Pure Loo-guh-lee

Wow. I thought I knew how to start off this latest blog post, but alas, this weekend was filled to the brim with unexpected happenings. This is how I wanted to start it off:

Just one year ago I was learning how to swim, and now in 2012 I find my self swimming from France to Spain.

But I guess I'll explain that later.
The best place to start after all is at the beginning.

As of this thursday, QKAP are finally able to abandon 18 of our usual 24 class hours a week! To celebrate the ending of institute classes/Sara's 21st birthday, Dr. Kruger allowed us to plan a brand new Davidson weekend trip. A few weeks ago we were assigned to research a city in France where we would like to spend a weekend. I picked Strasbourg. Keith and Ashley played the "let's blindly put our fingers on google maps". But Paisley, who had been adamantly pushing for us going to the Pyrenees Mountains since we met her, convinced Dr. Kruger that we needed to visit the city of Perpignan, a small city near the Mediterranean sea and within 50 km of the Spanish border.  To give ya'll some bearings, I have provided a map:

 
The end of the institute was rather sad. The team has made some really good friends while here, and though the majority will be returning next month, it is sad to see some of them leave. We haven't gotten our grades either, but im pretty sure that all of our GPAs will be safe.

After our final exams on wednesday and our last Wine and Cheese class on thursday, the Fellowship (minus Jane) took a foot off of our doorsteps and headed off into the east in search for adventure. 

I have expressed on this blog before my theory that our group is actually the Fellowship of the Ring, right? It would be really awkward if I haven't and none of my readers will have understood that allusion above. Well yeah! There are nine of us (including John Beam, Dr. Kruger's life partner) and we go on crazy adventures exploring the little seen details of France. There are the four new members (the Hobbits), the three veterans, and our wise teacher. (I'll leave it up to you readers to match the characters to QKAPS JeBeK). I digress. Let's continue.

The fellowship started out from Tours on Friday morning to catch a train to Paris. We discovered here that the National System of Railroads isn't always perfect. They issued two tickets for the same seat (mine and some innocent old french lady that might or might not have forged hers) I think I also forgot to mention that Keith, Paisley, Blake, and I have a life long spades game going. Right now, Blake and I are up by over a hundred points with a few sandbags. When we are all old and wrinkly, I think Keith and Paisley will realize that their strategy of making us underestimate our bets was a poor choice.

Anywho, we made a transfer in Paris from Gare Montparnasse to the Gare de Lyon and there, we picked up a must curious companion. This companion didn't appear to speak any intelligible sentences but we could understand some simple phrases such as "Merci" and "Bonjour" and "Je t'aime". Perhaps we pitied her, but we decided to take her along on our voyage to the southeastern corner of the country.

Just kidding.

Actually, our companion's name was Emily Wilkes!  

For those of you that don't know Emily, she is kind of a big deal. She goes to Davidson and was one of my roommates last year and will hopefully be my roommate again next year (if RLO can get up on its room assignments) and the year after that! When Dr. Kruger proposed this weekend trip a month ago, I was afraid that this would interfere with Emily's previously planned trip to Tours. But luckily, she was able to come with us and explore the side of France that not many people get to enjoy!

To fit in with our Lord of the Rings Motif, Emily decided that she wanted to be the Smeagol to our Fellowship. (Not Gollum. The group decided she was way to kind and enthusiastic to be fit into the persona of the skulking envious mountain creature) And when I said she kept uttering unintelligible phrases, I really meant that throughout the two days that she was with us she kept trying to teach us phrases in Danish, and I believe only two of them stuck.

Jeg elsker dig- I love you Je t'aime

And something else that sounds a lot like Loo-guh-lee which means Happy.

After about an eight hour trip, we finally managed to make it into the city of Perpignan. The train station apparently had one of it's walls or ceiling painted by Salvador Dali! He has been recorded as saying that the train station at Perpignan was one of his favorite places.

   
This might or might not be the ceiling that he painted but it was the only mural-y sort of thing we could find in the whole station, and there were pictures of him all over the lobby.

The street that lead from our hotel to the train station was filled with Kebab places (9 to be exact), and our hotel was rather quaint! They gave us tons of free candy.

Friday night, we went out and celebrated Sara's birthday and discovered that there weren't many restaurants that offered a vegetarian option for Paisley except for Italian restaurants. We ate Italian for three nights.
The first night though was special. Sara even got sparklers in her fondant chocolat!

Saturday however, was when our adventuring really began. The team woke up early and hopped a train that took us into the mountains for a little bit of hiking. We were to go to Mt. Canigou, the mountain that was once thought of to be the highest in all of the Pyrenees. We have since been told that with the abandonment of medieval measuring techniques, this is now not true, but it was still pretty freaking big.

I hope by now ya'll realize that I give you a soundtrack to listen to with these blogposts. If you haven't listened to any of the songs I've embedded, I would start clicking the play button everytime you run into one of these youtube clips. Just saying. (This one goes over the last one quite nicely!)

Saturday morning's train ride was a lot like Disney's thunder mountain railroad. We went up and down and right ways and left ways, all to end up in this really cool little mountain town. It was pretty old and mostly deserted. Someone gave us the direction to this really old Abbey all the way up on the mountain, and we started our approx 10 km trek.

It was lucky that it was such a nice day. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and the sun was very forgiving (especially to Keith, who we are all pretty sure got at least two shades darker). My feet were fine, and it became kind of a struggle once we were forced to actually start climbing the mountain.

We walked along the french highway, dodged some cars and debated whether or not it was smarter to walk with or against traffic. We didn't run into any wildlife, nor did we see a bald eagle flying majestically through the hills, but what we did see were palm trees in the same sight-line as the snow capped mountain peek. Incroyable!

It occurred to me that moutains would be really difficult to climb in a blizzard. I'm pretty sure I asked Paisley that if she were headed to Mordor and came across the Misty Mountains would she rather go up the snowyy mountain path or down through the mines of Moria about thirty four times.

All I can say though was that the view was absolutley gorgeous. The subtle greens in the browns of the cliff faces and the large valleys allowed us all to enjoy every second we spent hiking up to the ancient Abbey of St. Martin.

I couldn't really tell you the history of the Abbey itself, nor could Emily who was given a handout explaining the history in English because she accidentally littered it on the way down, but I could tell you that the structure was beautiful and has a brilliant view of the surrounding valley.

 
Once we finished our tour, we ran down the path from the Abbey to the rest of civilization and hopped on a bus that took us back to the train station and back to the hotel.

After a short dinner, where Emily almost successfully ordered her first meal in full french "Une Omelette au Fromage et Jambon", we said goodbye to our wonderfully enthusiastic fantastically fabulous hyperbole using companion and sent her on a night train back to Paris.  It will be short lived though. You know how Sam and Frodo thought they lost Smeagol during their battle with the horrifying giant spider Shelob, and he ended up making the ascent of Mt. Doom anyway? Yeah, we're going to see Emily again very soon.

Sunday was a little different in terms of pace.

We set out for the Perpignan train station again to set off for the ancient fortress city of Carcassonne. In Dr. Kruger's handy guide book, it said that the city itself is what inspired Walt Disney to create the castle town in his animated classic Sleeping Beauty. I sang this song all day:

 I will admit that I was a little skeptical when we first got off the train. I didn't look like much at first, Carcassonne. But as we kept walking passed run down apartment buildings, we finally found the ancient fortress. Ashley made an interesting remark as we crossed the draw bridge into the city, that we always seem to run into special events when ever we go places. On sunday, the city was throwing a biathalon!

We walked into the town and I swear we were at Renaissance Faire. It smelled like beer and happiness. The sun was shining and there were people everywhere, but the atmosphere was so medieval. There were even children sword fighting in an ancient square that harkened to Wesley's fight with Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. In case you haven't already noted, this weekend was pretty much one out of my favorite fantastical epics.

We ate lunch and toured the ramparts, and enjoyed the sunshine, but ran into a little trouble when we got lost going back to the train station. After some confusing signs, we eventually started running to try to make it on time. Me and Dr. Kruger struggled a bit making our way up and down the treacherous hills, but after exerting ourselves just enough, we made it to the platform with about thirty seconds to spare!


  
We ate at our last Italian restaurant on sunday and played a game of Essence where we learned that Paisley's essence is best described by that of Toto in The Wizard of Oz. We went to sleep soundly that night.

Half of the group woke up at the crack of dawn and headed home for Tours to make it to their classes on time. Paisley, Keith and I however wanted to stay an extra day so we took this time to go out and do some exploring of our own. Turns out that the city of Perignan has a really cheap tour bus system that takes visitors to the suburbs and the beaches and the mountains for a euro each. How could one just stay in Perpignan with such a great opportunity!?

(Last one I promise)

Since I first discovered that Perpignan was so close to Spain, I thought it would be really cool to add another country to my list and walk to the border. I'm pretty sure that the others thought it would be a cool idea but not very plausible, that is, until Keith and I found the bus that would take us to a town 4 km away from the Spanish frontier! With beaches! So we decided to take the one euro bus and try to make history. We thought that because the town was right on the coast, we could hop in the water and simply swim over the line between the two countries!

Of course it wasn't that simple. We discovered upon arrival that the border was all the way up in the mountains and that we would have to do a bit of walking/climbing to get there. Challenge Accepted.

We started walking along the road that would take us out of the city, and hit a lighthouse. We saw a trail up in the distance, but we decided to follow the highway. We walked along the road and saw some cars, but mainly a great view of the valley below us. We stopped and had a few drinks and eventually came across this really raged looking building that didn't look like it had been occupied for a few years. And that was a correct assumption. Turns it it was the old border control that hasnt been in commission for a few years. But we did it. After a few hours walk, we made it to the Spanish Pyrenees.

We then continued to climb the mountain and summited it.

 We had a picnic on this old abandoned tank and noted that the town on the other side of the mountain was the mirror image of the one on the french side....accept louder...with barking dogs.

We eventually climbed back down into france and spent the rest of the day on the rocky shore of the Mediterranean. France really needs to get some beaches with sand...I'm still finding rocks that got lodged into unwanted places.

We met back up with Paisley who toured a farm instead (yeah, silly right?) and then we took the night train back to Tours. We had beds that were really hard and uncomfortable and small. We three were in a compartment with this really old guy with a tattered briefcase (Harry, Ron, Hermione and Pr. Lupin???) and kind of sort of slept. We made it home at 8 am this morning and I slept until 3. 

Wow, this was tiring, and now my final bits of homework for the semester await me. This weekend was pure bliss and extremely tiring. Now to get ready for the next chapters of the epic that is turning out to be my semester abroad. In world news: Abdoulaye Wade, the exiting president of Senegal has renounced his presidency, ensuring a peaceful transfer of power. For us, this means a safe travel to Africa at the end of April!

Until next time,

Traveling Quincy

Paris Pt. 2- Children of Bohemia

When I was much younger, my dad and I would go to movies on Sundays at the little old movie theatre close to our house. We usually only saw kids movies but, on rare occasion, I would bend a little bit and would go see a movie that he actually wanted to see. In 2001, my dad told me that we were going to see a film called Moulin Rouge! directed by Baz Luhrmann, and I put up a fight. I really didn't want to see this movie. First of all, I'm pretty sure that we hadn't seen the most recent Disney movie, and I was seriously pushing for that. (Or maybe it was the new Rocky and Bullwinkle movie. Whatever, it was a long time ago) I had seen a trailer for this movie whose name I didn't understand (even though by that time I had already learned my french colors) and it looked quite frightening. All I knew about the film was that there were a lot of women wearing clown make up and lots of frilly and brightly colored underwear. But I lost.

As the story goes, I ended up loving it after watching the first five minutes of the film. Once I heard Ewan McGreggor's singing voice for the first time I was hooked. I couldn't stop thinking, "How did that come out of Obi-wan!?". The movie itself is exactly what it proclaims to be: a story about truth, beauty, freedom, and above all things love. In case you hadn't already noticed, I'm pushing for everyone who hasn't already seen this cult classic to put down whatever they're doing, even if they are reading this blog, to go and watch it right now. I'm pretty sure all of you American readers can get it from the five dollar bin at Wal-Mart or for free on your netflix subscriptions. After I saw the movie, my dad went out and bought the soundtrack and made my mom watch it, too. I probably listened to that CD a minimum of 83 times that year, but since then my obsession has kind of waned. When I first met Emily Wilkes and she told me that it was her favorite film, we watched it again, and I was reminded that it's a movie that I will love until my dying day.

When I reflect, I kind of feel as though I live my life as though it were centered around those four principles. As a young person in a foreign country with a student visa, it seems as though nothing else matters more than just seeing everything you can possibly see, thinking about the way that people see things and do the things that they do, and doing it while spending the least amount of money as possible. That's what this weekend was. About a month ago, Keith and I booked tickets to Paris for this weekend expecting to see some familiar faces. Awkwardly enough, we happened to have a really big test that day (the test that makes us certified french speakers) so we had to figure out how to change the tickets and all of that jazz. Good news: All of the Davidson students passed! Whoopee! Sad news: We didn't end up finding all of the Americans we wanted to find. But that's ok. I'm sure that all of them had super fun weeks in France, and we will see all of them before we even know it.

So, we ended up just soaking up the city in the best way we know how to: following our noses. Friday night, Keith and I started by hanging out at the Notre Dame for a while. Then we decided we were hungry and wandered around the Latin Quarter until we stumbled upon an Italian restaurant with Asian waiters that spoke french. We got spaghetti and escargot (snails).

Then we just walked. We saw the beacon of the Eiffel Tower, and eventually it got to the point where we were so close that we had to make it to the base. So we did. Turns out, there is this really quaint playground on one side of the tower that is pretty deserted at night.

Yeah, we live young and wild and free.

It's pretty cool the stuff you can find if you just, you know, go. In our search for the Eiffel Tower, we stumbled onto a familiar street and realized it was the same street we had to find on our city scavenger hunt the last time. We found the fountain and the old church, but alas, no mimes yet.

The second day, Keith and I (finally) found Paisley at the Louvre. Turns out, with a student visa you can get in for free. We took glances at the really touristy stuff, but mostly hung out in the less crowded wings looking at old sculptures and  18th/19th century french art. All to find this guy:

We found some pretty paintings and also the Louvre's take on modern art.
I thought Paisley looked really pretty in this light:

We then decided to walk around and find lunch. We ended up on Ile St. Louis and I saw some familiar sights, including the really cool marionette shop and the place where the Payton group ate lunch.

Now Humes Heroes and Heroines, this next story is for you. As we were making our way to the back of the Notre Dame taking a nice little sidestreet, we passed a bunch of similar looking apartment buildings. Keith and Paisley walk a lot quicker than I do, so as I was looking ahead to estimate how much energy it would require to catch up to them, I noticed this sign on one of the walls:

Yes, we came upon the former dwelling of the infamous Abelard and Heloise, the writers of those love letters we read last spring. For those of you that haven't read these letters, A professor and his student began an amorous relationship, got caught, and had the girl sent to a nunnery. (Maybe I'm mistaken because I don't really remember how it went, and I didn't read it all that well, but didn't Abelard also get castrated?) It was an amusing read, and if you're into old books, I guess you could pick it up. Anyway, I called out to Paisley, who is also a Humes veteran, and we reveled in the acquisition of such a treasure. Too bad we both put our books in the book donation boxes after our second semester. The stuff you find in Paris...

At this point, we were trying to arrange our day so that we could find the long awaited Davidson Spring Break Trip Group later that evening, so we decided, much to my excitement, to make the trip to the infamous Montmartre: the home of the Moulin Rouge! Ever since I saw the movie for the first time, I've wanted to set eyes on the notorious night club, and after two trips to Paris, I hadn't gotten the chance. The neighborhood of Montmartre is in the northern part of the city and on this large hill, so it hadn't ever been accessible in our allotted amount of time.

So we went up the hill and got a chance to climb some really intense stairs. Keith and Paisley were fine, and I got a great work out. Now, the thirteenth track of the first Moulin Rouge(!) soundtrack is entitled La Complainte de la Butte (which I have provided above), and after over six years of studying this language, I still had no idea what it meant. However, as we climbed the stairs to the Sacre Coeur and wandered around the streets of the bohemian neighborhood, Paisley and I finally understood what "Les escaliers de la Butte" actually meant.

The lyrics go:

The stairways up to la butte
Can make the wretched sigh
While windmill wings of the Moulin
shelter you and I 

I guess I'm wretched. We found out that the top of the hill is the Butte and I sighed all the way up and down. As of now, Rufus Wainright's accent is still a little to unintelligible for my french ear, but now that I have gazed upon all of the city at once with my own eyes, I am a little closer to comprehending what he is trying to say. 

We searched for a while and stopped at a chic little cafe to people watch, but we still couldn't find the red windmill. We looked at bus maps, and I got unsettled because I had no idea where I was. We walked in between two cemeteries, turned a corner and BAM, there it was. I had finally seen it. 

I gazed upon the setting of the only vaguely real fairytale of my childhood and I felt a little part of myself wash away. There was no giant Elephant and the Moulin itself wasn't bright and enticing. After a few seconds of looking at it however, I realized that what made this place so magical in its hayday wasn't the structure, but the people inside of it. Back at the second to last turn of the century, the beauty of the free people there inspired artists like Toulouse Lautrec  to paint the things he did. This is what the Moulin Rouge looked like yesterday:

 But this is how I will always remember it:

Poster for Moulin Rouge! 2001, 20th Century Fox

The only thing that got me down was that there was no hotel across the street. It either disappeared a long time ago, or never existed. I'd like to think that it did, so the place where Christian wrote his heartfelt story is now either a Buffalo Bills (an American themed restaurant) or a giant Monoprix (french target equivalent).
I have been listening to the soundtrack on repeat for the 4th time now to help me digest what I saw and how I'm dealing with it.  I decided yesterday that after I become the President of Davidson College at age 55, I will return to Paris and visit the Moulin Rouge again. It will be 2048, almost 150 years since its opening, and at that time I will eat dinner and see a show there, for as a penniless sitar player student there is no way in my wildest dreams that I can possibly afford it now.

Until then, as a child of bohemian ideals, I will find inspiration and beauty elsewhere.

We continued to walk and take metro trains and eventually we ended up on the Champs-Elysses, Paris' famous shopping street. There, we ran into some crazy people, ate same cheap sandwhiches and went to the Disney store! By chance, we ran into Keith's high school friend Danielle at this really swank Marriot. We then walked along the Seine for a few hours partly hoping to run into the Davidson Group (We were wearing our Davidson apparel so that we could possibly catch their attention from afar).

Paris never ceases to amaze me.

Today, we ended our weekend by sleeping in and walking to the Montparnasse train station from our suburban hotel. It only took an hour and we saw a cool market on the way.

Also, we have now taken a train from Paris to Tours four times now and our tickets have never been checked.

Coincidence?

Just telling ya'll now, though I have been really good at posting blogs this month, I probably won't write another one until right before the second half of our spring break trip starts, or maybe not until after, putting the third blog post of march at the end of the month. Until then, I wish all of my family and friends (and families of friends and friends of family) well! Though I have managed to extend Pierre's life by just a little bit, my Davidson email is acting like a fool, so though I can read email, it's not letting me respond. Think about it like this: at least I don't have to type up my story with a typewriter.

Bissoux,

Traveling Q

P.S: I would also like Briana Kordsmeier to know that today my host mom made this really sick dessert that involved cream, crushed cookies, and rhubbarb. It tasted like Commons' fruit of the forest pie, and made me think of you.

Trains of Thought

Well this is awkward.

Pierre, my beloved computer, might stop working for me soon, so I apologize if I am not very prompt at responding to emails. Because Pierre's battery hasn't held a charge for a few years now, when the power cord is on the fritz, you know something is up. Right now, I am able to type after constructing an apparatus that applies constant force to the plug port using only materials in my room. I would take a picture, but my camera battery is one of the pieces of the puzzle that is keeping my beloved alive.

I kind of neglected to blog for two weeks, but I promise that it wasn't because I was lazy or anything, I've just been struggling to find a way to tie things together. I really enjoy cohesion in my blog posts, you know, pulled together with some kind of a theme. (I don't know if ya'll have seen it in my past ones, but I promise that most things are intentional). I have now gotten to the embarrassing point where I might forget everything if I don't write it down soon, so here is how this is going to work:

THE TOP TEN THINGS THAT QUINCY HAS DONE IN THE PAST TWO WEEKS: 
 1. I appeared on Television for the first time in a foreign country. It was two Tuesdays ago when team QKAP decided to be good students and do their homework in the institute library. Now, this wasn't any ordinary Tuesday. Not only was it Mardi Gras, the international fete of fun things, but it was also the celebration of the Institut de Touraine's one hundredth year of service in teaching foreign kids how to speak french. As it turns out, l'Institut was having a huge party that day with free crepes, and the local news station came to cover it! We just happened to be in the right place at the right time. We talked all about why we like french and why were studying at the Institute, and it was all a good time. Unfortunately for team QKAP, we missed the news that night, but a girl who was in the same piece recorded it on her phone for proof. I have yet to find this video of us, or the group picture of the 100 candles lit to celebrate. So, here is a video of a news piece taken the same day (but alas, no Davidson students in this one.)

 2. I followed a speech of a internationally renowned political figure in a language that wasn't my own. Well, on the side of the world that isn't the one on which America lies, there are several controversial presidential elections going on. Over here, it is possible that for the first time in the history of the fifth republic of France, a President will not be elected for a second consecutive term. Nicolas Sarkosy isn't the most popular political figure in France right now, but last week, I sat down and watched him declare his intention to run for another five years. What really amazed me was that the current French president spoke so clearly that, though he spoke relatively quickly, I was able to follow him easily. That aspect of his speech reminded me a lot of Obama. However, Sarkosy isn't as calm and collected under fire. When the journalist had no problem in expressing her extreme dislike for him, Sarkosy practically blew up. Perhaps it was because he wasn't wearing a tiny French flag pin on his lapel. The elections happen sometime in May. For now, the Davidson team awaits the news of the Senegalese presidential elections to determine whether or not the political climate in the west african country is safe to travel in. Speaking of Africa:

 3. I met myself in animal form. Two weekends ago, QKAP took a visit to one of the region's more popular chateaux called Chenonceau. We wanted to see it since we talked about its unique ceiling structure in our art history class, but we were convinced to go with the promise of a labyrinth, a donkey farm, and a wax museum. (For those of you that don't know, i'm terrified of wax museums. But it was closed that day so it didn't matter) We wandered around in the pretty gardens for a bit until we found four donkeys (one for each of us) We named them in the order that they were standing, and funnily enough, each donkey somehow resembled our personalities. K was aggressive and unbearable, A ate an apple, and P was a recluse. Q however, was the most adorable donkey that anyone has ever seen and really enjoyed sticking its tongue out to say hello!

Meet Nikos, Quincy in animal form:

 4. I had a really good Sunday. Two Sundays ago, the team went to Blake's house to make French Toast, or as the french call it "Pain Perdu" which literally translates to lost bread. We cracked some eggs, drank some pineapple juice and talked to this really old french lady that watches Blake's house when his host parents are away. Afterwards, we went on a hike with John (Dr. Kruger's life partner)and my host mom! I was really pumped when she asked if she could go with us. She knows a lot about France and it was tons of fun getting to spend time with her outside of the house. At the dinner table, we talk about John often, and because I didn't know how to say "he used to work for the military" in french during the first week, so I said he was a secret agent. It was host mom's duty that day to discover John's secret mission. I think she did.

Photo Credit: Paisley Lewis

Photo Credit: Paisley Lewis

 5. I looked like a hood-rat spray painting along the river. Last Tuesday, the team finally realized our dream of making our Davidson Spring Frolics Tanks along the coast of the Loire river in Tours. We decided a long time ago that because we were missing Davidson's largest and most fun spring celebration, we would celebrate our own way. The tanks read "Spring Frolics World Tours" a word play on where we live this semester. We will now live in infamy as those American kids that ruined the face of the Loire walkway with our stars and stripes forever.

Photo credit: Paisley Lewis

Photo credit: Paisley Lewis

6. I ate food that watched me as I ate it. On Thursday, the Davidson team parted for our Spring Break trip to the French Riviera! Yeah, I know. Best study abroad program ever. We originally only had to take two trains to get to the infamous city of Marseille, but because french people just don't want to go to work, they strike all of the time, and so we had to take four trains to get there. But everything worked out in our favor. Because the hotel ratings went through a change between the time that Dr. Kruger booked the hotel and the time of our trip, it gained a star! So we stayed at a really swank hotel right on the port face. Marseille was nice, but it was kind of dirty and everyone there looks like a pirate. They all wear lots of eye make-up and they all have neck tats. Thursday night, I ate the Marseillaise specialty Bouillabaisse, which is a kind of fish soup where they give you the broth and a bunch of whole fish, head and bones included. Never have I ever had to debone so many fish during a dinner. Oh la la. Worth it? Well, I have always wanted to try it, ever since the Goblet of Fire when the french girls came to Hogwarts and Ron thought someone sneezed when they said the name. Bouillabaisse.   

Nom Nom Bouillabaisse.

 7. I played my chip with the big boys. On our mega spring break trip, we went from Marseille to Nice. We only got to see our hotel before we left the city for my first new country on my semester abroad! Turns out, the Principality of Monaco is only less than a half an hour away by train! So we all dressed up and went to the country where the unemployment rate is 0%. We walked around in our dresses and bow ties and saw some cool cars and then went to THE casino. When there, I won 5 euros in slots! (but then proceeded to lose that plus another 5. I should've stopped while I was ahead) I also dished and bought a chip which I made Keith put on a roulette table (because I was too scared). Surprisingly, the number 34 did not win. We didn't see any celebrities, but we did see a few cool cars and pissed off a casino security guard that made me erase all of the illegal pictures I took of the casino.

 8. I washed up on a beach made of rocks. You northerners know very well the feeling you get when you see water and it's a whopping 65 degrees outside. You think that it won't be that cold and you'll get used to it eventually. Well that is exactly what happened in the Mediterranean Sea this weekend. Jane, Keith, and I took a dip in the water that was quite cold, but managed to stay in for almost a half an hour! This one guy came up to us and asked us to get him sea water for him. He thought we didn't understand him, I just thought he was crazy. Why would anyone want a bottle of salt-water? So eventually I understood that he didn't do it himself because he didn't want to get wet, so I struggled standing up on a rocky beach. I dropped the bottle twice and fell down three times. Why can't the French get normal comfortable beaches? Whatever. The sea  was more blue than any body of water i've ever seen, and that's what made our little excursion worth it.  


9. I celebrated life with flowers and lights. Oh yeah, Nice! We went there! For those of you that don't know, Nice (pronounced Neese) is this city on the southern coast of France that hosts a lot of tourists, kind of like Florida in the U.S. We went to celebrate Nice's Carnaval, which is this big few week long celebration where they have a bunch of parades and celebrations. There was a big Ferris wheel and inflatables, too! We went to a parade that was a mix between the Rose Bowl Parade and Mardi Gras, where floats were constructed out of flowers, and when they were done showing off, they took the flowers off of the float and threw them into the ground. I collected a pretty sweet bouquet if I do say so myself, but sadly I couldn't keep it. The second parade we saw was a giant lights show, where giant floats rolled down the streets and mocked political figures and famous sports stars. It was pretty cool. Nice was just really pretty. It was probably the second cleanest french city i've seen, right after St. Malo. We took one of those touristy double decker bus tours that used to stop in front of Poster Plus in Chicago everyday. I will admit, they are a pretty useful way to see all of the things you need to see in a big city in a day. Also for you P-Plus folks, we went to the Marc Chagall museum! It was nice to see some of his works after looking at 525,600 advertisements for his exhibitions. In Nice, we stayed at this really cool hotel called the Windsor that was really close to the water. At this hotel, each hallway was decorated by a different artist, so all of the rooms had a different creative twist. Jane, Paisley, and my room had a giant mural of a unicorn that I named Giancarlo to watch over us. The others had cool rooms too, but our room had a really nice view and a rose that didn't smell like what a rose was supposed to smell like at all. In the hotel, the tiny elevator was modeled like a space ship and announced lift-off whenever you went up to the top!

Giancarlo the Unicorn

Blake, Keith, and Jane at the Bataille de Fleurs

photo credit: Paisley Lewis

10. I lost my first eating contest to Jane Morrison. On Saturday evening before the light parade, we went to this really famous ice cream place in Nice called Fennocchio's. (Nice is really close to italy, so there is a lot of Italian influence in everything) There were so many flavors that it was so hard to pick two. So Jane and I decided that we would come back the next day to do the "15 Boules Challenge". We each other and came up with rules and listened to Blake's trash talk. We decided that we could each choose 11 of our own flavors, eat the two necessary flavors (Chilli Chocolate and Beer) and then two that the opponent picked for the other (We both picked black olive for each other but I gave Jane this candied strawberry while she gave me basilic tomato) Jane beat me by a whole scoop. I think she only ate 14 because she has no memory of eating the olive flavored one. But whatever, I ate my 15 in less than 12 metric minutes. We then left Nice to come back to Tours and we found out that while it was sunny and approx 65 degrees in the south, it was cold and rainy in the city that we love.

 
In short, I've had such an amazing time in Tours already and I can't wait to see what else is in store. As of now, I have taken eighteen different trains to get to different places around France. I know I'm in store to take at least seven more between now and the 9th of May when I leave for Holland. Right now i'm finishing up travel arrangements to keep me occupied for the months of April and May. Right now I have strands of Yellow Fever and Typhoid running through my body to help me get ready for Senegal.
  
Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I saw Michelle McVicker today, with her friend from Austria Kathi? Yeah! I did! AND SHE BROUGHT MY LAMB! I only got to see them for a bit, but i'll see them again this weekend along with other Davidson students. Keith and I are planning on loitering under the Eiffel Tower all afternoon and hope that they show up. 

Alright, again, I'm sorry for my lack of blogpost and email correspondence. With Pierre's new power cord sling I might be able to keep him alive long enough to respond to some important emails and to skype my parents a few times before we leave for Africa at the end of April. Should I dare to dream? We'll see.

Until next time,

Traveling Quincy

P.S: I just wanted to say thank you to Mrs. Jan Bolubasz! Without her fantastic mittens I would've lost my hands to frostbite a long time ago! Merci bien!!!

Photo credit: Paisley Lewis

QKAP

Young Baby Tired

                                "The Road goes ever on and on                               
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say." 

JRR Tolkein 

This week in France has been a lot different from all of the others. We still had all of our ordinary classes and went to Cha Cha Pasta and all of the usual Tours habits, but this one was one of adventure.

Monday was pretty normal.

Tuesday was Valentine's Day and it was the first one where I didn't see little red hearts plastered everywhere, but yeah, pretty normal.

Wednesday was the real first day of adventure. In France, I have become used to getting an appropriate amount of sleep every night. When I get less than that I become groggy and easily unnerved. I think I picked up a bad afternoon nap habit from my father, too. I must be able to curl up for at least an hour before I eat dinner. (Genetics?) I digress. Wednesday the newbs had to get up before the sun did and catch a train to Orleans. (The first one wasn't good enough, so I guess they had to make a new one?) We were summed there by the French Government to affirm that we were actually in the country and that we were physically sound.

Good news: None of us has Tuberculosis! Yay.

The best part about Wednesday though was the fact that the train we took to get to the capital of Centre was one with compartments! Watching the french countryside go by our window was just like magic. The day would have been perfect if not for looming literature presentations and papers to be turned in as soon as we returned to Tours.

Thursday, again normal. We did hang out with a french person that we met last week though. Before meeting him, I was convinced that every single person in Europe that tried to speak English spoke it well, and if they were uncomfortable with their speaking ability they just stayed quiet or waited for you to speak to them in their native language. Not this kid. But bless his heart he tries.

We taught him the longest word in the english language and he finally learned the correct pronunciation of the word "young", but he's still working on the opposite of best. The young people that we are really enjoy going to bed at around midnight, so when I told him that we were going to go home to sleep, he called me a sleepy baby. (#rosiestrawnlove) I learned how important syntax really is when I received a text saying that I was a "young baby tired" I couldn't help wonder about how awful I must sound speaking to French people. But whatever, the cranky bus lady can just try to figure out what I mean when I ask her, "Does this train go to Carrefour?"

Friday was just happy. The team went to the best lunch restaurant in town and Keith managed to get a free bowl of pasta for filling up his handy-me-down frequent customer card. Paisley sewed a button on my coat. The cold front finally disappeared. I wore my toms outside. Now I don't need to keep the sunshine in my shoes. We watched a movie at Jane's house that painted a hilarious portrait of relations between the French and the Belgians. It was all about border patrol. If the U.S. wanted to do a remake, it wouldn't take. They could either do U.S.-Mexico, which could cause some controversy, or U.S- Canada which would last aboot five minutes when Canada decides to just let all of the Americans in with no struggle.   

Then there was yesterday. I don't know about you, but ever since I was eleven years old i've wanted to gaze upon the White Tower of Ecthelion, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, its banners caught high in the morning breeze. (1) Mont St. Michel was almost as good. The city is on an island just off shore in the northern region of France called Bretagne. It looks a lot like Minas Tirith at first glance, though not as big and not as white. I really can't describe it, so here are some pictures:

What Mont St. Michel is supposed to look like

What it actually looks like

There was no need to be tossed to get inside

My never ending search for the White Tree of Gondor

Mont St. Michel also = Hogwarts

The awful thing is that while at Mont St. Michel, my camera died for the first time while in France so I didn't get to take any of my own pictures of my new favorite place: St. Malo.

St. Malo is a city by the ocean, and when we arrived after our visit to Mont St. Michel, it was sunset. The water was a clear blue and tasted salty. Saturday was the first time I stepped in the other side of the Atlantic, the first time I stepped on a rocky cliff face on the beach, and the first time I set eyes on where I'm going to live after retirement. (Paisley lost her hat to the deep depths of the ocean on saturday, too). I'm really upset that I don't have any pictures to commemorate the second part of the day but i'm sure Keith, Ashley, or Paisley might have some killer photos to show in their blogs instead.

Why do I always feel like I have more to say after I finish a blog? Maybe it's because I didn't sleep more than ten hours last night. This is frustrating. But for now, the sky is blue in Tours, and we have a lot in store coming up in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!

Love as always from
Traveling Quincy

1- Said by Boromir in The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Also: Chris Blanchard.

France is My Playground

Guys, I'm sorry.

I came up with this really elaborate story about how team QKAPS JeBeK made this crazy voyage to Asia and how we met a Sherpa who gave us hot cocoa before we crossed the modern day bridge of questions. This was all so I could explain this really cool photo of a photo I took at IKEA today. I really wanted to show it to the world, but I decided against copyright infringement and encourage you all to travel to your nearest Swedish superstore to check it out for yourselves.

(BTW: Sara did actually go to Asia last weekend. If she had a blog, you could read all about it)

Anywho, I just wanted to say that life has become so normal here, I haven't found outstanding things to devote a whole blog to. Now they have piled up beyond my wildest dreams. I don't even know where to begin.

I guess the first milestone was when Blake's friend Rachel came to visit the lovely town of Tours just before going to here semester abroad in Australia/New Zealand. Yeah, I'm pretty jealous. She's a cool cat, and this is my shout out to thousands of miles away to tell her that I hope she had a great time and to say hi to the Hobbits for me. Rachel's visit was not only fun, but it made me super excited for some familiar faces to arrive across the pond in March!

This might have not been while Rachel was here, but France was recently ravaged with cold and snow. This is what it looked like on the day where I woke up and I couldn't tell the difference between the rooftops and the sky:

   

  And the snow is still here, a week later, now turned to ice, and bringing unsuspecting citizens to their knees in slippery madness. (I've fallen twice)

We had some crepes at Jane's house that day. I have no idea where this cultural boundary came from, but I had never realized that some people don't like mixing chocolate and fruit. I think Jane's host mother nearly threw me out when I mixed blackberry preservative with Nutella. (It's really good guys, I promise). Another weird french thing is that they don't really refrigerate milk, but yet, it doesn't curdle.

Most of my time this week was devoted to observing the little things in french culture, like how there is only one 11:11 here. No one would say, "Wow! It's 23:11! That is such a significant time of the day! Let's wish on it." Here, I've determined that the second wishing number is in fact 22:22 or 10:22 to Americans. I know, it just doesn't have the same effect.

In the past two weeks, the group has gotten to know a lot more of actual french people. We've eaten a lot of crepes and spoken a lot of french and these kids are pretty cool. I even met one girl who did an exchange at Lane Tech in Chicago. The world just keeps getting smaller.

Last weekend the four newbs took an excursion to an ancient abbey that's older than I am. It was really cool and decrepit, but really ridiculously cold. We then went to an ancient chapel and kept being cold, and I licked a wall. If technology in the future does a DNA scan of that building, I might get in trouble for it long after I'm dead and gone from France.

We have just been very busy. The team goes to cooking classes and wine tastings and learns random french words that you wouldn't ever think would come up in conversation. On Wednesday I learned that "baver" means to drool, and for some reason I used that word twice on Thursday in actual conversation. Did you know that 90's children called spitting on a table a"Starwars"? Because the spit is like a blaster! Pew Pew!

Patrick is our wine and cheese tasting teacher. He is really classy and wears a purple striped shirt. He really likes me and Keith and Paisley. He really dislikes Blake. (Keith, Ashley, and I were born in a bad millésime, or a bad year for wine, so he gives us some sympathy) Patrick is so cool that he teaches us funny jeux de mots, or wordplay, for looking at wine. We think that we have become a lot more attuned for tasting wine. Instead of going for the sweet and sugary white wines, we now prefer the dryer wine. We can also tell you what Burgundy means, and how it has nothing to do with Merlots or Chardonnays. As far as cheese goes, I'm getting better. I can eat a whole slice of a certain cheese that my host mom gives me at dinner, but you cannot pay me one million dollars to eat a pound of roquefort.

Friday night, Keith, Paisley, and I decided it would be a great idea to go find this really cool playground in South Tours (which is not where we live) after dinner. It was really cold and really late, so Paisley decided that she wanted to bail and go home where it was warm. So Keith and I ventured into the darkness. We were the only two people outside in Tours that evening so we didn't get in trouble as we wandered out onto the frozen lake to try to get to the island in the middle. It was the first time that either of us had walked on a frozen body of water. We skated around the entire lake in search of this playground, and after one whole lap, we found it. The most amazing playground I've ever seen. Though there wasn't a slide, there was a giant zipline and this thing where if you balanced yourself well enough, you could align yourself at a perfect 180 degree angle in the air.

That night was not only the first time where I walked on ice with out skates, but also the first night I hopped a fence. I should've listened more closely to Keith, because I ended up almost losing a foot while trying to climb over. Oops. But again, totally worth it. The pond in the Prebondes garden was completley frozen over. I don't understand why they don't open it up for ice skating. Even the angry swans flew the coup and let us venture as far as we wanted. (I was not the brave one, though)     

The next day, the newbs took a voyage to Carrefour Planet and IKEA. Let me just say that Carrefour Planet is bigger than the biggest WalMart I've seen. It's gigantic. But they have everything there. You can get your haircut, and do some wine tasting. However, I found the best thing of all:

Wait for it....

Keep waiting....

VANILLA COKE!!!!!!!!!! 

Yes, I have found the Nectar of the gods in France. I bought three 1,25 L bottles and lugged them around with me for the rest of the day. So worth it.  I've already finished most of a bottle. Don't worry folks, I'm trying to figure out how I can bring a stash back to America in May.

Seriously, I couldn't be happier.

Also, though I love Davidson with every ounce of my being, I can't wait to graduate just so I can furnish my abode with stuff from IKEA. I know Tyler Durden would be disappointed with me, but IKEA is just beautiful. So, I apologize now if I blog less often because I'm on the website putting together my future kitchen.

All in all, I've decided that my tendency to blog less often is because I think I'm finally extremely comfortable here. Everything has normalized and I remark only my most bizarre experiences. I find that exploring this new world is just so fantastic that sitting and conversing with Pierre (my computer) means I have to do homework. So blogging has become synonymous with busy work. Sad right? Well now, I have to finish a book in just over 14 metric hours.

Until next time!

Traveling Quincy

PARIS Pt.1

Instead of paying attention in class this morning I decided that a better use of my time would be to outline all of the things I wanted to say in this blog, and I discovered a small problem: I had nineteen bullet points. If I were to sufficiently describe the weekend that I spent in Paris, I would have to write a novella. This seems unfair, for I don't have enough faith in my writing ability to fully express how amazing this weekend was. (After all, it is Paris) I want to say too many things, but at risk of this blog running too long I will cut out the story of the wine tasting. I just wanted to let Claire and Bader know that I can tell them really cool things about wine now.

To begin at the beginning, I can only say that none of us could sit still in our art history class in the hour before our train left. I could listen to M. Dufresne all day, but I knew my attention floated out the window at the point in which I started doodling Mona Lisa with a mustache.

Mona Lisa with Mustache- QAVN 2012

 Nous y avons couru.  

Correction: We ran there with a quick pain-au-chocolat-pit-stop.

In all of the (good) movies that I've seen that have taken place in Paris, several major plot points rely on different aspects of life in the city. For instance, in Pixar's Ratatouille a rat becomes a world class chef based on not only his skills as a chef, but also Paris' abundance of fine cuisine and its affinity for creative stimulation. (For in the city, the most talented people could rise out of the gutter to show the world something fantastic) The list goes on, and maybe I'll come back to this point in PARIS Pt 2., but just know, that from the second I stepped off of the Glacière Metro stop to go to our hotel, I knew that in this trip I would discover a little bit about myself. Now don't accuse me of buttering up my accounts, because I didn't fall in love with Paris at first sight. I knew that I was in for a trip because less than an hour in, my toes were already blistering.

 

Now, the four newbs in our group have heard stories from the FIAP (The hotel where the fall group stayed for a month last year) but we could never fully appreciate how wonderful it was until we saw it with our own eyes. Unfortunately, I neglected to photograph the FIAP myself, so I am unable to fully convey how cool this place is. Just know this: French Commons is not as good as real Davidson Commons, save for the fact that they serve wine instead of Kryptonite.

Also, for those of you that don't know, I'm not in France because I'm a French major -- I'm in France because I want to learn the language and understand the way people think. I want to discover a little bit of what influenced the thoughts of great artists and thinkers that lived here throughout the centuries. I am a Theatre major, and after a month of living in France I finally saw a play. So in this voyage, a valuable use of time went to a small black box theatre in the Latin quarter to see Eugène Ionesco's The Lesson. I won't go into a review of the play itself, but I greatly appreciated being able to understand the majority of what was being said based on the strength of the teacher's acting ability. My ability to laugh with the French people, who do not always share my sense of humor, was comforting and made it easy to contort my mind around the absurdity of the play.

Sadly, as was said in a small bulletin that they handed to the crowed after the performance, the theatre is in trouble. Le Théâtre de la Huchette has been playing a double bill of La Cantatrice Chauve et La Leçon since 1957, and currently it is at risk of closing. If you are ever in Paris, it's a hop skip and a jump away from the Notre Dame. The performance is well worth the time and money.

There is a myth/rumor/tale/speculation that if one stands on the star in front of the Notre Dame, you are sure to come back to Paris at some point during your lifetime. So, as we left the theatre Friday night, Madame Kruger took us to do just that. It got me wondering if I unknowingly passed over the star the last time I was there with Dina, Diane, Francisca, Laurie, Tatiana, Margaret, Helenka, and Mme Imrem two years ago. If we did, I'm thankful, and this weekend I made sure that I am able to return again. When I saw the Notre Dame two years ago, it wasn't anything  like it was now. Now there is a giant christmas tree right out front.

Now, you might be wondering the precise moment that I fell in love with Paris. Well, it was right after we decided to make the most of our night by walking along the Seine from the Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower. The fact that we made this excursion wasn't what caused my coup de foudre, it was the process. I believe I actually felt my heart skip a beat when we wandered through the courtyard of the Louvre and I saw the pyramid lit up against the night sky (or it could have just been Keith scaring the bejeezus out of me in the hallway). We did make it to the Eiffel Tower, and yes it was magical -- more so than any piece of art, music, or poetry could possibly convey. Il faut la voir. The city is just so big, and she has such a great history. Just trying to wrap my head around all of the things that have happened within the city limits and how many people have gazed upon the Notre Dame or the Hotel de Ville baffles me. As Jane pointed out while we ventured through the night, an outsider can't really live in Paris, because eventually you will take all of the amazing things that the city has to offer for granted.

Needless to say, I slept very well Friday night.

I slept very well Saturday night, too.

We saw the collection of the late Diane Arbus, a celebrated American Photographer at the Jeu de Paume.

We took the metro that puts Chicago travel time to shame.

We ate Libyan food and some really poche pastries.

Then we went to Centre Pompidou and saw some really cool pieces. My personal favorite there was the room that looks like the statue in my parents' wedding portrait.

We ate at a colonial food restaurant and Sara didn't eat her shrimp tartare. I did. Aren't you proud of my ability to eat weird foods, mom?

Et puis, we went to this really sick jazz concert. I sat there for two hours staring at the pianist's gorgeous hands. 

You can tell I'm getting short, can't you? It exhausts me even to run through Paris in my mind.

Sunday morning, we woke bright and early to venture to the Musee d'Orsay, my new favorite museum.
It wasnt just the collection that the Musée holds, it's the building itself. The preservation of a nineteenth century train station is a marvel that amazes me, and as we walked through, I couldn't help wish that I could see the turn of the century in it's prime, at home and abroad. I am also biased towards impressionism and neo-impressionism for it presents a really nice change from all of the bizarre collections of trash bins in many other art museums.

I would've taken a picture of many pieces at the Orsay, but sadly, photography is forbidden. I managed to sneak one semi-legal photo of something truly bizarre. Look closely at the four on the ornate clock face.

Cool, right?

A lot of walking happened on Sunday. Blake and I discovered the classiest metro line and visited the National Library where you have to pay to get into the reference rooms and are not always guaranteed a spot. (I'm betting that they don't put out Legos in the beginning of December, either)

A great English teacher once told me that sometimes clichés are an interesting choice to make, but are risky and often make a piece of writing sound fake or uninteresting. Right now, I want to throw his advice out the window and use every over used phrase I can think of to get my thoughts out of my head and onto my keyboard, not because of a lack of creativity, but because people have just hit the mark so well when describing the city of lights, love, and inspiration. That being said, I have probably already used a nauseating amount parentheses and misplaced commas that a few overused phrases would hardly make a difference.  (I'll try to abstain none-the-less)

In short, This blog post turned out a lot shorter than I thought it would be. The only place where I can accurately relive my January 27th-29th is in my mind or on the page of scribbles of quotes in my grammar notebook. To be completley honest, I'd rather dwell on Blake's observation that it really didn't matter if neo-impressionist painters painted the sky yellow than the logical structure of tenses in phrases that describe multiple moments in time. I told Keith today that I would beat him in overall word count, but I don't think I did. However, I do think I succeeded in clearing my head, and maybe tonight I can sleep without unorganized thoughts infiltrating my dreams.

I can't wait to go back. There is still so much to see and I want to conquer so much more. I need to make the climb to Montmartre and find the Moulin Rouge. I must find the hostel that we stayed in during the Starsbourg exchange and actually take my camera into the cathedral across the street. Hey, I might even be up for facing some spiders in the catacombs. All I know is that I will go back thanks to the star of the Notre Dame, and ceci n'est pas le fin du blog.

Traveling Quincy