After meeting many of the students at the airport in Paris, and my program managers, we headed off in shuttles to our hotel. They were four days well spent, making friends and seeing the sights. By the third day we knew how to operate the Metro completely. I don't have any pictures of Paris because apparently I forgot to check the batteries in my camera before leaving home. Needless to say, everything was beautiful, and I saw almost everything I wanted to. Maybe I'll post more about Paris later.
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| Ma Chambre |
Yesterday we took the TGV from Paris to Grenoble, met up with our families, and moved it. My family is very nice and I feel pretty comfortable here. They have a good sense of humor, which I expected from our emails, but I think the biggest joke of the family is that Marie Emmanuelle loves ice cream. She insists she'll only allow herself ice cream once a week.
Today my host mother and father took me hiking up Charmant Som, one of the three or four outstanding surrounding mountains. At the top there's a cross, and along with that, I've a story:
Frédéric and I get to the top, and stop to have a sit, a sandwich, and a look around. (OH DEAR GOD, HE JUST WALKED IN AND GAVE ME A REPLACEMENT PLUG FOR MY MAC PLUG SO NOW I DON'T HAVE TO USE THE WATT CONVERTER. THIS IS MAGICAL). As we sat there, he pointed out the different mountains, and the little town below called St. Pierre de Chartreuse (where we eventually went and Marie Emmanuelle bought 55€ worth of cheese). As we're sitting there, this guy is making crazy grunting noises behind us. We turn around and see that this man has climbed the cross and thinks he's awesome. His daughter, pretty young, is asking him to help her up so she can sit there too but he refuses. Fréd gets up and turns around to watch, so I do the same. At this point the guy is off (or getting off of) the cross, and my host father tells him that it's a symbol to be treated with respect, and isn't for gymnastics. The man extends his arm to touch Fréd's shoulder (naturally he says "don't touch me") and asks if he's the police. Ignoring him, we begin the descent, which was much easier than going up! Oh! Speaking of going up, on the hill there were a bunch of brown cows with bells around their necks and we were so close we could almost touch them. I should have taken a picture. I do have a picture of our view from the top:
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| This is my life now. |
At the bottom, we couldn't find Marie but eventually she came around. We got in the car and drove off where they had a little dispute about where she was supposed to be (she insisted that he said it'd take an hour so she decided to take a little walk). The important thing is that I understood 89% of it, and therefore had to keep a smile from my face. Eventually we reached a town with a church that's known for the contemporary art inside of it. It's called Église Saint-Hugues-de-Chartreuse. The art was really quite beautiful, but of course I'm not religious so I had Marie explain to me what we were looking at. We left the church, had a cup of coffee at a little restaurant (sitting down was interesting... We got stared at by the two people at the table in front of ours. I kid you not, this guy turn around in his chair and stared daggers at me when I sat down. If they can smell America from across the ocean, I wouldn't be surprised). Then we went and bought the cheese in the next town over.
I need to ask them how to get around. Things start up for real tomorrow morning, bright and early.
Next weekend we're going to Geneva, Switzerland to see a museum featuring art from an American artist whom I forget the name of, but I'll get you the information later. No big deal, just going to Switzerland.
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