Salut tout le monde !! How is everyone ? Better yet, how is everyone in the absence of one of my 7-8 page long updates?!! I imagine you are doing well :)The time is nearing for me to step foot on native soil; soon I will be returning to see all of your beautiful faces and rest assured that I will be hugging all of your necks. And I can't wait! To say that I will be sad to leave France to come back home is a statement that possibly others in my place could and would say, but honestly, I am very happy to come back home…not for the cuisine, not for the cheese, not for the wine, not for the lack of beautiful parks, not for the lack of bountiful fresh produce, not for the lack of a train system, not for the lack of vine yarded rolling hills, not for the desserts…but for the twang in our language; for the live shows and concerts I miss; for the long car rides with the windows down and me just 'uh croonin'; for the second-hand stores, ha for Old Navy (oh how I've missed it!); for the oven I will have again, for dishes like meatloaf, roast, sausage with red beans and rice, peach cobbler; for mama's sweet tea; for the apartment I can't wait to decorate and settle myself in complete with an oven…did I mention that already!? I absolutely cannot wait to cook again! I have so many recipes and dishes that I am just so prepared to make people try! I can't wait to make guinea pigs out of you all :)
I am happy to return back to the "routine" life that I think that I used to take for granted, well, at least just a little bit. I appreciate a lot more of what I don't have here in France, and I simply joyous to have it in my life again. An encouraging and loving family (friends included!), unlimited and immeasurable support, and hugs (oh how I miss being hugged!) are just some of the bits and pieces of my life that have not strayed away from my thoughts while I have lived in France. I am truly and blessed young woman.
To clue you in on a «high» note in my life: I FINALLY received my VISA! So, after 7 months of administrative hell, I can finally say that I possess my title and I will not be an "hor-la-loi" for the rest of my stay in France :)
Two days after his birthday and as a 25th birthday present, my good good buddy from youth, Thomas, crossed the big blue to come and see me in mid-March. It was his first real vacation, his first plane ride, his first time in a foreign country, and his many more firsts. We had a blast parading around Lyon!! I can only hope that I proved to be a good ambassador of Lyon, my home away from home. Also, with him not knowing any French, I acted as the translator and his go-between for his every want and need :) Whether it was a certain word, an ATM, or a croissant, I helped him get his point across and I helped him experience daily French life! I think I also wore him out, walking miles and miles each day!
The same day that Thomas left, another good friend, Ashlee, came over from Heidelberg, Germany. She is the other scholarship recipient from my sponsor district in Arkansas. I hadn't seen her since we met up in Conway a "long" time ago! Oh man, it was great to have a girlfriend around! She stayed a week as well, and in that week's time we did a lot of walking and exploring, but also a lot of recuperation. As we both understand each other and our lives here in Europe, we spent a lot of time recounting our experiences, good and bad. I do believe that she and I are lucky to know each other because we get each other, and for the most part we like the same things! For example, hummus and sushi! We had a few evenings where we refused to eat anything German or French, and we opted for Middle Eastern and Japanese :)
Anyone up for a sushi party chez moi when I get back!? Lol, what good times! I wrote this for another update I was supposed to send out almost three weeks ago! Sunday : March 30, 2008 Salut tout le monde ! I am currently in an outbound train going from Paris to Lyon, returning from yet another marvelous voyage, which I am very lucky to have experienced! I just stayed on weekend in the Champagne region of France in a small city called Épernay. The ABFR (The Association which looks after all the past and current Rotary scholars in France) invited us to enjoy a weekend in the heart of where champagne is made, the "real" champagne, and in fact, where the only "champagne" in the world is made. (In other places they call the bubbly "sparkling wine", or they should!) We stayed with a Rotarian family for two nights, enjoyed two delicious picnic lunches, and two of the most riche and unforgettable dinners that will stay with me for years to come. During the second soirée this past Saturday night we all got together to tell of our experiences, to meet new people, to exchange our sponsor club Rotary flags, and to eat one HECK of a meal! Whoa momma! The entrée, two plats, a cheese dish, a dessert, and coffee at that! That makes for 5 different dishes, bien with café, and to top it all off, all-you-can-drink champagne! And let me tell you, you haven't had "sparkling wine" 'til you have sat in the home of a Champenois, connected to a wine factory! These houses and factories are everywhere you look in the Champagne region, and almost all of the work contributes to the production of champagne, be it bottle-making, cork-making, label-making, etc. And then, everywhere you look you see champagne vineyards, partout partout!
I stayed with a couple named Demissy. Jacques et Marie-Jo Demissy were absolutely adorable, patient, generous, and hospitable, and very hip and cool at that! What's more is that Jacques bears a striking resemblance to Harrison Ford! I had a room all to myself, well a suite really fit for the princess I was this past weekend. Neigh, Queen. My room had an annexed shower room, and the place itself was bigger than my apartment in Lyon! I was staying there with another scholarship recipient called Fumiko, a young Japanese who studies in Paris. One morning, before rushing about to meet our day, Jacques took Fumiko and I to a small village nearby Épernay, a village called Hautvilliers, the village of Don Pérignon, who "created" sparkling wine, a claim that is false, but made him famous nonetheless. He is buried there in the abbey. As we drove up and down the beautiful decorated hills upon hills of vineyards, Jacques explained to us how he grew up in these hills, how he first kissed Marie-Jo among these hills, how he knows all the back roads and all the ways and means to get away and be free of everything. Ahhh, those vineyards steeped in hundreds of years of new and old soil, buried, brought back to life, pushed aside for another season. It's just amazing to me that one field of one certain soil can bring to life one champagne. "Isn't it amazing!" The last thing that Jacques told us in the car ride that day: "When you come to Champagne, you don't just see the label or the name, you see that it is a way of life for everyone; you can't get around it."On Saturday before our amazing dinner soirée we all went to the Reims, a city to the northeast, which is well-known for being where all the French kings were crowned, except for three if I remember what the tour guide told us.
Basically, you can say that "France", the united land of France, started there at the Reims Cathedral where Clovis was baptized in 496. It's actually a love story! Lol! Clovis had a wife named Clothilde, and she wanted him to convert to Christianity. He wanted to keep on keepin' on as a pagan. Well, it happened one day when he was in serious trouble during battle against a Germanic groupe of barbarians called the Alamans that he decided that should he win, he would be baptized in the name of "Clothilde's God". And then miraculously, the Alamans retreated and he kept his promise to his lady friend. Alas, Francia was born. The Cathedral is also very well-known because it was where Charles VII was crowned in the presence of Joan of Arc. So, we were lucky and we got to see where all the magic took place! I also was very very happy to see another magical site in the Cathedral: Marc Chagall's rendition of a pre-existing triptych of stained glass windows. It was BEAUTIFUL and genius! He was hired to create something to replace windows that had been destroyed in the war. Chagall managed to exactly recreate three other stained glass windows…in his own modern whimsical patterning of course. I remember (I think we all do actually!) how cold it was in that Cathedral, and I was the last person out of there because I stood in front of those three windows comparing, studying, admiring them for a good long while! K, back to now.
So after Champagne, I came home to Lyon to be a busy busy body for two weeks straight, with basically a lot of Rotary stuff. First, I had a mountain of dirty laundry, and I nearly threw out the 'ole back to take it all to the laundr-o-mat! Next, I gave a few speeches for Rotary, I was invited to dine with Rotarians and with friends of Rotarians, and I was going to art exhibitions and demonstrations left and right.
And then, I was working with the Lyon Rotaract club in the action "Donner Mon Sang". I worked in the beautiful Chamber of Commerce building on the Presqu'île with other Rotaractors for an afternoon. I gave my blood, and I passed out flyers and explained to donors the procedure. It was an action on which several Lyon Rotary clubs collaborated. Then that same evening, feeling light-headed and puny, I went to a city called Écully to be awarded a prize for a short story I wrote for Rotary. Me and the other Rotary scholarship recipients of Lyon were asked to write short story, and we rejoined together to get our prizes with some other students, high-schoolers, who do Student Exchange in the Rotary Foundation. They wrote stories and were awarded as well. We had a sort of buffet that night, where each country brought a dessert from their respective country. Mmm, my favorite were the little chocolate, coconut cake balls from Sweden. (Magdalena, my favorite Swedish aunt, I will be taught how to make them! That's a wish and a command!) The next day I returned to Écully with my Rotaract friends to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Lyon Rotaract Club. And it was a themed party! We dressed up in garb from the 60-70's, we drank a lot of champagne (for me it was the second week in a row!), and we danced the night away! Fun Fun! We also welcomed new members to the club, crowning them and kissing their cheeks :) I also went to a series of sketches performed by my Rotary club. They put a few comedic sketches to raise money for Alzheimers and Parkinsons. It was very very hilarious and well-recieved :)
This past week I was on vacation, a "real" vacation in a touristy part of France! I went to Arcachon with my host counselor, Marie-José and her husband Jacques.
We took a car and drove towards the Atlantic Ocean, passing through some of the France I've never seen, the mountains of the Massif Central, the huge mountain range in the middle of France. I'm used to seeing the ragged snow-covered Alps…these mountains are much rounder and vegetal. Very friendly :) We got to a little city called Gujan, where Marie-José's summer home is. She originally inherited a home from her grandmother, but Jacques thought it inadequate, too small, so they opted to build their own home on her grandmother's property. So now, Marie-José just looks out on her grandmother's old home, know inhabited by neighbors! Kind of a bitter-sweet story it seems. Gujan is located on the banks of the "Bassin d'Arcachon", which is a brackish pond connected to the Atlantic Ocean. This salty basin contributes its baby oysters to other European countries where they hybrid their oysters into tasting different from the oysters in the Bassin, for they are salty, and often either with a mushroom or fruity-citrus taste. I went to their Oyster Museum, and it claims that the Bassin d'Arcachon is the capital of oyster productions. It produces 3,600 tons of per year-55% of the world's production in that little Bassin! So needless to say, I ate a lot of oysters and saw a lot of water and got a lot of Vitamin D. The Bassin is also known as a bird-watching site. They have a spread-out museum in the marshes of the Bassin that allow you to watch and identify several different species in their natural environments. Also, right below the Bassin are the Dunes of Pyla, the tallest natural sand dunes in Europe. I climbed them! Well, I crawled up them! That sand was so hard to maneuver with at the slope of the dunes! It was tons of fun, and when you get to the top of the Dunes, you look out to your left and it's nothing but a sea of pine trees, the Landes Forrest. You look out to your right and you see the Bassin d'Arcachon, a sandy bank called Arguin (which is home to many more birds and wildlife!), and the Atlantic Ocean. Now, I technically saw the Atlantic Ocean back in August at Le Croisic in Bretagne, but it was through an inlet and it was raining. So, I count this as my first time to really see the Altantic; it counts because for the first time I was seeing it in its ultimate vastness and nothingness…and it was everything to me :) Gah it was amazing to look out and see water for trillions of miles! Another thing I did while in the Bassin was go to Cap Ferret, a strip of land that actually creates the Bassin. On one side you have the Bassin, on the other you have the ATLANTIC! Marie-José and I took a boat through the Bassin to Cap Ferret where we had a blast seeing the Bird Island and the pillared oyster huts in the Bassin, and then when we got far enough out we could see all of the Dunes of Pyla. AMAZING! Just to think that I had climbed those things just a few days before was stunning. They are enormous and spread out across the coast like a regular beach, except just oddly elevated in the form of dunes. So anyway, we got to Cap Ferret, walked around the whole joint…saw the lighthouse, saw some Landais architecture, saw where all the rich people in the area live, and then I saw the ocean again! We finally found a road that led us to the ocean after I spotted sand dunes! We climbed up the dunes and then on the other side we found Heaven. Marie-José took my purse and my camera and told me to go and have fun, so I ran around the sand, picking up smooth pebbles and seashells and collecting sand. I stepped foot in the water, I didn't swim in it, seeing as it was FREEZING! It was a ton of fun, and I am still feeling the burn of it…got a little Vitamin D :)
Also, we saw some military bunkers (that have since been graffitied) that were used in the World War :)I think that could conclude my description of that amazing trip!From Gujan-Mestras/Arcachon I took a transferring train out to Carcassonne on the way home back to Lyon. The reason? The Medieval city of Carcassonne had always been a dream of mine ever since I started studying medieval literature. I got to the city and tried to figure out where I could take my luggage so that I could walk around for the afternoon hassle-free…turns out that because of bomb threats, the train station doesn't have lockers anymore. So, I waited on the bus, got on and just decided to rough it. Luckily I had carried only my big duffle bag and my best friends North Face backpack, so I only had what I could carry on my back. I wasn't about to miss out on seeing my medieval city! Oh and let me just make a note to all of you who will go and see Carcassonne. The city transportation sucks (about one bus on its route every hour!), and the Medieval city is pretty far away from the train, oh and the Office of Tourisme is closed from 12-2:00 (which is the time I needed it!). Nevertheless, I got to where I needed to go after asking around to many Carcassonnais. The people are really nice there, and they will freely talk to you. Ha, I have a little side-story. On the way out of Carcassonne to go to Lyon, I sat next to a girl about my age who was heading back to Montpellier where she works, but she was born in Carcassonne. She was extremely nice and we sat there and talked for two hours about the history of the city and the people that live there. She continued to tell me how loose peoples' tongues are and how they are apt to talk "vite", loose-lipped and without holding back :) It's true too!
They are very very friendly to foreigners. I talked to several people all intrigued by my accent and the fact that an American was speaking to them in French! (I find this everywhere I go actually. People are often under the impression that when Americans come to France they are going to speak English, which sadly is often the case.) Also, their French pronunciation is a lot different; it seemed very rushed and tongue-y to me, a very swallowed French. Occitan is spoken in the Languedoc Roussillon region as well. It is its own language and very characteristic of the other romance languages. I listened to a few people speak Occitan on a train, and to me it sounded like a mixture of French, Spanish, and Italian with an Italian flair of intonating sentences. What's more is that they pronounce the ends of their words like in Spanish and Italian, not like in French when you don't hear half of the word, ha let alone are you able to spell the word after hearing it!! So anyway, back to the medieval city. I got there to realize that the place is HUGE! It is an entirely walled city that overlooks the modern city of Carcassonne and on the inside of its walls is a whole city making money off of tourists. All I heard everywhere I turned where English, Italians, and Aussies! I was only able be there for about an hour and a half, but in that time I walked the entire thing:) I had a blast! Luckily, it started to rain just as I got back to the bus stop, with only a minute to spare. I was afraid that I was going to miss my train, so I shared a taxi with two Québécois who had just toured the city, and that was great because I happen to love everything about Québec! Especially it's language :) On the train ride home I was able to see the Mediterranean Sea!!!
It was my first time to see it, but sadly the only time I will be able to on this trip! Next time I go to see it, I hope I'm on a boat touring the length of it-The Odyssey style:) So that's about it, I got home sun-burned and buff from a long week of fun in the sun :)
As for my scholastic life, this week I am on my official vacation, ha, my second week of vacation as I took off last week to go with Marie-José et Jacques to Arcachon. For the rest of my vacation, I am going to be working my butt off, trying to continue working on and finish (if at all possible!) my memoir. I had to change my paper topic because with the last topic, I could not find a translated text in modern French. It was only in Medieval French, so now I am writing a memoir about a reoccurring character who popped up in several stories from the Middles Ages. His name was Aubéron, and he is also seen in Shakespeare's masterpiece "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as Oberon, king of the faeries. I hope that it will all go well and that I will learn a whole lot :)I also hope to take a trip to a well-known and well-preserved medieval city called Perrouges situated just to the northeast of Lyon. I gotta figure out how to get there. Supposedly there's a bus…no train.My good friend Anne is coming in Mid-May, and I'm pretty stoked about that! I think that she is too :)
That just about concludes my little update.
I leave you with some funny little things:
1) "How on earth did you see the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean!? It's in Spain!"
2) "You had better stop playing with that oyster Jessica, it's gonna come back to haunt you!"-a response to me playing with my raw oyster…the test to see if it is fresh: if you poke at its sides and it bounces back, you know that it is still alive and kickin' and thus ready to consume.
3) "Je suis libérée", I am liberated! I got laughed at for this one by Jacques. I said it after I climbed the Dunes of Pyla, after I was on top of the world.
As you know, you can equally see all of these photos and many many more all organized for you in my Picasa web albums. The first 8 albums are either new or have had photos added to them: http://picasaweb.google.com/BulletproofSpirit
Ya'll be good and I hope to hear from you soon.
Much Love,
Jess
I am happy to return back to the "routine" life that I think that I used to take for granted, well, at least just a little bit. I appreciate a lot more of what I don't have here in France, and I simply joyous to have it in my life again. An encouraging and loving family (friends included!), unlimited and immeasurable support, and hugs (oh how I miss being hugged!) are just some of the bits and pieces of my life that have not strayed away from my thoughts while I have lived in France. I am truly and blessed young woman.
To clue you in on a «high» note in my life: I FINALLY received my VISA! So, after 7 months of administrative hell, I can finally say that I possess my title and I will not be an "hor-la-loi" for the rest of my stay in France :)
Two days after his birthday and as a 25th birthday present, my good good buddy from youth, Thomas, crossed the big blue to come and see me in mid-March. It was his first real vacation, his first plane ride, his first time in a foreign country, and his many more firsts. We had a blast parading around Lyon!! I can only hope that I proved to be a good ambassador of Lyon, my home away from home. Also, with him not knowing any French, I acted as the translator and his go-between for his every want and need :) Whether it was a certain word, an ATM, or a croissant, I helped him get his point across and I helped him experience daily French life! I think I also wore him out, walking miles and miles each day!
The same day that Thomas left, another good friend, Ashlee, came over from Heidelberg, Germany. She is the other scholarship recipient from my sponsor district in Arkansas. I hadn't seen her since we met up in Conway a "long" time ago! Oh man, it was great to have a girlfriend around! She stayed a week as well, and in that week's time we did a lot of walking and exploring, but also a lot of recuperation. As we both understand each other and our lives here in Europe, we spent a lot of time recounting our experiences, good and bad. I do believe that she and I are lucky to know each other because we get each other, and for the most part we like the same things! For example, hummus and sushi! We had a few evenings where we refused to eat anything German or French, and we opted for Middle Eastern and Japanese :)
Anyone up for a sushi party chez moi when I get back!? Lol, what good times! I wrote this for another update I was supposed to send out almost three weeks ago! Sunday : March 30, 2008 Salut tout le monde ! I am currently in an outbound train going from Paris to Lyon, returning from yet another marvelous voyage, which I am very lucky to have experienced! I just stayed on weekend in the Champagne region of France in a small city called Épernay. The ABFR (The Association which looks after all the past and current Rotary scholars in France) invited us to enjoy a weekend in the heart of where champagne is made, the "real" champagne, and in fact, where the only "champagne" in the world is made. (In other places they call the bubbly "sparkling wine", or they should!) We stayed with a Rotarian family for two nights, enjoyed two delicious picnic lunches, and two of the most riche and unforgettable dinners that will stay with me for years to come. During the second soirée this past Saturday night we all got together to tell of our experiences, to meet new people, to exchange our sponsor club Rotary flags, and to eat one HECK of a meal! Whoa momma! The entrée, two plats, a cheese dish, a dessert, and coffee at that! That makes for 5 different dishes, bien with café, and to top it all off, all-you-can-drink champagne! And let me tell you, you haven't had "sparkling wine" 'til you have sat in the home of a Champenois, connected to a wine factory! These houses and factories are everywhere you look in the Champagne region, and almost all of the work contributes to the production of champagne, be it bottle-making, cork-making, label-making, etc. And then, everywhere you look you see champagne vineyards, partout partout!
I stayed with a couple named Demissy. Jacques et Marie-Jo Demissy were absolutely adorable, patient, generous, and hospitable, and very hip and cool at that! What's more is that Jacques bears a striking resemblance to Harrison Ford! I had a room all to myself, well a suite really fit for the princess I was this past weekend. Neigh, Queen. My room had an annexed shower room, and the place itself was bigger than my apartment in Lyon! I was staying there with another scholarship recipient called Fumiko, a young Japanese who studies in Paris. One morning, before rushing about to meet our day, Jacques took Fumiko and I to a small village nearby Épernay, a village called Hautvilliers, the village of Don Pérignon, who "created" sparkling wine, a claim that is false, but made him famous nonetheless. He is buried there in the abbey. As we drove up and down the beautiful decorated hills upon hills of vineyards, Jacques explained to us how he grew up in these hills, how he first kissed Marie-Jo among these hills, how he knows all the back roads and all the ways and means to get away and be free of everything. Ahhh, those vineyards steeped in hundreds of years of new and old soil, buried, brought back to life, pushed aside for another season. It's just amazing to me that one field of one certain soil can bring to life one champagne. "Isn't it amazing!" The last thing that Jacques told us in the car ride that day: "When you come to Champagne, you don't just see the label or the name, you see that it is a way of life for everyone; you can't get around it."On Saturday before our amazing dinner soirée we all went to the Reims, a city to the northeast, which is well-known for being where all the French kings were crowned, except for three if I remember what the tour guide told us.
Basically, you can say that "France", the united land of France, started there at the Reims Cathedral where Clovis was baptized in 496. It's actually a love story! Lol! Clovis had a wife named Clothilde, and she wanted him to convert to Christianity. He wanted to keep on keepin' on as a pagan. Well, it happened one day when he was in serious trouble during battle against a Germanic groupe of barbarians called the Alamans that he decided that should he win, he would be baptized in the name of "Clothilde's God". And then miraculously, the Alamans retreated and he kept his promise to his lady friend. Alas, Francia was born. The Cathedral is also very well-known because it was where Charles VII was crowned in the presence of Joan of Arc. So, we were lucky and we got to see where all the magic took place! I also was very very happy to see another magical site in the Cathedral: Marc Chagall's rendition of a pre-existing triptych of stained glass windows. It was BEAUTIFUL and genius! He was hired to create something to replace windows that had been destroyed in the war. Chagall managed to exactly recreate three other stained glass windows…in his own modern whimsical patterning of course. I remember (I think we all do actually!) how cold it was in that Cathedral, and I was the last person out of there because I stood in front of those three windows comparing, studying, admiring them for a good long while! K, back to now.
So after Champagne, I came home to Lyon to be a busy busy body for two weeks straight, with basically a lot of Rotary stuff. First, I had a mountain of dirty laundry, and I nearly threw out the 'ole back to take it all to the laundr-o-mat! Next, I gave a few speeches for Rotary, I was invited to dine with Rotarians and with friends of Rotarians, and I was going to art exhibitions and demonstrations left and right.
And then, I was working with the Lyon Rotaract club in the action "Donner Mon Sang". I worked in the beautiful Chamber of Commerce building on the Presqu'île with other Rotaractors for an afternoon. I gave my blood, and I passed out flyers and explained to donors the procedure. It was an action on which several Lyon Rotary clubs collaborated. Then that same evening, feeling light-headed and puny, I went to a city called Écully to be awarded a prize for a short story I wrote for Rotary. Me and the other Rotary scholarship recipients of Lyon were asked to write short story, and we rejoined together to get our prizes with some other students, high-schoolers, who do Student Exchange in the Rotary Foundation. They wrote stories and were awarded as well. We had a sort of buffet that night, where each country brought a dessert from their respective country. Mmm, my favorite were the little chocolate, coconut cake balls from Sweden. (Magdalena, my favorite Swedish aunt, I will be taught how to make them! That's a wish and a command!) The next day I returned to Écully with my Rotaract friends to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Lyon Rotaract Club. And it was a themed party! We dressed up in garb from the 60-70's, we drank a lot of champagne (for me it was the second week in a row!), and we danced the night away! Fun Fun! We also welcomed new members to the club, crowning them and kissing their cheeks :) I also went to a series of sketches performed by my Rotary club. They put a few comedic sketches to raise money for Alzheimers and Parkinsons. It was very very hilarious and well-recieved :)
This past week I was on vacation, a "real" vacation in a touristy part of France! I went to Arcachon with my host counselor, Marie-José and her husband Jacques.
We took a car and drove towards the Atlantic Ocean, passing through some of the France I've never seen, the mountains of the Massif Central, the huge mountain range in the middle of France. I'm used to seeing the ragged snow-covered Alps…these mountains are much rounder and vegetal. Very friendly :) We got to a little city called Gujan, where Marie-José's summer home is. She originally inherited a home from her grandmother, but Jacques thought it inadequate, too small, so they opted to build their own home on her grandmother's property. So now, Marie-José just looks out on her grandmother's old home, know inhabited by neighbors! Kind of a bitter-sweet story it seems. Gujan is located on the banks of the "Bassin d'Arcachon", which is a brackish pond connected to the Atlantic Ocean. This salty basin contributes its baby oysters to other European countries where they hybrid their oysters into tasting different from the oysters in the Bassin, for they are salty, and often either with a mushroom or fruity-citrus taste. I went to their Oyster Museum, and it claims that the Bassin d'Arcachon is the capital of oyster productions. It produces 3,600 tons of per year-55% of the world's production in that little Bassin! So needless to say, I ate a lot of oysters and saw a lot of water and got a lot of Vitamin D. The Bassin is also known as a bird-watching site. They have a spread-out museum in the marshes of the Bassin that allow you to watch and identify several different species in their natural environments. Also, right below the Bassin are the Dunes of Pyla, the tallest natural sand dunes in Europe. I climbed them! Well, I crawled up them! That sand was so hard to maneuver with at the slope of the dunes! It was tons of fun, and when you get to the top of the Dunes, you look out to your left and it's nothing but a sea of pine trees, the Landes Forrest. You look out to your right and you see the Bassin d'Arcachon, a sandy bank called Arguin (which is home to many more birds and wildlife!), and the Atlantic Ocean. Now, I technically saw the Atlantic Ocean back in August at Le Croisic in Bretagne, but it was through an inlet and it was raining. So, I count this as my first time to really see the Altantic; it counts because for the first time I was seeing it in its ultimate vastness and nothingness…and it was everything to me :) Gah it was amazing to look out and see water for trillions of miles! Another thing I did while in the Bassin was go to Cap Ferret, a strip of land that actually creates the Bassin. On one side you have the Bassin, on the other you have the ATLANTIC! Marie-José and I took a boat through the Bassin to Cap Ferret where we had a blast seeing the Bird Island and the pillared oyster huts in the Bassin, and then when we got far enough out we could see all of the Dunes of Pyla. AMAZING! Just to think that I had climbed those things just a few days before was stunning. They are enormous and spread out across the coast like a regular beach, except just oddly elevated in the form of dunes. So anyway, we got to Cap Ferret, walked around the whole joint…saw the lighthouse, saw some Landais architecture, saw where all the rich people in the area live, and then I saw the ocean again! We finally found a road that led us to the ocean after I spotted sand dunes! We climbed up the dunes and then on the other side we found Heaven. Marie-José took my purse and my camera and told me to go and have fun, so I ran around the sand, picking up smooth pebbles and seashells and collecting sand. I stepped foot in the water, I didn't swim in it, seeing as it was FREEZING! It was a ton of fun, and I am still feeling the burn of it…got a little Vitamin D :)
Also, we saw some military bunkers (that have since been graffitied) that were used in the World War :)I think that could conclude my description of that amazing trip!From Gujan-Mestras/Arcachon I took a transferring train out to Carcassonne on the way home back to Lyon. The reason? The Medieval city of Carcassonne had always been a dream of mine ever since I started studying medieval literature. I got to the city and tried to figure out where I could take my luggage so that I could walk around for the afternoon hassle-free…turns out that because of bomb threats, the train station doesn't have lockers anymore. So, I waited on the bus, got on and just decided to rough it. Luckily I had carried only my big duffle bag and my best friends North Face backpack, so I only had what I could carry on my back. I wasn't about to miss out on seeing my medieval city! Oh and let me just make a note to all of you who will go and see Carcassonne. The city transportation sucks (about one bus on its route every hour!), and the Medieval city is pretty far away from the train, oh and the Office of Tourisme is closed from 12-2:00 (which is the time I needed it!). Nevertheless, I got to where I needed to go after asking around to many Carcassonnais. The people are really nice there, and they will freely talk to you. Ha, I have a little side-story. On the way out of Carcassonne to go to Lyon, I sat next to a girl about my age who was heading back to Montpellier where she works, but she was born in Carcassonne. She was extremely nice and we sat there and talked for two hours about the history of the city and the people that live there. She continued to tell me how loose peoples' tongues are and how they are apt to talk "vite", loose-lipped and without holding back :) It's true too!
They are very very friendly to foreigners. I talked to several people all intrigued by my accent and the fact that an American was speaking to them in French! (I find this everywhere I go actually. People are often under the impression that when Americans come to France they are going to speak English, which sadly is often the case.) Also, their French pronunciation is a lot different; it seemed very rushed and tongue-y to me, a very swallowed French. Occitan is spoken in the Languedoc Roussillon region as well. It is its own language and very characteristic of the other romance languages. I listened to a few people speak Occitan on a train, and to me it sounded like a mixture of French, Spanish, and Italian with an Italian flair of intonating sentences. What's more is that they pronounce the ends of their words like in Spanish and Italian, not like in French when you don't hear half of the word, ha let alone are you able to spell the word after hearing it!! So anyway, back to the medieval city. I got there to realize that the place is HUGE! It is an entirely walled city that overlooks the modern city of Carcassonne and on the inside of its walls is a whole city making money off of tourists. All I heard everywhere I turned where English, Italians, and Aussies! I was only able be there for about an hour and a half, but in that time I walked the entire thing:) I had a blast! Luckily, it started to rain just as I got back to the bus stop, with only a minute to spare. I was afraid that I was going to miss my train, so I shared a taxi with two Québécois who had just toured the city, and that was great because I happen to love everything about Québec! Especially it's language :) On the train ride home I was able to see the Mediterranean Sea!!!
It was my first time to see it, but sadly the only time I will be able to on this trip! Next time I go to see it, I hope I'm on a boat touring the length of it-The Odyssey style:) So that's about it, I got home sun-burned and buff from a long week of fun in the sun :)
As for my scholastic life, this week I am on my official vacation, ha, my second week of vacation as I took off last week to go with Marie-José et Jacques to Arcachon. For the rest of my vacation, I am going to be working my butt off, trying to continue working on and finish (if at all possible!) my memoir. I had to change my paper topic because with the last topic, I could not find a translated text in modern French. It was only in Medieval French, so now I am writing a memoir about a reoccurring character who popped up in several stories from the Middles Ages. His name was Aubéron, and he is also seen in Shakespeare's masterpiece "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as Oberon, king of the faeries. I hope that it will all go well and that I will learn a whole lot :)I also hope to take a trip to a well-known and well-preserved medieval city called Perrouges situated just to the northeast of Lyon. I gotta figure out how to get there. Supposedly there's a bus…no train.My good friend Anne is coming in Mid-May, and I'm pretty stoked about that! I think that she is too :)
That just about concludes my little update.
I leave you with some funny little things:
1) "How on earth did you see the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean!? It's in Spain!"
2) "You had better stop playing with that oyster Jessica, it's gonna come back to haunt you!"-a response to me playing with my raw oyster…the test to see if it is fresh: if you poke at its sides and it bounces back, you know that it is still alive and kickin' and thus ready to consume.
3) "Je suis libérée", I am liberated! I got laughed at for this one by Jacques. I said it after I climbed the Dunes of Pyla, after I was on top of the world.
As you know, you can equally see all of these photos and many many more all organized for you in my Picasa web albums. The first 8 albums are either new or have had photos added to them: http://picasaweb.google.com/BulletproofSpirit
Ya'll be good and I hope to hear from you soon.
Much Love,
Jess
When you get to the top you look one way and it's nothing but the Atlantic, and then you turn around and it's nothing but a sea of pine trees.
