made it into Switzerland (successfully) two times, this was my first trip to France to visit him. I had heard lots of talk about how awesome the city, so I was pretty excited about checking it out. To most French people, Grenoble = the Alps. Located smack dab in-between three massive sets of mountains, Grenoble is known for its mountainy beauty. On the mountains to the north is La Bastille, a huge prison complex that was begun in the middle ages. Loren and I -- trying to recreate everything we knew about French history -- decided to storm the bastille. It wasn't the same bastille, but it was close enough. Fig. 1: La Bastille, in Grenoble. Pretty much the ultimate snowball fort. Grenoble hosted the winter olymp...

I know it's been unexcusably long since my last post, and I promise to post a lot in the upcoming weeks, but unfortunately, my very first post this year is a real downer. My apartment gets almost no direct sunlight and can get quite cold. He had been fighting a losing struggle ever since he arrived and it was pretty clear this day would come before winter was over. I had friends water him while I was gone on break, but it just wasn't enough. When I returned from vacation there were no living leaves and there was nothing I could do. Readers of this blog have been avid Basil supporters since the beginning, so I felt it was only fair to make a small tribute so that everyone could reminisce. He will be missed. Basil - A Retrospective