...a little bit louder and a whole lot worse.
- We spend most of the day in transit to day. While we walked north from our hotel to the train station we'd looked on up the internet, we saw a tractor drive down the street, which seemed odd. Lea's from a tiny country town in Michigan and she really felt at home.
- It took us an hour to get to the train station, and neither of us was in very good spirits by the time we got there. We hadn't eaten yet, our feet and backs ached heavily, and it was a rather hot day. We got to the station and found out that all of the trains leaving from that station to Strasbourg were copletely booked in second class. So we bought an expensive ticket that left out of a different station, and then went to a cash machine afterwards to nurse our wounds.
I was so upset. Looking back on it now, I'm very disappointed at my upsetedness--I was thinking how it was Lea's fault we had to pay so much for a ticket, when it was just as much mine as hers, if it was anyone's. I had told her that we didn't need to book anything beforehand, and that I was excited to figure stuff out as we went. After we bought that ticket, it took me far too long to calm myself down and remember that spending money isn't going to kill me, and that I could make it up to myself by being frugal later and by getting jobs over the summer and fall. Hard work and money can go hand in hand for me, thanks to my privileges. I need to stop feeling like I'm worse off than I actually am. My father's hard work paid for this trip, and my hard work will repay him one day, even if it takes years.
- After getting cash, we stumbled upon a little baguette place with a fantastic meal deal (sandwich, can of soda, and pain chocolat for 4.90 euros) and I ordered it by myself! With success this time! No fumbling, no nervous laughter, and even some French words coming out of my mouth! This boosted my morale (as did eating) and almost made me forget the train ticket.
- We walked to the train station adn then sat there for three hours, too tired and sore to want to do anything. We read our books, were asked several times for money, and once for spare batteries...or at least I think that's what he wanted.
- We then went to Strasbourg. It was about a two-hour train ride, and about a fifteen-minute walk to the hotel. After we'd unloaded our considerable burdens (my rucksack was 22 lbs...) we wandered around town, taking in the place and looking for something to eat. Unfortunately, everything seems to close really early at night on this side of the Atlantic, so we settled on a supermarket and bought apples, pretzels, gummy worms, and drinks. One of the employees came around and told us (in French) that they were closing, and I thought he was asking for money, like so many people had in Paris, but he explained himself in English, and it all worked out. We went back to our hotel and watched an episode of Merlin before retiring.
Strasbourg is a beautiful little city, and we're exploring it tomorrow, so expect lots of glowing praises tomorrow!
<3 spadeALLcross
20.4.11
Okay, so I've decided...
...that there are actually a few things that I want to say about Paris yesterday. Psych!
- There have been several times since coming to France where I have picked up my camera and seriously contemplated taking a picture in order to capture the smells around me. It's unfortunate that smell-o-vision and it's accompanying camcorders don't yet exist...and it's quite apparent to me now why France is renown for its perfumes.
- The toilettes in Britain are different from those in America, and the toilettes are still more different. The on ein our hotel here waits for you to tell it when to stop flushing, which is both convenient and probably inefficient.
- We walked, delighted to be unencumbered by our heavy rucksacks, all the way north from our hotel to he Eiffel Tower and took tons of pictures with it together. Lea's floormates back in York told her they wanted her to take lots of "cheesy" pictures for them, so we've been careful to do so. We walked under the tower to go see the Triumphal Arch, and as we did, we saw dozens of people selling plastic Eiffel Towers and other really weird souvenirs (including this one wind-up man on a bike; his mouth opened and closed and his eyes rolled around...very creepy, France, very creepy). Every five feet, someone was selling something. It made me sad to realize how so much of Paris is not really for Parisians anymore. That thought made me wonder how much more enjoyable tourism would have been a hundred or 150 years ago, when a tour of the world (or at least of Europe) was almost requisite for upperclass people in countries like England. Without the same number of hard core capitalists around all the main attractions, how much more wonderful might the experiences of seeing those places have been?
- When we'd crossed the river and were looking at a war memorial or something, one of the men selling cheap souvenirs that was near us walked by us twice and said "very sexy" under his breath to us. I didn't look at him, and we just walked on as if nothing had happened, but i have to say, I was pretty upset. In fact, I was surprised by how upset I was. I wished I had slapped him, which doesn't seem like me. I know many men aren't like that and wouldn't do that, and even though most of the men in Paris I've come into contact with have been equally or in similar ways disgusting, I know that there must be lots of men in Paris who don't treat all women like objects to be succinctly reviewed in three words or less. But I wanted to punish this guy. I thought in retrospect that maybe if I had reacted forcefully to him, he wouldn't be as keen to treat other girls like that, or maybe he'd see that women don't always let men do whatever they want. More likely, I suppose, I would have just pissed him off and all Hell would have broken loose, right there in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Like I said, I'm not sure why I got as upset as I did--I've been harassed like that all my life by people I do and do not know, I've watched men run their eyes all over me on the street like it's their right to get whatever pleasure out of me they want. And strictly speaking, as far as the staring goes, I can't really stop them, so I suppose it is their right. And other men in my life have done worse. But this one tower-selling man...I wanted him to feel the weight of his actions like I never have with anyone else. Don't know why, but it obviously had a profound affect on me.
- Paris, like the walkways around Chateau de Chenonceau, was extremely dusty. By the end of the day, my feet around my sandal straps and Lea's tights around her shoes were very dusty from our extensive walking. Paris was not very grassy, except in the ample gardens of a Palais or in some of the other city parks. There was also a lot of construction, and all the trees and bushes were flowering and stuff, so between the dust, the bits of wood and such, and the buds and bugs flying everywhere, Lea and I managed to keep getting little things in our eyes. All the time. Sometimes we couldn't get them out for minutes at a time. Very strange. Very uncomfortable.
- I've sen lots of people and a couple models in ads, and a few people in cartoons here in Frane with very prominent gaps between their two front teeth. I wonder if that's a style here, and if so, why?
- For an early lunch that ended up lasting us all day, we stopped in at a bakery and sandwich place. lea got a ham sandwich and a pain au chocolat, and I blundered miserably through ordering something that might have been called a foussache or something (basically a really long piece of flatbread with melted cheese, herbs, olives, and mushrooms on it). It was a horrible experience, not knowing enough of the language to tell the woman what I wanted, or to be able to understand her when she asked me if I wanted it heated. I was mortified by it, mostly because I really am ashamed that my only real language is English. And because I hate to perpetuate bad stereotypes about Americans.
So that is Paris more in full. Hope you enjoyed it.
<3 spadeALLcross
-
- There have been several times since coming to France where I have picked up my camera and seriously contemplated taking a picture in order to capture the smells around me. It's unfortunate that smell-o-vision and it's accompanying camcorders don't yet exist...and it's quite apparent to me now why France is renown for its perfumes.
- The toilettes in Britain are different from those in America, and the toilettes are still more different. The on ein our hotel here waits for you to tell it when to stop flushing, which is both convenient and probably inefficient.
- We walked, delighted to be unencumbered by our heavy rucksacks, all the way north from our hotel to he Eiffel Tower and took tons of pictures with it together. Lea's floormates back in York told her they wanted her to take lots of "cheesy" pictures for them, so we've been careful to do so. We walked under the tower to go see the Triumphal Arch, and as we did, we saw dozens of people selling plastic Eiffel Towers and other really weird souvenirs (including this one wind-up man on a bike; his mouth opened and closed and his eyes rolled around...very creepy, France, very creepy). Every five feet, someone was selling something. It made me sad to realize how so much of Paris is not really for Parisians anymore. That thought made me wonder how much more enjoyable tourism would have been a hundred or 150 years ago, when a tour of the world (or at least of Europe) was almost requisite for upperclass people in countries like England. Without the same number of hard core capitalists around all the main attractions, how much more wonderful might the experiences of seeing those places have been?
- When we'd crossed the river and were looking at a war memorial or something, one of the men selling cheap souvenirs that was near us walked by us twice and said "very sexy" under his breath to us. I didn't look at him, and we just walked on as if nothing had happened, but i have to say, I was pretty upset. In fact, I was surprised by how upset I was. I wished I had slapped him, which doesn't seem like me. I know many men aren't like that and wouldn't do that, and even though most of the men in Paris I've come into contact with have been equally or in similar ways disgusting, I know that there must be lots of men in Paris who don't treat all women like objects to be succinctly reviewed in three words or less. But I wanted to punish this guy. I thought in retrospect that maybe if I had reacted forcefully to him, he wouldn't be as keen to treat other girls like that, or maybe he'd see that women don't always let men do whatever they want. More likely, I suppose, I would have just pissed him off and all Hell would have broken loose, right there in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Like I said, I'm not sure why I got as upset as I did--I've been harassed like that all my life by people I do and do not know, I've watched men run their eyes all over me on the street like it's their right to get whatever pleasure out of me they want. And strictly speaking, as far as the staring goes, I can't really stop them, so I suppose it is their right. And other men in my life have done worse. But this one tower-selling man...I wanted him to feel the weight of his actions like I never have with anyone else. Don't know why, but it obviously had a profound affect on me.
- Paris, like the walkways around Chateau de Chenonceau, was extremely dusty. By the end of the day, my feet around my sandal straps and Lea's tights around her shoes were very dusty from our extensive walking. Paris was not very grassy, except in the ample gardens of a Palais or in some of the other city parks. There was also a lot of construction, and all the trees and bushes were flowering and stuff, so between the dust, the bits of wood and such, and the buds and bugs flying everywhere, Lea and I managed to keep getting little things in our eyes. All the time. Sometimes we couldn't get them out for minutes at a time. Very strange. Very uncomfortable.
- I've sen lots of people and a couple models in ads, and a few people in cartoons here in Frane with very prominent gaps between their two front teeth. I wonder if that's a style here, and if so, why?
- For an early lunch that ended up lasting us all day, we stopped in at a bakery and sandwich place. lea got a ham sandwich and a pain au chocolat, and I blundered miserably through ordering something that might have been called a foussache or something (basically a really long piece of flatbread with melted cheese, herbs, olives, and mushrooms on it). It was a horrible experience, not knowing enough of the language to tell the woman what I wanted, or to be able to understand her when she asked me if I wanted it heated. I was mortified by it, mostly because I really am ashamed that my only real language is English. And because I hate to perpetuate bad stereotypes about Americans.
So that is Paris more in full. Hope you enjoyed it.
<3 spadeALLcross
-
I walked around Paris for an entire day...in shorts and sandals, what's more.
Okay, so today was Paris. It was the quintessential Paris day; we saw everything that everyone else sees (excepting the inside of the Museé de Louvre, or whatever, but that is on the schedule for tomorrow) but we did it at our own pace and had a fantastic time. I really enjoyed it. I'm covered from head to foot in an extra layer of dust now…but c'est la vie. You can't win 'em all.
So, since I don't have to throw those mundane details at you, I'll expound on some of my more internal experiences of the past few days.
Those of you who watch my snidgets on YouTube know that I'm all about culture shock. And I swear I didn't even know the word until I came to a country that doesn't speak my language or have any desire to try. The people are [generally] lovely and friendly and many of them do speak enough English for our conversations to be relatively painless, but we're on their turf, and when there is an issue with the language barrier, I'm likely to think of it as "our fault," rather than theirs, which is an acute and new feeling.
But I've found that barrier to be a useful protection as well. Lea and I will often speak to each other in English in public about things we would normally wait to say until we're in private company. Not rude or mean things, but when we're uncomfortable with a situation, or when we think some French thing is strange, or something like that. This didn't really happen much in Paris today because of the percentage of people around us who also spoke French, but on the trains and in Tours, I at least felt much less likely to be overheard and understood.
This, naturally, is a double-edge sword, as those people here who speak other languages can do the same thing right back to us. There was that group of boys on the train to Paris last night who made kissy noises at us and talked about us to each other without bothering to keep quiet about it, and some men at a cash register in one of the shops we went into today talked to a colleague, laughing about "Americans" as he dealt with our custom.
It's funny how, within my culture shock, I've begun to cling shamelessly to pieces of France that are somehow connected to America, or even to Britain in order to feel more comfortable. I saw a bagpiper today in a manner very similar to one I saw in London a few weeks ago, and I felt so happy being able to hear his music for hundreds of meters around as it carried over the river. And yesterday in the taxi to the train station, the driver (who spoke very little English) was listening to French radio and randomly, "I've Had the Time of My Life" (the original, from Dirty Dancing, not the Black Eyed Peas version) came on, and I was moved in spite of myself. I'm not even a huge fan of that song, but just hearing it settled me down a bit.
However, being blatantly slapped in the face by my own nationality does not have the same effect. When we were visiting Chateau de Chenonceau, we sat near a large group of American high school students on the train, and we saw them later at the site. I found myself wanting to separate myself from them (although this might have been because they were being a bit obnoxious) and I even once slipped into speaking German when I was standing near them and trying to point out something to Lea. This was embarrassing.
In general, France has managed to bring out the worst in me. It has made me passive, paranoid, proud, prejudiced, and all sorts of other p-related Jane-Austen-y negatives. I hope that at least my noticing them has had some reversing affect, and that maybe I can prevent them from continuing or growing.
Some interesting Etimological tidbits that France has brought to my attention:
- the word for "tip" as in what you add to a bill in a restaurant or on cab fare in both French and German translates directly to "drink money." Where did this idea come from? My hypothesis is that, back in the day (whenever the day was that the word for "tip" was born) the tip was the money you gave someone when you benefited enough from their services that you wanted to reward them with money to go out drinking. As I have limited internet access, I can't verify this for a while. If you would like to do so and let me know the results of your research, please let me know in the comments section.
- the French word for pomegranate is "grenade." Did this come before or after the English word for the hand-held explosive, and did it influence it at all? Because pomegranates are about the same size as grenades, as I recall, and they can be explosively juicy…
- the French word for honey moon is directly translated to "moon of honey." Where did this idea come from? Why do we call the period after a wedding a honeymoon? Did it start in France and work its way out after English and French had split up, perhaps due to the supposition that French is the most romantic of the Romance languages, or did the word come from before the two languages were separate and so just follow so many other words over to English? Do other languages call it the equivalent thing? (The German word for honeymoon is "Flitterwochen" a compound of the word "wochen" which means week, and "flitter," which I'm not sure means anything—it's not included in my pocket German/English dictionary, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.)
That's all for now. I'm mostly caught up. We'll see if I can easily wore the rest of these pre-written bullet points into future posts.
<3 spadeALLcross
So, since I don't have to throw those mundane details at you, I'll expound on some of my more internal experiences of the past few days.
Those of you who watch my snidgets on YouTube know that I'm all about culture shock. And I swear I didn't even know the word until I came to a country that doesn't speak my language or have any desire to try. The people are [generally] lovely and friendly and many of them do speak enough English for our conversations to be relatively painless, but we're on their turf, and when there is an issue with the language barrier, I'm likely to think of it as "our fault," rather than theirs, which is an acute and new feeling.
But I've found that barrier to be a useful protection as well. Lea and I will often speak to each other in English in public about things we would normally wait to say until we're in private company. Not rude or mean things, but when we're uncomfortable with a situation, or when we think some French thing is strange, or something like that. This didn't really happen much in Paris today because of the percentage of people around us who also spoke French, but on the trains and in Tours, I at least felt much less likely to be overheard and understood.
This, naturally, is a double-edge sword, as those people here who speak other languages can do the same thing right back to us. There was that group of boys on the train to Paris last night who made kissy noises at us and talked about us to each other without bothering to keep quiet about it, and some men at a cash register in one of the shops we went into today talked to a colleague, laughing about "Americans" as he dealt with our custom.
It's funny how, within my culture shock, I've begun to cling shamelessly to pieces of France that are somehow connected to America, or even to Britain in order to feel more comfortable. I saw a bagpiper today in a manner very similar to one I saw in London a few weeks ago, and I felt so happy being able to hear his music for hundreds of meters around as it carried over the river. And yesterday in the taxi to the train station, the driver (who spoke very little English) was listening to French radio and randomly, "I've Had the Time of My Life" (the original, from Dirty Dancing, not the Black Eyed Peas version) came on, and I was moved in spite of myself. I'm not even a huge fan of that song, but just hearing it settled me down a bit.
However, being blatantly slapped in the face by my own nationality does not have the same effect. When we were visiting Chateau de Chenonceau, we sat near a large group of American high school students on the train, and we saw them later at the site. I found myself wanting to separate myself from them (although this might have been because they were being a bit obnoxious) and I even once slipped into speaking German when I was standing near them and trying to point out something to Lea. This was embarrassing.
In general, France has managed to bring out the worst in me. It has made me passive, paranoid, proud, prejudiced, and all sorts of other p-related Jane-Austen-y negatives. I hope that at least my noticing them has had some reversing affect, and that maybe I can prevent them from continuing or growing.
Some interesting Etimological tidbits that France has brought to my attention:
- the word for "tip" as in what you add to a bill in a restaurant or on cab fare in both French and German translates directly to "drink money." Where did this idea come from? My hypothesis is that, back in the day (whenever the day was that the word for "tip" was born) the tip was the money you gave someone when you benefited enough from their services that you wanted to reward them with money to go out drinking. As I have limited internet access, I can't verify this for a while. If you would like to do so and let me know the results of your research, please let me know in the comments section.
- the French word for pomegranate is "grenade." Did this come before or after the English word for the hand-held explosive, and did it influence it at all? Because pomegranates are about the same size as grenades, as I recall, and they can be explosively juicy…
- the French word for honey moon is directly translated to "moon of honey." Where did this idea come from? Why do we call the period after a wedding a honeymoon? Did it start in France and work its way out after English and French had split up, perhaps due to the supposition that French is the most romantic of the Romance languages, or did the word come from before the two languages were separate and so just follow so many other words over to English? Do other languages call it the equivalent thing? (The German word for honeymoon is "Flitterwochen" a compound of the word "wochen" which means week, and "flitter," which I'm not sure means anything—it's not included in my pocket German/English dictionary, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.)
That's all for now. I'm mostly caught up. We'll see if I can easily wore the rest of these pre-written bullet points into future posts.
<3 spadeALLcross
19.4.11
Parlé vous l'Englais?
(I just guessed on the spelling of that title. Let me know how I did.)
First full day in France! …and oof, what a full day it has been.
Itinerary for this post:
A. Start by summing up all the stuff I was going to write yesterday and didn't
B. Then move on to talking about the stuff I did today
Itinerary for future posts:
A. Thirdly, some thoughts on being an American (particularly this American) in France
B. Interesting, France-inspired etymological studies
Yesterday [feels like weeks ago] was a bit nerve-wracking at the time because we had to get a train to London, then a tube to the Stansted station, and then a train from there to Stansted Airport. I started freaking out about this the night before because I was worried about the time crunch, but I tried not to let it show too much, because getting us both worried about it was definitely going to cause more harm than good.
In the end, it worked out with nearly 15 minutes to spare. Not only that, but all of my worries about my luggage being overweight or having too many liquids, or about not getting through security or not being allowed in France were [mostly] unfounded (though my bag was only .1 kilograms under the limit…close one). In the end, getting from England to France was a breeze, really.
But then we hit a considerable wall: the airport was north of Tours, France, and the hotel we had booked was in Chambray-les-Tours, which is quite south of Tours. Lea had supposed that there would be an ATM and perhaps a pay-phone in the airport, or that taxis would come to the airport regularly. However, as it turned out, Aeroport de Tours (or whatever…) consists of two rooms, one for departures, and security, and one for arrivals and baggage claim, and there were no taxis that we could see.
So we wandered around the airport a bit, went to the bathroom, contemplated trying to call a taxi from the phone we found (complete with phone book) but, to our luck, a taxi did pull up, and the driver even spoke English relatively well, though Lea did her level best to speak as much French as possible. He took us to a cash machine in a mall and then to our hotel. We walked back to the mall for dinner of cold pasta and club sandwiches, as well as pomegranate-cranberry juice (imported from California? Come on, France. Step up your pomegranate game) purchased from the largest supermarket I have ever seen outside of the 28th-Street Meijer in Grand Rapids.
Then, this morning, I scarfed a pains au chocolat (Lea bought a 10-pack or some such monstrosity the previous night) for breakfast, we checked out of our hotel at 9:30, and huffed it back to the mall, looking for either another taxi to the train station, or a pay phone with which to call one. We found neither forthcoming, but Lea conversed with a clerk at a desk in the aforementioned supermarket and found out that there was a pay phone outside somewhere. We found the appropriate calling card to use, and she called a Taxi.
Where would I be without Lea on this trip? Stuck at that airport still. Guaranteed. She doesn't speak much French, but the little that she does speak has been such a lifesaver, at least for me, who couldn't even pronounce anything before yesterday (I'm getting better by listening to people) let alone read signs or tell people anything. Especially in Tours, where not many people spoke English.
Glowing with the success of having called a taxi in French (something neither of us had ever done in English) we got to Gare de Tours and bought train tickets to Amboise. Glowing with the success of having gotten off at the correct stop, we purchased tickets to Chenanceau, a Chateau south of Amboise. We also bought tickets from Chenanceau to Paris for the evening. Saddened by our failure to recognize that the connecting train we had researched form Amboise to Chenanceau went through Tours (albeit a different station than the previous one), we finally got to the Chateau around 3:30. Neither of us was really upset, though, because the extra train ticket wasn't too costly, and the adventure of using the different language was exciting enough to blanket our frustration.
Then, without issue, we managed to spend nearly four hours at Chateau de Chenanceau. It's renown as one of the most beautiful of the Chateaux of the Val de Loire, which has at least a dozen Chateaux, so it's kind of a big deal. It's on a river (literally) and has two exquisite gardens, and it boats five French queens as previous residents. Lea got an audio guide and I just walked around with her and took pictures. I was disappointed by my lack of knowledge of French history, which is interesting, because until this semester, I was equally ignorant of British history. Walking around this beautiful castle helped me to realize just how much I've learned these past three months.
Naturally, you can expect pictures of the Chateau to be forthcoming…but probably not for at least a couple weeks.
We then caught our train to…some station with a connection to France. At this connecting station, we had a 30-minute layover, so we wandered into the concourse and bought crisps, gummy worms, and soda from a vending machine (yes, sadly, my experience of French cuisine is still yet to come) and ate it while we waited.
The train to Paris was express, no stops, and was also the first time we had our tickets checked since the stewardess scanned our boarding pass on the plane to Tours. We were too sheepish to take any of the seats that people were occupying with their luggage, so we stuck to the lounge car in the very back of the train, and eventually just sat down on the floor there. It was only a 1.5 hour ride, and I read Pride and Prejudice the hole time, so it was fine for me. I don't know about Lea.
At one point, the other boys in the car with us starting making obnoxious kissing noises (although, if anyone really makes those noises naturally while kissing, they are probably doing something wrong) in a manner which suggested to me that they wanted us to look at them, but I just kept reading and Lea just kept looking out the window, so they eventually stopped. Thus ended the excitement of that voyage.
After the train ride was the crazy part where we had to find the hotel. We managed to get another taxi (the driver spoke no English this time, but we had the address written on the paper, so it wasn't too bad, although I think he definitely took advantage of our foreignness and drove around a bit) but we hadn't made any hard and fast booking for our two nights in Paris (that was technically Lea's job…) so there were no vacancies there. Thankfully, the receptionist called two or three other hotels in the area until he found one with a room free, and then he gave us directions. (When I say "thankfully," imagine the Hallelujah chorus playing in the background…)
Now we're here, I managed to snag some cheap internet, and we're looking at stuff to do tomorrow and the next day. Very exciting stuff.
It's quite late here now, and I am longing for sleep. Again, I have so much I want to say before I forget it, but I took quick notes today, so I should remember them for tomorrow.
Bien nuit! (did I say that right?)
<3 spadeALLcross
First full day in France! …and oof, what a full day it has been.
Itinerary for this post:
A. Start by summing up all the stuff I was going to write yesterday and didn't
B. Then move on to talking about the stuff I did today
Itinerary for future posts:
A. Thirdly, some thoughts on being an American (particularly this American) in France
B. Interesting, France-inspired etymological studies
Yesterday [feels like weeks ago] was a bit nerve-wracking at the time because we had to get a train to London, then a tube to the Stansted station, and then a train from there to Stansted Airport. I started freaking out about this the night before because I was worried about the time crunch, but I tried not to let it show too much, because getting us both worried about it was definitely going to cause more harm than good.
In the end, it worked out with nearly 15 minutes to spare. Not only that, but all of my worries about my luggage being overweight or having too many liquids, or about not getting through security or not being allowed in France were [mostly] unfounded (though my bag was only .1 kilograms under the limit…close one). In the end, getting from England to France was a breeze, really.
But then we hit a considerable wall: the airport was north of Tours, France, and the hotel we had booked was in Chambray-les-Tours, which is quite south of Tours. Lea had supposed that there would be an ATM and perhaps a pay-phone in the airport, or that taxis would come to the airport regularly. However, as it turned out, Aeroport de Tours (or whatever…) consists of two rooms, one for departures, and security, and one for arrivals and baggage claim, and there were no taxis that we could see.
So we wandered around the airport a bit, went to the bathroom, contemplated trying to call a taxi from the phone we found (complete with phone book) but, to our luck, a taxi did pull up, and the driver even spoke English relatively well, though Lea did her level best to speak as much French as possible. He took us to a cash machine in a mall and then to our hotel. We walked back to the mall for dinner of cold pasta and club sandwiches, as well as pomegranate-cranberry juice (imported from California? Come on, France. Step up your pomegranate game) purchased from the largest supermarket I have ever seen outside of the 28th-Street Meijer in Grand Rapids.
Then, this morning, I scarfed a pains au chocolat (Lea bought a 10-pack or some such monstrosity the previous night) for breakfast, we checked out of our hotel at 9:30, and huffed it back to the mall, looking for either another taxi to the train station, or a pay phone with which to call one. We found neither forthcoming, but Lea conversed with a clerk at a desk in the aforementioned supermarket and found out that there was a pay phone outside somewhere. We found the appropriate calling card to use, and she called a Taxi.
Where would I be without Lea on this trip? Stuck at that airport still. Guaranteed. She doesn't speak much French, but the little that she does speak has been such a lifesaver, at least for me, who couldn't even pronounce anything before yesterday (I'm getting better by listening to people) let alone read signs or tell people anything. Especially in Tours, where not many people spoke English.
Glowing with the success of having called a taxi in French (something neither of us had ever done in English) we got to Gare de Tours and bought train tickets to Amboise. Glowing with the success of having gotten off at the correct stop, we purchased tickets to Chenanceau, a Chateau south of Amboise. We also bought tickets from Chenanceau to Paris for the evening. Saddened by our failure to recognize that the connecting train we had researched form Amboise to Chenanceau went through Tours (albeit a different station than the previous one), we finally got to the Chateau around 3:30. Neither of us was really upset, though, because the extra train ticket wasn't too costly, and the adventure of using the different language was exciting enough to blanket our frustration.
Then, without issue, we managed to spend nearly four hours at Chateau de Chenanceau. It's renown as one of the most beautiful of the Chateaux of the Val de Loire, which has at least a dozen Chateaux, so it's kind of a big deal. It's on a river (literally) and has two exquisite gardens, and it boats five French queens as previous residents. Lea got an audio guide and I just walked around with her and took pictures. I was disappointed by my lack of knowledge of French history, which is interesting, because until this semester, I was equally ignorant of British history. Walking around this beautiful castle helped me to realize just how much I've learned these past three months.
Naturally, you can expect pictures of the Chateau to be forthcoming…but probably not for at least a couple weeks.
We then caught our train to…some station with a connection to France. At this connecting station, we had a 30-minute layover, so we wandered into the concourse and bought crisps, gummy worms, and soda from a vending machine (yes, sadly, my experience of French cuisine is still yet to come) and ate it while we waited.
The train to Paris was express, no stops, and was also the first time we had our tickets checked since the stewardess scanned our boarding pass on the plane to Tours. We were too sheepish to take any of the seats that people were occupying with their luggage, so we stuck to the lounge car in the very back of the train, and eventually just sat down on the floor there. It was only a 1.5 hour ride, and I read Pride and Prejudice the hole time, so it was fine for me. I don't know about Lea.
At one point, the other boys in the car with us starting making obnoxious kissing noises (although, if anyone really makes those noises naturally while kissing, they are probably doing something wrong) in a manner which suggested to me that they wanted us to look at them, but I just kept reading and Lea just kept looking out the window, so they eventually stopped. Thus ended the excitement of that voyage.
After the train ride was the crazy part where we had to find the hotel. We managed to get another taxi (the driver spoke no English this time, but we had the address written on the paper, so it wasn't too bad, although I think he definitely took advantage of our foreignness and drove around a bit) but we hadn't made any hard and fast booking for our two nights in Paris (that was technically Lea's job…) so there were no vacancies there. Thankfully, the receptionist called two or three other hotels in the area until he found one with a room free, and then he gave us directions. (When I say "thankfully," imagine the Hallelujah chorus playing in the background…)
Now we're here, I managed to snag some cheap internet, and we're looking at stuff to do tomorrow and the next day. Very exciting stuff.
It's quite late here now, and I am longing for sleep. Again, I have so much I want to say before I forget it, but I took quick notes today, so I should remember them for tomorrow.
Bien nuit! (did I say that right?)
<3 spadeALLcross
18.4.11
Bienvenue!
Bonjour!
Long time no see, eh, comrades? Sorry about that. Life got in the way of the internet for a while there. I'm sure you understand the experience.
Obviously, I've had a very full plate the past couple weeks; I had a term paper due, my boyfriend came to visit me, I had another term paper due, and, most excitingly, Easter Break began! The English take three weeks off at Christmas and three weeks off at Easter (which explains so much about why students actually went home for the Easter holidays at Hogwarts...) so, starting after classes let out on April 8th, we all got three weeks entirely to ourselves.
Last week, my mom and brother came and we toured Scotland a bit. I had a blast, and I can't believe how fast the week went. In summation, the Scottish Highlands are by far the most beautiful and natural place I've ever seen, (all the wonders of the Rockies without the altitude and dry weather) and I definitely want to go back, while Glasgow leaves something to be desired, and Edinburgh is a wallet-sucker, albeit a lovely one. I loved having people visit me, and it was great to show my family around to all the places I've been before, as well as experiencing new places alongside them.
Mom and Patrick left Sunday morning from Manchester, and I immediately returned to York to pack and prepare for the next leg of my Easter adventure: a ten-day excursion with my friend Lea (from Calvin) to France and Germany, followed by a four-day stint in London with the Calvin group.
We left York this morning at 10:29, and, after a bit of tubing and training and planing, we arrived in Tours, France, at 5:15 (all local times, of course). We hadn't realized that the airport in Tours was so small that it didn't even have an ATM...but luckily, we managed to get a taxi driver who sympathized with our plight and took us to our Hostel by way of a "commercial center" (mall) with a cash machine inside. (I'm sure he had a healthy dose of personal gain in this bit of assistance, but without his help, we'd probably still be at that airport, penniless and tired, so I'm going to pretend I don't care that he might have been stealing money from us).
By the time we had checked into our Hostel and walked back to the mall (the closest edible civilization, as our hostel is in Chambray-les-Tours, a sort of suburb far to the south of Tours) and found cold pasta in a supermarket there. Yum.
Since then, we've been planning our trip to some Chateau tomorrow and watching French period dramas and dubbed British and American television, including Jurassic Park 2, The Closer, and the BBC Merlin.
As my journal is running low on pages, I might update this blog more often for these next couple of weeks, just so I can get everything down that I want to.
I had so much more to write, but I am les tired.
<3 spadeALLcross
Long time no see, eh, comrades? Sorry about that. Life got in the way of the internet for a while there. I'm sure you understand the experience.
Obviously, I've had a very full plate the past couple weeks; I had a term paper due, my boyfriend came to visit me, I had another term paper due, and, most excitingly, Easter Break began! The English take three weeks off at Christmas and three weeks off at Easter (which explains so much about why students actually went home for the Easter holidays at Hogwarts...) so, starting after classes let out on April 8th, we all got three weeks entirely to ourselves.
Last week, my mom and brother came and we toured Scotland a bit. I had a blast, and I can't believe how fast the week went. In summation, the Scottish Highlands are by far the most beautiful and natural place I've ever seen, (all the wonders of the Rockies without the altitude and dry weather) and I definitely want to go back, while Glasgow leaves something to be desired, and Edinburgh is a wallet-sucker, albeit a lovely one. I loved having people visit me, and it was great to show my family around to all the places I've been before, as well as experiencing new places alongside them.
Mom and Patrick left Sunday morning from Manchester, and I immediately returned to York to pack and prepare for the next leg of my Easter adventure: a ten-day excursion with my friend Lea (from Calvin) to France and Germany, followed by a four-day stint in London with the Calvin group.
We left York this morning at 10:29, and, after a bit of tubing and training and planing, we arrived in Tours, France, at 5:15 (all local times, of course). We hadn't realized that the airport in Tours was so small that it didn't even have an ATM...but luckily, we managed to get a taxi driver who sympathized with our plight and took us to our Hostel by way of a "commercial center" (mall) with a cash machine inside. (I'm sure he had a healthy dose of personal gain in this bit of assistance, but without his help, we'd probably still be at that airport, penniless and tired, so I'm going to pretend I don't care that he might have been stealing money from us).
By the time we had checked into our Hostel and walked back to the mall (the closest edible civilization, as our hostel is in Chambray-les-Tours, a sort of suburb far to the south of Tours) and found cold pasta in a supermarket there. Yum.
Since then, we've been planning our trip to some Chateau tomorrow and watching French period dramas and dubbed British and American television, including Jurassic Park 2, The Closer, and the BBC Merlin.
As my journal is running low on pages, I might update this blog more often for these next couple of weeks, just so I can get everything down that I want to.
I had so much more to write, but I am les tired.
<3 spadeALLcross
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