Carnival and a parade!

So this weekend there was a carnival and a parade in my city.  No one seemed to agree what the occasion was- some said it was "Carnivale" others claimed it was in honor of the arrival of spring.  And spring has certainly arrived!  This weekend it was in the 60's with clear blue skies and plenty of warm sunshine.  

On Saturday afternoon I walked down to the center of the city to check out the carnival.  It was a small but well attended event.  There were three rides, two performance areas, and loads of food booths selling snacks as fundraisers for local groups.  I arrived to find the "Appalache 25" of Besançon performing on the main stage.  Dressed in traditional "western" clothes à la United States, they were square-dancing their hearts out to American country music.  I was surprised and delighted by their performance.

At the same time there was also an awesome capoeira performance taking place on the pavement a little ways away.  With drums, music, and chanting, it was a fun and upbeat little show.  Some of their moves are just unbelievable!  

While watching the capoeira, I was taken by the urge to buy a bag of "french churros".  Red flag:  churros may be carnival food but they are not french.  Not even close.  Better to stick to the crêpes from now on if you ask me.  

Today, Sunday, my friends Soka and Christine came over and we all went to the parade together.  It took forEver to arrive and when it did, we could easily tell why.  This was less a parade than a series of mini-performances, for which the whole line stopped every time.  Band after marching band playing a lot of fun, upbeat, but fairly similar stuff would stop to entertain the crowd every half a block or so.  In between bands were some pretty impressive and unusual floats, check out my photos if you'd like to see more.  

One thing I noticed that really bothered me was the silly string.  In french it is "fil serpentine" (snake string).  Walking vendors sold silly string and bags of confetti to the spectators.  This seemed fun and festive until I saw how everyone behaved with the silly string!  They were downright mean.  People participating in the parade who walked by were sprayed right in the face, over and over again!  It was horrible!  Kids and adults sprayed with hateful aim, laughing rudely all the while.  And the poor participants maintained a fixed but pained smile and kept on walking.  It was awful.  I was really disgusted by how they behaved.  

After this spectacle, we all came back to my place and made some microwave popcorn that I had brought with me from the U.S.  What a treat!  It was actually less buttery and greasy than I had remembered, but tasty all the same.  

And finally, we finished the day by going over to Soka's apartment to have coffee and a few treats.  We are always trading chocolates and cookies from our respective countries!  It is so enjoyable to talk with them in French about anything and everything, often comparing "how it's done" where we are from.  Soka and Christine are two of the best things about France, and they aren't even french!  It seems that no matter what I go looking for in a new country or new experience, it is always friendship that I find and cherish the most.  

These are a few of my favorite things...

Lately I have been enjoying life here so much that I'd just like to share a few of my favorite things...

Food:

Every morning for breakfast I have dark chocolate muesli, which is made up of granola cereal with little squares of dark chocolate.  I looked at the label: it is 15% dark chocolate squares! We are not talking about a few measly marshmallows here.   This cereal is so crunchy, so bittersweet, so tasty, it is all I can do to keep myself from eating it at every other meal, too!

When I feel like eating a hot dinner, "Spices of the Orient" couscous is always the first dish that comes to mind.  Five minutes to make and you have a flavorful and colorful accompaniment to any soup or salad!  You would have laughed if you could have seen me the first time I made this dish- I was beaming with pride at my "cooking skills"!

Mandarin oranges on the go: portable, peel-able, healthy, and tasty!

LU "veritable" petit beurre crackers- somewhere between a graham cracker and a cookie, this is the best afternoon snack, hands down.   

Well, cheese and baguettes would seem to be a given, but they deserve a mention anyway.  The regional comté is always a treat, and I especially like a certain goat cheese that is very mild but tangy.  Beyond the traditional baguette, there are a lot of types of bread to choose from at the boulangerie (bakery).  The bread is golden-brown crusted perfection for about a day, and becomes stale shortly there after.  This makes great toast for breakfast, though.

People and Places:

Every one to two days, I visit my local Petit Casino, a neighborhood grocery store owned by a large chain.  It is adorably small: only two aisles, one of which doubles as the checkout line.  My grocery needs are low, so I am able to find everything I need there: dark chocolate muesli, crackers, oranges and apples, nutella, the ever-mystifying non-refrigerated shelf milk, couscous, soup, croutons, sausages, orange juice, tea, yogurt, and wine.  

But the best part about the Petit Casino is by far my grocer.  Friendly, funny, and a fast talker, he is there every day, ready to answer my questions about shelf milk, regional specialties, and all other manner of unusual items.  He is just about the nicest person I know here and I buy my groceries in small amounts just to have a reason to visit more often.  I often wonder what he thinks about the strange American woman who asks dumb questions and seems to subsist primarily on chocolate muesli and yogurt...

Similarly nice are the two guys who run the cafe on the top floor of my school.  I have acquired the delicious habit of drinking a "café" (what we would consider an espresso) before or during my 3 hour long afternoon classes.  Within two visits, I was a regular.  There is always upbeat music playing and the guys are often whistling and tapping their fingers to the beat.  I even ran into one of them during my weekend in Strasbourg.  Small world!  I will miss their friendly service and funny banter.  They also make a mean panini sandwich, which is a great treat if you get there before the lunch rush to snatch one up.

The riverside area right outside my school is a particularly pretty place.  Yesterday I counted 8 pairs of ducks near the banks of the river- what a sight!  They are graceful and comical at the same time.  There is also a beaver from time to time if you are lucky enough to spot him!  

Victor Hugo cinema is a great hide-out on a rainy day, or any day for that matter.  With only three screens, they manage to show a number of films per day by changing the choices throughout the day.  The seats are like individual thrones- so plush and deep that they practically engulf you!  The theatre is small, dark, and cozy, and the previews are always a treat.  When you are a foreigner, pre-show advertisements that might be annoying or dumb to native speakers are absolutely fascinating!  

Things:

Telerama magazine is the french equivalent of Entertainment Weekly, only more thorough and serious.  I read it cover to cover every week, even though the tv summaries (the bulk of the magazine) don't apply to me 'cause I don't have one.  Mostly I like to survey the number of American films showing on French tv that week.  There is, without fail, at least one obscure Johnny Depp movie featured each week.  French movie reviews are an absolute joy to read, as are the book reviews and cultural/topical interviews.  

Public advertisements and posters:  I remember when I was first learning to read as a kid, I would read all of the billboards aloud with glee.  This scene is repeating itself, as I now take enormous satisfaction in reading and interpreting every French ad I see.  My favorite so far was an ad for Lipton chai tea: Quand un grand coup ne suffit pas (When a deep breath just isn't enough).  

Well, there are certainly more favorite things, but I will end the list there for now.  Hope all is well with all of you!  Feel free to respond and share a few of you favorite things, from when you were my age (or are my age) or from today.  

New photos of my neighborhood!

Check out the link "photos of my travels" on the right-hand side of my blog.  I've posted new photos of my neighborhood in the album "More Besançon" (at the end of the album).  Start with the photo of the white flyer, and enjoy!  

Weekend à Strasbourg

Last weekend I took the train to Strasbourg, a city on the border between France and Germany, in the Alsace region of France.  (Photos are posted to go along with my summary).  My friends and classmates had plans of their own, so I ended up going by myself, which was actually pretty nice.  The train ride was supposed to be about 3 hours, but it ended up lasting 5 hours because of repairs on some of the tracks.  I kept myself entertained by reading the entire section on Ireland in my travel guide to Europe.  Have I mentioned that I am spending two weeks in April in Ireland?  More on that later, for sure! 

 

At any rate, at one point during the journey I looked up and noticed that the man across the aisle from me was wearing a John Deere Iowa polo!  So of course I had to ask him about it.  He seemed very surprised that I knew where and what it was, until I told him I was from there!  Turns out he works for Deere and had spent a few years in Iowa, even.  There are at least a couple of plants in France, too.  Talk about a small world!

I arrived quite late Friday night and rose bright and early Saturday morning to explore the city.  I hadn't really made any plans, but Strasbourg was not lacking in things to see and do!  I meandered over to the tourist office for suggestions and ended up taking an audio-guide walking tour of the city.  It was a lovely morning and the tour was very thorough, I trekked all over town!  I stopped at a number of houses and churches (which if I hadn't had the guide wouldn't have stood out)  that were remarkable for their hidden history.  

The Cathedral was particularly beautiful inside and out, with an amazing pipe organ affixed to the left side of the upper balcony, almost like a swallow's nest.  There was also an enormous astronomical clock, with seven levels of movement and functions.  Strasbourg is unique for its mix of Catholic and Protestant history.  I visited a couple of Lutheran cathedrals, too, which was neat because you don't usually think of the Lutherans as the cathedral type.  

I had Spaeztle for lunch in a restaurant in the Petit France district, a picturesque little area of half-timbered houses along the canal.  After that I made my way over to the Alsacian culture and traditions museum, where you could see how the Alsacian people had lived in the 17 and 1800's.  It was really interesting!  The people seemed so close and at the same time, very different.  It was clear that they worked hard but still had time for crafts and leisure.  

Next I wandered back toward the Cathedral and stopped to admire a row of portrait artists.  Most of them advertised caricatures, but one was busy doing actual portraits, and he was incredibly skilled, too.  I stood and watched, captivated.  He was good.  A crowd gathered to watch him work.  The other artists approached me, "Ahh, you are a beautiful young woman, wouldn't you like your portrait done?"  Well, I did want it done, but not by them!  And so I waited until the one I was watching finished his current subject, and then I sat for him!  What an unusual experience, to have to sit completely still while a crowd stares at you.  

While he was working, a random young French father walked by with a stroller and loudly commented, "Wow, this one (artist) is good!  But those other ones, they're amateurs.  Look at how poorly drawn their work is.  But this one here, he's got talent."  Oooo I thought there was going to be a fight, one of the caricature artists got so defensive!  Even if it was true, he was looking for trouble to go and say it like that!  I took a photo of the portrait, so you can see it in the Strasbourg album.  It isn't perfect but it is still pretty cool.  I was impressed, as it only took him half an hour or so to do it.

The next day, I made sure to be at the Cathedral at 12:30pm to see the astronomical clock go off. One of the four ages of man passes in front of a skeleton (representing Death) every fifteen minutes, as death chimes a bell.  Then, only at 12:30pm, the twelve apostles pass in front of Jesus in a line, as he raises his hand over each of their heads in a blessing.  When every fourth apostle passes, a mechanical rooster on top of the clock crows to represent the three times Peter denied Jesus.  I was skeptical of how cool this would be going in, but it was really neat!  The rooster sounded so real!  The skeleton was spooky, and Jesus really did look serene.  Very well done.  

I spent the rest of my day in the Palais Rohan, a palace that has been converted into three museums: Art, Archeology, and the rooms and furnishings of the Palace itself.  The art museum was ironically filled with religious pieces from Venice and Florence!  I felt like I had returned there sooner than expected.  The archeology museum was immense and dry, but impressive nonetheless.  Many of the artifacts were discovered in the area, as there has been no lack of peoples and cultures passing over the Alsace region!  The Palace itself is described by locals as a "miniature Versailles".  Well I don't know about that, but it was still pretty elegant.  Oddly, amongst the rooms of furniture and fine china, there was a room filled with a donated collection of tin wind up toys.  I took photos of the most interesting ones that had traveled all the way from the USA.  

And that was my weekend in Strasbourg!  This weekend I stayed in Besançon, relaxing and going to the movies (Darjeeling Ltd and Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, the first one yay, the second nay).  Friday night Christine and I made brownies from a mix that I had brought with me.  They were fantastic!  Not a bad substitute for Easter eggs, if I do say so myself.  

Adventures in Italy: Day 3

I should finish up day two in Rome by noting that, even when it is recommended by Rick Steves and only a short walk from one's hostel, a museum almost entirely filled with busts and sculptures of very similar looking ancient Romans is not a good choice.  Nope nope nope.  My apologies to Kate and Christine for dragging you into that one!  

Moving on, we spent our third day in Rome visiting the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica.  The line into the museum was virtually endless but it moved pretty quickly.  When we finally got in, the three of us had a debate on whether to skip to the end and see the Sistine Chapel first or whether to see the museum first, eventually ending at the Chapel.  We chose the latter, and to be quite honest the museum was pretty much a gold-tinged religious blur.  There is just so. much. stuff:  sculptures, paintings, tapestries, maps, frescoes, random objects, gifts to the Pope, and on and on.  Dim rooms upon rooms upon rooms, all connected by endless, luxuriously decorated hallways.  Even with our beloved Rick Steves, it was too much to wade through without a true guide.  

By the time we arrived at the Sistine Chapel, I was wiped out.  And you might not believe me or like me for saying it, but the Sistine Chapel is overrated in my personal opinion.  It is packed with people, the security guard is constantly trying to bark over the drone of visitors "No pictures, please, no pictures", and the ceiling is nothing more that what you may have seen in pictures.  It is high up, and long, and there is a lot of religious scenery, most of which I was able to decipher.  The scene with God reaching out to man and vice versa is not in the center, and it is more beautiful and impressive in my memory than it was at the moment I was there.  One end of the Chapel has a wall which is painted with scenes from Judgement Day, which I found much more engaging than the ceiling itself, even though it is much less famous.  

After our exhausting trek across the museum, we stopped for lunch at a panini sandwich shop to regather our strength and concentration before exploring St. Peter's Basilica.  The Basilica is SO huge!  Plainly decorated on the outside, but a literal treasure chest within.  The most impressive and interesting vantage point was from above.  Kate and I decided to climb the 500+ steps to the top of the Basilica's dome, stopping at the inside balcony to have a look at the riches below.  What a view!  Every detail is a work of art.  After a harrowing final ascent (I will never be a mountain climber!) we were rewarded with a fantastic view of St. Peter's Square and all of surrounding Rome.  Interesting fact: no building in Rome is allowed to be taller than the Basilica, so the view is free of skyscrapers or other obstructions.  The descent was just as gut-clenching and knee-knocking as the climb up, if not worse, so Kate and I decided to stop for ice cream on the Basilica's roof.  What a wonderful treat in such an unusual location!  

With all of our "required" sightseeing now finished, I begged my companions to join me in finding the Mouth of Truth.  It was a very long walk and I was pretty worried that we wouldn't find it or that it would be closed when we arrived.  Kate and Christine were such good sports about it- they weren't familiar with the movie "Roman Holiday" but they could see how important it was to me that I see it if at all possible.  We walked and walked and walked, until I thought my feet would fall off and we would never find it.  Eventually we reached an open square, and there it was, just a few hundred feet away in a gated area outside a little church.  

We quickly joined the line of rowdy Roman schoolchildren- was it a field trip?  and I watched with delight as each kid got his or her photo taken with a hand in the Mouth, some delighted, others looking a little nervous.  The line moved quickly as I mentally re-watched the infamous scene between Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, over and over.  I couldn't have been more pleased!  When it was finally my turn I was a bundle of excitement and smiles as I approached the Mouth and put my hand inside.  Click, Kate quickly took the picture, and I walked away from the experience with both hands and a huge grin.  Makes me smile just thinking about it.  What a magical end to our stay in Rome!  

Adventures in Italy: Day 2

To pick up where I left off, we had spent the day seeing the sites (the ones we recognized, anyway) in Rome and were now ready to see the city (and the bars) at night.  We joined our hostel's guided night tour/pub crawl and were surprised to find out that our tour guide was from none other than...... Cedar Rapids, Iowa!  A recent graduate of Coe College, no less.  Talk about a small world.  Too bad he insulted both Iowa and the French during his short tour, otherwise we might have been more proud of him!  

All in all, the tour was fun.  Mr. Iowa gave us a brief overview of the history of some of Rome's most famous families and told a decently spooky ghost story about the Trevi Fountain before leading us to a popular student bar, upon which our sizable group descended enthusiastically.  There, Kate met an attractive young man from South Africa, via Germany, where he works for Mercedes-Benz! - nice going, Kate!  Also, the bar had a fake "Mouth of Truth," which, if you look at the Rome photo album, you can see how thoroughly enthused I was about it.  (For those of you who haven't seen "Roman Holiday", the Mouth of Truth is the subject of a pivotal scene between Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.) I was even lucky enough to visit the real thing a few days later!  

The next morning I had made reservations for the Galleria Borghese for 8:30am, whew that was early!  But boy was it worth it- we decided to take a guided tour and it was one of the best tours I have ever had.  The museum is famous for its Bernini sculptures, which are absolutely breathtaking.  Pictures are not allowed inside, so unfortunately you won't find any in my albums.  Check out this link to the Galleria if you would like to see some photos and learn more about the museum: http://www.galleriaborghese.it/en/edefault.htm    At any rate, it was one of the most beautiful and fascinating collections I have ever seen.  The sculptures seem to be stepping right out of the stone, frozen in a precise expression and moment of time but ever on the verge of their next movement.  

After our tour, we hurried on over to St. Peter's Square, emerging from the subway just as the noon bells were ringing.  When we arrived, the pope's Sunday blessing was already underway, the square filled with people from all over the world.  What a sight: you enter the square and everyone seems to be looking over your shoulder- you turn around, and way up there in a little window second from the right is the Pope himself, a speck of goodwill all dressed in white.  It could easily be an impressionist painting: the crowd of thousands gathered in the vast square and basking in the noon sun, their faces turned eagerly toward the holy white dot.  

Once I had taken in the scene, my attention quickly turned to the Pope's speech.  He delivered the same speech over and over, in at least a half dozen languages, each time mentioning a special group (from the country whose language he was speaking) that was in the crowd that day, which always spurred isolated bursts of cheers and applause.  When he switched to English, it was as if I had never heard anything so clearly ever before.  He wished to us that, through our stay here, our faith would be strengthened in Jesus Christ.  That is what stuck with me the most.  You didn't have to be Catholic, or even a Christian, to feel a shiver of something bigger in the world (and beyond it) when he spoke.   

During my time there, I often found myself reflecting on Rome, the Vatican City, and their intense veneration of religion and history.  There is an immense, almost unfathomable amount of art dedicated to Christianity and the Roman gods, just in these two cities.  It was humbling and perplexing to imagine the number of people who had dedicated their lives to creating these works, and all of the people who have come since to admire them or to worship in their presence.  I know, it goes without saying that Jesus is important.  I mean, he's the Son of God, according to Christians.  But to see the life work of so many people dedicated to one man, well I finally felt like I understood just how real and important he has been (and continues to be) to an innumerable amount of people over millenia.  Not only was this visible in the artwork, you could see it in the people, too.  More than anywhere else, I saw it in the faces of the faithful, drinking in the Pope's precious blessing.  I didn't need a mirror to see I had some self-reflecting to do.  

New Photos!

Get the visual scoop on my trip to Italy - all of my photos are now posted, including Rome, Florence, and Venice!  I've also made a new album, "More Besançon" to show you my new house, the visit to the Citadelle, and a few snapshots of Kate's visit.  Enjoy them at http://picasaweb.google.com/pandasamanda.  Can't get the link to work inside my post?  I've listed it permanently under the "links" section on the right side of the page.  

Highlights (and lowlights) of my life since Italy

Welcome back!  Now that I have time to breath (and write), I would love to catch you up on the happenings of my life since Italy.  After this post I will probably be switching back and forth between posts on Italy and on France.  Good news or bad news first?  Let's do bad first and end on a high note...

After taking the night train back to France at the end of our Italy vacation, Christine and I spent Saturday in Paris, shopping and walking around.  The shopping would have been better had an ATM not eaten my debit card early on in our day!  Thankfully the ATM was next to the bank, so I went inside to report it and they told me that they wouldn't be able to get it out until Wednesday of that week!  But I left them my address and hoped they would send it to me if possible.  Of course I also reported it lost right away.  What a headache.  Although it put a damper on my shopping mood, I still managed to find a classy new trench coat for spring!

(Very) Long story short on the debit card:  I have a new one and everything is now back to normal.  Short side note:  there is perhaps nothing less fun and more frustrating than trying to discuss a problem with french banks on the phone.  

Unless, of course, you include desperately trying to understand the internet tech support guy who would quite clearly rather do anything else than provide internet tech support to you over the phone.  Oh yes, I had the good fortune to experience that this week as well.  Long story short there:  I started crying in a Macintosh/Apple store (very embarassing, no sympathy, mercifully quick exit), came to a dead end with the phone tech support guy, and eventually was saved by the brave, kind technician that personally came to the house to fix the problem.  I am now content and connected!!

Finally, in order to complete my visa, I have to gather a lot of documents and take them to the Prefecture (a gov. office) to go through the process of obtaining a carte de séjour (long stay card).  Having already visited the Prefecture twice (thinking, ever mistaken, that I was completely prepared), I returned last Friday to find that I still don't have what they need!!  They required that I open a French bank account to prove I have enough money to live on each month, and after I put enough money in for one month, they said that I have to put enough in for the whole time I am here!  Red tape and regulations are so so exhausting :(

Now for the bright side of things!  Yay!  I have been to a number of movies recently, all of them good.  I saw Sans Plus Attendre (Without Waiting Any Longer- The Bucket List in english release) with Soka last week, and the voices were dubbed into French!  It was so funny to see Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman and to hear French words!  I got used to it pretty quickly and it turned out to be pretty good- we laughed, cried, the works.  

Since then I have seen three other movies: Paris, Le Cahier (The Notebook- Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame in english release), and Les Femmes de l'Ombre (The Women of the Shadows).  Each was very different from the others and they were all good in their own ways.  I'd like to give a special mention to Le Cahier, which was directed by a 19 year old Iranian girl.  The subject of the film is a 6 year old girl in Afghanistan who wants to go to school like the little boy who lives next door.  It was sweet at times, but also often disturbing.  Les Femmes de l'Ombre was about WWII women who performed a special mission to aid the Allied cause in the days leading up to Jour J (D-Day).  It was a very emotional movie, I was already crying when the opening credits ran!  

Moving on in political history, Christine and I recently attended a political discussion in which the topic as I understood it from the poster was supposed to be "Diversity of Politics in France and America"- that is to say the various political parties and opinions between the two countries.  We were the only students there, every one else was in their thirties maybe, so a few of them came up to greet us and ask us where we were from and how we had heard about the event (there was a poster at school).  When they found out I was from the U.S., their reaction was often surprised and pleased!  Turned out I was the only American there, and from Iowa no less!  One of the people who approached me was particularly impressed-  he said (in French) "The state that launched Barack Obama!!  Are you a supporter?"  Lol.  I told him that indeed I am.  

Well come to find out, the man who asked me that was the speaker for the night!  And guess what the topic was?  Not diversity of opinion, but diversity of skin color!  A.k.a. Barack Obama! We were all sitting in a small circle to listen to him (there were only maybe 12-20 people there) but the only person he focused on was ME!  Hahaha it was as if we were the only two people in the room.  He kept saying things like "Isn't it so, Don't you think that, Wouldn't you agree, Our Iowa friend here, Have you ever been to..." to me, without actually looking for a response.  It was really something.  Mostly I just tried to soak in what he was saying and keep up, as he definitely wasn't simplifying his presentation for me!  He had recently visited the U.S. and mostly his topic was about how great Barack is for America, what a signal he is of the changing times, and how France is lagging in this regard.  I understood his praise of Barack pretty well, but it was more difficult to comprehend the finer points of his criticism of France. All in all, it was just unreal.  What an experience.  

To close with a a few especially good experiences, last weekend Christine and I visited the Citadelle of Besançon, a large fortification on top of the hill/mountain (I never know where to draw the line between those two) which houses a WWII Resistance Museum as well as a full zoo.  It was amazing to see the real papers, documents, and newspaper articles from during the period of Besançon's occupation.  Also very sobering.  The zoo, on the otherhand, was a very unusual and surprising find amidst the high stone walls of this impressive landmark.  We saw flamingos, monkeys, a lion, and three tigers, among other things!  

And best and most recently of all, Kate came to visit me this weekend in Besançon!  We spent the weekend shopping, walking around the city, visiting bookstores, and eating tasty regional cuisine!  What fun and absolutely joy to see her and to share my city with her.  (I'll miss you Kate- see you in a few months in good old Ioway!)

Until next time...

Extras

I apologize for the delay in posting, my life has been full of "extras" these past few weeks- extra problems that is!  On the bright side, a few extra cool things as well.  Thankfully the problems have all been resolved for the most part at this point, but I haven't had a chance to catch up on blogging yet.  I promise I'll return to writing very soon, about Italy and of course about life and my recent "extras" in France.  In the meantime, be sure to check out pictures from Rome at my photo site:  http://picasaweb.google.com/pandasamanda.  As always, I love hearing from you about what is new in your life, even if you don't consider it exciting- it is always so nice to hear news from home!