History

So I'm reading a book, off and on, about the History of France. It's appropriately named the History of France... Anyway, it starts off something like this, although I'm completely making this up...

"So the Gauls were fierce fighters and all that, then they got conquered by the Romans, who built a city called Aix-en-Provence on an even older Gallic city and ruled the area."

I mean, that's a summation. But Aix is mind bogglingly old. It appears in the first chapter of a history book! I've never lived in a city that old - unless you count Memphis in a history of the Yellow Death in... Memphis... Or maybe a history of the cotton industry, I bet Memphis would feature heavily in that. (And music, but we might not make the first chapter of that book, either.)

But I left beautiful Aix to visit a city even more beautiful - Avignon.

Avignon is home to the Papal Palace, and, through politics incredibly difficult to understand, was the home of the Pope from 1303 to 1378 (or 141...something, depending on which Pope you followed in the Papal Schism). It's complex, and a prime example of politics and religion.

But it also resulted in a huge building.

HUGE.

There, in all it's rather stout glory, is the

Papal Palace.

And below are lots of children dressed as Russian dancers for the "We are the Future" round-the-world exhibition that mostly feature Russian children. At least I think they were Russian, since they sang, spoke, and received instruction in Russian, which the French are not known for speaking particularly well.

But I've never been quite so put to shame by 11 year olds before. They were amazing.

But back to history - I've realized a strange interest I didn't know I had - giant rooms.

This is the Tinul, where they held banquets for the guest of the Pope. I'm standing in the area where they would keep the food warm - separated from the rest by a giant wooden wall. The Pope would be at the far end, on a dais, eating all by himself. Poor guy.

He'd also be the only person in the room to have a knife. It was described as "delicate and ivory." Consolation prize for eating all alone?

Big room #2 - The Ecclesiastical Court -

capable of handling up to 8,000 cases a year. And you better hope they ruled in your favor, because they were infallible and you had no where else to go if they didn't.

Have I mentioned I love Gothic Arches?

Imagine this filled with enough people to take care of 8,000 cases a year. And 10,000 letters! Mind boggling. And when this was in use? America = not even discovered.

But I've been living in a 2,500 year old city for five months - what's 700 years?

So then it was over to the Pont d'Avignon, the Avignon Bridge, that was rather unimpressive actually. But it did result in the creation of a saint - Saint Benezet. As a poor shepherd boy living in the mountains, he heard the voice of God telling him to build a bridge in Avignon (the British guy telling me this story on the headset got into being the voice of God quite a bit). So he goes down into the city and starts to spread the word. Like most prophets, people laugh at him. Eventually, he shouts out in front of the visiting Bishop (maybe Pope? this is in like, 1050, 1100) "I've been sent by God to build a bridge!" Everyone laughs at him, and some local leader responds, "If you've been sent by God, pick up that stone and lay the foundation stone yourself!" And he points to a giant stone left over from building the city walls. Naturally, Benezet picks up the stone with the help of God, walks to the river, and chunks it into place.

You can't not build a bridge after that...

Saint Benezet is now the patron saint of architects.

And then to the Petit Palais museum, which featured three floors of iconic art. It was awesome, but by the end, my eyes were glazed over with gold. They also held a "surprise Botticelli." And I say that because I was just strolling through the museum and walked right by it the first time, came back searching for it, turned around, and there it was in the least visible, least likely place. It wasn't exactly in a well planned out spot. Pretty sure the curator for this museum had little to no knowledge of museum layouts.

But it was awesome, and I got to geek out to all the art. I realize I mumble to myself in art museums, excited about the changes in style. "Ooh! The Byzantine-style halo! And look at the beginning experimentation with perspective!" This wasn't helped by the fact that I was the ONLY person in this museum.

The a little flanning, a little appreciation of the giant wall surrounding the city, and home for the night!

I love this wall. Maybe it's not just "big rooms" but "large constructions in general." This wall was REALLY COOL and actually did go around the entire city.

An American Moment

Everyone traveling, living, working, or studying in France has had a moment at which he threw up his hands and said "America is so much more efficient! This is driving me crazy!" Eventually you get used to it and kind of like the attitude. But then you receive things like this from your professors, which I'm putting here, directly, in French, so you can check the dates and know I'm not making this up:

"Bonjour, il nous faut rendre les notes avant le 4 sept., donc il faut rendre vos travaux avant le 20 mai, afin que nous ayons le temps de les corriger, de faire une double lecture, d'harmoniser la notation!"

- Hello, we have to turn in grades before September 4th, therefore you much turn in your papers before May 20th so we have the time to correct them, reread them, and harmonize the notes (between the two professors).

Yeah, my professors need two and a half months to read fifteen 8-page papers.

Not my proudest moment

So I'm a little embarrassed by this one, but oh well.

I hate liaison. Liaison is another one of those things the French invented to make their language sound beautiful (which is does) and harder for foreign speakers to understand. There are several letters that change sounds in front of another word that starts with a vowel (or an h). For example, an X becomes a Z sound and slides into another word - Deux heures is pronounced deuzeures. There are others, but that's the important one for this story. If you ever think you can't tell one French word from another listening to it, that's because it's spoken all as one long, beautiful word.

Point number two is military time, which is AWESOME. You can never accidently set your alarm for 7 PM when you use military time, I'm a huge fan. I've gotten used to all my professors saying times in military time. So much so that it doesn't even cross my mind that they'd ever say something in 12-hour time.

So anyway, I'm making excuses for a really stupid mistake.

When my professor announced the time of our exam I heard douze heures a seize heures. 12 to 16, awesome. I show up the day of the exam, 12 PM, ready to go - nobody there. No note. No class. Nothing. So I figure (he'd been vague; when I say "announced" he'd more like... polled the class to which they responded "eh, maybe" and he vaguely switched back to the old time and... anyway, I could have very likely been confused) that we'd go back to the normal hours of our class, which had been the original time of the exam. So I show up a little before three to find... Our exam had started an hour before. Douze heures a seize heures can also be spelled/read Deux heures a six heures - two to six. Goddamnit! Seize heures a sizeures don't even sound that much alike, but I was so used to military time that I didn't even consider that it'd be six o'clock.

Aside from the wicked embarrassment, I had plenty of time to do the exam. In fact I finished early. But I sure as hell wasn't going to waltz in late (read: run in mortified) and then leave early...

New food treats!

So I make it a habit to try a new pastry or other delicious thing every once in a while, but, as you can imagine, there are a lot. And were I to eat a new pastry every day... Well... Continental wouldn't let me on the plane in August. So I'm still discovering some.

Fougasse - Google image search it - it's basically cheese bread, but it's France, which is known for both it's cheese and it's bread. So it's not like... cheddar sprinkled on top of a loaf of bread. It's fabulously moist, excellent bread filled with Roquefort or goat cheese. AND IT'S SO GOOD. The lady at the bakery I go to (the 24 hour one, Kristie, although I frequent Jacob's too) even warms it up for me. Which definitely means it's another one of those things I never make it home without eating.

Religieuses - I've known about these for a while, but I'll give them a shout-out now. Like a snowman eclair (look them up too)

Honey - Another shout out about honey - Acacia honey absolutely rocks. Soooooooo light and sweet. Perfection.

Yup. Life's good here.

On fluency and mooshy bananas

So I dread the question "Are you fluent?" Because, in short, no. I'm not. Not by a long shot. But saying that makes people think I'm a complete failure at speaking French, when that's not the case either. My definition of fluency has changed, and, to sum up lots of frustration and self-growth - Speaking a new language is HARD.

The idea of fluency as fluid is hard to get across if you've never tried to become fluent (at least I flounder and end up looking stupid when I try to explain), and I've been thinking of ways to explain my fluency for a while now and I've decided - fruit.

English, oh my natively English speaking audiences, is like a grape. The actual meat of the fruit isn't affected by the skin. Actually, crunching through the skin is kind of fun - there can be lots of unexpected juice hidden in a particularly good grape. English usually doesn't get in the way of saying what you actually want to communicate. It can be fun, you can actually play with it with puns and jokes and double entendres. It's enjoyable to have the skin on a grape (have you ever sat around actually peeling grapes? The result is kind of... weird...).

When I got here, French was like a pineapple, but I was armed with a machete. It was hard as hell to get my point across, but, with the generous use of a dictionary, I could usually, eventually, get to some fruit.

Now, on the fru-ency scale, French is a banana. A particularly hard to open banana. After lots of straining and trying to figure it out, one can open the fruit. Usually the meat's pretty smooshed by this point, but it's there. Also, nobody can eat a banana and retain their dignity. You just look stupid doing it. Which slightly strays from my metaphor, but you get the point. I can get to the banana meat, but I'm going to A) smoosh it and B) look reaaaaaaally stupid.

Tah-dah. Hopefully, now, when I hesitate to call myself fluent, you'll understand why. French is not a grape. It's not even an apple or an orange yet. And probably wouldn't be for quite a few years. But it's a smooshed banana. And I'm pretty satisfied with that.