La Roche-sur-Yon

La Roche-sur-Yon

Thursday, May 28, 2015

One brother.

Sarlat-la-Canéda
My last little hurrah for the vacances d'avril was a trip back along the same train line to Bordeaux, where I stayed with a different Pierre and his roommate Chloé, both of whom are music students.  I arrived Friday evening and Saturday was my day trip to Sarlat-la-Canéda...which is in the region, but a bit further than I anticipated.

Sarlat was my favorite town that I visited when I came to France on our high school trip.  It was small but lively at the same time, with lots of character.  When I arrived after a long train/bus fiasco, it was maybe even better than I'd remembered.  The Saturday market was still open and I promptly got into a philosophical discussion with a vendor over saucisson noix (nut-flavored sausage).  For lunch, I tried cassoulet, a regional specialty, a delicious duck stew.

Matchbox win
The météo (weather forecast) had told me it would rain all afternoon, but I had only beautiful sunny skies.  I was able to make several trips around the town, peek inside the cathedral (which had excellent matchboxes...), and visit the garden atop the hill.  Late in the afternoon, I found a tiny side street and stopped for a coffee at a small place with an outside terrace.  I suddenly recognized whatever was playing on the radio; when evergreens and gingerbread cookies popped into mind, I realized that Christmas in April was about to happen (the culprit? "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree") and I looked around at the other customers (a couple of French families and an English couple).  Not sure who started it, but suddenly, we were all dancing to Christmas music on the terrace...in the middle of April.  In that moment, I became convinced that the three-hour trek to Sarlat was worth it.

After, I had a beautiful sunny train ride through the Dordogne region back to Bordeaux.  I spent my last rainy day visiting Sunday markets throughout town before taking the train back to la Roche.

Coming back was a bit of a blur.  Most of the other assistants had already left the city or were leaving, as we were already at the end of April.  Elyse and I had many a picnic during that final week as weather permitted before she headed back to the U.S. of A.

Grenoble
Returning to work, I was introduced to les ponts du mai : literally, the bridges of May.  I may have mentioned the French phrase faire le pont before; it basically means that if Thursday is a bank holiday, everyone bridges the gap and takes Friday off too.  This year, this happened every weekend in May, which was kind of ironic after having extended my contract.  I also had a job interview across France in Grenoble (near the Alpes) and was let off the hook one Tuesday at the lycée.  The following Tuesday, there was a huge strike in France concerning proposed middle school reform...and since most of my teachers decided to protest, I didn't have to go in.

My couple of days in the southeast were well spent.  I had my interview in Grenoble, but stayed with my friend Katie a forty-minute train ride away in Chambéry, le carrefour de l'Europe (the crossroads of Europe, with trains coming and going from Italy and Switzerland and several places in France).  Chambéry is an adorable small town with the gorgeous snowcapped Alpes looming in the distance.  We went to the Lac Bourget, the largest lake in France, and she introduced me to the regional cheese fondu specialty...even if it was 90 degrees and way too hot for it.  Side note: Alpes specialties are best enjoyed during winter ski trips.
Lac Bourget


May turned out to be a light month of work, but students continue until the beginning of July; they have about two months off for summer.  While I'm done working, I'm still in contact with my colleagues at the collège who are helping me to piece together my life situation for the summer months; we all have our fingers crossed that I'll be assigned to the same school next year!

To fill my newfound spare time, I'm discovering the not-so-fun side of being a college professor (grading 150 final exams...all essays...one hundred and fifty?!?) and also swinging by a different lycée in la Roche that didn't get an assistant because it's private and not part of the Éducation National; one of their English teachers is a friend of mine.  Her students are very spunky and snarky:

Me: "Do you have any pets?"
Student: "Yes: one brother."

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Send me a smile.

Ready, set, airbnb!  In Bordeaux, we met Pierre, who left us his studio near la Grosse Horloge.  It notably had a set of workout equipment next to the pull-out couch.

Next, we were the guinea pigs for Isabelle, a grad student in Toulouse.  Her apartment was on the top floor of a building with an inner courtyard.  She sent us in advance and left us a print-out with very specific directions for brancher and débrancher (plugging and unplugging) the various appliances (like the chauffe eau - water heater and lave linge - washing machine) in the apartment, as voltage is often an issue in old buildings.  We also experienced the cuisidebains (cuisine + salle de bains, or kitchen + bathroom)...basically meaning that the shower was in the kitchen and there wasn't a bathroom.  The toilet was well outside the apartment, past the courtyard, in a corner of the main stairwell.  We had to scale the wall a bit to get to it since the stairs were steep.  Quirky, but one of my favorite airbnb experiences yet.

Place du Peyrou 
Then I continued south and east to Montpellier, where I was welcomed on the platform by my next host, Joanne, who chauffeured me to the studio.  She was probably one of the bubbliest, friendliest people I've ever met; she gave me a tour of Montpellier, let me play with her cats, gave me many recommendations of things to do, and introduced me to Slovakian coffee and honey.

View from Place du Peyrou 
Montpellier itself is another very comfortable city.  While you won't find the same wide selection of museums as in Toulouse, centre-ville is full of winding streets with more ateliers (local artisans) than I think I've ever seen anywhere.  Similar to Bordeaux, the streets sprawl with cafés, but the atmosphere is more relaxed as the weather is sunnier and warmer in the south.  There is a beautiful garden and also a public park called the Place du Peyrou, near an ancient aqueduct, with a magnificent view of the distant mountains.

Very productive day
Montpellier also has an extensive tramway that can take you to the ocean; I attempted one beach day.  It was overcast and a little chilly, but still nice to glimpse the Mediterranean and take a nice long sandy beach walk.

Sète port
The next day, I took the train to the small port town of Sète, also on the sea.  Sète is the birthplace of George Brassans, a 20th century French musician and poet (the band in la Roche is playing a medley of his songs at the moment, in fact).  Aside from exploring the port, there's a spectacularly steep hill you can climb for an incredible 360-degree view - the sea to the south and the hills and mountains to the north.

View from Sète

Montpellier is the closest I've been to the region where I studied abroad (not far from Arles and Aix-en-Provence, for example).  Their accent is a little different than that of Nice and Cannes, but I noticed instantly that I understood much more easily and effortlessly than I do in my region, which is actually supposed to have the purest French in the country (like the Midwest in America).  When talking with Joanne, she paused and asked, "Désolée, est-ce que je parle trop vite?" ("Sorry, am I speaking too quickly?") ...and I paused before realizing, no!  Imagine, I suppose, that you learned to speak English in Texas, and then tried to move to Boston.  Same country, same language?  Maybe not.

On my last morning in Montpellier, I woke up starting to dread returning to la Roche for my last few weeks in France...but as I cleaned up the apartment, I heard the faint new-email ding on my phone: my request to renew my contract for next school year with the Académie de Nantes was accepted!  Though I am still waiting for responses from some other jobs I've applied for, I am over the moon to say that I'll be continuing my adventures in France for another year.  I won't make the same mistakes as last year: my Thanksgiving turkey search begins...now.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Il pleut! IL PLEUT!!

Typical buildings in Toulouse
From Bordeaux, we chased the soleil (sunshine) south and a bit inland (but still on the Garonne) to Toulouse, the fourth-largest city in France by population.  It's a part of the Midi-Pyrénées region, not far at all from the beautiful snowcapped Pyrénée mountains where lots of people from my region go to ski during vacations.  Toulouse has one of the biggest student populations in France; its university was established in 1229 and has since split into three.

One of my favorite parts of this particular vacation was watching the changing landscape and architectural style from the train.  The polished off-white stone of the Bordeaux area slowly melted into "rosy" red bricks of Toulouse; Toulouse is thus nicknamed la ville rose, or the pink city.  As we learned on our walking tour, the first inhabitants of the area didn't have access to the types of stone typical of buildings in many other French cities, so they made red bricks from the clay in the Garonne.  The buildings also have a stronger, more robust look to them.

At the Capitole
Un café at the Capitole
Being so close to the Spanish border, we saw a hike in tapas bars and Spanish restaurants.  In addition, many street signs are in both French and in Occitaine, the ancient language of the entire south of France.  I noticed many language differences; they call their city hall the Capitole instead of the Hôtel de Ville; when you buy something at the store, they will ask you if you want une poche (a bag), not un sac.  And don't you dare go to the boulangerie and order un pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant): it's now une chocolatine.

The region is also known for its violets, so get ready for tourist shops brimming with violet jam, perfume, syrup, liqueur, air fresheners, and purple things in general.

Toulouse is a part of the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, which is made up of several pilgrimage routes to the shrine of the apostle St. James in northern Spain.  Ali and I visited several stunning religious monuments that are important for visitors on this journey.  We went inside the Couvent des Jacobins, the Basilique Saint-Sernin (which has what is known as the most beautiful pipe organ in France) and, my favorite, the Cathédrale Saint-Etienne.  The cathedral is actually a mesh of two different churches of which construction began at different times; in order to preserve the original baptismal chapel, the finished building is completely asymmetrical.  When you walk inside through the main door, you find yourself staring down a small corridor that leads behind the altar; the altar itself is offset to the left.  To add to the mishmash, the carvings of the wooden choir stalls depict pagan and mythological figures.
Cathédrale Saint-Etienne, outside and inside

For my arts fix, I went to a small museum called the Fondation Bemberg that I strongly recommend.  It's a private collection housed in an old mansion, and has a little bit of everything (mostly paintings); I was lucky to get to see one of Monet's water lily paintings that was there from Paris temporarily in exchange for another artist's piece.

For Ali's last evening in France, we took one of our airbnb host's restaurant recommendations: Meet the Meat.  It was a gem of a restaurant, obviously specializing in meat, but our entrées were wonderfully green salads to balance out the meat dish and house potatoes au gratin (I don't know how they made it - everything, from the potatoes to the duck to the salad - the way they did, but it now ranks in the top five meals of my life).  The servers and owners were also a fun group and the atmosphere was le top.

(Speaking of airbnb, I have many stories just concerning our housing and hosts during the trip; they were interesting and quirky enough to maybe merit their own post.)

The next day, Ali hopped on a train back to Paris to head stateside, and I hopped on the Midi-Pyrénée regional line toward the Pyrénées themselves, specifically a small town at the foot of the mountains called Foix.

I'm finding that I feel very comfortable being close to mountains, even small ranges, and I definitely miss them living in Minnesota and in the Vendée.  In Cannes, I at least had hills leading up from the Mediterranean; Strasbourg is nestled between the Vosges on the French side and the Black Forest on the German side.  As the train inched closer and closer to the Pyrénées, the sun was just rising, and I started to make out the looming peaks with just a dusting of snow.

Originally, I had wanted to spend a day hiking on trails; after some research, I learned that this area of the Pyrénées is rather wild and untamed.  It's best to have a car to take you up into the hills (and even then, you should by no means rely on your GPS)...and there are bears, according to the tourism website.  So I put my hiking adventure on hold until a day when I plan to have a guide, and I chose to visit Foix, known for its château.  

I'd imagine that Foix is a lively place during the tourist season, but when I arrived Monday morning, it was pretty dead.  I covered the city trying to get a decent mountain view, but ended up returning to a little market in the city square before starting to climb the short but steep path up to the castle.  The château has three towers (you can climb each one if you have enough energy).  It has changed many times over history, but the towers you can see today are pretty close to what they were in the year 1000.  Most notably, le roi Henri IV of France lived there before being crowned king; his bed is still in one of the towers.  All in all, Foix was an excellent half-day choice in lieu of bear-inhabited mountains.

After my mountain fill, I returned to Toulouse for a sunny afternoon to collect my bag before continuing on my quest for sunshine.

Friday, May 1, 2015

La Belle Endormie

Wednesday morning, Ali and I boarded the same train as the day before, but continued past la Rochelle to a city I've been dying to visit since my arrival: Bordeaux.  It's a port city that sits along the Garonne river in the Aquitaine region; much of its history revolves around trade and commerce, and today it's well known for the wines produced in its surrounding vineyards.

La Grosse Horloge
Bordeaux is a city for leisurely wanderers (and runners - they were setting up for a marathon along the quai that week).  During my first walk of the town, I found two of the five églises (churches) that would serve as my navigation points: St. Croix and St. Michel, the basilica.  The churches have very unique shapes and, like most Bordelais architecture, are made of light-colored stone.  My personal favorite landmark was the Grosse Horloge (literally, fat clock), a gateway to centre-ville near our apartment.



La Porte Cailhau
I'm always captivated by narrow, winding streets, and Bordeaux has some of the best I've seen.  Evening strolls are especially beautiful; yellow lights illuminate café fronts where small tables sprawl out into the street, every seat filled.  The atmosphere is lively and warm but also calm.  After zigzagging through centre-ville, we went through the Porte Cailhau, or the "thing that looks like the Disney World castle" (as our airbnb host put it) and walked along the river to the Place de la Bourse, probably the most famous spot in Bordeaux.  Usually, there's a reflective pool in front of the buildings, but it was shut down temporarily because of the marathon.


  
Place de la Bourse, sans and avec reflective pool 

I have a handful of friends, both American and French, who have Bordeaux connections, so I collected must-do lists from each of them.  One of my favorites was a chic coffee and tea shop called VerdeNero; their drinks are true art in presentation and taste.  We had the added entertainment of watching an on-foot post-robbery chase out of the Decathlon store nearby as well as a fiercely independent dog (belonging to the owner of another small store next door) who was trained to look both ways and cross the street all on its own.

After all that excitement, it was time to climb up something tall; we chose the Tour Pey Berland next to the Cathédrale Sainte-André.  The Tour is the cathedral's bell tower which was actually built completely separated from the church (but still in the same square) to protect the church from the vibrations of the bells.  The view is spectacular; it's especially fun to find all the landmarks and monuments from the top (the Grosse Horloge doesn't look quite so grosse).

 Tour Pey Berland and its view of Bordeaux

In the afternoon, we visited the Musée Aquitaine to get an overview of the region's history.  The area is key in Neanderthal research, which was my favorite part of the museum; there was also a period of Roman influence that isn't so obvious in the architecture when you first walk the city.  Some of the commerce and merchant history is similar to that of Nantes.  All in all, the museum was very well done.

That evening, we visited Wine More Time on a recommendation.  Apparently vineyards surrounding the city run the risk of being overpriced for the quality since Bordeaux is a huge tourist destination; a few people suggested tasting wines instead at wine bars in the city as an alternative.  Our experience was great; the proprietaire explained the wines, regions, and years very well, and we paired them with a charcuterie for dinner.  My favorite wine was a red from St. Emilion, a small town you can visit easily by train.

Our last aventure bordelaise was a restaurant find near the Église St. Pierre in the church square full of restaurants and cafés with outdoor seating.  La Petite Maison de Pierre is an unassuming spot tucked into a corner right next to the church.  The owner was welcoming and offered us a menu of all that was fresh from the market that morning!

When I returned to Bordeaux at the end of the trip, I also explored the old merchant neighborhood called Chartrons and attempted to visit Librairie Mollat, the largest independent bookstore in France, built at Montesquieu's final home (Montesquieu is the baron who influenced the U.S. Constitution with his idea of the separation of powers in government)...but Sunday thwarted me once again: the librairie was closed.

April adventures in the pays nantais with Arielle et Liria

On the first Saturday of les vacances d'avril (the April break), the clouds cleared from the sky and the people, for the most part, cleared from la Roche-sur-Yon.  That evening, I waited on the quai at the station for my friend Ali's train to roll in from Paris, bringing the total of Americans in la Roche up to three.

We spent un jour tranquille (a calm day) here as everything was closed in true Sunday fashion.  We took full advantage of the sunshine and blue skies to picnic in a park, sampling an assortment of Vendéen specialties, and to plan out our week of travels.  It's calming to find that some friendships remain, not exactly the same, but just as strong despite the distance and time apart.  This year, I've often experienced what I've started calling the "Splinching Effect" (for those of you who dabble in Harry Potter lexicon): instances when I'm very aware of existing somewhere between two countries, two languages, and multiple sets of cultural norms.  Times when I want to refer to a Minnesota joke or stereotype in the staff lounge and no one gets it; when I'm speaking English to an American and I realize I'm translating phrases directly from French and it sounds strange; when I find myself starting to understand and defend the French bureaucratic system (yes, it happened)...  It's nice to find that, despite these twists in personality and mannerisms, I have consistent relationships on both sides of the Atlantic.

Nantes' claim to fame
Monday was a sunny day spent in Nantes, making the usual tour of the château, gardens, churches, Loire riverbanks, and winding streets of the Bouffay neighborhood.  I crossed an item off my Nantes bucket list: seeing the giant mechanical elephant take a group of passengers on a walk around the Île des Machines!  People strolled the streets and lounged on the grass near the river, a welcome change after the long rainy season.

Tuesday brought another boost of vitamin D, this time in the seaside town of la Rochelle, which is about an hour southwest by train.  The town is very old with a long fishing industry history, which we learned about at the Musée Maritime.  Through the process of being jostled between English and French rule in the past, the fishermen community developed and is now known for their rather rebellious and independent spirit.  Part of the museum includes going through an old naval ship; we survived the tiny corridors and steep steps to see the boiler rooms, navigation boards, and living quarters.

Walking around the Vieux Port
Today, la Rochelle is a popular vacation spot, complete with a huge port, sandy beaches, and a comfortable centre-ville of shops and restaurants.  There are also boat tours out on the sea, a huge aquarium, and a plethora of water sports that can be booked.

After the day of exploration and our fill of beach time, we headed back to la Roche for an exciting evening of...packing our bags for la suite!

P.S.  I'll just leave this here:

Spotted in Nantes