Waiting on California

One of the frustrating things about being six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time is that exciting news that comes out of North American happens in the middle of the night in Paris. Case in point: election results, both Canadian and American. Now granted, the Canadian election wasn't much of a nail biter, so I had no problem waiting until the next morning to "find out" what we already knew would happen, but the 2008 American presidential election was one of those rare political events where you just have to hear the results live, and hear it with the rest of the world. In order to do this, it requires staying up until 5AM, when the polls in California close, and the results were made official. If you wanted to hear Obama's victory speech, you weren't going to bed until well after 6AM, which for some students at Sciences Po is less than 2 hours before their first morning lecture. Now the logical French person may have decided to simply go to bed early and wake up when the polls in California closed, however we, we being less than logical foreign exchange students, decided that it would be better to stay up all night, watching satellite television in one of the few places in Paris that had been authorized to stay open all night in order to broadcast the results live. Unfortunately, half of Paris had the same plan, which made for an extremely crowded and disorganized night. 

Elsewhere, it's definitely late autumn in Paris. Sunny days are far and few between, and night time temperatures hover around the freezing mark. It's on cold nights like tonight that I find myself dreaming about central heating. France may have better wine and cheese, prettier buildings, a more glorious history (well, that might be debatable, depending on who you ask), a greater appreciation for the arts, and a grander intellectual tradition, but it certainly has a thing or two to learn from the True North when it comes to heating its buildings. In Canada, most homes and buildings are toasty warm thanks to a little miracle called central heating; in France, most homes and buildings are damp, drafty and freezing because heating comes primarily from antiquated radiators which I suspect suck all of the warmth out of the room.