I'm still alive!
Right now I am in Berlin, visiting my friend Christina and seeing some of the sites. Yesterday was Europe's 50th birthday (in 1957 they signed the Rome Treaty, which officially started what is now the E.U.). There was a big party at the Brandenburger Gate, with different booths set up from each Euro country. I ate Polish food and washed it down with Irish beer while listening to crappy music from I don't know where. Anyways, lots of fun.
Paris was wonderful. After traveling for 25 hours and enduring a French rail strike (which took us 2.5 hours to get from De Gaulle airport to our hostel), I managed to meet up with my pledge brother Jeff Neves for a night out on Thursday. I (oops!) slept right through my phone alarm on Friday, and missed that morning's moot competition, which was Ok since I'm not arguing anyways.
This was my favorite time in Paris: I mixed in a nice jog Saturday morning with my teammate Meghan. We stayed very close to the Ile de St Louis and Ile de la Cite, so I mapped out a little jog around both, which was probably two miles or so for us. Being the unadulterated genius that I be, my windbreaker sat comfortably in my bed in Austin just when I needed it to stave off the 35 degree gallic morning. C'est la vie1! Anyways, we managed to end our jog with a dash inside Notre Dame. This was Meghan's first time to see Our Lady. Amazing. At 730 on a Saturday, the only people inside are the friendly Moroccans who clean the cathedral, so we really got unfettered access to one of the most spectacular churches in the world--which never disappoints.
Right after that we jogged over to the Le Deportation memoriale, which is the Parisian way of shrugging off their complicity in the Holocaust. It is enough to make you cry that such an inhuman calamity that was the French deportation of the fellow Jewish countrymen can be memorialized literally in the shadows of such a masterpiece as Notre Dame.
The moots went extremely well for us. We faced off against three teams from Paris, and one from Milan. The Italians were pretty bad, and two Parisian teams were decent. Our last round was against the Sorbonne, and it was the best round by far. We argued for the Respondent (which means Defendant in arbitration lingo), and that is the much more difficult position to argue in this fact problem (basically, the legal arguments all shape up well for the Plaintiff). But we managed to beat the Sorbonne, and the round was quite lively and entertaining. The French gave us great props for our efforts.
The guys on our team have taken to wearing a flower on our lapel for the moots, and in Vienna we want to buy exclusively yellow roses, with obvious implications for Texas. Add that to my ostrich-skin boots and Texas-size belt buckle, and I/we manage to stand out in quite a good way. All of the Euros like us a good bit, and I'd wager that we're exponentially more awesome in their eyes than the other Ami teams (Berkeley, Harvard, and Columbia). Not that I needed any independent confirmation of that fact.
I'm in Berlin until tomorrow, then off to Erfurt for 48 hours, before trekking on to Vienna. Pictures to follow when my internet connection is better.
Auf widersehen, und Hook'em!
Clark
Monday, March 26, 2007
Er lebt noch!
I'm still alive!
Right now I am in Berlin, visiting my friend Christina and seeing some of the sites. Yesterday was Europe's 50th birthday (in 1957 they signed the Rome Treaty, which officially started what is now the E.U.). There was a big party at the Brandenburger Gate, with different booths set up from each Euro country. I ate Polish food and washed it down with Irish beer while listening to crappy music from I don't know where. Anyways, lots of fun.
Paris was wonderful. After traveling for 25 hours and enduring a French rail strike (which took us 2.5 hours to get from De Gaulle airport to our hostel), I managed to meet up with my pledge brother Jeff Neves for a night out on Thursday. I (oops!) slept right through my phone alarm on Friday, and missed that morning's moot competition, which was Ok since I'm not arguing anyways.
This was my favorite time in Paris: I mixed in a nice jog Saturday morning with my teammate Meghan. We stayed very close to the Ile de St Louis and Ile de la Cite, so I mapped out a little jog around both, which was probably two miles or so for us. Being the unadulterated genius that I be, my windbreaker sat comfortably in my bed in Austin just when I needed it to stave off the 35 degree gallic morning. C'est la vie1! Anyways, we managed to end our jog with a dash inside Notre Dame. This was Meghan's first time to see Our Lady. Amazing. At 730 on a Saturday, the only people inside are the friendly Moroccans who clean the cathedral, so we really got unfettered access to one of the most spectacular churches in the world--which never disappoints.
Right after that we jogged over to the Le Deportation memoriale, which is the Parisian way of shrugging off their complicity in the Holocaust. It is enough to make you cry that such an inhuman calamity that was the French deportation of the fellow Jewish countrymen can be memorialized literally in the shadows of such a masterpiece as Notre Dame.
The moots went extremely well for us. We faced off against three teams from Paris, and one from Milan. The Italians were pretty bad, and two Parisian teams were decent. Our last round was against the Sorbonne, and it was the best round by far. We argued for the Respondent (which means Defendant in arbitration lingo), and that is the much more difficult position to argue in this fact problem (basically, the legal arguments all shape up well for the Plaintiff). But we managed to beat the Sorbonne, and the round was quite lively and entertaining. The French gave us great props for our efforts.
The guys on our team have taken to wearing a flower on our lapel for the moots, and in Vienna we want to buy exclusively yellow roses, with obvious implications for Texas. Add that to my ostrich-skin boots and Texas-size belt buckle, and I/we manage to stand out in quite a good way. All of the Euros like us a good bit, and I'd wager that we're exponentially more awesome in their eyes than the other Ami teams (Berkeley, Harvard, and Columbia). Not that I needed any independent confirmation of that fact.
I'm in Berlin until tomorrow, then off to Erfurt for 48 hours, before trekking on to Vienna. Pictures to follow when my internet connection is better.
Auf widersehen, und Hook'em!
Clark
Right now I am in Berlin, visiting my friend Christina and seeing some of the sites. Yesterday was Europe's 50th birthday (in 1957 they signed the Rome Treaty, which officially started what is now the E.U.). There was a big party at the Brandenburger Gate, with different booths set up from each Euro country. I ate Polish food and washed it down with Irish beer while listening to crappy music from I don't know where. Anyways, lots of fun.
Paris was wonderful. After traveling for 25 hours and enduring a French rail strike (which took us 2.5 hours to get from De Gaulle airport to our hostel), I managed to meet up with my pledge brother Jeff Neves for a night out on Thursday. I (oops!) slept right through my phone alarm on Friday, and missed that morning's moot competition, which was Ok since I'm not arguing anyways.
This was my favorite time in Paris: I mixed in a nice jog Saturday morning with my teammate Meghan. We stayed very close to the Ile de St Louis and Ile de la Cite, so I mapped out a little jog around both, which was probably two miles or so for us. Being the unadulterated genius that I be, my windbreaker sat comfortably in my bed in Austin just when I needed it to stave off the 35 degree gallic morning. C'est la vie1! Anyways, we managed to end our jog with a dash inside Notre Dame. This was Meghan's first time to see Our Lady. Amazing. At 730 on a Saturday, the only people inside are the friendly Moroccans who clean the cathedral, so we really got unfettered access to one of the most spectacular churches in the world--which never disappoints.
Right after that we jogged over to the Le Deportation memoriale, which is the Parisian way of shrugging off their complicity in the Holocaust. It is enough to make you cry that such an inhuman calamity that was the French deportation of the fellow Jewish countrymen can be memorialized literally in the shadows of such a masterpiece as Notre Dame.
The moots went extremely well for us. We faced off against three teams from Paris, and one from Milan. The Italians were pretty bad, and two Parisian teams were decent. Our last round was against the Sorbonne, and it was the best round by far. We argued for the Respondent (which means Defendant in arbitration lingo), and that is the much more difficult position to argue in this fact problem (basically, the legal arguments all shape up well for the Plaintiff). But we managed to beat the Sorbonne, and the round was quite lively and entertaining. The French gave us great props for our efforts.
The guys on our team have taken to wearing a flower on our lapel for the moots, and in Vienna we want to buy exclusively yellow roses, with obvious implications for Texas. Add that to my ostrich-skin boots and Texas-size belt buckle, and I/we manage to stand out in quite a good way. All of the Euros like us a good bit, and I'd wager that we're exponentially more awesome in their eyes than the other Ami teams (Berkeley, Harvard, and Columbia). Not that I needed any independent confirmation of that fact.
I'm in Berlin until tomorrow, then off to Erfurt for 48 hours, before trekking on to Vienna. Pictures to follow when my internet connection is better.
Auf widersehen, und Hook'em!
Clark
Friday, March 2, 2007
Welcome to my Blog!
Hi friends, my name is Clark, welcome to my new blog. I'm surprised that it would come to this--me actually starting a blog--because I've always recoiled at the thought. But these are special times yielding me special circumstances. So here we are!
That's me in the picture above. And that's Europe in the background. More specifically, that's the Mariendom Cathedral in Erfurt, Germany (my European hometown), the town which has been the cradle of so much of my European experience.
I hope that serves as a nice lead-in for just why I am creating this blog in the first place--I am finally going back to Europe, and I want to document my newest experience in the Old World. I want to do this for two main reasons.
The first reason is mostly personal--I owe so much of who I am and what I do to my time already spent on the continent. That time was mostly in Germany, where I lived, taught and studied for one year after graduating college. In light of that, those of y'all who know me might appreciate tracking my steps through Europe starting in three weeks. Hopefully I won't be too reticent about my thoughts, and y'all can get to know me a little bit better through whatever vicariousness a travel blog can deliver.
The second reason is mostly, well, "journalistic." I guess that term pretty much encompasses blogging in general, but my reason for using the term is more specific. I am traveling to and through Europe as a member of UT's international arbitration moot court team. We are competing in two different events--the first is at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, the second is at the Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Court in Vienna.
For me, the chance to represent The University in such worldwide competitions is unparalleled. And I say this not because of whatever esoteric, abstract value might inhere in representing "The University," but because representing "The University" means representing y'all (at least, all of us blessed enough to call UT home). So, I'm writing the blog so that y'all can keep up with how the team is doing against the other top teams from around the globe.
The fact that you've read this far has me pretty stoked to begin with. And please, keep the comments coming--they'll be motivation for me to keep blogging!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)