Tuesday, April 29, 2008
More people-watching
So, people-watching. A few stories.
I have an American friend who lives in the Croix Rousse, which is a residential area up on the hill above the river. You have to take the metro to get there, and to get home I change lines a few times. Once, I was coming home from her place on a Thursday night, and while I was waiting for the train I glanced back at the long stairway that led down to the platform. Just as I looked back, I saw a couple at the top of the stairs- their arms were linked and they were both holding canes. They were blind. Both of them. The woman stumbled a bit at the top of the stairs, but the man (clearly a boyfriend or husband) kept her from falling. As I watched, they walked down the stairs with no problems and continued over to the platform to wait for the train. Up till that point I had assumed that the man could see a little bit (it had seemed he was leading her), but now I could see that he was, in fact, completely blind. I was trying to decide if I should offer help or not, but a Frenchman beat me to it and helped them onto the metro when it arrived. They got off at the same stop as I did and I watched them head in the other direction. I thought about offering to help them get home, but they seemed to get along just fine. Amazing.
A few weeks later I was at the same metro stop at around the same time of night. I was thinking about that couple and as I looked up at the stairway, there they were again! It was the same routine as the first time- head down the stairs, feel their way to the platform and onto the train, and listen for their stop. They must do that every night. Pretty unbelievable.
Another time, I was sitting on the grass by the river, reading and watching the people go by. There was a class of kindergarden-aged children with their teachers, and after a bit I realized that they were playing duck-duck-goose! I have no idea what the name is in French, though. I doubt they call it canard-canard-oie.
That same afternoon there were some college-age French guys sitting on the grass with their guitars, strumming away. I really enjoyed listening to them- one was singing, and he had a pretty good voice. It made me laugh that they were playing things like Wonderwall, though- you could tell he had no idea what the words meant. It reminded me of Young Life camp. After about 45 minutes of playing, some French girls came over and introduced themselves to the guys and then sat around and hung out with them. I guess some things (like guitars being girl-magnets) are universal.
Anyway, those are just some random observations. Today is free cone day at Ben and Jerry's, and apparently there is a B&J's not very far from my house, so I think we're going to go after class. This week and next week I have only three days of class because we have this Thursday off for Labor Day, then next Thursday is Victory in 1945 day, then the Monday after that is Pentacost. For a secular country, France has quite a few religious holidays. Not that I'm complaining. : ) Nine days of class left, then a week of exams, then some more traveling, then I come home!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
French people are ridiculous sometimes
I often find myself rolling my eyes when this happens. Nobody in the world is that melodramatic. Seriously.
Except the French. Because (and I'm being completely serious here) I've seen this scenario acted out THREE TIMES since I've been here. Complete with the pressing the hands against the glass thing. And once, the girl jumped off the train for one last hug and kiss right before the doors closed and the train left. Each time, there was much gazing into eyes and lingering embraces and reassurances that she would be home soon. And for some reason it was always the girl who was leaving. Maybe that's just a coincidence.
I felt bad for laughing because it seemed truly traumatic for the couples I saw doing this. But seriously. Who'd have thought this stuff happened in real life?
For this and other reasons, people-watching on public transportation is quickly becoming a favorite hobby of mine. More on this later when it's not three in the morning France time.
Friday, April 4, 2008
SECTION THE THIRDTH: Paris
Paris
Paris, Paris, Paris. I cannot tell you how excited I was to go to Paris Easter weekend, all by myself, with just my backpack. I was SO EXCITED. We had Easter Monday off from school, so that meant I had four glorious days to spend there. I left Friday morning on the TGV (bullet train), but about an hour into the trip something happened and we were downgraded to a regular-speed train. It was a good thing I had plenty of time to get to my hostel, because I got into
I saw so much that first day. I had planned out what I was going to do, but I deviated from the plan a bit. I went and saw Notre Dame, which, to be quite honest, was a little underwhelming. It was beautiful from the outside, but there were really far too many people there for me to enjoy being inside.
Something that I really loved was the Panthéon:
Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo are buried here, and so are Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Voltaire, Rousseau, Marie and Pierre Curie and some of the most famous resistance fighters from WWII, among others. I also found this on a wall dedicated to “Martyrs of the Revolution” who died in 1830 and 1843:
By the time I left that museum it was pretty late in the afternoon, and I wanted to get to the Louvre because it’s open late on Friday nights. So I grabbed the metro to the Place de la Concorde. It was here that I made an incredible discovery: there are a lot- a lot- of tourists in
*Statistics may or may not have been made up on the spot.
I spent about three and a half hours in the Louvre, and it was fantastic. I saw so many amazing works of art I thought my head was going to explode. At the end, though, my feet were hurting and I’d been carrying around my huge backpack all day, so I decided to head out. Unfortunately, it took me about a half an hour to find the way out. My map told me where to find the Greek and Roman Sculptures and the Egyptian Exhibit and that was all well and good, but I could not find the bloody exit. I kept following these little green signs that had a running man on them (which are usually the exit signs) but they ended up being the emergency exits. So basically, not only did I get lost in the
It had already been dark for some time when I left the Louvre, and there was a gorgeous full moon. I tried to take a picture of the Louvre with the moon over it, but every attempt came out blurry. And just as I was about to try one more time, my camera shut down and a little message appeared on the screen: Change your batteries. Argh.
After the Louvre and my desperate search for the way out, I was pretty tired, so I went back to the hostel. My roommate ended up being a girl from
The next day was Saturday, and it was another full day. I went to the Hôtel des Invalides, which is a huge, gorgeous building that has a big green boulevard in front of it that stretches all the way to the river and the equally gorgeous Pont des Invalides.
The Museum of the Army is found here, and Napoleon is buried there (and in case you’re wondering, yeah, pretty much everyone and their mom is buried in
I made good use of the setting on my camera that lets you take long pictures.
They also have other works in the rooms below the Water Lilies.I love this one.
After that I went to the Musée d'Orsay. Here's one of my favorites from there:
Ok, so that was Saturday. Sunday was Easter, so I had decided to go to Versailles. Good idea, but apparently every other tourist in Paris had the same idea. It was fun, but way too crowded. The place itself is so utterly overwhelming that I got tired just looking at it. It was a fun way to spend Easter, though.
Shakespeare and Co! For those of you who don't know (I didn't- I just thought it was a cool bookstore...), this bookstore is pretty awesome and famous. The original was located somewhere else and authors like Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald visited it (Hemingway mentions it in A Moveable Feast, too). That bookstore was shut down during WWII, and this one was opened in 1951, and now the daughter of the original owner (of the new store, not the old one) runs it. It's kind of the focal point of the literary community in that part of Paris. It's an amazing place. I went back Monday night for a book reading, which made me feel very hip and cultured. haha.
Speaking of Monday, my last day in Paris was pretty low-key. I was tired of rushing around trying to see everything (though that was fun while it lasted), so I pretty much just wandered. I went to the Sacre Coeur but didn't go in because of the massive crowds. I went and found Victor Hugo's house, but it was closed so I couldn't go in. I was pretty disappointed about that. I also visited the Picasso Museum, but I don't like Picasso- I just needed a bathroom (and I had my handy museum pass, remember?). So I went to the bathroom and wandered around pretending to look at the art until I thought a sufficient amount of time had passed for me to leave. The lady at the coat check still gave me a dirty look, though- I guess I didn't stay long enough to convince her.
It was raining on Monday, though, so there was only so much wandering I could do. So I went into one of the churches near the Place St. Michel and sat for a while. It was wonderful, because someone was playing organ music. Organ music on a real organ in a church with amazing acoustics- I was so glad I had gone into that church.
I left Paris at about nine in the evening and got back into Lyon close to midnight, exhausted and content. I had an exam the next day, though, so I couldn't relax for very long. I won't tell you the results of that exam, but you can probably guess. : )
Thursday, April 3, 2008
PART THE SECOND: Normandy
A few weeks ago I took a long weekend (not too hard to do, since I don’t have Friday classes) and went to northern
All we had time to do that night was find our hotel. We successfully spoke French to the person at the desk, but as soon as she heard us speaking English to each other she switched to English. Honestly, the sheer number of people who speak perfect English in
Friday morning we got up really, really early to get the train to
We ended up having to take a taxi to
After that we walked back up the hill to the
The cemetery itself is beautiful and heart wrenching. There’s a memorial at one end of it, and then just rows and rows of white crosses, each with a name, a company, and a date inscribed on it. We saw what seemed to be a large family gathered at one of the plots, and later we saw the flag being lowered and folded up, probably to be given to that family. One of the other students in Lyon went on behalf of a family friend whose uncle is buried there, and they gave her a flag to take home to his family, so that’s why we figured that’s what was happening.
The memorial:
Crosses:
After getting back to
When we got to Pontorson, our ride to the hostel was waiting for us. His name was Steve and he was British, and he and his wife run the hostel. He picked us up in a Land Rover, and it was hilarious trying to fit eight people and their stuff in that thing. When we got there, the three of us were so exhausted that we went right to sleep.
Here’s a picture of our adorable hostel:
And the Land Rover:
Steve also gave us a ride to the
To get to
As we were coming up to the city there were sheep in the road:
Look how gorgeous this place is:
We had a great time at
The lower parts of the city are full of shops and tourist traps, so we didn’t stay there long. The city itself is beautiful, and we ate our lunch outside in one of the gardens. Then we headed up to the chapel for the noon Mass, which was wonderful. I was surprised at how much I recognized, but maybe I shouldn’t have been, because I knew that Catholics and Anglicans use much of the same liturgy. We sang the psalms, which was a new experience for everyone, especially since they were in French.
After Mass, we split up- a few of the girls wanted to go to the museums, and Anne and Benjamin just wanted to explore, and I wanted to see the rest of the Abbey and the Chapel. So I did that, and it was gorgeous. There were a lot of people there, but they were mostly with tour groups so I was able to avoid them for the most part. There are some beautiful gardens in the Abbey and the view was amazing.
Alas, we had to leave eventually, but we were actually glad that we left when we did because it had started raining pretty hard. The Harding students were headed back to Reims that night, and Anne and Benjamin were going to
The night train was… an experience. It left from
So. The night train. Twelve hours to get from
Anyway. When I’d bought my tickets there had been two options for seating, and I hadn’t really been able to figure out the difference, so I had picked the one that was 20 euros cheaper. When I got on the train I discovered the difference: the more expensive ticket was in the sleeping cars and you had a bed. I was in the cars where you get a reclining seat. It wasn’t too horrible- I sleep in cars all the time when I travel. But usually in cars you can curl up or stretch out or do any number of things to find a comfortable position that you just can’t do on a train with other people. So I didn’t really sleep very well.
There was a girls’ soccer team on the same train as me, and when they got on you could tell they were on their way home from a tournament or something, because they had trophies and were wearing warm-ups. It didn’t take long to realize that they weren’t just a girls’ soccer team, though, they were a girls’ deaf soccer team. They talked almost the whole night, but it didn’t matter because nobody could hear them. Haha. No, seriously, I thought it was pretty cool.
After a long night in the train I finally got back into
SECTION THE FIRST: Strasbourg
To get from
I finally reached my destination at about eight in the evening, though, but I could not for the life of me figure out where the hostel was. There was a big park (also called Deux Rives, of course), which my directions assured me was where the hostel was, but there were no signs that said HOSTEL THIS WAY or the equivalent in French. I ended up wandering around the park in the rain until I found a road that had a sign that said AUBERGE (hostel). At this point I was soaking wet and pretty frustrated that I hadn’t been able to get anyone to answer the phone at the hostel. So I finally got to the hostel, and there was nobody at the front desk. In fact, there seemed to be no staff anywhere. There was a high school group from the
The next day (Thursday), we got up pretty early, had breakfast at the hostel, and headed into the city. It was cloudy and rainy, but we didn’t really mind. The first thing we knew we wanted to see was the Cathedral, so we headed that way.
Let me tell you. This cathedral is awesome. We didn’t really know where it was, so we were pretty much just trying to go towards its spire, which we could see from where we were. At some point I was looking at the map as we went around a corner, and I ran into Katie, who had stopped for some reason, and I was just saying “I think it’s somewhere around here” when I looked up, and whoa. There it was. It’s huge. It’s beautiful. Here’s a picture. It doesn’t nearly do it justice.
Here’s a picture of the Palais Rohan (yes, Rohan, but there were no blond people on horses there), which is right next to the Cathedral and houses the museums:
There are three museums in the Palais: the museum of archeology (interesting, but not as cool as it sounds), fine arts (cool), and arts decoratifs (awesome). We went to all three, but my favorite was arts decoratifs, which has re-creations of the Palais from when royalty actually lived there (I’ve forgotten which king it was- maybe the Bourbons?). So there are all these gorgeous rooms full of tables and chairs and wall hangings you can’t touch because they’re so old they’d crumble to dust in your hand, but there are also displays of beautiful china sets, silver, jewelry, and things like that.
After that we went back to the Cathedrale for the astronomical clock display. The clock itself is huge and really, really intricate. It took about ten minutes for all the parts to do their thing. After that, we walked around the city some more. I really, really liked
Here’s another picture. This is a high school, if you can believe it:
The next day was Friday, and my train was leaving that evening. So we headed back into the city, and this time I had my little suitcase in tow. Dragging that thing around all day got kind of obnoxious, as you can imagine.
Things we did that day:
-walked to
-outdoor market- they were selling fish, pastries, clothes, bread, anything you can think of, you could get it at this place. Unfortunately, the bathrooms that were supposed to be there were getting repaired, so we spent about a half an hour trying to find a bathroom. There are never any public toilets anywhere in
-the main square, which is this beautiful green space with the Palais de Justice, the Prefecture, the Strasbourg Theatre, and the Municipal Library.
The Library. Seriously.
-Petite
One of my favorite pictures ever. It’s a red light in Petite France.
-
My train from
To get more pictures of