Marseille

Marseille is a city to be talked about.  Not one that is particularly conducive to tourists, nor to one’s eyes.  It wasn’t completely terrible, not at all, but compared to other cities that I have visited around the world, it doesn’t rank very high on the list.  Coming into the city from the highway we passed through what are known as the « banlieues » and are suburbs of Marseille with lower incoming housing for people from all around the world.  The third largest city in France Marseille is considered a real melting pot of culture and individuals.  Most of the buildings are high-rise apartment buildings that don’t look much like what would be expected for the Mediterranean coast of France, but the buildings seem to suit the population that resides.  In Marseille proper, the city is full of construction with scaffolding on every block, roadblocks, and cranes covering much of the port area.  Arriving, we continued our walk up through the city to the basilica Notre Dame de la Garde, the highest point in Marseille.  After a short hike the view from the basilicas absolutely stunning as you can see all of Marseille, the sea, and the islands nearby.  The color of the Mediterranean is a brilliant aqua blue that is not matched anywhere else that I have been in the world.  The basilica, despite its fame was not extremely appealing to me, but I decided to enter nonetheless, however when I walked in, that space was overheated (already 90°F outside and with so many Italians tourists, even warmer) barely bearable and pretty empty for a church so I left and continued to wander around the outside looking at the seaside landscape.  It was only later, talking with some friends, that I hadn’t actually entered the church but rather the crypt, and in fact the church was beautifully decorated in colorful tiles and plaques that I missed.  Zut !  

Descending down back into Marseille we split off into various groups and I hopped on a boat.  Marseille was one of the first Greek ports in Western Europe, known then as Massalia.  Marseille was hit by the black plague in the 18^th century killing 100,000 of its population.  Eventually the port and the surrounding islands and buildings became an entrance port of immigrants coming into France.  On the islands of Frioul hold what appears to be the French version of Ellis Island, a record of all those who came, or attempt, to enter France and mainland Europe.  The boat took us out of the port with hundreds of sailboats and past the Chateau d’If from the well-known store of Monte Cristo (which I’ve yet to read, or see as apparently there is a film as well).  This castle, for someone who has no particularly vested interest, is not wildly interesting except that it is a castle in the middle of an island in the Mediterranean.  Apparently French motorboat drivers are insane and I ended up soaking wet in wonderfully pure seawater and hanging on to the edge in the most wonderful and insane boat ride I’ve been on in a long time.  The Islands of Frioul are still a mystery to me as there are again many boats but as it isn’t a large island there aren’t that many residences so my curiosity began wondering what people do and whether people have residences (permanent or otherwise) on the islands.  We went to get some lunch and then wandered around.  There are a few beaches on the island, some larger than others but we found ourselves traipsing across the island and finding a small cove with a very small beach.  The water was cold compared to the water at Stes Maries de la Mer but equally refreshing with a gorgeous view of sheer coastline and sailboats. 

The boat ride back was equally exhilarating and I was again drenched, even more unexpected this time as the whole boat was as well.  Landing back in Marseille I had some delicious raspberry and mango sorbet and then we all headed back to Avignon and I slept the entire bus ride back. 

Life in Avignon

It has been over a week since I arrived in France but it feels like much longer.  Despite language and cultural differences, such as always having the baguette directly on the table, life is pretty great!  It has been interesting to see what I thought would be French stereotypes unfolded to be the exact opposite.  I had been taught that the French do not speak about politics or money, things considered “la vie privée” when in fact, I have found myself having those exact conversations with my host parents, their parents, and even in my classes.  Another stereotype about what the French eat; healthy and small portions, but as I write this now, my host mother R___ is eating nutella out of the jar with a spoon; ahh the sweet life.  For one of my classes I have to write about my observances of French culture, French people that surprise me or provoke my curiosity.  Now, as many of you know, pretty much anything provokes my curiosity, so I’ve had to be careful about what I find interesting versus what I want to know more about.  I have noticed their use of water to be different than that of my own in Vermont.  I drink water like I breath air, but here the water glasses are very small, and so I’ve tried to puzzle out what the explanations for this small difference.  In the end, I just decided to pour myself more water in smaller glasses, as there doesn’t seem to be a water shortage. 

This past weekend, I went on another excursion, this time to the North-East a bit of Avignon to a small very charming town called Vaison la Romaine which holds the ruins of a 12th and 13th Roman city complete with a grand house, a theater, and a château.  After a guided tour of the village that has been uncovered (as much of the village is still buried under the current buildings that make up the town today), a few of my friends and I walked up through the small village on the opposite side of the river Drôme and travelled through quaint streets with perfectly Provençal houses, complete with colorful shutters and flowers outside the window.  The goal was to reach the château, a grand (or at one point grand) castle that looked out on all the villages and vineyards below.  [As a side note, last year in England, field after field was sheep.  In France, it is grapes, vineyard after vineyard.]  Upon reaching the top we had our picnic and enjoyed the view.  Coming down and then back on the bus for a rough ride around the incredibly small streets not made for giant tour buses.  Not knowing how long the bus ride was I decided not to sleep, but after an hour I figured it would have been okay. Luckily staying awake I could see everything that passed, but also, that meant I could feel every roundabout we came to as the bus swerved to one side and then the other.  We finally came to what seemed to be the top of a mountain and the view of a small village called Gordes was right in front of us. The village looks as though it was sculpted directly into the rock.  The town Gordes is also known for stone structures called bories that were once ancient homes, as well as the home of François Mitterrand. After stopping for the view we continued our way up small road and scrapped a car on the way, until we reached the Abbey of Notre Dame in Senanque. 

The Abbey is surrounded by fields and fields of lavender and is still a working monastery of monks.  The lavender was gorgeous, although not in its full bloom and I’m not sure if we were too early or too late.  Apparently the lavender that was growing there wasn’t true lavender but a hybrid for the area it was in, “real” lavender grows higher in the mountains (I think).   We had a tour of the Abbey, which was difficult to understand as the woman’s voice was very high pitched, the rooms echoed and it was in French.  As a result, I stopped listening and enjoyed my own found silence.  I woke up this morning very late, which was great, but I think the next time I have the opportunity I’m going to run around the perimeter of the old walls of Avignon.  

If any of you are interested in a bit of information about the places that I’m going to visit, I have read through my Rough Guide book of Provence and I’ve picked out snippets that might provide some insight.

ARLES
With its sun-kissed golden stone, small-town feel and splendid setting on the east bank of the Rhône, Arles is one of the loveliest cities in southern France. It’s also one of the oldest; the extraordinarily well-preserved Roman amphitheatre at its heart, Les Arènes, is simply the most famous of several magnificent monuments. Originally a Celtic settlement – the name Ar-larl meant “moist habitation” – it later became the Roman capital of Gaul, Britain and Spain, and survived the collapse of the Roman Empire as a base for the counts of Provence before unification with France. For centuries, the port of Arles prospered by way of the inland trade route up the Rhône, profiting especially whenever France’s enemies blockaded its eternal rival, Marseille. Decline set in with the arrival of the railways, however, and the town where Van Gogh spent a lonely and miserable – but highly prolific – period in the late nineteenth century was itself inward-looking and depressed.

THE CAMARGUE
Spreading across the Rhône delta and bounded by the Petit Rhône to the west, the Grand Rhône to the east, and the Mediterranean to the south, the drained, ditched and now protected land known as the Camargue is distinct in every sense from the rest of Provence. With land, lagoon and sea sharing the same horizontal plain, its shimmering horizons appear infinite, its boundaries not apparent until you come upon htem. The whole of the Camargue is a Parc Naturel Régional, making great efforts to maintain an equilibrium between tourism, agriculture, industry and hunting on the hone hand, and the indigenous ecosystems on the other. When the Romans arrived, the northern part of the Camargue was a forest; they felled the trees to build ships, then grew wheat. These days, especially since the northern marshes were drained and re-irrigated with fresh water after World War II, the main crop is rice. To the east, along the final stretch of the Grand Rhône, the chief business is the production of salt. Evaporation was originally undertaken by the Romans in the first century AD, and the Camargue now holds one of the biggest salt works in the world. Saltpans and pyramids add an extra-terrestrial feel to the landscape.

The Camargue is a treasure trove of bird and animals species, both wile and domestic with its most famous denizens being the bulls and the white horses that the regions gardians (herdsmen) ride. Neither beast is truly wile, though both run in semi-liberty. A distinct breed of unknown origin, the Camargue horse is born dark brown or black, and turns white around its fourth year. It is never stabled, surviving the humid heat of summer and wind-racked winter cold outdoors. Of the region’s fifty thousand or so flamingos, ten thousand remain during the winter when the rest migrate to North Africa. They’re born grey, incidentally, then turn pink between four and seven.

Avignon is a great little city in the south of France. It is not too big and not too small. I am living with a host family (en français c’est une famille d’accueil) and they are very sweet and accommodating. Just a middle-aged couple, with a very large black cat, who cries even more than Chico, if you can believe that. His name is Amitah and his nickname is Bebo. Upon arriving in Avignon my host family met me at the train station and we went back to their apartment. They have an entire floor of a building and they live at the top because the people that live below them are elderly. I have my own room with a large bed but only one pillow, compared to my usual seven; I think I’ll survive. They then took me into the centre-ville of Avignon and we walked down the main road, which is called la Rue de la Republique, and is filled with tourist restaurants and banks, etc.

We went to the Palais du Roure, which is where the l’Institut is, and we went in because they are friends with the guardian of the building. It is a Palais from the 15ieme siècle (15th century). The guardian gave me my own private tour and afterwards we had an aperatif, which the French love, and consists of a drink, we had beer, and something small of nosh on, cacahuètes, (peanuts). After we came back to the apartment and talked until dinner, which we had around 9h. The French eat late like the Spainards.

My host mother is not a big cook, she says, but she made a tart that was pretty good and we had some paté en croute which is sort of similar to baked brie, although not served warm. Pretty delicious! And then I gave them a gift of a book of photographs from Vermont, which they absolutely loved, and R___ said that Fall was her favorite season in Vermont.

Today we met for the first time at the Palais du Roure as a group and the director gave us a brief introduction and then we had the day to ourselves and then short meetings in the afternoon to chose our classes. With my free time I had the opportunity to buy myself a French cellphone, which is called a téléphone portable. And it is less expensive than my iPhone in the US and very mignon (cute).

The only difficult part of my day was that apparently travellers cheques are old-fashioned and most banks no longer exchange them, the post office won’t take them anymore either, although apparently that is only temporary, and so I have to find a way to get euros. My host mother’s bank is possibly the choice, but by the time I arrived it had already closed, perhaps Monday.
Tomorrow we have a guided tour of Avignon and Sunday we are going to Arles and Camargue.
When classes start I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to write, but I’ll try and write at least once a week.

À bientôt

As I am leaning up against the South African Airways and Aer Lingus ticketing counters hearing airport employees drag line markers across the airport ticket check-in floor I can’t but think about the home and the life I just left behind. I am about to embark on a journey of a lifetime. I am beginning my European adventure today, a seven-month excursion in France that might lead me to other places as well. I will be starting off in the John F. Kennedy International airport however, for at least five hours. Apparently the lines for ticketing and thus the ticketing counters don’t open until 2pm, it is 12:57 and my flight from Burlington got in at 12:15. I could wait for them for open up the lines, but frankly that doesn’t sound like something I’d really like to do. When I got up this morning, around 7:14 it was the last time I will ever wake up in my bed at 2353 _________ in Vermont. Alas, it has been a long time coming, but the reality is much more impressive and is quite the rude awakening than I’d every imagined. After my seven month adventure, I’ll return to an environment that I know because I’ve lived there all my life, but similarly, a place that I haven’t gotten the chance to really know.

My foreign adventure will begin when I land down in Dublin, Ireland at 5am, after what will be a brilliant flight on Aer Lingus. From then I will debark, and take another plane to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. Upon arriving at CDG, I then will take myself to the TVG, the French high-speed train system, where a woman from l’Institut d’Avignon will be waiting with my ticket to France. I am going to spend six weeks in Avignon, in the region of Provence in the south of France. There I will take two classes, one in French grammar (greatly needed) and the second in the European economic an increasingly important subject matter. During the summer in Avignon there happen to be various theatre festivals, the “In” and the “Out” festival and I am excited at the opportunity to absorb a true slice of French culture as well as being completely immersed. The opportunity to watch theatre is something I haven’t found great interest in here in the States, but perhaps the added exoticism of the French will cause me to have a different opinion.
Concurrently with my six weeks in Avignon, I also plan on visiting my great uncle __, who as an astronomer, lives in the south of France by an observatoire. It will be great to see him as I haven’t seen him since the beginning of this century.

After Avignon, I will be traveling with a friend of mine, SL, to Nice, on the Côte d’Azur, also known as the French Riveria. We will be traveling for a few days, hopefully catch a few breaths in Monaco, and some time in the beautiful Mediterranean. From that vantage point, I will then hope on a train up the countryside of France to Normandy, where I will be WWOOFing, a volunteer farming program. I will be working on organic farms for room and board and enjoying a new French region.

Finally I will end my seven months, or rather split, half way, in Paris where I will spend my semester studying abroad and various Parisian universities.