Italy, part one

We took the 15h11 train from Montpellier to Nice, from whence we were supposed to take the night train, which left at 21h07, to Florence. About 45 minutes after we left Montpellier, our train broke down in this little middle-of-nowhere train station in Arles. For two hours. We took turns leaving someone with our stuff and taking walks outside, all the while trying to think where we were going to sleep that night since we were going to miss the train to Florence. Once the train finally got going again around 18h10, the conductor came over the loudspeaker and said the night trains to Rome and Venice were going to wait for us. That was fantastic for us, since we were going to Florence, but we were confused since according to the train schedule there was no train to Rome. We wallowed in our confusion for the remaining hours of the train ride, got to Nice around 22h00, and lo and behold, there was the train to Rome and Venice, but alas no train to Florence. We started dejectedly wandering off, now trying to think of where we were going to sleep and how we were going to get to Florence the next day. As one last resort we checked our train number and realized that, though it didn't say Florence anywhere in the terminal or on the train, the train to Rome and Venice was indeed the our train. By this time the conductor was blowing his whistle to signal the departure of the train; everyone had already boarded. We frantically ran up to him, blabbering in French about how this was our train and we needed to get on it. We ran to the nearest door (which was fortunately the car next to ours) and jumped on board as the train started pulling away. Some nice man who was laready on held the door (which was trying to close) open for us so we could climb on as fast as possible. I wsa pretty sure at least one of us was going to get left behind. We made it to our room. At this point it's like 22h30, none of us have eaten since lunch, and there's no food car on the train, so we split a bottle of wine for dinner, then went to bed.

But we made it to Florence! Florence is gorgeous and I could have spent our entire week there. We saw some amazing churches and cathedrals, including the one that had the preserved body of one of the archbishops of Florence from the 1400s on display. The priest in there was the cutest little old man ever and spoke to us for a few minutes in simple Italian (most of which we were able to get the gist of from French) and some broken English. If I lived in Florence, that's the church I would attend: I loved it.

While we were there we also saw Michelangelo's David, which was magnificent, and the graves of Michelangelo, Galileo, machiavelli, and Danti, who are all inhumed in the same churched. We walked around Florence a lot and just marveled at how gorgeous it is. We alos found a Mexican restaurant! We were nearly beside ourselves with excitement. France doesn't have any Mexican, and we all sorely missed it. So probably the most exciting thing in Florence was eating Mexican. Go figure.

Updates coming soon on Rome and Venice!

I have bruises to prove it

Today we went on our last planned excursion, this one to St-Guilhem-le-Désert. It's this little tiny town all by its lonesome in a mountain valley about an hour from here. It was really really pretty. And what was even more exciting was that we got to go swimming in the Hérault river, which was utterly gorgeous. It was really really clear, and the perfect temperature. Cold when you first got in, but just right after that. Also, the river, since it is in a mountain valley, it's surrounded by cliffs, which makes it perfect for cliff-jumping! So I jumped off a few cliffs. The highest was about 15-20 feet in the air I think. It was a ton of fun, though I did bruise my leg hitting the water. But it was a small price to pay! It felt so good to be in the water, and just to be active. Some friends and I are thinking about getting a membership to the pool and going there once or twice a week, since that will give us something active to do all semester. And my mom just sent me my dance shoes to I can do that as well, so hopefully I'll be able to be pretty active while I'm here. I'm looking forward to that. Yay France!

Also, tomorrow I leave for Italy!

Patriotism

Today on the tram a few of us were talking about patriotism, and we ended up talking about some stuff I hadn't really thought about before. I had mentioned that despite the common perception that American is extremely nationalistic, most Americans really aren't that patriotic. They are, but when I went to Turkey I saw so much more nationalism there than I ever would in the US, so it made me think about how patriotic the average American is, which doesn't seem to be all that much. But then today I was talking to my program director over here and she was talking about how when she went back to visit the States this summer (she's been living in France 15 years), she was surprised at how patriotic they were. She explained that in France you don't see people flying the French flag or playing patriotic songs (such as Proud to be an American in America) all the time or anything like that, that it would be really weird to see that.

So I've come up with a theory on part of why that is, because I like to think about such things. I don't think France is any less patriotic than America is, and perhaps even America isn't any less patriotic than Turkey. I think they just show it different ways. In Europe, you're in very close quarters with a bunch of different countries, so flagrant shows of patriotism or national pride can be viewed as offensive or even aggressive by neighboring countries, whereas in America there's not really anyone close by to challenge us. Thus the French show their patriotism through preserving their culture: they have tons of laws about language and music and all parts of culture, in order to try and keep it as unaffected by foreign cultures as possible.

Here in Europe, your culture is mostly challenged with being swallowed up by the surrounding ones, so it's a fight to keep it alive. In America, we don't have that challenge, so we're free to be flagrant with our flags and our songs, etc. American culture is based on a mix of cultures, essentially built on the flexibility and constant change that comes from having a mélange of people-groups. So change is considered normal, and it's not necessarily your specific accent or mannerism that's as important as showing to others that regardless of your background, you are American. Here you don't need to show anyone you're French; it's through the preservation of the culture through the correctness of your speech, your French mannerisms, etc, that shows your loyalty to your country. It's an interesting discrepancy. Any thoughts?

One week til Italy!

Well, I have one more week of grammar and civ classes, then I have a week off before I start university classes. My friends Sarah and Caitlin and I are going to to leave Sunday morning for Nice, spend the day there, then take the night train to Florence. From there we'll go to Rome, then Venice, then back to Nice, then back home to Montpellier. We'll get back next Sunday afternoon, so it will have been almost exactly a week. We're pretty excited about it.

Aside from that, classes are going well. We have an official wine tasting during our civ class on Wednesday, then our finals for our grammar classes on Saturday before our last excursion. After that we are free from Pré-stage, something we're all pretty excited about. When I get my classes for this semester, I really want to see if I can keep my Fridays free for traveling purposes. This is my list of places I want to visit, in no particular order:

Normandie
London/England
Paris
Barcelona
Dublin
Germany
Austria

I know there are some I'm missing. Any good ideas? I know I probably won't get to go everywhere I want to, but I need to have a full list before I can figure out which ones to prioritize.

Life is going pretty well; I love France, but I wish I could share it with all my friends back home! Email is my main mode of communication, since I have limited internet, so I'd love it if you shoot me an email and I'm trying to get back to people within two to three days.

I miss you guys!

Some recent adventures

Things are going well here! Two weeks of classes are over. This weekend we're going to Avignon. After this next week, I have a week break, so some friends and I are going to travel Italy a little bit. It's gonna be fun times!

Some recent adventures we’ve had:

Dimanche, le 26 août, 2007

All of the American students (there’s about 100 of us) here in Montpellier had a scheduled excursion to Carcassonne, which is about a two-hour bus ride away. It was all done through the IEFE, the Institute for Exchange Students. Apparently, the other bus was cold, but I don’t know if our air just wasn’t working right or if our bus driver didn’t want to turn the air on very high, but it was hot on that bus. But it wasn’t completely unmanageable, I managed not to get sick, and after two hours we were in Carcassonne, which is a medieval French city that has been restored to it’s 13^th century self. It was daggone hot outside. We walked around the castle, then had about a two-hour break for lunch, during which I got to see the church there (it’s gorgeous! And it has one of the oldest organs in Europe). Then we all were so privileged to be able to go so a reenactment of 13^th century European jousting. We were sitting on metal bleachers in full sun for about an hour and a half. We were sweating galore, and I definitely got sunburned. The jousting finally finished, and hot and tired, we went back to the buses to start the drive home. Our bus driver wouldn’t start the bus before we were actually leaving, so we all stood outside, where at least there was a little bit of breeze, and sweated til we left. It was still really hot on the bus but someone had opened the ceiling window vent things, so there was air coming through and it was alright.

After about an hour, the bus pulled over, and the bus driver got off. We in the back had no idea what was going on, and since the bus had been turned off and now there was no air moving, it started getting hotter and hotter in the back. After about ten minutes, it was no exaggeration at least 100 degrees and we decided that whether or not we were allowed to, we were getting off. As it turns out, the bus had an oil leak, so from then on we would have to stop every 6 kilometers to refill the oil tank. The bus driver was able to call another bus to come meet us, but it was going to be about 50 minutes before he could get there, and we would have to drive a little ways to meet him. When you got back on the bus, you could feel yourself walk into a wall of heat. We sat on the 100 degree bus for about 15 minutes as we drove to meet the other bus, and even in that short a period of time, there were several people on the bus about to get sick. We finally reached the spot, which fortunately had a gas station so that we could get ice cream, and then we stood outside in the sun, which was still cooler than in the bus, and waited for another bus for like 45 minutes. After that bus arrived, we still had about a 45 minute ride back to town, from where I would need to walk about 10 minutes and then take a tram for another 30 minutes to get home. I was so exhausted by the time got home that I went to bed at like 9.30.

Mardi, le 28 août, 2007

Two days later, the IEFE had arranged for everyone to go to the beach. One bus was leaving at 2, then another would come back for anyone who wanted to go at the 3. Most of the UNC kids signed up for the 3oclock bus, along with five or six Minnesota kids. For all of the IEFE excursions so far, the buses had picked up the Minnesota kids in front of the dorms they were staying in and then swung by the front gate of the school to pick up us UNC kids, which is a little easier for us, since the university is like 30 minutes from most of our homes. So we met at the gate, all of us before 3, and waited for the bus. And waited for the bus. After about half an hour our graduate assistant was making jokes about how everything runs late in the south of France. After almost an hour, she decided to call one of the assistants, who was already at the beach, to see what was going on. So she called and found out that the 3oclock bus had come and gone, and that what had happened was that it stopped at the dorms and then another assistant who was on the bus, despite the fact that like 20 people had signed up for that bus and only like 5 were there, said that they weren’t going to make a second stop and that they were just going. So they left us there. I’ll be honest, we were pretty livid. At first we were just going to play in the fountains in another part of the city, but then they called back and said the bus was going to come back for us, and that we should be able to leave for the beach by about 4.30, though we’d still have to come back at 6 like had been scheduled. It’s about a half an hour to the beach, so we ended up getting there around 5 and leaving at 6. So we did get to go, but it was an ordeal. And I don’t even like the beach!

We’ve decided we like France, but not the buses!