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Published: November 18th 2009
This week was a very demanding week, workwise...I worked a day and a half! We had Armistice Day (Veterans' Day for you Americans) off on Wednesday, but I normally have Wednesdays off, so that was a bit of a letdown. I stayed home Thursday due to a nasty stomach bug that I can only assume came from my students and their grubby little hands. I had previously arranged to have Friday off (I was able to make up the hours a few weeks ago) so that I could catch an early train to Grenoble.
Elizabeth, a friend I've known since first grade, is studying in Bologna, Italy this semester, and Grenoble seemed like a good halfway point to meet up. Italy apparently doesn't have too many high speed trains, though, so she had a really long overnight train to Geneva, then a slow train from Geneva to Grenoble. Oops. Now we know for future reference that I should just go all the way to Italy and save the other person all the hassle.
As my train to Grenoble made its way through the French countryside, I realized that I must live in one of the uglier parts of France.
The scenery on the way down was just beautiful, and when you get close to Grenoble, the Alps just appear out of nowhere. Luckily, the train station there isn't too big, and Elizabeth and I were able to find each other without having to resort to making costly international cell phone calls. We bought a tram/bus pass and hopped on a tram to our hostel.
After getting set up in our hostel and buying some food, we took the bus back into the city centre. It's just so cute there...lots of little squares, shops, and spectacular views of the mountains from every direction. We ate some delicious ice cream (which isn't very popular in cold Douai, haha) outside (because it was warm! about 68 degrees!) while planning out the next few days.
We started out Saturday with a ride up the mountain to the Bastille fortress. It seemed awfully high up the mountain, and there was no clear path marked to get up there, so we took the cable car. Once up there, we went through a museum, took bunches of photos, and decided to hike further up the mountain. We saw some ruins at the top of
a nearby hill, so we set off. There was a large gravel path marked as leading to the memorial that seemed to be leading off in the opposite direction from our destination, so we started up a very narrow path hidden on the side of the trail. We fought our way through thorn bushes, along tiny slanted paths, and eventually found a trail maker. A few minutes later, this trail marker indicated that we should scale a cliff to reach the ruins, so we had to scramble up a steep group of rocks that is probably part of a creek when it rains. We were able to pull ourselves up and over more rocks and through more bushes only to find out that the memorial with the nice, easy path leading up to it is right next to the ruins. Our way was more fun, at least.
We hit up two more museums that day, and fortunately for us, the museums in Grenoble are either free or 2 euros with a student ID. The art museum had all sorts of weird modern art (I just really don't understand how a canvas painted solid brown is considered art), and some
of my favorites, like Andy Warhol and Matisse. We also visited the Musée de l'ancien evêché, which is housed in the bishops' palace. It has ancient Roman ruins in the basement, and there were lots of artifacts from the same time period along with the earliest photographs of the Grenoble area. Sunday, we hiked part of the way back up the mountain to go to a museum on Alpine life. They had a special exhibit on Tibetans in addition to the usual exhibits on life past and present in the Alps.
Sadly, we were only in Grenoble for the weekend, so Sunday afternoon required me to get back on a train and head up north again. After a delicious lunch at McDonald's (it just tastes better in Europe, for some reason), Elizabeth and I parted ways to head back to our respective, boring lives. I had a stressful forty minutes of trying to change train stations in Paris, but I made my train back to Douai with several minutes to spare (darn!)
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This week has been pretty slow in Douai. It hasn't rained since I got back from Grenoble, which is just shocking! I managed
to finish up my TEFL certification course before I left, so I have no homework lying around. New Moon (or Tentation, as they call it here), the second movie in the Twilight series, comes out today...two days ahead of the release date in the US and UK! We've all got the day off today (it is Wednesday after all), so we're taking a train into Lille to see the movie in English (though seeing it dubbed in French might add to the comedic aspect of the film). My classes have been cancelled tomorrow morning and Monday, so I've got some time to fill with lesson planning (yeah, right) or perhaps I'll hop on a train to a nearby town in my region and explore.
I'm trying not to countdown to Christmas break, but it's so hard!
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HeartandSeoul
Katie Lang
BEAUTIFUL, Kate. Stop living in the "ugly" part of France. Sheesh.