Monday, July 27, 2009

Bonjour tout le monde.
Last Thursday’s lake trip was pushed to this week due to bad weather, so instead I decided to go to the international food night. The only problem was that you had to bring a dish from your country, and I decided last minute to go, had no recipes, didn’t want to end up with leftover food or pay a ton, and didn’t know what kind of cookware Isabelle had.
I opted for bake and break cookies and some coke. Not my finest moment, but I did what I had to do. I was really glad I decided to go, the food was amazing!!! I tried things from Russia, China, Greece, France, and who knows where else. For the most part, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was eating, but it was good! I wish we could have made some kind of recipe book for everyone.
After eating, I started chatting with a 27 year old chemistry phD student from Texas (I can’t remember his name). Then this other older American named Joelle (? girl’s name?) came over, and he’s a theology phD student. So then the chemistry dude spurred a debate (though civilized) over the existence of God versus the scientific method.
I was interested in the conversation, although I found it a strange setting. I was also impressed by the lack of anger and accusation, and how much they respected one another. I also really enjoyed that Joelle always had a quick, very intelligent response to very tough questions posed by chemistry dude. I was obviously more partial to Joelle’s arguments, but I appreciated hearing someone explain it so eloquently and so intelligently. I felt a little out of place since I didn’t feel I had that much to add to the conversation. Their responses to each other were so quick and so intelligently expressed that it was all for me to really listen and concentrate on what was being said. I did enjoy adding my thoughts on Ben Stein’s documentary “No Intelligence Allowed” and on Pascal’s theory on the bet of the existence of God (which I’ve read in French!). Eventually, the music got so loud I couldn’t hear them very well, and after about an hour the debate came to a standstill. It ended up being the chemist (agnostic) admitting that there could be a God but he just isn’t sure in what capacity, and Joelle calling him noncommittal because if you’re willing to accept that there might be a God, there’s no reason not to believe and see where it goes. Anyway, this was when I made my exit.
I danced with the group, no one from my program was there. I made friends with a Korean and Spanish girl, they were nice. It was the kind of dancing where young kids and immature peers would be embarrassed, but where if you just let go and don’t worry about it, you have a lot of fun. So I had fun dancing with the girls, among a mix of African, Saudi Arabian, Scandinavian, and older Americans.
Friday I found out that my excursion to Chartreuse scheduled for Sunday was canceled due to lack of interest. I was very angry about this since that meant I still had a full day excursion coupon to use and no more excursions left. On top of that, you’re not allowed to get that money back, which I find ridiculous. So I had a little heated conversation with Hakim, one of the excursion leaders. Basically I ended up singing up for hiking (an “activity” worth 15 euro when the full day is worth 40) on Sunday because it was the only thing left to do.
Friday evening Nicki, Alex D. and I left for the TOUR DE FRANCE!!! It was in Montelimar, the second to last stage. I got stung by a ferocious bee on the bus, at which point my wrist swelled up and throbbed for the majority of the night. We avoided a creepy older man on the bus asking to see us tomorrow, and when we reached Montelimar after a 2 hour trip, it was dark and there was no sign that any such event was coming through the town in just a few hours. No signs, nothing set up.
Let me also now mention that we did not book any sort of lodging for the night (everything was booked), and we had full intentions of staying up all night camping out. We figured that others would do this too to get a good spot. Apparently that’s something only Americans do.
So first we set out to find places where we could stay for a long time. We opted first for a restaurant, where we ordered a bottle of wine. After that, we opted for a Kebab restaurant. They are ALL OVER France, and I had yet to try one. They were also open until midnight. It was rather tasty. Finally, when they closed, we headed to an Irish pub where we drank big (for Europe’s standards) cups of coffee with multiple sugar packets added. When they closed at 2 am the real adventure began.
We had asked several waiters where the Tour started. No one knew. It seems that in France, it’s pretty trivial if you aren’t interested in cycling. My host mom’s friend thought it was strange that we would travel to another city to watch it. On top of that, apparently the servers aren’t supposed to be knowledgeable about big events that attract lots of tourists to their town. I think this has to do with the fact that they aren’t tipped, and most of the time care much less about you.
So we wandered around and started to see some barricades that weren’t there earlier. We ended up setting up camp in front of the tourism office because it on the main road, but a little out of sight so that we weren’t targets, and also because we could see someone approaching and go the other way. It was also well lit, and the police and all of the Tour workers started setting up right by us. We whiled away 2.5 hours there until we had to move for the street cleaners. I then took the opportunity to use the payphone to call Tanner and my parents, why not? It was at this point that the workers asked us if we needed a cellphone. I said no thanks. Finally, we spent an hour sitting on a staircase until the sun started coming up.
Other spectators started arriving around 7:30 which I thought was pretty late. We got a hot chocolate to wake up, and continued making friends with the workers. They were like, “We’ve seen you around a lot”. After perusing the merchandise (not much left since it was the second to last stop), we took our spots to be in the front. We opted for the podium area instead of the start line to see more things. Around 9 people started handing out free stuff. It sounds good in concept, and at the time you really want whatever they’re giving out, but then in retrospect you think, “Why did I want a snap-on bracelet for this internet company?” There were two dancing yetis in front of us, and we also got free coffee and crackers, and a bunch of strange hats. Around 10 the parade of sponsors came through, which was interesting but too long. Then finally around 1115 or so the cyclists slowly started arriving. We watched them slowly ride up and sign in, they were just inches away from us at times. A lot of them had bad injuries on their legs.
During this time, a Sony media man stood in front of us. He asked the three of us if we wanted autographs. We said yes! When he asked who, we replied “LANCE!!” He said, “Ok, no problem, I’ll bring him over.” I almost peed my pants. We got our paper and pens all ready, and I was geeking out. Lance ended up being the last cyclist to come through though, so as soon as he signed in he was presented with a check, and then hurried to the start line, so no autographs for us. I was a little bit disappointed just from how confident the media guy was that we would meet him, but the trip was still awesome and totally worth it. After they started, we bought some nougat because apparently Montelimar is famous for it (and that’s about it), and then hightailed it out of there.
Sunday I ended up not going hiking in Vercors as originally planned because Alex M and Dmitri asked me to go hiking a little later to a waterfall. I decided to go with them because 1- I knew them, and 2- I could sleep later. However, the bus we needed to take there was canceled because the bus driver got sick?? Ohhh France, you are a bitch sometimes. You get frustrated here because it’s not that you are just homesick for America and don’t like the way they do things, but that you try to make the most out of being here, and they just don’t let you. It’s incredibly annoying and frustrating.
Anyway, we decided to randomly try to find some trails. We took a tram to the end of the line and then realized that there weren’t any buses coming to take us where we wanted to go. So we abandoned hiking and headed toward a nearby park. En route, we saw a sign for hiking trails! So we followed them and ended up walking forever in the middle of nowhere without seeing any more signs. Finally, we saw a sign for a chateau (castle), so we followed it. It ended up being really lame and you couldn’t go inside. So we went back and took a different road which ended up being up a mountain side with narrow lanes, no shoulder, and lots of curves. Finally, we found the paths we were looking for, and it was well worth our wandering.
It ended up being a series of small waterfalls descending several hundred feet in a canyon. And we climbed up it!! Not all the way up, but we would cross on dry boulders (although my foot slipped in twice and Dmitri nearly lost his glasses). I got a really good picture next to a waterfall I’ll have to put up.
On the way back, we realized there was a MUCH easier way to reach the trails, but at least we found it to take then. Overall, a surprisingly good hike.
I’m ready for classes to be done. Four more days left. Tomorrow our group is going to a very nice lunch in town with the money that was left over in our account. It’s supposed to be very good food and we’re to dress nicely. Thursday hopefully I’ll be able to go to the lake, and then Saturday morning I leave for Paris at 4:15 am to meet up with Kaitlyn to begin our whirlwind trip!
Can’t wait to see people starting in two weeks!
Love,
Katie
ps- will post pics soon hopefully!