Mont Saint Michel Trip, Part 1

You all know the story about how I left my camera in someone's backpack at Mont Saint Michel, but luckily that happened after I got the chance to take lots of pictures!  That trip happened over several days, so there are photos of many different places.  I'll try to put them in some sort of order, but please forgive me if it's a bit confusing...

The first day of the trip was spent stopping by various sites on the way to Mont Saint Michel itself.  One of the places we stopped was a circular cinema in Normandy where we saw a video made of various segments of period footage of D-day and other WWII history of this area.  It was quite eerie, because everything was in a circle, so you got a bit of an impression of being in the battlefield.  I remember once hearing shooting behind me and having to resist the immediate instinct to duck. 

This monument was just outside the cinema. 

 I don't have a picture of the top of this monument, but I think it was just a simple obelisk.  The inscription reads,

"This monument is commemorative of the centennial of the naval combat of Arromanches on the 7th and 8th September 1811 erected on the hill where the fort stood.  

The courage of our sailors and of our soldiers decided the victory. 

Honor to their bravery!  

 8th September 1911."

From the cinema, you could take a trail leading down the hill towards the beach.  About a quarter of the way down the hill we found this tank, which of course everyone had to climb on and wave their country's flag. 

Unfortunately we didn't have time to get all the way down to the beach.  This photo was taken from the tank, which was
the closest we got to the famous beach at Normandy.  Sorry Mr. Kramer. 

 The next place we went was the American Cemetery and Memorial in Normandy.  This was probably the most emotional place I've visited in France.  The sheer size of the place was hard to digest, when you thought about how each of those crosses represented a life that was never lived.  Looking at the birth and death dates, most of those men were in their late teens and early twenties.  They had their whole lives ahead of them, and those lives never happened.  That's what I really got from my visit there.  Another aspect that hit me hard was the fact that each cross had the state where that person came from written on it.  Something about that made it seem more personal.  

I didn't take any pictures here, because it didn't feel quite right- sort of disrespectful.  This photo is from Wikipedia.

And here I am with all the other Rotary students in the Paris area in front of the memorial.  This was taken by a Rotarian.

So that's the story of how we got there and all the interesting things seen on the way.  I'm going to break off here, and do Mont Saint Michel proper in another post, coming soon!

Christmas Lights on the Champs-Elysées

Last Sunday evening I had the opportunity to see the Champs-Elysées all lit up for the traditional Marché Noël.  It was magical.  I'm not going to write much on this post, because I think it's best to just let the pictures do the talking in this case.

All the fountains in the surrounding area were decorated like this, with fake snow sprinkled around so it looked like a wintery fairlyland.

These brightly lit hot wine stands were all over the place, all festively decorated in a sort of Germanic style with lots of garlands and vintage style Père Noël posters.  Apparently the Marché Noël in Strasbourg is amazing, so maybe that's where the Germanic inspiration comes from...

Another common feature are roasted chestnut stands ("Marron" means chestnut and "chaud" means hot).

Some may say that this picture didn't turn out very well, but I like to think of it as an artistic portrayal of the hustle and bustle of the Champs-Elysées during Christmastime.

Do I need to explain what this is?

This was taken while literally standing in a crosswalk in the middle of the Champs-Elysées with traffic rushing past on both sides.  It was such a perfect perspective I had to get a picture.

Noyon Photos

I realized that if I kept waiting to have time to create an organized post with all the stories I want to eventually include I would never get the most important part (photos) posted.  So here they are, some photos from the Noyon trip which I will talk about more later!  Basically, we saw the (fairly famous) cathedral of Noyon, where Charlamagne may or may not have been crowned.  I'm not yet sure on that one.

Me, Haruka (Japan), Cathedral

Here you have the whole spectrum of emotions, starting with Amanda looking joyous and friendly and ending with me looking grim and forbidding.  I promise, I wasn't looking that way on purpose.  I guess my face just goes that way when I'm not thinking about it.

Some details of the Cathedral- by the way, those large chips you can see on the stonework aren't just from  age, they're bullet marks from WWI.

And here you can see one of my favorite aspects of French cathedrals- the gargoyles, or gargouilles as we refer to them here.   These guys are there to conduct the run off from the roof, so when it rains all the water pours out of their mouths. One thing I really want to do is go to Notre Dame de Paris when it's pouring rain, because apparently with all the gargouilles there it's quite a sight.

(P.S.  These are off Facebook, I didn't take them.  Credit goes to Amada Leibel for these.  I'll post the photos I took along with the organized post, when it happens)

100 Days

And after posting the banque alimentaire post I glanced at my countdowner widget and noticed that it said it's been 102 days since I've been in France!  So here's a little post celebrating the 100 day mark, although a bit belatedly.  It's gone so fast!

Banque Alimentaire

...Or food bank, for those of my readers who don't speak French :)

The Friday before last, I participated in a food drive with the Rotary club at a local grocery store.  We stood at the door and passed out bags to shoppers entering the store, which they would use to carry a few extra nonparishable items which they bought during the course of their normal shopping.  When they exited the store, we would be waiting with specially marked shopping carts in which they could put their contributions to the food bank.  I stood behind a shopping cart and said the phrase "Merci beaucoup, bon soir!" more times than I ever have in my life.

It was nice to do something for such a good cause, and I wanted to share my experience and a photo (below) on this blog to show that being a Rotary student isn't just about hanging out in Paris and eating lots of delicious French food, it also means contributing to your host community.  Any future exchange students who are reading this blog should know that your experience will be so much richer if you get involved with your community and always be conscious of the fact that you are a citizen of the world, and as someone living in a foreign country and town you should do something to give back to that country and town.

At the banque alimentaire, with some of the Rotarians I worked with.

...And I promise I will have the pictures up extremely soon.  Promise.

I Got My Camera Back!

The title pretty much says it all.  I just finished organizing all the pictures I had on the prodigal camera, and now I'm going to do several long overdo posts about several events all at once...Loads of photos coming up!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Living in a country where the only reason anyone knows about Thanksgiving is because they celebrate it on Friends, I just want to wish everyone back home and all the other American and Canadian exchange students who are also feeling the lack of the holiday a happy Thanksgiving. 

I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with my host family the weekend after next, due to various reasons including late mail, lack of ingredients, a sick host brother, and an absent host sister.  I explained to my host family how Thanksgiving is a time for family to come together, and we all agree that it would be best to celebrate at a time when it can be stress free and everyone is actually together, and the next time that is possible is next weekend.  I'll be sure to take lots of pictures (I will definitely have my camera back by then) so all my readers can look forward to photos of my French Thanksgiving!

Update

Nothing extremely eventful has happened recently, just spending time in Paris, learning French, going to school...Life on exchange.  Every moment is worth noting, but after a while so many notable moments happen that you can't note them all anymore.  If that makes sense.  I guess this is just a general update, since I haven't written anything in a while and I don't want to be neglectful...So here's a sample of some of the stuff I've been up to.  Unfortunately, no pictures, because I STILL don't have my camera (Beauvais is a loong ways away). 

I realized the other day that on Thanksgiving I will have been in France for three months to the day, which is an interesting coincidence.  I've had a lot of rebounds tell me that things change after three months, so it'll be interesting to see if that's true.

Last weekend I spent a lot of time in Paris, in le Marais district with some other exchange students.  I got falafel there for lunch two days in a row, and the falafel there is the best I have ever tasted.  I believe the rumor that le Marais is the best place to get falafel outside of Israel.  Although, having never tried Israeli falafel, I can't say for sure.  Guess I'll just have to go to Israel and find out!

Last weekend I also bought a Paris map booklet which is exceedingly useful.  And also interesting...Is it weird that I like reading my map of Paris for pleasure?  It's just so fascinating to see how it's all laid out, and I think it's good to have a general knowledge of where stuff is.  I'm excited to get to know Paris better.  It's such a delicious feeling to know off the top of one's head which metro line is the best to get to the Louvre (It's Line 1, by the way), or how to walk from the Hôtel de Ville to Notre Dame without getting lost...how insane is that, getting to know stuff like that that only comes from spending time in a city?

I'll be going to Noyon, the town where Charlemagne and Hugh Capet were both crowned and where John Calvin was born, in the last weekend of the month.  Rotary is doing a trip there for all the Paris students, so hopefully I'll get my camera back then!  Then I will take lots of pictures of everything to make up for lost time.

I can't think of anything else to say, so I guess I'll sign off now.  Until next post!

Long time, no post...

Many apologies for not posting in ages, especially considering that I've been up to all sorts of adventures since my last post which I have not shared.  However, I have an excuse...and it's very valid.  During one of my adventures, during which I took lots of pictures, I left my camera in the backpack of one of my Rotary friends, so I wouldn't have to carry it around and risk setting it down someplace and losing it.  And of course I forgot to get it back.  And Rachel, the friend with the backpack, happens to live on the extremely dangerous and forbidden RER train line D, so I can't just hop on a train and get it back.  However, I should be getting it back pretty soon, and as soon as I do I promise to upload all sorts of lovely photos of the lovely things I've been doing.  So expect a sudden burst of posts sometime within the next month.  Until then, suffice it to say that I'm having a lovely time and seeing lots of amazing things that I can't wait to share with all you readers! 

Versailles!

I started writing this post a while ago, but then had some difficulty uploading the photos, then forgot about it, so it's quite late...Sorry!  Here it is, finally...My Versailles trip.

I'm watching Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette; so it seems like an appropriate time to write a post about my trip to Versailles last Sunday!  It was a lovely day, perfect for being outside, so we spent the whole time walking around the gardens.  It was gorgeous.  We were there on a day when they had the fountains going, so we got to see the whole magnificence of the place.  Being at Versailles was like going to Paris for the first time for me in that it was a totally surreal, is-this-really-happening, I-feel-like-this-is-a-movie experience.  Especially later, as the sun got lower in the sky and started hitting the walls of the chateau, making the whole thing glow gold...It was incredibly beautiful.  But I don't need to tell you about how gorgeous it was, you just look at these pictures...

Crazy hair and a huge smile- a sign that fun is being had!

This is the outdoor ballroom in the garden...The fountain was decorated with exotic shells brought back from the Red Sea by the French Royal Navy of the time.

This is also at the ballroom...You can sort of see the exotic shells, along with the obligatory (this is Versailles) large ornate gilded thing.  And yes, I know it looks like I have no eyes...It was really  sunny, and I'm squinting in almost all of these pictures.

Again at the ballroom...And me in the middle of saying something...

Versailles, the gardens, the fountains, the glory

Ditto...