In the time since I’ve last posted, I have done some pretty cool stuff. Like, for example, last weekend I went Paris to attend a ceremony under the Arc de Triomphe relighting the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
On Friday after school, I got on a train headed for Paris. It’s about two hours from Bourges to Paris by train so I was lucky to have a good book to keep me occupied for the trip. I am not, technically speaking, allowed to travel on my own but my club made an exception for this trip (considering that it was a Rotary member who invited me).
When I arrived at the Paris train station, I was picked up my counselor’s son and his wife. They live in the middle of Paris, and are a music producer and online marketer respectively. They are some of the brightest, friendliest people I’ve ever met- they not only took me in while I was in Paris, they showed me more of that beautiful city than both of my previous trips combined!
After leaving the train station, we dropped my things off at the apartment, which was remarkably well organized considering they had moved in five days ago. (In fact, I got to see their new place even before my counselor and his wife). We went on foot to go get a late bite to eat at a restaurant on their street called the Escargot. While I did not try escargot there, I did have frog legs. It honestly was pretty good and did taste like legs from a very tiny chicken. Frog legs are not really eaten that often in France, considering they are awfully small for being about as good as any other type of meat. But since I’m foreign, I get to try all sorts of interesting different specialties that aren’t usually eaten. We also had some delicious foie gras and a beef entrée. (Cultural note: In France, ‘entrée’ refers to what we call ‘hors d’oeurve’ in English. I have yet to hear any use of the word ‘hors d’oeurve’, despite it’s being a very French sounding word. Here, the main dish is referred to as the ‘plat principal’, which means, very poetically, ‘main dish’.)
After the delicious dinner, we walked back to the apartment and went to bed. I had to be up early to go to the Paris Hôtel de ville or city hall. We walked to the Hôtel de ville, which truly is the best way to get to know a city, I saw so many magnificent buildings and places, that I can’t even name them all (I do remember the Centre Pompidou, which is the Paris museum of modern art with some of the craziest architecture I’ve ever seen. Its eclectic fountain, which is usually surrounded by a crowd, was completely clear of people and easy to admire that early Saturday morning). However, after this weekend, I can actually recognize them for what and where they are.
The ceremony I had been invited to was organized by the Veterans Association of France, which was why it was given enough importance to take place in some really amazing places which are not usually open to the public (like rooms in the Hôtel de ville). The President of the Veterans Association is a member of my Rotary club here in Bourges, though he spends a lot of time working in Paris, and he was the one who invited me to the event. When the couple who was hosting me for the weekend dropped me off, we were all wowed by the magnificent décor on the inside. The outside is impressive enough, complete with an immense ice skating rink in the main square during the winter.
The first ceremony I attended was in honor of about fifteen teenagers who had won a contest for a piece of art which memorialized the veterans who had died in France during the first or second world wars. They were awarded their prizes, and several speaking addressed the crowd, including the General of the French Army.
It was certainly a nice ceremony, though it lasted for about three hours. By that time, I was ready for the lunch which was served right afterwards in an adjacent room. I was seated at a table with several veterans, their wives, and one 15-year-old contest winner. It was, as usual, an absolutely delicious five course meal. Thanks to the formal dinners I’ve attended here, I have become totally adept at knowing which fork to use.
After lunch, I was taken under the wing of the son of the Rotarian who invited me, along with his wife. A bus took us along with everyone else to Les Invalides, which is another incredible Parisian landmark, made visible by its gilded-gold domed roof. It was built at the time of Napoleon I, as a hospital for the soldier who fought for him. It is still a building dedicated to veterans of France. We attended mass in the chapel of Les Invalides, where this live choir and organ sent chills down my spine.
As we left the mass, I was able to get of picture of some of the dignified veterans in uniform in the courtyard, each holding their own flag.
We then were bussed to the Champs Elysées where we window shopped at Louis Vuitton and got a warm drink at the Café George V. When we saw the tips of flags marking their way through the crowd, we knew it was time to go and join the group for the final ceremony of the night. Following along behind the uniformed veterans, we waked straight down the middle of the Champs Elysées, moving towards the Arc de Triomphe. For those who don’t know the Arc de Triomphe is surrounded by what is probably the biggest and most frightening roundabout in the entire world, so tourist are usually forced to take an underground route to reach the arch itself. You could tell from the police men stopping traffic and the sound of honking behind us that walking down the middles of the Champs Elysées is not something one gets to do every day.
My always friendly and helpful guides for the day took this picture of me.
As for the ceremony itself it was extremely touching, I was standing just next to the flame when the General of the French army helped the youngest contest winners, a young boy and girl in about 7th grade, to relight the flame. When the flags dropped in memory for the fallen soldiers, my eyes got teary. It was something about the silence in the middle of all the sounds of Paris and the light of the single flame which somehow seemed so far away from the glowing skyline.
On the way the hotel in which the final dinner was being held, the man who sat down next to me on the bus starting talking with me, and I found that he was the mayor of a town not too far from Bourges, Neuvy-sur-barangeon. I was actually just in Neuvy-sur-barangeon and when I told him that I was going to be there next weekend, he invited me to the Ceremonie des voeux on Friday night. This is a ceremony in which the mayor wishes all the citizens the best for the New Year and for 2012. Unfortunately, I was not able to go, but I thought that it was a really exceptional invitation nonetheless.
When we got to the hotel, we were all happy to warm up after having been outside on a fairly bitterly cold day. The dinner was an expansive buffet, which was very good. I got to meet some of the teenagers who had won the contest, and we had fun together. I got some good recommendations as for war memorials and battlefields to visit, as they had all recently been to various sites as a part of the competition.
My counselor’s son came to pick me up after the dinner, which finished around 10:00. My day was not yet over, however! I spent another two hours walking swiftly, haphazardly with him through the streets of central Paris. I saw a huge part of the city by night- the lights along the Seine, the courtyard to the Louvre empty of all visitors. It was really during this was that I started to recognize places that I had already seen before and I gained a whole new perspective to the city. Every corner we turned held something amazing- an average looking castle (yes, this is a place with that many castles and similar buildings) turned out to be the prison where Marie Antoinette was held. Notre Dame, the Paris opera, the Grand Palais…
By the time we finally came home the ankle which I had twisted the week before was starting the hurt again, but I hadn’t even noticed until we got back to the apartment.
The next morning, I wrapped up my ankle, and we set off for a day tour of Montmartre- by scooter. This is a misleading term, because a scooter in France is, though unlike an American motorcycle, far more capable than the electric scooters we imagine. (Those are referred to motos). Having been lent a leather jacket and gloves for wind protection, I also donned a helmet which had a built in walky-talky with its pair, so that my counselor’s son and I could talk while riding. His wife had her own scooter so we all made our way together to Montmartre.
Perhaps it was the lack of traffic on Sunday morning, but I honestly found that riding a scooter with a Parisian at the wheel was far less terrifying than being in a car with non-Parisian trying to navigate traffic. Not to mention that we spent at least half the time we would have in a car, being able to zip through most of the traffic and park on the sidewalk.
Montmartre is a beautiful neighborhood of Paris, and it was a beautiful day. Here, I’ll just put in the pictures I took of the street performers on the steps of the Sacre Coeur (a beautiful basilica overlooking the rest of Paris) and the other sights I saw.
The Sacre Coeur
This Statue was just a statue- until he started moving!
We heard the opera music from far away but didn't know it was these two until we turned a corner. They were very good- the sign said members of the Paris opera
We got lunch with a friend of theirs, who recommended the burger at the restaurant we went to. Now, I have been really pretty good about eating French food while I am here- really taking advantage of the opportunity- but it’s been nearly five months since I’ve had a real burger so I caved in an ordered one. It wasn’t bad- but I do have to say that it wasn’t like a burger from home, either.
That afternoon the scooter tour continued for another hour or so, before stopped at the bakery on the way home. They not only introduced me to Paris, but also to several new and absolutely delicious pastries. After our snack, I got my bags ready and headed to the train station. We said good-bye, I said thank you about as many times as I could, and two hours later I was back home in Bourges.
I don’t have much to say about the week in between; because I’ve got to write about my last weekend before my laptop battery dies.
So yesterday, Saturday, I quite luckily didn’t have any class in the morning. This was a good thing, since with Rugby practice the night before, I didn’t have time to pack again for this weekend.
At noon, I got my stuff together and went to two of my friends’ house for lunch. One of them is a friend from school who will be leaving with Rotary to spend next year in Brazil, and the other is my American friend (also with Rotary) who her family is hosting for the next three months. Their (host) mom drove us to Neuvy-sur-barangeon, the same town I was invited to last weekend, to a large hotel in the Sologne, a nice forested area of our region. There, we met up with all of our friends who are in France from other countries, while the expectant outbound students went to informational meetings and got paperwork done. There were also a good number of French students who had already spent a year abroad, including my friend who was in Peru last year.
I always love meeting up with the other Rotary exchange students, and though our Australian and Argentinian friends had left, we did get to meet one new Argentinian girl in the district (the southern hemisphere’s exchange schedule is different from the northern hemisphere). We treated to a tour of an astronomical research facility which was not too far away from the hotel, a delicious dinner where we met up with all the French students again, and then a dance with a DJ that only finished at 1:30 am. It was honestly an absolutely awesome way to spend time together and to meet all the new people who will be leaving next year.
This morning, we had an early wake-up with breakfast at 8:00, and spent the rest of the morning hanging out/ ironing out paperwork for visas and the Europe bus trips. We left too early at 11:00, when my host mom picked up the three of us who had car pooled together.
I came home, made myself a cup of tea and spend the first afternoon I’ve had in a while relaxing and writing this up. I hope you enjoyed reading it because I certainly had fun doing it!
