This week we had a rather... how to word it... ironic experience. From the first day I started interacting with students, I have been asking them what they think of when they think of America. Probably the number one response among students is "MacDoh!" which is their affectionate title for the American franchise McDonald's. Actually, "McDonald's" is just too hard for them to pronounce so "Macdoh" is the best they can do. Anyway, back to the story. So it seems like the only thing most of the younger students know about America is McDonald's. They all ask me what the differences are between the French and American McDonald's. It was a little hard for me to answer those questions because I honestly haven't eaten at McDonald's for years (except for occasionally for a breakfast biscuit, but those aren't even served here so I hardly find it fair to count that). In one of my BTS (post graduate) classes, I asked the students what they had done during their break off school and one of the students told me he had worked the entire time. I asked him where he worked and he told me he worked at Macdoh. This prompted a class discussion about McDonald's in America and France. Several minutes later the discussion moved on to another topic. When I asked the students if they had any questions for me, one of the raised his hand and asked, "Do you want to come to Macdoh with us next Tuesday? With the whole class?" Of course I wanted to go! The irony, in my opinion, comes from the fact that they all think Americans can't get enough of McDonald's, but it took me coming to France to finally go eat there. Another interesting thing is that the day they invited me to go was a Wednesday. They had planned a trip to McDonald's an entire week in advance, which is evidence of their different opinion of the fast food chain. If I were to go to McDonald's, or any other fast food restaurant for that matter, in America, I would definitely not plan on it a week in advance. In fact, I usually don't decide where I want to eat for lunch until I'm already driving around looking for a nice place to eat and my decision usually comes from whatever restaurant is closest/cheapest. To top off the irony of the situation, one of the students mentioned to me that Macdoh was hosting a Monopoly game, peel the pieces off the food and hope to win. All the students had been participating, collecting pieces hoping to win the grand prize. This particular student told me that in the past two weeks, fourteen days, he had eaten at McDonald's ten times hoping to win. During our meal, someone came up to our table asking if we would be willing to give him our pieces. I suppose I had always just assumed that those peel and collect games that the restaurants hosted were rigged and there was no way I could ever win. Looks like the marketing tactic works a little better in France than in Utah - I guess I can't vouch for the rest of the country, but I don't know anyone who has ever collected game pieces hoping to win.
Despite the irony and the fact that we were eating at McDonald's, we managed to have a great night. The restaurant itself was much nicer than any McDonald's I've been to in Utah, they had employees walking around taking orders with their little hand held computers so you could get your food faster at the front of the line. There was modern art hanging on the walls. Plus we had pretty good company. After the meal we all went and played bowling. Everyone assumed that Ariel and I would be amazing at bowling since we are Americans. It seems they weren't let down! Ariel and I are not great bowlers. I played a lot of bowling when I was a little younger, playing on teams and doing some tournaments and such, but that was quite a while ago and I'm really not that good anymore. Ariel is consistent, but again, not state champion quality. Well, based on their reactions to some of our shots, you'd think we were bowling celebrities. Every frame they would all clap for us and make comments about how amazing we are at bowling. They could not believe the way I made the ball curve to knock over pins in the corners. It seems to me that the French struggle with things that require your hands. This is completely off the topic, but we played ultimate with some other friends a couple weeks ago and they all really struggled throwing and catching the frisbee. Not to mention their struggles with basketball as well. Bowling seems to fit in the category of sports with hands that the French are not naturally good at.
I have really grown to like working with the BTS students. They seem more invested in their studies. They seem more serious and generally they are more mature. I think this comes from the fact that they have chosen to be in school rather than having it forced on them. They are also more interested in me, in where I come from, why I am here, America in general, school systems in America, etc. That makes it easier for me to talk to them, I get more excited about telling them things because they seem to appreciate it more. I have been struggling a little bit with the younger 14 and 15 year old students. They all come in larger groups so when I am not addressing certain students, they talk to their friends. They don't want to try, they don't care about America, and really, coming to my class just means another hour of class that they don't want to do. They are disrespectful to me sometimes, nearly always disrespectful to the other students. Some of them are well behaved, but the ones that don't behave make it harder to help the ones that do behave. Because of all this, I have come to hate Thursdays. On Tuesday and Wednesday I have mostly BTS kids. On Thursday I have five hours of young kids and only one hour of BTS. It's nice knowing that after Thursday I have a long weekend starting on Friday!
The weekends are always nice. We spend a lot of time with the members of the church on Saturday and Sunday. We play sports Saturday morning (when it is raining we play Ping-pong), and because of that we became pretty good friends with some of the youth from the branch. Then on Sunday we go to church and I was asked to teach the Sunday school lesson to the youth, which has made our friendship with them even stronger. Ariel is really starting to get along with the relief society and her French is improving immensely. She is getting more and more brave when speaking French to them. We study French for almost an hour pretty much every day then spend a lot of time talking to each other in French so that has made a huge difference. After church on Sunday, we have our Institute class, which is about eternal marriage. That is fun but sometimes kinda weird since we are the only married ones in the class. Last Friday, the ward held a great big Thanksgiving party. Everyone brought some food and a dessert. We made sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Everyone looked at it and said something like, "that is weird, that's just not right, I don't know about this..." but after they tried it, they went crazy about it. Everyone wanted more and they ran out almost immediately. The next day Ariel made some Gingersnaps and a green onion food that they often have for Christmas in her family. Everyone loved those too! It seems the French really love American food (everything from McDonald's to home made specialties), just like we tend to love French food!
The one complaint we have had is that it really hasn't stopped raining for the past few weeks. We had one nice, warm day last week and spent it exploring the Gallo-Roman area of the city and some buildings/ruins that came from the first century up to the twelfth century. That was incredible and I will have to put some pictures of those buildings up. It was crazy to see ruins of a first century arena and imagining the movie Gladiator taking place right here in Perigueux. We are planning on going to the museum of the Gallo-Roman time one of these days to learn a little more.
lundi 22 novembre 2010
vendredi 12 novembre 2010
Almost an entire week of work... I need a vacation.
I almost did it! I almost did an entire week of work! This week was looking like it would actually be the week that I would do all the hours that I am meant to do, but it didn't work out in the end. Turns out there was another holiday this week: Armistice Day. Armistice Day is a commemoration of the end of World War I and is celebrated by taking school off. Taking the day off to celebrate the end of WWI made me realize I don't really know ANYTHING about WWI. I have studied WWII quite a bit and feel like I have a pretty good general understanding of what happened in WWII. WWI, on the other hand, was somewhat of a mystery to me. In order to change that a little bit, Ariel and I went to the "Musee Militaire" in Perigueux which is a museum dedicated to the evolution of the military from the Middle Ages to present day. They boast the fact that they are the largest military museum in Europe. I was very impressed by the huge amount of legitimate war artifacts actually used and salvaged from the wars of the world, particularly French wars - everything from clothing to weapons to art and newspaper clippings from the time of each war. Some of the items were damaged from bullets or fires from the wars, which honestly made it feel more real to me. I thought it was very unfortunate the way that most of the stuff was displayed. For the amount of amazing artifacts they have and the history that is behind each and every piece of it, they could have gone to a lot more effort to present it in a more beautiful/pleasing/informative way. I think if they were to tidy the place up, they would have a lot more visitors. All the mannequins were terrible colors, broken, ugly, etc. There was little information about each artifact, sometimes a date but not much else. Because of the poor presentation, I learned less about WWI than I was hoping, but had an enjoyable time none the less. Perhaps it was a good thing because it inspired me to want to learn more about the war on the internet which I will do during my 5 day weekend. What better way to commemorate the end of the war than by studying the war?
The days I did work this week were great. I was glad to have Thursday off because it is my longest and most difficult day. I learned very quickly that the younger students are much more difficult to work with than the BTS (post-graduate students), even if they have a better level of English than the older ones sometimes. The young students may know how to communicate better, but they really don't care about English, they aren't interested in learning English or the American culture, they tend to talk to each other, joke in class, and always speak French. I ask them questions in English and they respond in French. They understand the question and I know they could respond in English if they wanted to, but it is too much effort to speak English when they know I will just understand their French. Another thing that is pretty annoying is that, among the younger students, there are many of them who are pretty good at English so they make it their responsibility to translate everything I say in English for the other students of the class. I will ask a specific student a question and from the other side of the room someone shouts out the same question in French. Then the student responds to me in French and someone else in the class will translate their response or tell them what to say. None of this is doing them any good, neither for the students who are translating or the students receiving the translations. I think I am going to have to make a strict NO TRANSLATING rule for the classroom and maybe make a couple posters or something to hang on the walls. Perhaps a punishment of bringing me a dessert if you are caught translating too many times or something. I don't know if that would be allowed in French schools. I guess I better figure that out.
I am really loving working with the BTS students. They are closer to my age, between 19 and 22 for most of them, and they seem genuinely interested in learning about me and America in general. They often times have a harder time speaking English since it has been a couple years since they studied it, but they make more of an effort than any of the younger ones. They ask questions - not because I tell them to ask questions - but because they want to know. During one of the classes, one of the students told me he had worked a lot during the holiday break. He explained that he works at McDonald's and we proceeded to discuss as a class the differences between a French McDonald's and an American one. They really enjoyed this discussion and later on in the class, when I asked them if they had any questions for me, one of them raised his hand and said, "Do you want to go to McDonald's with us next Tuesday?" Apparently they are going as a class, the whole class, but not officially as a class, to McDonald's together and Ariel and I will be guests of honor. We are very much looking forward to this experience.
Speaking of going out, the students are not the only people from the school who have become our friends. Some of the teachers of the school have been very kind to us as well. There is a young couple, both about 25 years old, both English teachers in high schools, who have been very kind to me since I got here. Ariel just met them yesterday for the first time when they invited us over to their apt for a home cooked French lunch which was delicious. We sat and talked for hours and hours about many things. It's funny because I think they know more about American Pop-Culture than either of us! They know all the American actors, tv series, movies... really anything related to the television and celebrities, they know it. They were kind enough to lend us a couple DVDs of French sitcoms so we could catch up a little bit. I must admit I'm a little nervous about what we will find on these sitcoms since I know the French have very different standards of what is appropriate for television than we do in the United States. I suppose all we can do is give it a try and see what we find. Most of the sitcoms are actually pretty historically accurate, based on King Arthur and Camelot or King Henry VIII. That will be not only entertaining but also educational.
Aside from that, life has been a little uneventful due to the weather. It has been raining since Monday, and today is Friday. Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly sunny, then we will start another week of rain every day. It makes it hard to want to get out and explore when you are cold and wet after just two minutes outside. On top of that we have both been battling little colds, so not a whole lot of new experiences to recount. Hopefully my next week of work, which will actually be my first FULL week of work, will bring some new adventures and insights.
The days I did work this week were great. I was glad to have Thursday off because it is my longest and most difficult day. I learned very quickly that the younger students are much more difficult to work with than the BTS (post-graduate students), even if they have a better level of English than the older ones sometimes. The young students may know how to communicate better, but they really don't care about English, they aren't interested in learning English or the American culture, they tend to talk to each other, joke in class, and always speak French. I ask them questions in English and they respond in French. They understand the question and I know they could respond in English if they wanted to, but it is too much effort to speak English when they know I will just understand their French. Another thing that is pretty annoying is that, among the younger students, there are many of them who are pretty good at English so they make it their responsibility to translate everything I say in English for the other students of the class. I will ask a specific student a question and from the other side of the room someone shouts out the same question in French. Then the student responds to me in French and someone else in the class will translate their response or tell them what to say. None of this is doing them any good, neither for the students who are translating or the students receiving the translations. I think I am going to have to make a strict NO TRANSLATING rule for the classroom and maybe make a couple posters or something to hang on the walls. Perhaps a punishment of bringing me a dessert if you are caught translating too many times or something. I don't know if that would be allowed in French schools. I guess I better figure that out.
I am really loving working with the BTS students. They are closer to my age, between 19 and 22 for most of them, and they seem genuinely interested in learning about me and America in general. They often times have a harder time speaking English since it has been a couple years since they studied it, but they make more of an effort than any of the younger ones. They ask questions - not because I tell them to ask questions - but because they want to know. During one of the classes, one of the students told me he had worked a lot during the holiday break. He explained that he works at McDonald's and we proceeded to discuss as a class the differences between a French McDonald's and an American one. They really enjoyed this discussion and later on in the class, when I asked them if they had any questions for me, one of them raised his hand and said, "Do you want to go to McDonald's with us next Tuesday?" Apparently they are going as a class, the whole class, but not officially as a class, to McDonald's together and Ariel and I will be guests of honor. We are very much looking forward to this experience.
Speaking of going out, the students are not the only people from the school who have become our friends. Some of the teachers of the school have been very kind to us as well. There is a young couple, both about 25 years old, both English teachers in high schools, who have been very kind to me since I got here. Ariel just met them yesterday for the first time when they invited us over to their apt for a home cooked French lunch which was delicious. We sat and talked for hours and hours about many things. It's funny because I think they know more about American Pop-Culture than either of us! They know all the American actors, tv series, movies... really anything related to the television and celebrities, they know it. They were kind enough to lend us a couple DVDs of French sitcoms so we could catch up a little bit. I must admit I'm a little nervous about what we will find on these sitcoms since I know the French have very different standards of what is appropriate for television than we do in the United States. I suppose all we can do is give it a try and see what we find. Most of the sitcoms are actually pretty historically accurate, based on King Arthur and Camelot or King Henry VIII. That will be not only entertaining but also educational.
Aside from that, life has been a little uneventful due to the weather. It has been raining since Monday, and today is Friday. Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly sunny, then we will start another week of rain every day. It makes it hard to want to get out and explore when you are cold and wet after just two minutes outside. On top of that we have both been battling little colds, so not a whole lot of new experiences to recount. Hopefully my next week of work, which will actually be my first FULL week of work, will bring some new adventures and insights.
mardi 2 novembre 2010
Semaine de vacances
It's crazy to think that I have already been living in France for a month and a half! Especially since, honestly, it still feels like I haven't even started working in the school and doing what I came to France to do. I have started, but everything has been a little particular considering the strikes and vacations that have seemed almost constant since my first day going on a little tour of the school on October 1. I did one week of actual teaching the week before last and it went relatively well. It seems there was a minor misunderstanding between the students and the "vie scholaire" which is basically like the school office. For some reason there was a sign posted at the vie scholaire that said there would be no classes with the language assistant until after the "New Order." Some students thought that meant after the new year, others didn't know what it meant but just decided to not go to class. Coupled with the strike that was lingering from the previous week, my first week of work was rather uneventful. I was to start on Monday with one class. Not one student showed up. Tuesday I had several classes scheduled and no one showed up. Wednesday I had one class and a couple students actually did come to class! It was nice to actually have some students. Thursday, my first few classes were empty, then one student showed (and you're not allowed to give a class to just one student), then they seemed to have got the message and I had a couple full classes in the afternoon. Having never met most of the students before the class, not knowing their level of English, and having no clue what they were learning in their classes since every teacher sort of does their own thing, it was very hard to prepare a lesson ahead of time. I planned on just getting to know the students, asking questions, letting them ask me questions, and trying to help them realize that this year can actually be fun! Some of the classes responded very well to this lesson. They had questions and comments, they shared ideas and it was a genuinely interesting class. Other classes really could have cared less and the fifty five minutes I spent with them seemed to last forever. I managed to get a hold of some of the teachers who send me their students and they gave me a few recommendations of what they would like me to cover with their students. That will make it a lot easier.
After a day and a half of actually doing what I was meant to do in France, it was time for vacation! Since Thanksgiving is not celebrated in France, they make up for the lack of Thanksgiving break by celebrating a holiday called All Saints Day. I don't really understand the nature of the holiday, but from what I gather, it is similar to Presidents Day in America where we celebrate all the presidents in one day, but for them they are celebrating all the Catholic saints on one day. My wife and I took advantage of the week and a half of vacation time to head to Paris for a nice little visit. What an eye opener it was to be in Paris for five days. I have been to some big cities in France. I lived in Nice, I passed through Marseille a couple times, but these cities don't even compare to Paris. Paris is like a four story building and we spent time in all four.
The top floor is everything elevated above the ground. Our hotel was on the fifth floor (sixth by American counting since we call the ground floor 1 and the French call it 0, thus adding an extra floor to any building), which was even higher than our third floor apartment in Perigueux - which we thought was high in the first place! The top floor of Paris also includes the top of the Eiffel Tower, the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral, the top of the Arc de Triomphe, etc. Unfortunately most of these elevated locations all cost a lot of money to visit. Aside from our hotel, the only raised attraction we visited was the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral.
The ground floor of Paris is obviously everything on ground level. The Eiffel Tower, all the Cathedrals, the monuments, the museums, statues, fountains, parks, roads, cafes, restaurants, everything you could possibly imagine. We loved seeing all the famous sights. The museums were more beautiful than I had even imagined. My very favorite visit was that of the Monet exhibit in the Grand Palais. Monet has always been my favorite painter, and he was French en plus! The exhibit had hundreds of his paintings from the most famous to many that were almost completely unknown. It went through basically chronologically which allowed the visitor to notice the changes Monet made as he grew and matured as an artist. We used the audio tour as we went along which also proved to be invaluable - explaining things that were going on in Monet's life at the time of each painting. If the only thing I had done in Paris was to visit that museum, it would have been worth the trip. I haven't been able to justify buying the official book of the exhibit because it costs 50 Euros, but I would love to have it and maybe after I start getting paid I will consider it. For now it is just a dream. The Louvre was amazing as well, but everything seemed so much darker, even bordering morbid, compared to the works of Monet. The pieces were incredible to say the least, it just isn't my favorite type of art - although that does not mean I respect it any less.
The next level of Paris was the transportation level - the metro. The metro was incredible. There were cars every 2 minutes most of the time, especially during the day. If you showed up and saw the metro car driving away, all you had to do was wait less than five minutes and the next one would pick you up. It was so easy to transfer from line to line and we could get anywhere in the entire city in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Our first metro ride was particularly nice as there was a group of accordion musicians on the tram with us playing what sounded like old time French music. It was quite nice. The only complaint about the metro is that it was always so crowded. I could count the number of times on a single hand that we were able to sit down in the car. Usually we were pushed up against a wall and hanging on to a railing so we wouldn't fall into the crowd and cause a major domino effect. Along with the crowds came the fear of pick pockets. I felt particularly conscious of this because I was carrying my favorite camera and all the cash we had with us. Not to mention I had a camera stolen from me in a train station in Marseille during my mission. A little extra vigilance and constantly feeling our pockets to make sure everything was still there helped us to make it through the entire trip without having anything stolen.
And the basement of Paris, one that probably many people don't actually know about and that isn't often mentioned when there is talk of Paris, is the Catacombs. Twenty meters even farther down under Paris than the metro is a giant set of tunnels and caves filled with nothing but human bones. It seems that there were some problems with some of the cemeteries in Paris so in the 1700s they decided to put all the bones from the cemeteries in these tunnels under Paris. They began by throwing them in at random, but later decided it would be better to organize the bones in a beautiful manner and allow people to come visit. They did get a little creative making designs in the walls, anything from hearts to doors to crosses. On many of the walls they had written messages to those who would be visiting, all of which were very morbid in nature. The first one, right above the entrance to the first hallway with bones, said "Stop, here is the Empire of Death." Later there were signs that said things such as, "If you have ever seen a man die, always keep present in your thoughts that the same end is waiting for you," or "Every morning when you wake up, remember that you may not make it to the evening, and when you lay down to sleep at night, keep in mind that you just may never wake up." I couldn't tell if this was done as somewhat of a joke to make the already eerie experience even more creepy, or if everything that was written on the walls was legitimately a belief they held at the time - that everyone should always be thinking about their impending death.
Living in the big city for a few days was a great experience, but it helped me to realize how much I appreciate my small town of Perigueux. I spent a fair amount of time thinking about Perigueux while I was there. Perigueux isn't even as large as on of the arrondissements of Paris, has no metro or tram and a mediocre bus system at best. There are no universities, no major museums, nothing of international appeal, and not a whole lot of people. It is hard to find a good kebab, there aren't many creperies along the roads, and you really only hear French as you walk around outside (compared to the Italian, Dutch, Arabic, German, English, Portuguese, Romanian, etc. that we heard in Paris). There is a much smaller risk of pick pockets, there are no beggers on every street corner, bus stop, or church entrance, no one trying to sell us five Eiffel Tower key chains for one euro, and no Romanians asking us if we dropped our gold ring then trying to sell it back to us for who knows how much. I haven't seen people walking around with their point-and-shoot digital cameras held at arms length or video cameras out trying to capture the greatness of their surroundings. From what I can tell, there are no officers dressed in military camo with machine guns around the major parts of town, but it doesn't feel like they should be here anyway. Yes, Perigueux is much smaller and there is a lot less in terms of Tourism. If you don't know how to enjoy yourself wherever you are, you might find yourself complaining that there is nothing to do here. Nonetheless, I love it here. Perigueux has made me feel at home already. People here are able to be nice, they have the time to go out of their way to help us because there isn't a line of people behind me waiting to do the exact same thing I'm trying to do. I understand why people in Paris are so... how to put it... rude? In a bad mood? It is because every single day there are thousands of people trying to take advantage of the service they provide. Even if they started with motives of helping people have an enjoyable experience in Paris, they are now overwhelmed by the constant visitors, the complaints, the theft, and all they can think about is protecting themselves and earning a living. That doesn't happen in Perigueux.
Well, now that I am risking to start rambling, I will end my speech/overflow of thought by saying I look forward to becoming a member of the society in Perigueux. I enjoyed my visit to Paris, but I'm glad to be back where I belong right now.
After a day and a half of actually doing what I was meant to do in France, it was time for vacation! Since Thanksgiving is not celebrated in France, they make up for the lack of Thanksgiving break by celebrating a holiday called All Saints Day. I don't really understand the nature of the holiday, but from what I gather, it is similar to Presidents Day in America where we celebrate all the presidents in one day, but for them they are celebrating all the Catholic saints on one day. My wife and I took advantage of the week and a half of vacation time to head to Paris for a nice little visit. What an eye opener it was to be in Paris for five days. I have been to some big cities in France. I lived in Nice, I passed through Marseille a couple times, but these cities don't even compare to Paris. Paris is like a four story building and we spent time in all four.
The top floor is everything elevated above the ground. Our hotel was on the fifth floor (sixth by American counting since we call the ground floor 1 and the French call it 0, thus adding an extra floor to any building), which was even higher than our third floor apartment in Perigueux - which we thought was high in the first place! The top floor of Paris also includes the top of the Eiffel Tower, the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral, the top of the Arc de Triomphe, etc. Unfortunately most of these elevated locations all cost a lot of money to visit. Aside from our hotel, the only raised attraction we visited was the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral.
The ground floor of Paris is obviously everything on ground level. The Eiffel Tower, all the Cathedrals, the monuments, the museums, statues, fountains, parks, roads, cafes, restaurants, everything you could possibly imagine. We loved seeing all the famous sights. The museums were more beautiful than I had even imagined. My very favorite visit was that of the Monet exhibit in the Grand Palais. Monet has always been my favorite painter, and he was French en plus! The exhibit had hundreds of his paintings from the most famous to many that were almost completely unknown. It went through basically chronologically which allowed the visitor to notice the changes Monet made as he grew and matured as an artist. We used the audio tour as we went along which also proved to be invaluable - explaining things that were going on in Monet's life at the time of each painting. If the only thing I had done in Paris was to visit that museum, it would have been worth the trip. I haven't been able to justify buying the official book of the exhibit because it costs 50 Euros, but I would love to have it and maybe after I start getting paid I will consider it. For now it is just a dream. The Louvre was amazing as well, but everything seemed so much darker, even bordering morbid, compared to the works of Monet. The pieces were incredible to say the least, it just isn't my favorite type of art - although that does not mean I respect it any less.
The next level of Paris was the transportation level - the metro. The metro was incredible. There were cars every 2 minutes most of the time, especially during the day. If you showed up and saw the metro car driving away, all you had to do was wait less than five minutes and the next one would pick you up. It was so easy to transfer from line to line and we could get anywhere in the entire city in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Our first metro ride was particularly nice as there was a group of accordion musicians on the tram with us playing what sounded like old time French music. It was quite nice. The only complaint about the metro is that it was always so crowded. I could count the number of times on a single hand that we were able to sit down in the car. Usually we were pushed up against a wall and hanging on to a railing so we wouldn't fall into the crowd and cause a major domino effect. Along with the crowds came the fear of pick pockets. I felt particularly conscious of this because I was carrying my favorite camera and all the cash we had with us. Not to mention I had a camera stolen from me in a train station in Marseille during my mission. A little extra vigilance and constantly feeling our pockets to make sure everything was still there helped us to make it through the entire trip without having anything stolen.
And the basement of Paris, one that probably many people don't actually know about and that isn't often mentioned when there is talk of Paris, is the Catacombs. Twenty meters even farther down under Paris than the metro is a giant set of tunnels and caves filled with nothing but human bones. It seems that there were some problems with some of the cemeteries in Paris so in the 1700s they decided to put all the bones from the cemeteries in these tunnels under Paris. They began by throwing them in at random, but later decided it would be better to organize the bones in a beautiful manner and allow people to come visit. They did get a little creative making designs in the walls, anything from hearts to doors to crosses. On many of the walls they had written messages to those who would be visiting, all of which were very morbid in nature. The first one, right above the entrance to the first hallway with bones, said "Stop, here is the Empire of Death." Later there were signs that said things such as, "If you have ever seen a man die, always keep present in your thoughts that the same end is waiting for you," or "Every morning when you wake up, remember that you may not make it to the evening, and when you lay down to sleep at night, keep in mind that you just may never wake up." I couldn't tell if this was done as somewhat of a joke to make the already eerie experience even more creepy, or if everything that was written on the walls was legitimately a belief they held at the time - that everyone should always be thinking about their impending death.
Living in the big city for a few days was a great experience, but it helped me to realize how much I appreciate my small town of Perigueux. I spent a fair amount of time thinking about Perigueux while I was there. Perigueux isn't even as large as on of the arrondissements of Paris, has no metro or tram and a mediocre bus system at best. There are no universities, no major museums, nothing of international appeal, and not a whole lot of people. It is hard to find a good kebab, there aren't many creperies along the roads, and you really only hear French as you walk around outside (compared to the Italian, Dutch, Arabic, German, English, Portuguese, Romanian, etc. that we heard in Paris). There is a much smaller risk of pick pockets, there are no beggers on every street corner, bus stop, or church entrance, no one trying to sell us five Eiffel Tower key chains for one euro, and no Romanians asking us if we dropped our gold ring then trying to sell it back to us for who knows how much. I haven't seen people walking around with their point-and-shoot digital cameras held at arms length or video cameras out trying to capture the greatness of their surroundings. From what I can tell, there are no officers dressed in military camo with machine guns around the major parts of town, but it doesn't feel like they should be here anyway. Yes, Perigueux is much smaller and there is a lot less in terms of Tourism. If you don't know how to enjoy yourself wherever you are, you might find yourself complaining that there is nothing to do here. Nonetheless, I love it here. Perigueux has made me feel at home already. People here are able to be nice, they have the time to go out of their way to help us because there isn't a line of people behind me waiting to do the exact same thing I'm trying to do. I understand why people in Paris are so... how to put it... rude? In a bad mood? It is because every single day there are thousands of people trying to take advantage of the service they provide. Even if they started with motives of helping people have an enjoyable experience in Paris, they are now overwhelmed by the constant visitors, the complaints, the theft, and all they can think about is protecting themselves and earning a living. That doesn't happen in Perigueux.
Well, now that I am risking to start rambling, I will end my speech/overflow of thought by saying I look forward to becoming a member of the society in Perigueux. I enjoyed my visit to Paris, but I'm glad to be back where I belong right now.
Inscription à :
Articles (Atom)